Average day - how much do you eat?

[Bearbonesnorm]

Recently and on more than one occasion, I've being told that I don't eat enough. Now, I'm sure those who know me can confirm that I'm not exactly wasting away but I suppose it's also true that I don't appear to eat much. On an average day I probably wouldn't eat anything until 7.00pm at which time I would have something like roast veg and a pork chop, cottage pie or similar. I'd often have half a pint of milk around 9.30pm and that would be me for the day ... expect for lots of brews, so there's likely another pint and a half of milk consumed throughout the day. In my 'defence' I only eat when I'm hungry and am not swayed by the time of day or out of habit.

What do you think? Plenty / not enough / we're all different / who cares?

[ton]

typical day for me is,

either 2 toast with eggs or beans or 4 weetabix

lunch is a sarnie with meat or tuna or cheese, with crisps

evening meal is meat and veg or a curry and rice or some pasta dish

i tried to stick to a very low carb diet. whilst i was laid up after various surgeries it worked.
as soon as i start riding again i feel sub standard on it and have to eat carbs.


i think you need to have some breakfast at least.

[voodoo_simon]

Not eating something until 7pm does strike me as a bit strange, perhaps it’s the brews that keep you going and they’re replacing your food?

For me
2x toast with spread (chocolate/butter etc)
Coffee

Cycle to work
Second breakfast of coffee and a muffin

Plenty of tea during the day (work in a bike shop!)

Mid day...
Ham or cheese sandwich
Crisps
Mars bar or something similar
Fruit if mini-voodoo hasn’t taken it

More tea!

Cycle home

Snack on some fruit before I put mini-voodoo to bed

Evening meal (that’ll stop a north/south argument)
Will generally be meat, veg and carbs (anything from pizza through to curry to whatever really)

And then either some chocolate or a beer

Have kept my weight balanced with this setup for 10 years now, so must be doing something right?

Edit once a week we have a take-out and I may indulge in two beers

[Mike]

Stu, as u know I'm on the opposite end of the scale to you fella when I comes to eating!
I won't list what I get through in a typical day but I have to keep my pet worm fed and happy

I'm not fat so I don't care! And I like food....A lot
On that note I'm walking up the shop for some biscuits now

[Oli.vert]

I found back when I was cycling far more than was reasonable that I'd eat
on waking a banana, followed by muesli, followed 40 mins later by a bowl of pasta, the other bowl full I'd take with me to eat at 11, then a big FO bap with protein and salad for lunch, custard donut around 3, then a rice pulse and veg based dinner around 7.30.
If I wasnt riding for more than 2 days I wouldn't need to eat anything like as much, for weeks on end. I still managed to maintain a high residual fitness and could just pick up again at similar levels as soon as I put myself to it with only a day of rusty perhaps.

Your body shape and metabolism will have a good deal to do with it - I'm over 6 foot and lean and have a raging metabolism. If I don't know where my next meal is coming from once I'm hungry I start wigging out pretty quickly. Short squat folks with slow metabolisms may well be happy doing similar levels of exercise and needing to consume far less. We all have our own 'healthy/normal' but....nothing to eat till 7pm does sound a little...on the edge of normal?

You didn't really ask the question 'how much is enough' but it's the same as 'what tyres...' in that it really begs further questions.
Do you eat more if you're riding 120 hard miles? If yes, good. If no, something doesn't stack up.
Have you tried cutting out the stimulants? Ie - only drink cups of ginger tea (with no tea) for a week, and see if you get hungry earlier?
You may just find you're mostly living on the stimulants in your tea - caffeine, and related others.

You may of course just have a natural tendency to corpulence, and you've found a comfortable way of keeping trim.

[Bearbonesnorm]

Do you eat more if you're riding 120 hard miles?

Most certainly. It's probably still less than many would (I ride with Mike sometimes which might skew my judgement) but quite a bit more than my normal intake.

Short squat folks

A fair description.

on the edge of normal

Uhm, probably

[Oli.vert]

And the stimulants? Or are they non-negotiable?

[Bearbonesnorm]

And the stimulants? Or are they non-negotiable?

I'm generally decaff, well, most of the time.

[slarge]

Blimey Stu, that's a great diet (but not for me)

Recently I am commuting without breakfast, so when I get to work I have coffee, 2 porridge pots and a banana, then an hour later a hot cross bun or sandwich.
Then 3 sandwiches for lunch, satsuma around 4, apple when I leave to ride home, then around 7.30 Some kind of meal, then chocolate or cake.

Plus lots of decaf coffee and water.

If I don't ride to work I don't get anywhere near as hungry, so the snacks tend to go.

[summittoppler]

Tis a cheap weekly shop that Stu.

