I've been through that. My first choice is to go out if I can. It doesn't matter if it's a restaurant or someone's house. I like my cooking, but it's hard to surprise one's own self. If I'm at the grocery store, I'll buy a prepared salad. At Whole Foods, i might buy something from the deli case, which costs the same as going out casual, but not as time dependent.

I've figured out how to make a really good roast chicken and vegetables that's a very quick and easy prep, that I can usually force myself to make even when I don't want to cook. Sometimes, if I'm alone, I'll nibble on hummus and vegetables while it's cooking and store the chicken for later. Oh! I should say, if I have something made up already in the fridge--not being a leftovers hater like some--I'll just take it out and eat it cold if I'm in that kind of funk. It could be chicken & veg, salad, soup, beans, spaghetti, casserole, etc. A lot of food is surprisingly good cold. :)

Days like this I really miss the Wegman's I used to live near. I could stop and get a little bite of a few different things, bound to find something appetizing between the hot foods and deli offerings. BF and I used to get Chinese a lot on Friday nights for just this reason. I don't have good Chinese available anymore where I live in the boonies. I am tapped out on pizza, that was my "go to" meal for nights I didn't want to cook. Whatever I make on dinner nights like this has to come from my own kitchen. If I hadn't had a perfectly wonderful chicken stew with polenta in the fridge to reheat I would have made migas tonight. I had a fridge full of delicious leftovers including lasagne, but I just wanted something like anti pasta and a couple of glasses of wine. Instead I had hummus on rye crips, home made potato salad and some of this hard pear cider that I got and do not particularly care for. It is OK mixed with actual pear juice to offset the bitterness of it. I can't drink wine sadly. I would have loved some finger sandwiches. Oh, and then I had a LOT of frozen yogurt. I should know better than to keep such things in the house!

There can be many reasons why you are hungry, but no appetite.

One common one is stress. When life gets complicated, it is difficult to get in mood to enjoy eating even when you are hungry. You can't go to sleep even you are very sleepy.

dcarch

Thanks for your concern Grainlady and DC. Yes, I am working outside most of the day and do forget to drink water. It could be mild dehydration. I have a weird thing about water, I just cannot stand to drink it. It has a metallic taste to me. It also somewhat makes me feel boated/upset tummy when I drink a lot of it. Sometimes I can hardly swallow it. I have to force myself to drink water. I seem to be able to abide by it a little better when it is fizzy, so I often have flavored soda water with no added sugar and a splash of fruit juice. But that's not really for guzzling during the day. I try to avoid drinking a lot of soda pop and fruit juice. I was filling up a liter water bottle with water and forcing myself to drink it by the end of the day. I can't drink anything with any artificial sweeteners and can't abide by stevia. I filter my water. I do everything I can to try and make it palatable. Have not tried "chia fresca" though, I have to admit.

Yes, I have the "sleepy but can't sleep" thing going on too. I'm under a lot of stress, no doubt, trying to care for my aging, grieving father. He is famous for having to have a better or different idea about anything and everything anyone suggests. I try to take him in small doses. He has a good support network so at this point it isn't all on me. I have my own life and live in another town from him. I have learned to let a lot of stuff go, but now it is much more of a Catch 22 situation with me needing to do certain things and having no choice but to have to deal with him in some way. He always says he doesn't need anything but I'm not sure what the glory is in being like that at 83. Better to ask for a little help early on than to overdo and have problems. That's true at any age, we need to help each other more, IMHO! There are a lot of things people don't mind helping with, although I know that has its own frustrations. There can be a balance though, between complete independence and complete dependence. Always recalibrating it though, as you age.

