>
> Michael, I don't want to let this one drop so easily because I hear
> echoes in you of excuses I used to make.

This is not really an excuse on my part.  I find during summer vacation
that I generally eat every 4 hours.  I wonder if our paleo-ancestors had
food available whenever they wanted when would their bodies want to eat.
If I snack I tend to have more problems with eating because then I am
thinking more about food.  If I eat a good meal it will stay with me for a
while.

The biggest problem with my schedule at school is that our lunch period is
not very long.  Therefore, I tend to eat smaller lunches than I would
like.  Sometimes, then, if I don't work out after school, I eat a snack
around 3pm.

 You can eat a few nuts
> between classes. You can eat raisins. You can eat a banana. In fact,

I am allergic to most nuts.  Raisins and bananas are poor choices for me.
I stay away from most fruit because of allergy asthma problems.
Basically, I am a meat and vegetable type of person.


> Believe me, I'm not saying it's easy, but options do, in fact, exist
> that don't require going hours on end with nothing if you really need
> to snack.
>

Your comments suggest to me that you are somewhat removed from the high
school setting.  If I have to go though that much effort to have a snack
it is going to take away from my teaching and I will not enjoy it.


For  me that with food available as easily as it is in our society
snacking is a bad practice.  In general eating between meals for me
involves food with high glycemic indexes especially because I find that
nuts don't work for me.  If I were to derive substantial caloric intake
from snacking then I would probably end up eating insufficent protein and
fat.  If I am not deriving a significant number of calories from snacks
then I probably didn't need them and was eating just to satisfy taste
buds.

Of course, this whole discussion only applies to the next six weeks or so.
 After that it is summer vacation.  This is my last year teaching.  Next
year I will be staying home (my wife will be working full time) and home
schooling our kids.  Then I will be able to eat whenever I want so I will
see what kind of eating pattern I fall into.  I suspect I will eat 3 or 4
meals a day depending on my level of exercise.

Mike