Ahhh, Food.

I'm so - confused, I guess would be the best word, about my eating habits.

I was always one who agreed with the concept that you shouldn't eat unless you were hungry - which to me, makes perfect sense. You want your BODY to tell you when it's time to eat, not the clock. 
But - at the same time, all of the 'recommendations' around eating healthy say that you should not skip meals, and you should eat 5-6 small meals daily - with no mention of hunger.
So - to me, it seems like these two things only work in concert if you are actually HUNGRY 5-6 times a day. If you aren't - you are ignoring your bodies requests for food, and feeding yourself whether you really NEED to eat or not.
And then, of course, there's the concept that you should never skip a meal if you don't want to slow down your metabolism - which once again, doesn't fit in with only eating when you are hungry - and this is where it starts to impact me.

Simply put, I don't GET hungry until around *thinks* 10ish or so usually, and even then, I'm usually not really HUNGRY, I'm in the mood for a snack. If I eat something then (something as small as a protien bar, or anything that DOESN'T have a high carb level) I'm usually simply NOT hungry again until 4 or 5.  If I force myself to eat early in the morning (having something resembling breakfast - anytime before 10) I won't get hungy again until around 4 or 5, completely skipping the hunger signals for 'lunch'. My NORMAL hunger patterns have me eating actual meals twice a day - once in the early afternoon, and again in the mid-evening. When I'm not working, my NATURAL sleep/eating pattern goes something along these lines:
Wake up around 11am
Eat the first meal of the day around 3pm or 4pm
Eat something small around 9pm
Eat another meal around 12am or 1am
Go to sleep around 3 or 4

When I am working, it's more along these lines
Wake up around 7am
Eat the first meal of the day around 12pm
Eat something small around 5pm
Eat another meal around 9pm
Go to sleep around 12am

So....it looks like I generally get hungry for the first time around 4 hours after I wake up. Then I'm hungry enough to want a snack about 5 hours later. Then I hungry again about 3 or 4 hours after that, and then I go to sleep about 3 hours after my last meal of the day. My biggest meal of the day when I'm working is the last one, and when I'm not working is the first one. I've realized that the reason I eat a larger last meal when I'm working is because I'm actually at HOME and can cook & eat precisely what I want to eat, and don't have to 'make-do' with something else.  

Interesting. I've never actually written it out like that...... I suppose I could make my 'snack' more substantial, and call that the third meal of the day.

It's interesting and frustrating, because I've NEVER been an overeater. I've always been the kind of person who eats when she's hungry, and stops once she's full - though I've been known to push myself to gorged when I drink with meals. But at the same time,  everywhere I look, there is information telling me that eating WHEN it feels right to me, and not eating when I'm not hungry - is screwing up my appetite and my metabolism. I've spent all morning trying to find information about a linkage between how hungry you are, and how your metabolism responds. I can understand that denying yourself food when you ARE hungry (starving yourself) is a bad thing, but if you aren't hungry, you CAN'T be starving yourself, right? And if you AREN'T starving yourself, not eating 5-6 meals a day shouldn't be screwing up your metabolism, right?  And if my metabolism isn't screwed up, then eating 1500 calories a day should almost guarentee weight loss, right?

*sighs*

I'm thinking about all of this because me & C are going back on the low-carb bandwagon, and heaven KNOWS that I have even LESS of an appetite when I'm low carbing it, and I can EASILY drop below 1500 calories a day - and STILL not be hungry. But if your caloric intake is too low, your metabolism stalls, and you don't lose weight. But what's too low? Is too low a number, or should too low be determined by whether your body NEEDS food? And really, if I have a naturally slow metabolism, I don't MIND - not in the least. I'm not trying to jumpstart it, I'm not trying to speed it up - I just want/need to know how to work WITH it to achieve my goals.

Anyhow, to try and get a handle on this, I'm doing a couple of very important things.
Firstly, I'm eating ONLY what I want, when I want it.
Secondly, I'm going to supply myself with mini-meals for work. So far, I've got a drawer full of protien bars, because it's small enough that it'll be perfect for that late afternoon 'snackiness' - which honestly, I do sometimes tend to ignore if it's within 45 minutes or so of me going home. I'm considering trying  a shake for lunch - but only if I don't have a SPECIFIC taste for anything. I'm going to keep my largest meal of the day as dinner, because I can control what I eat and match it to want I WANT to eat easiest at that time.
Thirdly, I'm finally writing down EVERYTHING that passes my lips - except water  - AND what time I eat. I know that I drink a minimum of 1/2 gallon of water a day, and I usually shoot for a full gallon, which is just about how much I should be drinking. I'm going to tally it up at the end of the week - because right now I just want to see what my NATURAL habits are.

Me & C are also working on a exercise program we can do together. I'm still doing Tabata Intervals on the Gazelle (bastards that they are) but once it warms up a little bit, we will start walking after I get home from work.

I just refuse to believe that I'm supposed to be fat. I refuse to believe that my body WANTS to lug around all of this extra weight, and I do believe that if I could actually get really in touch with what I NEED and when I NEED it...... that the weight will - well, at least stabilize at a slightly lower, slightly healthier level.
Is that foolish to believe that the human body instinctively knows what it needs to be healthy, and that it's the misinterpetation that our well-trained (or mistrained) brains put on it that screws us up? I don't think so - simply because of babies. A healthy baby that eats when and how much it wants to doesn't get obese UNLESS there is some underlying health problem. Why can't I do the same?