For me the lack of enthusiasm for eating is a combo of the heat and just maybe being tapped out on eating all the same foods that I always eat and can afford. Also the struggle as a single eater. I make a nice healthy coleslaw or kale salad and then I have to eat it for three four days in a row and by then I am sick to death of it. I don't have the enthusiasm for making something elaborate and fresh every day though. That's why I'm trying to figure out what I can make quick, light and healthy. Something like an omelet and toast, I need more recipes like that. My wok is somewhere in storage, I really miss that because I would make stir fry from those frozen veggie mixes and instant brown rice, that's another good quick but fresh meal. I'm trying to avoid too much wheat, like having bread at every meal, no matter how comforting that might seem.

We're the same. I keep things in a varied rotation, and seasonally...just about to get tired of something, then the seasons change. Then look for something we've not have for a long time and give it another try. Like cauliflower. DH thought he hated it until i started roasting it. And rutabaga, : )

Grainlady has a very good point about liquids and natural fruit sugars. Even sipping throughout the day. Teas over citrus/fruit, frozen in ice cube trays can perk up the energy levels.

When my kitchen is clean the way i like it, and so perfectly set up for easy prep, i still can't seem to find the inspiration or energy to make a mess sometimes. When that happens i know my body is telling me something is missing. Usually iron. Greens like kale. Best fast meal is a chicken and chickpea chili that i have frozen, add a 1/2 pint bone broth and a big heaping pile of fresh greens. More labor, but handy is a small steak, greens and smashed potato.

In the spring/summer months i like to make up ahead a few small platters of cheeses, cured meats, pate and cut fruit and veggies, nuts, olives. Like now, i have a plate for later this afternoon if we have some guests stop by or need a quickie. I made three identical over the last holiday weekend so when one was demolished, i had another to pull out. (a pain to make with all the packaging). Prepped all at once ahead of time, then cleaned up, i avoided the madness of trying to make something last minute.

Not really what you are looking for, (above). But adding something new to your rotation might help. It's just the food blues that we all get.

Ironically SD, the thing I should have eaten last night was a chicken, chickpea and spinach stew, (with tomatoes for iron absorbing vit C) over polenta, or lasagne with eggplant. Would just have had to heat it up in a serving dish in the microwave! And my kitchen was clean. I just don't feel like spending time in the kitchen washing dishes any more! Gonna try and make some things this weekend that I can just dish up and serve, and leave kitchen clean during work week. I think the problem with the stew was what I mentioned, four times was definitely NOT a charm with those dishes, even though they both were absolutely delicious! I seem to be able to easily eat leftovers for lunch, dinner not so much. I think I need to start reversing the way I eat, eat dinner for lunch and have a light sandwich spread for dinner the way the Europeans do.

OK I don't mean to hog my own post, but that got me reminiscing about my cross-cultural adventure at 17 on a visit to Germany with my German class and teacher. My hometown had a sister city and we spent a couple of days there as guests of the locals. It was a small town just like the one we came from. My best bud and I got farmed out, (literally) to a local farmer with two teenage boys. When everyone got assigned to their host families, the rest of the gals all said, "You guys lucked out" when they saw the tall, blue-eyed blonds come to pick us up. Little did they know that we were assigned to that tough gig because we were the most likely combo to be mature enough to handle it--the family spoke virtually no English and lived out in the boonies. My bestie was a farm girl too, and we had some of the most advanced conversational skills and the moxie to use them. It was still QUITE a stretch! On the car ride back to the farm the guys realized after a bit of problems and us freaking out that they could not use their local dialect and expect us to understand. They had to make sure to speak "hoch deutsch" which is "high german" although there is nothing "high" about it, just the standard language everyone understands minus a dialect. We got to the farm and their parents had company and that whole crew had already retired to the living room probably for drinks and sweets. We were left in this big farmhouse kitchen with an "Abendbrot" (evening bread) spread of various meats, cheeses and breads and probably some other things I have forgotten. I was pretty nervous about digging in and making my own sandwich at somebody else's house, but I was ravenous. Felt I had to be discreet though, given we were trying to impress these guys we could barely communicate with. The two guys weren't exactly Emeril Lagasse wannabees either! What a night! There was more embarrassment to come but I won't go into all of it! Let's just say that the German word "matrose" which means "sailor" and "matresse" which means "mattress" sound very similar and you need to be quite specific about which one you slept on in the dining hall at the youth hostel the night before, as to not cause young German guys to laugh so hard that they spit out their "limonade."

