EATING
Eating is a problem. Eating is complicated. It’s about everything except going from feeling hungry to feeling full. In fact, it turns out, you are better off never feeling like you’ve eaten enough. And anyone who eats until he/she is stuffed gorged sated is going to be fat, sick or, at the very least, socially incorrect.
I am trying to figure out the right times, types and tastes for me since my stomach is too sensitive for everyday life to roll on as smoothly as I would like. Fortunately there’s lot of information out there and some of it seems to make a lot of sense. Two recent articles in the NYT have become my gastro-guides.
The first advised me to not eat or drink late in the day. We all sort of know that but ignore it for the momentary pleasure of 8pm enchiladas and margaritas with friends or a few cookies and a glass of wine before bedtime. That may work for you; such small indulgences frequently awaken me with post-midnight stomach aches.
Rule number one: do not eat after 5pm unless it is a very special occasion—perhaps tea and biscuits with Downton Abbey or something even better with out-of-town guests—in which case be sparing. And take Prilosec.
I don’t remember the details of the second article as well as I should but basically it is this—reputable studies with mice prove that (at least for the mice) if food is consumed over somewhat limited hours, say a ten or twelve hour time block, it leads to better weight control and generally better overall health than if you spread the same amount of food out over longer time periods—such as 15 or more hours. Or, put another way, no nibbling after hours.
Rule number two is limit eating hours, even for small things.
The two rules fit together very well into Marjorie’s Big Time-Based Eating Rule: I have ten hours to eat from the first milky morning coffee which means stopping all food intake after 3 or 4PM. I might lose the five pounds I’ve been working on for the last five years but, better yet, I will not be awakened at 2AM with a nervous aching upset stomach.
If there is a purpose to posting this humdrum bit of information it is the possibility that someone else may have similar issues and find the information useful.
More than that though, this is an age-story. It is all about making the changes that will keep you relatively content during the process of eliminating actions or substances that were, at one time, important to your perceived happiness!
These are only two of the items on my ‘healthy’ list. More to follow.
I do not agree with NYT advice. I don’t have to justify why I feel this way, well except, I nibble and graze all night.
Yes, eating is linked with age meaning that it becomes difficult to eat some food as one ages…..Although I don’t nibble and that diary products can affect my stomach, I am enjoying all my meals while on tour in France these two weeks with AILEY II, especially when in Marseille, Lyon, Montpellier, Roubaix (near Lille in the North of France) and at my mother’s for a week-end in Alsace Lorraine: France offers so many culinary specialities including couscous (like in Roubaix which has a 25% Arab community), it is hard to resist and one only lives once!
Yes, it just gets more and more complicated. I do always eat what I want when I travel. Unfortunately the late night issue still effects me so I tend to have luscious lunches with at least two glasses of wine. I’m looking forward to Russia after discovering I like borscht and Beijing for Peking Duck. Not sure about Mongolia! Cheers.
no matter what, eating is also a cultural act when one travels: as you know, it helps better undertstand the local cultures and start conversations with foreigners….
I have also had to readjust my eating habits (I just used to eat anything, everything and anytime!). Eating earlier in the evening like you, except for some night outs. An apple last thing is meant to aid digestion. And reducing my sugar intake plus making everything with spelt flour instead of plain refined seems to have helped me a lot. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to cut out things like cake, borscht and Peking Duck completely – so happy eating! 🙂
yes, there is some food one shouldn’t leave out …like the one one enjoyed during youth around the family or like the famous madeleine cookies French writer Marcel Proust wrote about and which inspired his famous novel: A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu !
Not everyone will become a famous published writer one day but one can certainly create our own comfort zone by transcending food towards reaching a state of sensual and emotional rewards!