Do I have to always have a "meal" for supper?

scarletrayne19

Hey all! I apologize in advance since this may be a long post:

I work M-Th 8-5 and F 8-2. I've just started very seriously getting back into MFP with meal planning and I go to the gym 5x a week after work. We have catered lunches most of the time at work that I have now chosen to opt out of so I can bring stuff from home and better manage my portions. A typical day for me will be coffee and a breakfast sandwich of some form in the morning, my packed lunch consisting of lots of little things (small sandwich, jerky, little tangelos, cottage cheese, pickles, etc.) and a snack (either I save the jerky or have a protein shake) before the gym.

My problem is supper (or dinner as some of y'all call it). When I get home from work I'm often too tired to want to cook a meal, especially when a typical dinner dish would feed me for a week or would go to waste. I'm just stuck in this mentality of "oh you've gotta have an end-of-the-day meal for nutrition" or whatever. On the weekends I might cook but oftentimes I'm either traveling seeing family or out with friends.

What do some of y'all do for supper? I like eating just a single piece of fish or a big piece of fruit or something but I feel guilty if I don't make a "meal" which often leads to overeating, etc. Thoughts/Ideas?

Jruzer

There's absolutely no reason you need to have a formal "meal" for dinner. That's really just a cultural thing. Eat what you like and what fits your calorie budget and macros.

ultrahoon

As long as you're getting a sensible amount of calories and adequate nutrition over the course of the day, then it doesn't matter if you choose to have a light snack in the evening, and get most of the calories in at breakfast and lunch (or vice versa).

seska422

You can spread your food consumption out however you wish over the course of the day. The timing doesn't matter.

MonkeyMel21

If lunch is your biggest meal calorie wise and by the end of the day you don't have a full meal's calorie worth left, then that's totally fine to not fix a whole meal. It doesn't matter WHEN the calories are consumed.

lemurcat12

Traditionally "dinner" refers to the biggest meal of the day. My grandfather, who was a farmer for part of his life and grew up on a ranch, always referred to breakfast, dinner, and supper, and in that usage supper was a lighter meal vs. the mid-day meal.

So, what I personally like for my evening meal (which I call dinner) is a nice balanced dinner of protein, lots of vegetables, and a starch of some sort, which is similar in size to my other meals but in my mind my main meal.

It sounds like what you enjoy is truly a supper, in the traditional usage of the term, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with splitting your calories that way. Enjoy!