One of my Hobbit habits has gone by the wayside: That everyday meal between breakfast and lunch, that I learned from Hobbits, is called ‘second breakfast.’ Everyday I was a wee bit peck-ish 2-ish hours after my sturdy breakfast of good-bread toast–almond butter and always a big slather of homemade jam. My second breakfast was most often a baked item–a bit of banana bread, bagel, or baked good bought on the way to work from some real bakery.
This is a story about energy. The sparks that we run on. The nature of those sparks, either smoldering or quick, flashy ones are an ensemble, a particular signature, a wave, a current with predicted ups and downs. We live on this wave –unique for each of us, riding it every day, usually without noticing it.
They say that fish don’t know they are in water: Meaning that it’s easy to not understand what is around you, because it’s all you know. It is not until you take a fish out of water that he can compare the experience to something else.
I am the fish. The fish, c’est moi. I have learned about my energy frequency by experiencing something completely different. A ‘savory breakfast’ has changed everything. My baseline energy flow is now more even, stable, and strong. Less distracted and edgy. I don’t need second breakfast anymore.
The past several months have been a slow motion whoa, whoa, whoa!
Let me back up. I celebrate berry and fruit season by putting up small batch jams that take us through to the next season. I slipped into this ritual as a by-product of my active, local-eating obsession. And it’s healthy, right? Whole berries, supporting the farmers direct, ripe, at peak sweetness–What’s not to like?
My relationship to this part of me is undergoing a change. I will experiment this year, now knowing that the gazillon sucrose molecules in a normal recipe, if not eaten as dessert (read not first meal) is like a slow-mo explosion causing me metabolic harm.
Indulge me again. Let’s talk about metabolic flexibility: The ability to switch from fast, flashy fuel (glucose) that lets you run, jump, and sing loud, and do anything in-the-heat-of-the-moment–to using the slower burning stuff (fat) that also keeps you alive. It gets you through the long haul.
That is flexibility, being able to align with any direction the wind blows.
My former brain energy wave has been revealed: fuzzy-brained hungry, to sloggy, to brief quiet times. Rinse and repeat. Making sure I was covered for second breakfast was an everyday concern and errand along the way. If I didn’t attend to it and got too hungry –yuck, just a yucky brain state– then I scurried and found whatever food was roving around. My cells were less flexible about going into fat-burning mode. My time was occupied with avoiding that too-hungry state, equaling this micro pattern: thinking about, acquiring, and then eating Second Breakfast.
Sometimes three heads are not better than one.
A savory breakfast has reset my whole day and rhythm. My system is clearly now more often in fat-burning mode, as evidenced by my losing over 20 pounds without any extra exercise. (I rate myself these days as medium-active.)
Meet one of my new regular savory morning meals. It easily holds me for 4+ hours. When I do get hungry, it’s not edgy or light-headed but a yum-yum, what will be good to eat now thought. This is a ground nut and seed porridge with whole milk. I adapted it without oats (Doctor’s Kitchen recipe) since I learned oaks spiked my blood sugar big time.
I can bore you to death about the details of switching over to a different type of breakfast. Another time perhaps. Here is a lovely summary page by the lovely Jessie Inchauspe to explain it all.
Real Life, Disclaimer and Reference Desk
What is amazing to me is that it’s both quiet and subtle and yet also completely profound. I live in a different energy pattern. I’m in a new country, and it’s been awhile since I’ve been somewhere new. My brain is a nudge more alert every moment, every single day. But also please know…
I still have soggy, foggy, shorter-fused energy days but much less often. Also, I have this new, plain awareness. I can ‘see’ that said fogginess. I’m choosing less fog, when before it was a default that slowly became normal.
There are unlimited nooks and crannies for each of us. The old yeah-but clause, ‘Results may differ.’ If you are on a similar ‘managing glucose’ journey, we start in different places, no matter how similar sounding. We have our own sweet relationships to food, habits, rewards, and body movement–let alone our genetic family tree. Our energy and how we perceive and know it is multidimensional. Disease and healing manifest differently. Wherever you are on this path, just listen. Keep listening. How soon or how you feel after changes is an individual thumbprint.
May we all be better listeners.
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While loveable, it’s clear that we should not mirror a Hobbit’s meal schedule:
Links to previous posts here and there about my unexpected–yet predictable– pre-diabetes situation.
And thank you for listening. -Wendy
Thanks for this Wendy. I’m going to try the porridge. I couldn’t see the instructions for cooking–just a bit of water and medium heat? Hope you and Alisa are doing well. Love, Eleanor
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I don’t use water just whole milk. Tho’ water would probably be fine. I put about a 1/2 cup portion into the pot, put the heat on and let it toast for about 30 seconds, then I pour the milk in and it scalds it in a good way. Let it roil for a little bit, but not too long is needed for it to thicken. Toss any whole fruit for joy!