One reason you shouldn’t skip meals…

I went back to my college town this weekend, and we stopped for dinner at one of the iconic, hole-in-the-wall pizza joints that's a staple for every college kid. 

Except when I was in college, I would never order the pizza. 

Pizza was never a favorite food of mine growing up, so it was easy for me to decide it was "bad" and eliminate it entirely because it's not "healthy." 

When I went to dinner with friends, I'd always order the salad with chicken (still amazing) and another friend would order pizza – because she hadn't eaten anything else all day so she had enough Weight Watchers points to allow it. 

It took years after I graduated to want to order pizza when I went back, and it was even better than I imagined. 

Now seems like a good time to remind you that foods aren't good and bad, calories are simply units of energy that our body needs, and skipping meals to try to control hunger or weight is not healthy. 

But the early 2000s did not want to hear that. 

If you don't think skipping meals or intentionally restricting food is a problem, go ahead and scroll back up and look at the sheer amount of food in that photo. 

That's the amount of food that two people will order when they're starving because they accidentally didn't get lunch. 

My plan going into the weekend was always to order my traditional grilled chicken salad and a slice of pizza, but after a day of wandering around town with no snacks, the mozzarella sticks, and the fries, and another slice of pizza sounded way too good to pass up. 

I run into this all the time with my clients. 

They'll tell me they're "so good with their food" during the day, aka they eat salads and smoothies and not many calories, but that they can't control themselves at night. 

If that sounds familiar, you should try eating more throughout the day. Intense cravings and hunger at night are often a sign that your body is...still hungry, because it needs more food than what you're allowing it. 

When we restrict – intentionally or unintentionally, in my case this weekend – we also tend to overeat when we finally get food. 

I have zero regrets about having to make four trips up to the counter to retrieve all the food we ordered, and I also have zero regrets about overeating "bad" things because they're not "bad," and I also didn't overeat. 

I brought home half the salad and what looks to be two massive slices of pizza –– even after cutting partial slices off each one! 

Often when we restrict food, or we "allow" ourselves to have one "cheat" meal, we overeat because we have a scarcity mindset about this being our last shot at eating whatever it is.

We might have to unbutton a button and be uncomfortable for the rest of the day, but dammit, that food will not go to waste! 

When foods aren't "off-limits" and you can theoretically eat them again at any time when you want, it's easier to listen to your fullness cues and stop when you're satisfied, not stuffed. There's no longer a sense of urgency to eat it all right away right now before the opportunity is gone. 

For me, a little bit of that scarcity mindset did factor into my ordering decisions this weekend. I honestly don't know when I'll be back in town so I ordered more than I normally would, but I also knew I could box it up and save it for later. 

It's been years since I was in college, but I'm grateful that this little spot is still busy as ever on a Saturday night and that I now have a healthier relationship with food and can enjoy it. 

If you don't have that kind of relaxed, neutral relationship with food yet but you want to, shoot me an email. That's the kind of thing I work on with my nutrition clients, and I'd love to help you, too.