For me it's.. ..
Coffee for brekkie.
Mid morning coffee at work.
Usual lunch at work could be chips from college canteen/butty/something heated up brought from home.
More coffee (A pattern emerges...)
Home 5:30 For tea could be pizza, Chinese, frozen chips with ?? Or any other crap.
Evening no coffee just beer or vin rouge.
Late evening snack of crisps/dips/toast...

As you can see I'm not arsed about my intake and never have been, maybe one day I might.....

[pistonbroke]

Quite a topic in our house this.
Living where we do we should have no excuses to eat a classic mediterranean diet. However we seem to have fallen into a rut of eating fatty food, quick and easy meals such as pizza, tortilla, burgers and spag bol.
Our local supermarket is not particularly large but has a fresh fish counter that has an enormous range of shellfish, octopus,squid, tuna, salt cod etc however we hardly ever buy anything, preferring pre packed frozen prawns and tuna. We bought a pack of fresh sardines a few months ago but were daunted by the intricate boning and general faff. Some of the other sea monsters we see on sale would be a proper challenge to cook properly.
I seems rural Spain still retains a good allegiance to small local shops and farmers markets where the fresh fruit and veg is often cheaper than the supermarket. We've recently started using these shops as previously our vocabulary and lack of courage meant we struggled to get what we wanted. It's much easier to serve yourself in the supermarket but much less fun.
We live in a big olive growing area so oil is plentiful and cheap. We use it for cooking and on salads so that's a healthy tick.
As our language skills improve, we are determined to shop for local produce, if nothing else it's cheaper, theres much more seasonality, particularly with fruit, it's orange time at the moment, April May onwards brings cherries, figs, peaches and melon.
So back on topic, a normal day is breakfast of porridge made with rice milk and local honey, fresh orange juice and coffee, sandwich or soup for lunch and a hot meal at about 9pm. If we go out, particularly in the summer, eating at 9pm would see us on our own! Most restaurants take bookings from 10pm onwards and on a couple of memorable nights last year, we sat down to eat at 1 am, we were sat outside and it was 25 degrees.

[Moder-dye]

I'm currently on a low carb diet with around 2300cal a day, so I'd expect more when I've got down to weight but currently an example would be:

Breaky usually about 9am: Coffee with double cream and home made full fat kefir, or natural yoghurt

Dinner: mixed nuts or pork scratchings, cheese, quality sausage.

Tea finished by 6pm: steak, pork chops,lamb chops, mince of some form , or eggs and bacon.

I wouldn't want to go all day with out eating and then eat that late at night. If I was going to eat once a day it'd be around dinner to tea time.

[Oli.vert]

And the stimulants? Or are they non-negotiable?

I'm generally decaff, well, most of the time.

So you're not speeding your bonce off all day then.

The glass of milk after your evening meal might suggest that you are undernourished to some extent and a 2 pint a day habit is quite a lot of milk, especially cow milk (made for building things the size of cows as it is). You could probably replace that with something 'healthier' if you were so inclined.

Is it too little? If you're happy with it and it isnt causing domestic issues then it's probably ok - for you. That you're asking a bunch of bozos on the internet means you'd be better off asking someone who knows what they're talking about. Find a nutritionist and ask them, preferably one that's a cycling nut.

[middleagedmadness]

Quite a topic in our house this.
Living where we do we should have no excuses to eat a classic mediterranean diet. However we seem to have fallen into a rut of eating fatty food, quick and easy meals such as pizza, tortilla, burgers and spag bol.
Our local supermarket is not particularly large but has a fresh fish counter that has an enormous range of shellfish, octopus,squid, tuna, salt cod etc however we hardly ever buy anything, preferring pre packed frozen prawns and tuna. We bought a pack of fresh sardines a few months ago but were daunted by the intricate boning and general faff. Some of the other sea monsters we see on sale would be a proper challenge to cook properly.
I seems rural Spain still retains a good allegiance to small local shops and farmers markets where the fresh fruit and veg is often cheaper than the supermarket. We've recently started using these shops as previously our vocabulary and lack of courage meant we struggled to get what we wanted. It's much easier to serve yourself in the supermarket but much less fun.
We live in a big olive growing area so oil is plentiful and cheap. We use it for cooking and on salads so that's a healthy tick.
As our language skills improve, we are determined to shop for local produce, if nothing else it's cheaper, theres much more seasonality, particularly with fruit, it's orange time at the moment, April May onwards brings cherries, figs, peaches and melon.
So back on topic, a normal day is breakfast of porridge made with rice milk and local honey, fresh orange juice and coffee, sandwich or soup for lunch and a hot meal at about 9pm. If we go out, particularly in the summer, eating at 9pm would see us on our own! Most restaurants take bookings from 10pm onwards and on a couple of memorable nights last year, we sat down to eat at 1 am, we were sat outside and it was 25 degrees.

