Meal timing issues with family... totally out of sync!

Francl27
Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I'm wondering if I'm the only one in this situation...

Today's example... I was up at 6am. Had breakfast at 7am because I was hungry. Went to the gym and burned probably 300 calories (which isn't much for me, but it was an off day). Hubby was still sleeping when I left for the gym at 9am and probably had breakfast at 10am... so now it's almost noon and I'm completely starving, and I wanted us all to go out for lunch but clearly it's just not happening because we won't get where we want to get before 1pm at least.

So once again, plans are shot and I'm just eating leftovers. I swear it's the same thing every single week end. Same thing during the week, hubby wants to grill dinner, but he doesn't get home until 6pm, then wants to relax before cooking, and I'm typically starving at 5.30pm. I should add that I often have hypoglycemia symptoms if I stay hungry too long (dizzy, shaking, etc), so it's very much a pain, and if I just eat a snack, I won't have enough calories for dinner (I'm a 'hungry early in the day, have a light dinner' kind of person).

I'm getting frustrated. The kids are like me though and typically hungry by 12pm/5.30pm (they have lunch at 11.30am at school).

Is anyone in the same situation and how do you deal with it? I typically end up eating my own food when I get hungry but it's really frustrating (and when my mom is visiting, for example, she doesn't understand and makes comments about how 'we never eat together').

Replies

  • usmcmp
    usmcmp Posts: 21,219 Member
    You need to talk with your husband about how you two can meet in the middle on this. Maybe he can get out of bed at a reasonable hour and join you at the gym. Maybe you need to put off your breakfast for another hour. Maybe you need to just forget about going out to lunch on weekends and plan dinner instead. If you were the one that changed the schedule when you started focusing on diet and exercise it's up to you to be more flexible. If this was always an issue it's not likely to change.
  • cbihatt
    cbihatt Posts: 319 Member
    Eat a small snack and then go out for lunch.

    My husband works nights so it is very rare for us to eat together as a family. I don't see a problem with it, but we do have to be a little more flexible when one of us wants to go out to eat. We typically don't go out for meals on the weekends, though.

    Usually, I time meals around my own hunger for myself and the kid, and Hubby fends for himself. On days when he is off of work, we may occasionally have dinner together, but our typical dinner time is Hubby's typical gym time, so it doesn't always happen.
  • bogwoppt1
    bogwoppt1 Posts: 159 Member
    Now the kids are bigger, hubby and I rarely eat breakfast and lunch together. Once in a while we will go for a long walk to a resto, eat and then walk back home. That is a great way to connect and both be hungry at the same time.

    We plan dinner for the same time most nights and eat together.

    Maybe you need to find a small snack that can tide you over until meal time that will take the edge off your hunger?
  • zyxst
    zyxst Posts: 9,149 Member
    I can balance myself with other people until 5 pm. IDK why, but 5 pm is when my body's going "TIME TO EAT OR THE PAIN GETS TURNED TO 11". I can force myself to wait until 5.45 - 6 pm if I know we've planned something good, but if I don't have a plate of food in my hands by 6 pm, I may as well start punching babies.

    My advice is to talk with your family about getting their act together when you've got family meal plans. If people can't get it together, then go eat by yourself. It sucks. I've eaten when I was hungry, then gone out with family and "suffered" while everyone else ate delicious food and I was stuck with a glass of water and a sad explanation.

    A snack to "get me by" doesn't work. I just get pissy since I had to spread my food out in little doles rather than at one shot.
  • maasha81
    maasha81 Posts: 733 Member
    Similar to you we have different schedules. Breakfast and lunch during the week we don't do as a family but we have dinner together most week nights.

    We also have late lunches on Saturday and bfast together on Sunday. I usually have a greek yogurt or fruit as a snack if I am hungry.

    It's all about compromise
  • emmaprocopiou
    emmaprocopiou Posts: 246 Member
    zyxst wrote: »
    I can balance myself with other people until 5 pm. IDK why, but 5 pm is when my body's going "TIME TO EAT OR THE PAIN GETS TURNED TO 11". I can force myself to wait until 5.45 - 6 pm if I know we've planned something good, but if I don't have a plate of food in my hands by 6 pm, I may as well start punching babies.

    My advice is to talk with your family about getting their act together when you've got family meal plans. If people can't get it together, then go eat by yourself. It sucks. I've eaten when I was hungry, then gone out with family and "suffered" while everyone else ate delicious food and I was stuck with a glass of water and a sad explanation.

