maxbarry.com
Thu 15
Jul
2021

Resist lunch.

Max Sometimes I exaggerate a little because I want your attention and also to be funny. I just want to say: This is not one of those times.

Lunch is wrong. Lunch is one of the worst things there is. If I’m ranking bad things, I would go: cancer, lunch, heroin. Lunch is worse than heroin because the number of people who can’t go twenty-four hours without heroin is relatively small.

I know how this sounds. I’m well aware of the futility of going up against Big Lunch. You people have spent your lives addicted to lunch. You need lunch, at this point. You can’t imagine life without it, nor do you want to. Let me observe that these are things junkies say.

Here are the hidden dangers of lunch:

  1. It costs money

  2. It makes you tired while your body digests it

Maybe that seems fine to you. Money and tiredness: a small price to pay for lunch. That’s only your financial position and your ability to function. Honestly. Listen to yourselves.

I first tried no lunch when my writing was going well and I didn’t want to stop. I felt hungry and light-headed but also noticed that I got through the day without feeling like a useless sack of potatoes by 4pm. So I tried it more often. Sometimes I felt light-headed, and hallucinated a little, and became underweight, but none of these are problems for a writer. They help, if anything.

I know what you’re thinking: “Max, it kind of sounds like you have an eating disorder.” Well, let me tell you something. You might be right. I have actually started to doubt myself while writing this piece. Maybe it’s not actually the world that’s weird; maybe it’s me.

No. I think it’s you. Because I’m not slavish about no lunch. I actually eat lunch pretty often. Just not, you know, every single day. So I think that puts me morally in the right, because I can stop eating no lunch whenever I want. I’m not addicted to no lunch. I just use it strategically to get stuff done.

I won’t eat bread, though. Bread is the worst. Eating bread for me is like injecting fatigue into my brain stem. I can run six miles and feel full of energy, but after half a sandwich, I need a nap. I’m not sure if it’s the gluten or just that bread is packed full of evil. Either way, I’m not a fan.

I also listen to dangerously loud music because it helps me write, and I’d rather write well than hear everything at eighty. I’m not sure why I mentioned that. That’s not related to anything.

Comments

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Brenda (#7217)

Location: Berowra Bushland
Quote: "entering your world via the book portal is awesome"
Posted: 986 days ago

In an earlier existence I studied nutrition and a lot of that information has now been updated. I am following (mostly) keto diet and IF (intermittent fasting). The first week of not eating breakfast was a big shake up of my belief system. Now that the carbohydrate famished feeling has been eliminated I often have to remind myself to eat my first meal (between 1 and 3 pm). Second meal (between 5 and 7pm) and fasting for the remaining time.

Radiatia (#6360)

Location: Christchurch, New Zealand
Posted: 986 days ago

I've always felt three meals a day was absolutely decadent anyway. If I have something particularly strenuous to do on a given day, such as leave the house, I'll allow myself 'brunch' and 'dinner' but usually I just have 'meal' once a day. (You'd think that this approach would lead to me losing weight, turns out it's caused me to gain weight but that's another story.)

towr (#1914)

Location: Netherlands
Posted: 986 days ago

I very much doubt there's one right way to portion your meals throughout the day. I don't think our ancestors had the luxury.
When food availability is uncertain (as it probably often was in pre-history), then you just eat when there's food until you don't want to eat anymore. You don't wait around till it's dinner time so someone/something else can steal it from you in the meanwhile.
That's not a good approach nowadays, of course, when the fridge is always full. But whether you eat once a day or three times, or every 10 minutes throughout the day, I doubt it very much matters as much as what you eat and how much.
You can even make it a game if you want, just roll dice throughout the day to see if you get a random encounter with something edible. And then roll for whether it's something you like or not.

Merni (#8296)

Quote: "nope"
Posted: 985 days ago

I feel the same way about coffee!

Will St George (#8217)

Location: U.S.
Quote: "It's like deja vu all over again. - Yogi Berra"
Posted: 985 days ago

An active mind and/or nutritional extremes can be dangerous, except in a writer.

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