Get the fishmonger to do the dirty work for you ,I lived down in Oriheula for 12 yrs for the first yr I'd get the fishmonger to ink the squid and claen the fish then she took my wife and me to the side one afternoon and showed us the intricacies of cleaning the fish ,but I still made sure it was done before we bought it as it's a sh@te job ,as for the rest of the med diet it consisted of sharing a litre of wine at breakfast with the other mechanics olives and gundillas, more drink with lunch then the workshop fridge was full of drink for the afternoon ,needles to say not many repairs got done after siesta ,then home and out to eat about 1130 ,

[benp1]

I dread to list it all, it's a lot. I'm known as an 'eater' in the office and people give me a heads up when food is knocking around (cakes, sweets, food after meetings etc)

My breakfast is around 8.30am and is 2 poached eggs, lots of mushrooms and a load of baked beans. I add a hash brown or sausage as I require/feel

I have 2 sausage rolls and a scotch eggs in the fridge as a snack for the afternoon...

(plus I had a 3 course dinner last night!)

I get hangry very quickly so i need to keep eating. Amazingly managing to keep the weight off, entirely thanks to the (slow) commuting miles

[journeyman]

Me too for a fasting ride to commute to work with a porridge pot and banana a couple of times a week. Trying to get in the habit of coping without food for Scotland in May... Otherwise muesli and flaxseed with rice milk in the morning. Light and veggie at lunch time - maybe 400 calories worth. I have a nakd bar snack mid-morning, nuts in afternoon. Proper coffee waiting for me when I get in from work. A veggie supper with family at the table. Rice cakes and peanut butter mid eve snack. I take Vit b and d and zinc supplements. No caffeine after 6. Often have a hot lemon first thing to kick start the day. Custard creams are my Achilles heel; I cant buy them and eat just one or two at a time, so I don't buy them. But my workmates do...

[Jurassic pusher]

14 fishfingers last night for tea!

[Moder-dye]

[johnb]

Today
Breakfast. A smoothie, mainly fruit I have foraged from the summer. Running very low so some frozen and fresh fruit from the shops. Add protein powder.
Bowl of Brussels sprouts zapped in the microwave with butter and salt. Any green veggie is an alternative.
Sausage and Salad cheese roll. Cappuccino.
Nothing then till about 7 or 8pm.
Tonight I am having cod cheeks in bread crumbs thinly sliced fried potatoes. Mushy peas and gravy. Followed by cheese either black bomber, Cornish crunch or charcoal briquette and biscuits. Or maybe a bit of each! Possibly follow that with some ice cream. To drink 2 bottles of quality cider from Waitrose....possibly more.
The dog is having 2lb of chicken mince and a few cod cheeks. Uncooked.

All fish bought Grimsby dock frozen at home Cod cheeks varies £4 to £5 a kilo Haddock £9 a kilo. Cod bellies for the dog often free. Normally cod bellies are sold dirt cheap to the salters who send them to Nigeria.

[johnb]

Custard creams are my Achilles heel; I cant buy them and eat just one or two at a time, so I don't buy them. But my workmates do...
.

YOU TEA LEAF YOUR WORKMATES BISCUITS?
RESPECT!

[Lawmanmx]

sometimes loads and other's nowt, i fast regularly (sometimes for 3 or 4 days) no ill effects and i didn't die,

[Matt]

Due to continued over indulgence since I was about 25

For the past 2 months I’ve barely eaten anything.

[Kumquat]

Tea toast cereal

Coffee

Tea banana biscuit

Sandwiches tea

Tea banana

Energy drink in waterbottle

Hot drink hot meal (modest portion)

Hot chocolate

[barney]

I can't survive without a decent breakfast which means that when I'm bike packing I always appear to take more gear than everyone else

[ericrobo]

Stu...

There’s an elephant lurking here...

I’m a very regular tea drinker but I can’t stand these sub standard (ordinary !) size cups. Do you drink your tea out of a proper cup ? I mean at least 425ml...

Now you being a connoisseur probably have a bigger cup than that.... and how many of those do you get through before putting food in your system..

(See, I’m getting to the point slowly....)

IS THERE ANY SUGAR IN THAT TEA ?

cos if there is, you had better stop the sugar (or honey,*** it’s got more sugar in it)

Even fit people can get diabetes (its types are worse than all the tussocky etc. type fun )

In fact (correct me if I’m wrong) but with all the talk about diet etc. (on here I mean) there doesn’t seem to be a lot of mention about sugar..

It is a killer ( not in itself, but because it’s in just about everything) and the body (apparently...) is not designed to take huge amounts of sugar..

We go and do 3 or 4 etc hours on the bike and think we can eat almost anything, not realising that you can become diabetic even when fit simply because there’s too much sugar going in.

I’m certainly not into the LCHF diet (in fact I probably live on vegetables, peanut butter, porridge, and home made bread...plus tea...but no sugar !

*** don’t get worried..