Food

One of the struggles I definitely wasn't prepared for was my apparent inability to feed myself efficiently.  My schedule these days is very out-of-whack.  In college, we were forced to pretty much each at least two square meals a day.  We were always on campus, had a cafeteria at our convenience, and it was paid for (!).  When we needed to stay up late to study, there were vending machines, pizza delivery men, and boxes of oreos. 

These days, I like to think of myself as a little more sophisticated.  I've spent the last five years living on my own, grocery shopping and cooking.  I tried to eat granola bars and coffee for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and then whatever was in the house for dinner when I got home from work.  Now, I don't even know when I'm hungry.  The days I go to class I try to pack another sandwich to eat during class.  The problem occurs when I find myself eating four turkey or pb and j sandwiches in a span of three days and still being hungry.  I don't have time to go grocery shopping because my evenings are filled with group projects and class.  Sundays I study or am at school and definitely don't want to slave over the stove when I haven't even had time to catch up on Grey's Anatomy for three weeks. 

I'm definitely not hungry at 5pm on the car ride from work to school and there are rarely opportunities to scarf down that pre-packed sandwich that's been sitting at the bottom of my bag for hours.  I get home between 10 and 11pm and am far too drained to do anything but open a bag of potato chips or pour a bowl of cereal.  The next morning I'm starving and counting down the minutes to lunch by 10am.  You'd think this would be a great weight-loss solution, but that hasn't seemed to happen either.  That's partly because what I do put in my mouth isn't great.  So little time for fresh anything...

Part of me really wants to start cooking; to get a few cookbooks, spend a ton of money of fresh produce I know will go bad before I get a chance to enjoy it properly, and finally do as much good for my body as I am for my mind.  The more rational part of me says: "screw it - I'll cook in two years when I have time (yeah, right... when I'm working 80 hour weeks) and enjoy the grape jelly on Ritz dinners while I'm still single". 

So what do I do?  What do I eat?  When?  I wish there were books about what to do in these kind of situations.  Last night I made apple bread from a box (I burnt it) and a frozen pizza.  Awesome.