over 6 hours between meal 1 and meal 2... Help!

[HelenLA]

I know there will be some experimenting to find out just how much I need to eat at my meals especially since I am only on day 1 of my first whole 30. I decided to start on a Saturday while I am home all day and I'm attempting to recreate the number of hours I will realistically have between meals on work days. so here is my workday situation and what I need your best advice on: I normally get up between 4:30 and 5:30 a.m. everyday. I am just an early riser and always have been, although I prefer to sleep until 5:30 a.m. my body will not usually allow me to do so. I have to be at work at 8 a.m. and I have no choice in the fact that my lunch break is at 1 p.m. on this schedule I was normally eating breakfast about 7 a.m. and then having a snack at 10 a.m. from all I am reading it looks like I will need to have breakfast between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m. with no snacking until lunch at 1 p.m. what would be the best option for me? Should I try to have a larger than normal portion sized meal one? should I have a normal portion sized meal one and then try to have a mini meal at 10 a.m.? If I have a mini meal at 10 a.m. should I have a normal portion size meal 2 at 1 p.m.? I'm not certain what time I will be eating meal 3 each night but it looks like I should try to eat meal 3 between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. based on how I should be feeling satiated from my meal 2 at work. also, what is the difference between the terms mini meal and snack as far as whole30 is concerned? I am going to try to stay away from snacking as part of resetting a healthy relationship mentally with food.there is so much information to take in between having read the two books and trying to read all of the helpful posts on these forums. I really appreciate any input As I am feeling overwhelmed and I really can't keep spending all of my time trying to find answers and solutions. ha! I've got to get some work done so that I will have meals to eat for the week. thank you in advance.

[ladyshanny]

"Snacking" refers to the western culture's bad habit of constant grazing and usually on junky foods. Eating a mini meal that was thoughtfully composed of at least two of the three macros (eg, protein and fat or protein and veggie) is completely acceptable in the instance that you are referring to.

Eating within an hour of waking is key, so yes, eating M1 between 530 and 630. Around 4-5 hours later, you could have a mini meal like a hard boiled egg and some homemade mayo or a chicken thigh and some guacamole. It doesn't have to be much, just enough to tide you over until 1pm. Then lunch. If you make your meals large enough, you should be able to get to dinner time around 6-ish.

Know that a good, solid breakfast is going to be the trick to setting you up for the day. 1-2 palms of protein or as many eggs as you can hold in one hand without dropping. 1-3 cups of cooked veggies (if it's spinach, you'll need to add something heartier) and 1-2 thumbs of fat or half to whole avocado or handfuls of olives. Create all of your meals this way and you'll be doing great!

[praxisproject]

A mini meal that's full template (protein + veg + fat) is really good if you're trying to reset your hormones/appetite/blood sugar, it doesn't need to be big in size.

 

Fruit with meals is fine, but I try to avoid fruit with my mini meals as I find it tends to throw me off balance, giving the sugar dragon a big poke.

[Laurathegoth]

I have a similar situation to you, I eat a good breakfast at 7.30 then meal 2 is basically a mini meal at 11 just to keep me going till 2 when I have another mini meal (so I split meal 2 into 2 loosely speaking). Meal 3 is at 7. This is working pretty well for me, I'm on day 10.