a.k.a Striking a Balance

After church, we had a feast. The food was good, the company was better. I ate more than I planned but I justified it when I recalled that I hadn’t eaten breakfast – only a small yoghurt. That’s it. 

I had soup, salad, rice and peas, more salads, meat, plantains. And then I had some carrot cake. It was delicious! I tried to resist the cake but then I just caved and I didn’t regret it. I didn’t even take pictures of my food. That’s how good it all was.

But that was lunch. A long lunch that lasted for hours because we sat around and talked. Isn’t that what a good meal should be? So I wasn’t mad at myself. 

 So for dinner (because by dinner time I was ready for something again), I had this deliciously filling salad – sautéed mushrooms, tomatoes and onions, sliced cucumbers, mixed greens with shredded carrots (and a little blue cheese on the side)  

So turns out I don’t need pasta or rice for dinner. Hmmm. 

To Learn on Day 3

Fasting and feasting is a good description of how most earlier civilizations probably ate – they didn’t eat as often as we do now but when they ate, they ate enough to sustain them. When my parents and grandparents were growing up, eating a cooked meal often meant going into the backyard to harvest a crop you’d planted, then starting a fire and cooking for hours first – the fasting period – and there was no refrigeration so you cooked what you had and ate it all – the feast. 

Just because food is faster and more accessible now, doesn’t mean we should eat it so often. The “6 small meals a day” idea is really not traditional and might be harming us more than it helps. 

To Do on Day 3

• Spread out meals. Or restrict the kinds of meals you have. Fasting in the morning means you can feast later in the day, or the other way around. 
• Don’t eat heavy meals late at night. 
• Exercise.

Do you “fast and feast”? Or do you follow the 3 meals plus snacks eating pattern?