    A snack to "get me by" doesn't work. I just get pissy since I had to spread my food out in little doles rather than at one shot.

    Punching babies lol. Everyone knows in my house when mummy is hungry.
    I rarely eat with my husband in the evenings now as he comes home too late, we do try on weekends though to do a family roast together.
  • yesimpson
    yesimpson Posts: 1,372 Member
    In the situation you described above, I would probably have gone to the gym reasonably soon after waking, and eaten breakfast when I returned, to better fit in with the schedule of the rest of the family if I wanted us to eat lunch together.

    I would also get the husband to start cooking when he gets home, as your kids are hungry too, so he's in the minority. If he doesn't want to grill when he gets home from work, that's fine, I'd crack on myself. I get that he's tired and wants to relax, but it seems unfair to make the kids wait, and he's the minority for preferring a later meal.

    In my family we all eat tea (our evening meal) together but don't try and make the other meals fit. Everyone eats breakfast, lunch and supper when/if they fancy it, then we just eat bigger or smaller portions at tea time according to our appetites so we still get the social aspect.
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,423 Member
    I eat breakfast at 8 AM every day, lunch around noon, dinner 6-7 PM. Other family members eat breakfast or not when they feel like it.
    On weekends, we go out to eat once for lunch. The timing is pretty consistant because dd and I are hungry and ready to go. The other weekend day I prepare lunch at home at noon. I eat whether other people want to eat then or not. Dd usually does. Dh might show up later because he sleeps in on weekends and has work to do on weekends too.
    I make dinner at the same time every night. We agreed as a family on that particular dinner time. If dh or dd are home but don't show up to eat when food is ready then they can find their own food or eat cold food. I am not going to starve or get mad about it. I will finish my food and then sit at the table and chat with them while they eat.
    Dh used to have a work/school schedule that had him coming home at 8-10 PM 3 days a week. We agreed that it was dumb for the rest of us us to wait for him to have dinner that late. I either packed him food, made things in the slow cooker or a pot of soup that I could easily keep warm for him.
  • Sugar_Slayer
    Sugar_Slayer Posts: 13 Member
    On the weekends I'm usually up much earlier than the rest of the fam too so I totally get where you are coming from. Everyone is on their own for breakfast and lunch on the weekends and I make supper when I'm hungry because I've eaten at normal times. If they want to eat when I do, they can, otherwise they can warm it up when they are ready. During the week we eat supper around 6:00 and if someone isn't home when it's ready, they eat when they get home. They all know what time supper is and since I do all the cooking it's when I want to eat:)
  • brendak76
    brendak76 Posts: 241 Member
    I feel your pain. Very similar situation here. Kids have busy schedules and we don't/can't all eat at the same time. I will usually cook large meals for everyone and we eat when we are hungry. If I'm not in sync with everyone else I make an effort to have a cup of tea or water and at least sit at the table with whoever else is eating. I'll make dinner between 3-4pm and sit with one of my kids who eats every day at 4:30pm before practice. If I'm not hungry and not eating I'll definitely try to at least be present at the table with those that are eating. Still feels like a family meal.
  • Cortneyrenee04
    Cortneyrenee04 Posts: 1,117 Member
    It hard to sync everyone up. I eat when I'm hungry. I don't wait for anyone else to get hungry to eat with me. Sorry to them! If you really did want to eat with them, some veggies or something super light could help get you to someone else's meal time.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    My husband and I NEVER eat dinner together. I like having mine around 5;30, he waits til 7-7:30. If I'm cooking I put his plate in the fridge or microwave, if he's cooking he makes it earlier and has his later. When my kids were living at home they usually ate when I did, or just reheated it later.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    edited April 2016
    Christine_72 wrote: »
    My husband and I NEVER eat dinner together. I like having mine around 5;30, he waits til 7-7:30. If I'm cooking I put his plate in the fridge or microwave, if he's cooking he makes it earlier and has his later. When my kids were living at home they usually ate when I did, or just reheated it later.

