Getting too busy to eat...

Thanks for all the responses! I'm sitting at the moment (with a mug of broccoli-cheese soup in hand, courtesy of my freezer!) so I'll try to go through and answer everybody's questions!

@allshebe - I be the go-to gal, just me myself & I. I've been desperately seeking something I can do from home to bring in money, because I have a joint condition that in combination w/ my weight makes 8 hour shifts on my feet virtually impossible. Because of that issue, my work history is full of gaps that employers for desk jobs don't much care for, so I had to get creative. Just before Easter I took a loaf of my bread to a church luncheon, sold two loaves the next week, and before I knew it I had to buy a second dutch oven to keep up with the orders!

Mornings are usually fairly slow, because the day's baking is still in the rising stage, so I usually manage a 3-400 calorie breakfast. I tend toward fruit, greek yogurt, maybe some of my bread if a family loaf is cut. It'd be a good spot to toss in some extra protein & fats to rev up the energy level.

Once my son (17 months) goes down for his nap, that's when things start to get crazy. For about the next six hours I'm constantly moving (really need to remember to adjust my IPOARM numbers this week), because from the moment I shape the first loaf, everything is on a countdown. I get short breathers while both dutch ovens are loaded and baking (20-30 minutes at a time)... enough time to eat something already prepared, but not enough time to cook AND eat.

That's a GREAT idea for a personalized meal bar, thank you! I will *definitely* have to look into that... I have a lot of busy working moms as customers, so I probably could sell it as well!

@Cr01502/skinnyinnotim/ everybody else who wonders why I don't want to eat a huge meal at night - I can't. I had my gallbladder removed in February, and while I still do prefer a largish (1000-1200 cals) meal for dinner, I can't eat much more than that, or I'm stuffed and uncomfortable at bedtime. The lack of gallbladder (at least for me) means that 1200ish is about the most I can do in a single reasonably healthy meal or the system gets cranky with me.

@taunto - as mentioned above, this is something I need. Not only financially (we're barely surviving), but emotionally and physically. I L.O.V.E. being home with my son and being Mom as my primary job, but after nearly a year & a half of nothing BUT Mom-duty, I am bored out of my frigging skull. Spending more time on my feet (albeit in short bursts) takes me pretty quickly into the "Moderately Active" zone, it's just going to take adjustments to the manner in which I get those calories!

@MyChocolateDiet/loriwhitefaith - Amen to that. Thus the thread. I *need* to eat, or I have other issues long before it starts jacking with weight loss. Migraines for one. Not something I care to court, thank you.

@McLifterPants - (LOVE your SN, btw!) - thank you for the link, I'll check that out this evening after the munchkin goes to bed!

@Those suggesting meal bars/smoothies, thank you!

@ Those suggesting nuts and cheese, nuts I can do, cheese I have to watch because I'm ADDICTED and it's very sodium-heavy. I have some almost daily, but I'm careful about using at as a snack (preportioned string cheese, for example) since going too far over on sodium screws up my progress almost as quickly as under-eating!

@sarakait88 - Ooooh, weekly cooking time, I like it. I'm a big fan of huge pots of soup that get maybe a quarter eaten before it's time to portion and freeze, so tweaking that into doing the week's cooking on one of my low-traffic days wouldn't be much more of a stretch. Under-eating was what got me into the spot I'm in to begin with... people who say you can't gain weight eating too little make me want to scream, and don't even get me started on the number of doctors who have called me a liar to my face when told about my eating habits. And I'm crazy sensitive to undereating now as a result... I started IPOARM here after MFP dropped my calories under 1600 (by about 30 freaking cals) and I gained three pounds that week.

If I missed anybody I'm sorry!

Okay, so just to give you a glimpse of what my afternoons are like, in the time it took me to type this out, I baked a batch of sandwich rolls (good size to slice, slide in some meat & cheese and eat while on the go... hmmmm...), shaped 4 table loaves (they're about 8" across and 3" tall, each takes a whole dutch oven to itself), and baked two more. I have a total of three left to bake plus the set that's currently in, so my oven will be running for another 2.5-3 hours before I pack it in. Everything gets wrapped for pick-up as soon as it's cool, and once I'm done baking, I have design work to do on the webpage and lettering (I do calligraphy as well) on my promotional materials. I'm working on getting one perfect copy of each of my designs (business card, fridge magnet, 8x11 flyer, and coupons). Once I have a clean copy I'm happy with, I'll upload them to vistaprint, since their bulk prices are actually cheaper than printing it at home with the printer I have.

Busy busy busy... just really have to remember to EAT in there! And woops, there's my timer going off again!!