eating out of habit/routine?

[Plenum]

My normal routine is to eat twice a day (or even once a day).  I dropped the whole 3 meals/day thing quite a few years ago.

Even with eating twice a day (or even once a day), I've found myself eating out of routine or habit sometimes; not genuine hunger.  It's not that I have to force myself to eat, it's just that I find myself eating (at times) out of habit/routine.

anyone else do this?

for eg, just now, I felt compelled to eat because it had been 24 hours since I last ate.  I was still alert, vital, and not ravenous; I had spent the day indoors, and not done any sort of physical work.  Not a whole lot of expenditure of energy, even though it's getting into the cooler season of the year.

but I still felt the need to eat, well, because something might go wrong with my body if I didn't eat.  I'm not trying to fast, and I'm not trying to abstain from food.  My stomach was empty, but it wasn't growling at me; I was perfectly fine.  And yet I still chose to eat a meal. The meal was great!  nothing wrong with it; tasted good, and I wasn't forcing myself to eat.  It was a welcome addition of food - on the part of my body.  But I could have easily gone another half day, I think, without feeling hunger pangs.

Last week, I went 2 days without even realising/trying before I had another meal.  Again, no real urge to eat, and yet I still did after a couple of days.

My body weight is perfectly fine; I'm not feeling down or depressed, and it's not a deliberate attempt at fasting.  And yet the necessity for food seems to falling away quite easily.

Definitely an interesting physical phase I'm in right now  

- -

this post was triggered, in part, by something that outerheaven posted a little while ago.  I realised I was experiencing something similiar to what he related.

[VanAlioSaldo]

Ugh, SHARE.

I wish I didn't feel hungry every few hours. I actually dont when I'm not taking my levothyroxin for my thyroid, but then I have no metabolism.

As for habit, I used to eat out of boredom. Now its just if I'm depressed.

Which honestly never helped much.

What do you usually eat? Two days without any appetite sounds unhealthy yet you say you feel good. Please, do tell~

[Bluebell]

i eat when i feel hungry i guess. i'm always trying to get nutrition to keep my brain happy, blood sugar stable. it's not routine because i don't have set times. after experiencing malnutrition & starvation i try to remember to be grateful for each meal & not take food for granted.

[isis]

I have an unusually fast metabolism. I have to eat routinely & frequently to maintain the body-weight I prefer.

[AnthroHeart]

In the morning I have a coffee with rum. I'm not normally hungry till about noon.

[Plenum]

What do you usually eat?  Two days without any appetite sounds unhealthy yet you say you feel good.  Please, do tell~

well, my diet has definitely evolved over the years.  I've allowed it to take a more natural progression in recent times.  During my years in my twenties, I tried to force it in certain directions (like dropping meat, or only eating certain foods), but I've been less 'restrictive' about enforcing a certain outcome.  This is a little paradoxical, as the approach I've taken in recent years has been more intuitive, and yet the outcome is usually more restrained in terms of dietary choices.

maybe this would explain it better:

previously: tried to follow a set of 'rules' because I wanted a certain outcome

currently: not concerned about outcome, but a certain type of 'appropriate' diet has suggested itself.

that doesn't really answer your question about what I actually eat  But I guess what I'm saying is that the actual *what* we eat can't really be separated from the question of what is most appropriate for our current energetic/physical state.