    It's so frustrating though! The number of times I've made sure to have dinner ready for 6pm and he gets home and he's like 'oh I had a late lunch, I'm not hungry' and I just want to punch him. And yeah when my mom is here she usually eats around 8pm so I try to make dinner closer to 6.30pm and it's torture for me (seriously, usually I'm done eating for the day at 6).
    brendak76 wrote: »
    I feel your pain. Very similar situation here. Kids have busy schedules and we don't/can't all eat at the same time. I will usually cook large meals for everyone and we eat when we are hungry. If I'm not in sync with everyone else I make an effort to have a cup of tea or water and at least sit at the table with whoever else is eating. I'll make dinner between 3-4pm and sit with one of my kids who eats every day at 4:30pm before practice. If I'm not hungry and not eating I'll definitely try to at least be present at the table with those that are eating. Still feels like a family meal.

    Yeah sitting at the table is a good point. Typically neither husband or kids clean the table here so there's almost never room for us to sit together anyway and I gave up cleaning it up months ago.


    So today I ended up having a small lunch before we left at 12pm, then we got there at 12.45pm (got lucky with parking), I was still hungry and the kids were hungry but he still wasn't so we stopped at the bakery for a treat, and they ended up having lunch at 2.30pm and I just didn't order anything because I wasn't hungry enough to justify the calories (not much in term of healthy options there). Then I ended up having a snack at 4pm when I got home, and they're now having dinner at 7pm and I'm skipping it because I'm not hungry enough for it (and don't want to eat more today anyway).

    It kinda sucks though. I'd much rather have eaten out with them if we had left earlier and had lunch when we got there... But I really need to eat something every 3 hours or so or it gets ugly (I can relate to the 'punching babies' comment :D). It was never an issue before counting calories, obviously, I'd just eat snacks while I waited... which I can't do anymore unless I want a 200 calories dinner.

    And yeah my husband is the kind who can skip breakfast and just have a small lunch and saves all his calories for dinner, which is pretty much the opposite of me (but of course he's also obese and probably eats over 1000 calories of snacks after dinner too - when I was like him I often skipped breakfast too!).

    Guess I just have to get used to it. Glad to see I'm not alone in this though!
  • MommyL2015
    MommyL2015 Posts: 1,411 Member
    I've grown accustomed to this, as well. Although weekends, we do lunch sometimes. I cook dinner for me and the kids, and he eats right before he goes to bed, around 10:00.

    We do eat dinners together on holidays and in the summer, we grill out on Sundays a lot, but other than that, we rarely eat a meal as a whole family. It drove me crazy at first, but now it's just the way it is.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    Yeah there's no way I can wait any longer than 6 at the latest to have dinner. He says, well just have a snack to tide you over.. But that just means unnecessary calories that i can simply avoid by just having dinner when I'M hungry!!!
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    edited April 2016
    MommyL2015 wrote: »
    I've grown accustomed to this, as well. Although weekends, we do lunch sometimes. I cook dinner for me and the kids, and he eats right before he goes to bed, around 10:00.

    We do eat dinners together on holidays and in the summer, we grill out on Sundays a lot, but other than that, we rarely eat a meal as a whole family. It drove me crazy at first, but now it's just the way it is.

    I was raised eating together so it's odd for me. My mom is ALWAYS making spiteful comments about us eating 'the American way' and not eating together and it's driving me up the wall because it's not exactly my choice either. But I guess I used to eat so much during the day that I had no problem waiting until 8pm for dinner (normal time for dinner in France, lol).

    I love Holidays though because 'dinner' is at 2-3pm and it's perfect for me. I don't like when my husband grills because he does it on his time and dinner ends up being WAY too late (seriously, he just sat down with the kids, it's 7.15pm).
    Christine_72 wrote: »
    Yeah there's no way I can wait any longer than 6 at the latest to have dinner. He says, well just have a snack to tide you over.. But that just means unnecessary calories that i can simply avoid by just having dinner when I'M hungry!!!

    Preach sister LOL.
  • Christine_72
    Christine_72 Posts: 16,049 Member
    Oh and we never have breakfast or lunch together either lol As he only eats once a day :grumble:
  • MommyL2015
    MommyL2015 Posts: 1,411 Member
    Yeah, I came from a home where mom had dinner ready at 6:00 and we all sat together and ate. It was hard not having that at first because it was important to me. I do enjoy it when we do though!
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    edited April 2016
    MommyL2015 wrote: »
    Yeah, I came from a home where mom had dinner ready at 6:00 and we all sat together and ate. It was hard not having that at first because it was important to me. I do enjoy it when we do though!

    I still try to do it when I have an easier day (but that's often when he ends up coming home and not being hungry. Or he ends up late and we've all eaten by then. Can't win). So twice a week I guess.

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