Anyhoo, here's a link to fun "Abendbrot" spread dishes, http://germanfoods.org/recipes/abendbrot-recipes/Recipes for Abendbrot from Germanfoods.org

Be careful with not eating too because this lady I met the other day was telling us that she was so sick and come to find out she was suffering from malnutrition because she didn't feel like eating alone.

I feel like this often. Food just doesn't sound good to me. I usually will eat some sort of chicken. But small portion.

Might it possibly be a bit of depression as well? Seems like there is certainly some cause for that.

I also do not like to drink plain water as much as unsweetened tea or seltzer. I make my teas w/ twice the amount of water to trick myself into drinking more water - and seltzer has no added sodium like mineral waters & club sodas do.

Try to eat more watermelon & other juicy fruits, as grainlady suggested, & keep healthy snacks on hand, like unsalted nuts, nut butters, cottage cheese, hard-boiled eggs, string cheese, whole grain crackers - you can easily make a meal out of those things plus some fresh fruit.

1 ultra quickie meal I love is a tin of smoked sardines w/ salt & pepper & a squeeze of lemon or lime juice served w/ whole wheat crackers, along w/ a bowl of fresh berries or a banana or orange. & honestly, how long does it take to fry an egg & make toast? Fried egg sandwich!

You've admitted to not hydrating enough, so maybe it's something you need to fix? Other than maybe needing some veggies to round it out, your dinner last night doesn't sound so bad. Maybe a little heavy on the starch, but it's just one meal. If it's the dishes getting you down, perhaps some paper plates? I learned during my kitchen remodel that the really thin, old fashioned, plain white paper plates with the fluted edge are really pretty good for kitchen meals, as opposed to parties. They're recyclable if they're not greasy, and there's not much to them if they are, so not much guilt.

Re getting enough water into you, however, there are a bunch of tricks. It may be hard to pull off while you're in a funk, but perhaps worthwhile. When I was young, I disliked water (most of it was chlorinated), until I found spring waters that I liked. I've been paying for water ever since and don't regret it. Or, have you tried distilled water? Nothing in it but water. That might be one of the things about soda water that you like besides the bubbles.

You mentioned liking soda better, so perhaps it's worth investing in a Soda Stream? You can also make herbal iced teas, infusions (have you tried Grainlady's Sassy water? It's fab!), etc. Plus, you can make those with soda water, either from a bottle or a Soda Stream (which pays for itself in the long run).

You can make your own electrolyte drinks too. If you don't care for the coconut water, try adding a lemon's worth of juice and a pinch of salt to your water, and some mint leaves for flavor. Again, I use distilled water.

As far as strategies go, perhaps the trick is to take advantage of the time while you feel like cooking, and do a bunch of prep. I like to do that with vegetables. I'll steam blanch green beans, asparagus, etc., roast a bunch of eggplant spears, make a cucumber salad, broccoli slaw, etc., and just have them all the fridge ready for lunches or dinner sides throughout the week. You can do that with proteins too. Perhaps you can freeze some portions? That way you don't have to get tired of it before you've finished it off.

Do you have any social organizations that do potlucks? Sometimes just eating something that someone else made is great. If you don't, do you know some other singles who might like to have a swap night? Or maybe a couple of them who might like to have three nights a week together, each cooking on one? Adding a social element, getting out of a couple of nights' cooking, and being responsible to cook for the others on your night, might help.

