The Most Important Meal

Everyone says it: Don't skip breakfast! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!

Well, I often skip breakfast. Not because I'm not hungry; I usually wake up starved! But I look in the fridge and in the pantry and my body says, "Bleh." After about 45 minutes—the amount of time it takes to get the kids up and ready for our daily drive to school—I'm not starving any more, but I do feel ready to eat. So when I get home I can eat something in a nice, leisurely fashion, and stave off my hunger for another few hours. It's good.

Bleh.

Except on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I go straight from the kids' school to my school for Cardio Fitness Class (aka Play Like a Hamster on a Wheel Class). Then I feel a little guilty because not only did I skip the most important meal of the day, but now I'm exercising after having gone my entire night with no food to energize me or get my metabolism going. But it's still not too bad, because the class is only an hour and then I go home and have something to eat in a nice, leisurely fashion, staving off my hunger for a few hours.

But Wednesdays are terrible! On Wednesday mornings I go through the usual routine: Wake up ravenous; peer into the fridge, "Bleh;" get the kids up, get ready for school, etc. But this time I have to go straight from the kids' school to the train station and head up town for six hours of classes. By the time I've made it to my first class I know I could eat something. About an hour into class I am truly starved. After another hour my body quiets down and stops complaining to me, and I can finish the first three-hour class in peace.

But then I have to go to Patterns, the class that requires the most brain work. And the five minute walk from Tailoring to Patterns reminds me that I am starving, and that I have three hours of mind-intensive class to finish, and that the classroom is fiendishly hot. And then the afternoon blahs hit. It makes for a tough class.

Things might be different if this was in my fridge

or my pantry in the morning

Well, yesterday morning was kind of awful. I'd stayed up Tuesday night until 1 a.m. finishing a whole lot of hand-sewing for Tailoring class because I'd missed two weeks in a row due to strep-throaty kids, and was falling behind. This late-night sewing got me almost caught up with the class (and, as a bonus, I got to "watch" BBC's Sense and Sensibility while I sewed). At 1 a.m. I carefully laid my coat-fronts on the ironing board, so as not to wrinkle them, and then headed to bed.

Wednesday morning: I wake up about half an hour early, but still starved; look in the fridge, "Bleh." I think, "Maybe I can work on that late project for Patterns." But instead I start packing my school bags. Between my preparations and getting the kids up and ready for school I spend the entire hour and a half just getting myself ready to go. And now I'm really starving! But it's time to hop in the van and drive off. I throw a few granola bars and a bottle of water in my bag and we leave. As I'm pulling up to Entheos it suddenly hits me: I left my coat pieces lying on the ironing board! After some choice expletives (shoot! dang-it!) I drive back home. And then, thinking that I'm late anyway, I make myself a sandwich—which was kind of bleh, but quick and easy to do. At least I won't be hungry through the first class. I get my stuff together and drive for the train station. I get there just as the train does, and I have to RUN to make it (I am too old for this kind of adrenaline rush!) This gives me a headache and nausea that make me regret the turkey-pastrami sandwich for the next hour.

And then, a miracle happened! I didn't feel hungry throughout my Tailoring class! I didn't get hungry in Patterns until the last 30 minutes or so of class! I didn't feel like I'd rather go to sleep than draw another pattern all afternoon! I felt pleasant all day!

Could it be that I'd jump-started my metabolism for the day? Maybe breakfast really is the most important meal of the day! Whaddaya know?

Of course right now, first thing in the morning, having woke up (woken up? awakened?) feeling starved, and having looked around and gone, "Bleh," I am blogging about breakfast instead of eating it.