Any other early dinner eaters out there?

[HorrorFan81]

I grew up always eating dinner around 5.30/6 so I guess got used to eating fairly early

I now WFH and finish at 4 and it's not unheard of for me to eat dinner around 4.30. 6 would be late for me. I quite like intermittent fasting but always need breakfast (eat around 9am) so this gives me a decent non eating window

If I eat later than 6 I would need a snack after work, which is extra calories. If I eat early I don't snack before bed - that would be me done for the day and won't eat again till breakfast

I read on here about people eating at 9pm, I would honestly be gnawing my arm off 🤣

Obviously not everyone can facilitate eating so early with work / clubs etc but anyone else prefer an early dinner?

I did intermittent fasting a while back to reverse my insulin resistance, started on16/8, then did some 24 hr, couple of 48 hr and Three 72 hr. Ever since that I just automatically seem to have to have my dinner around 1.30pm definitely no later than 2.30 pm, Breakfast is after the dog walk around 10.30. Maybe a small snack around 5pm. Ive Never felt better.

I'm from the west coast of Scotland and grew up with breakfast at 7:30/8am, dinner at school dinner break, 12:30/1pm and tea around 5/5:30pm. My dad liked to have tea before the 6 o'clock news.

I still like those times, although tea would be more like 6pm normally. I hate eating later it puts my routine right out of whack, messes with my medication and interferes with my before bed yoga. It also affects my sleep. My ex husband used to eat at 10pm or even later because he wanted the kids "out of the way" and peace and quiet, i.e. silence, when he ate, even when they were adults. I hated it so much.

I love this thread for making me feel like I'm not a weirdo! Dinner for us is 5:30-6pm (we WFH). I have lunch at 12pm - sometimes 11:45am if I'm particularly hungry, and breakfast is about 6:30-6:45am - so meals are quite evenly spaced throughout the day.

😞I can see why he’s an ex! I hope you ate with the kids if that’s what you wanted to do.

I have to have been up for at least 3 hours before I can stomach any food, I can’t eat breakfast until 10am at the earliest. So that naturally shifts everything later. Lunch at 2-3pm, dinner at 8pm ish.

It's not that weird. If we're all home we all eat together but on work days either DH or myself won't be home til 7.30pm so we often wait to eat together.

I tried to buy he would kick off about it and he is so unpredictable that it often wasn't worth the stress. So, I'd eat with him and then be up all night.

He also would only eat ready meals and things like tins of beans and frozen chips because one day he decided that I was going to try to poison his food or spit in it or something else awful.
I cannot tell you how glad we all are that he finally followed through on all his threats to leave. It only took 30 years!

On the rare occasions I go out for a meal it's almost always wagamamas as they don't faff around making people wait for food. Arrive at 5pm and we'll all be eating, and possibly finished by 5:30.

I like a carvery for that reason too, you just let them know your drinks then get on with getting your food.

I love food, and I love cooking (when I have the time and ingredients) and now my DCs are adults, DH and I only have ourselves to think of. But cooking and eating, to me, has always been enjoyable, sociable and especially at weekends, something to take time over, with a glass or two.
My MiL sees cooking and eating as a perfunctory chore and can't wait to eat as early as possible to "get it over with" which I find a bit sad. It's something we have to do every day to survive; might as well embrace it.

It's normally about 6 by the time me and the kids are home from work, college, school. Leaves time for a bit of something sweet in the evening but stilll finishing before 8. I then don't have anything to eat until
Lunchtime although I make sure the kids have breakfast. I just don't seem to need to calories like I used to. I'm 50's though and needing to lose weight.

We normally eat around 5.30pm. In an ideal world, I like to have dinner finished by 6pm so the evening is free for relaxing. I'm also an intermittent faster and have found that I feel so much better giving my system a decent break from eating and my sleep improved massively too when I started intermittent fasting and eating earlier.

Early dinners don't always happen when DDs have clubs but then we would still eat around 6.30pm at the latest.

But I get for a lot of people that wouldn't work at all with their shifts. DH and I both work from home and if I'm ever in the office I am home by 5pm so we can still eat early.

People work.

Bar work schedules we ate as a family at 6 and it’s was

breakfast
lunch
dinner
as a young un never a snack in sight

for me when kids where young
breakfast
lunch
snack as kids came home at 3.15pm and always starving 😂
dinner
supper

as they grew and had hobbies and then part time jobs this all changed to later for dinner. Latest was 7.30pm usually.

we are empty nesters now and we have

lunch
dinner

we eat about 8-9pm for dinner these days bar weekends and its earlier.

I used to be like you. But years of cooking for ungrateful children who moan about everything, refuse to eat, take over an hour with constant prompting to finish a meal has killed my enjoyment. Plus the relentlessness of doing it every single day. And trying to keep grocery shopping within budget. Ugh. Now I’m definitely more like your MIL.

I still enjoy cooking for guests or special occasions but the everyday stuff has definitely become a chore.

@DreamSpaceships - oh, I get you! I too have been there with ungrateful/fussy children. Don't get me wrong, I don't eat like this every day, but I do still find pleasure in cooking and eating, esp at weekends.

Always ate around 5pm growing up. Now we eat any time between 4pm and 5.30pm. My partner starts work at 5am so is starving by 4pm! Couldn't sleep if I ate any later than around 7pm. Even when eating out we book table for 6pm or 6.30pm. A big dinner later than that just sits in my stomach and gives me indigestion when lying down trying to sleep.