Pink, I suffer from that dilemma often. I am a very emotional or moody eater. It is not so much that I pig out when moody, but my moods have a lot of influence over what I want. While I love to cook, in general, I do not love doing it all the time. My problem is that I am the mother of 4 and the mood most of the kids have is hungry. Sometimes I just pawn off cooking to something simple that my oldest 2 can do. When that is not an option, I either go simple, with a quick omelet and toast or I give myself permission to spend money on the things I normally don't, like a prepared salad or if I am going to make a quick salad myself, I might give myself permission to purchase a salad dressing whereas I normally make them from scratch for money savings. That is also a time I might actually pick up garlic bread from the store and ignore the ingredient list, calories, etc. Other options I use are sub sandwiches (we rarely by deli meat) or sometimes we do breakfast for dinner. The kids think Cream of Wheat is a treat. My problems with things like just doing a roast chicken is the chicken has to be defrosted and it is not going to happen. Sometimes a quesadilla with salsa also works out. Another option might be meatballs that are already mixed in the freezer and I can quickly make meatball subs or pasta with meatballs. If I am not responsible for the kids that evening, I may just pop some popcorn and sometimes I just let myself starve, even if I made something for the kids. I hope your funk passes soon.

Grainlady, this recipe reminded me of Iranian sekahnjebin. There's plenty recipes on the net. Here's one of them (syrup):

Makes about two cups

• 2cups sugar
• 3/4cup water
• 1 large bouquet of fresh mint
• 1/3cup apple cider or white vinegar
• a few sprigs of fresh mint for garnish
• 2-3 tablespoons grated cucumbers for each drink

1. Put the sugar and water in a 2-quart steel pot and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Once the sugar melts, add the vinegar and let it boil for 5-7 minutes over medium heat.
2. Remove the pot from the stove and drop the mint bouquet in the hot syrup. Cover the pot and let the syrup cool completely. Remove and discard the mint and pour the syrup into a jar. The syrup will keep for a long time in the pantry.
3. To make the drink, pour about 3-4 ounces of syrup in each glass and top with ice cubes and water. Add 2-3 tablespoons of grated cucumbers and garnish with sprigs of fresh mint.

http://food52.com/recipes/21731-iranian-persian-sekahnjebin-vinegar-mint-summer-drink

Ironically, I am on a supposedly "low acid" diet for chronic urinary tract inflammation. I love all thing citrus! But I have to carefully parse how much of it I ingest. Same with vinegar. The only fruits I am supposed to eat are pears, blueberries, watermelon, dates and maybe bananas and a few types of apples such as gala and fuji. Not apple juice since they add acid to it to preserve it. Grapes are some of the worst offenders because the tannic acid in them, which is so healthy for you, is something I can't have. Which is why I can't have wine, grape juice, grapes, raisins or tea of any kind. All the fun beverages are out! So I can't have lemon water which is one of the standard ways to make water more palatable. I can't have most herbal teas either, if they have a citrus component. Mint and chamomile are the two kinds of tea I can have, and I don't much care for mint, unless it is mixed with lemon . . . I cheat but not excessively. I can eat some acids and be OK, just not pig out on them. So now is a tough time of year for me, fruit wise. Too early in the Midwest for good watermelon, pears or blueberries. There's always the trusty apple, but after so many months of apples I am less than enthusiastic about them. Not that I don't love them, but I eat them practically every day so they hardly stimulate my appetite anymore.

I think my biggest problem was adjusting to the sudden change in seasons. We seem to no longer have spring, just cold dreary end of winter and then it pitches up to the upper 80's and never looks back. I go from working mostly inside and coming home early, to working outside in the cooler evening hours so zero energy for cooking in the evenings plus I eat a late dinner and I don't want anything heavy. I have no trouble eating something like stew or lasagne for lunch. So I need to readjust my larder and plan for some snacking/nibbling type dinners. I am also at a disadvantage as I no longer have access to my freezer, so no room for freezing my leftovers, so a big pot of stew or lasagne or enchiladas will linger and linger with just me trying to eat it all. I can put some in the freezer at the top of my fridge but I have already maxed it out with home made baked goods, cooked rice and quinoa, frozen fruits and vegetables and meats that were on sale. That's another issue too, I am just not a meat enthusiast and I need to have more vegetarian protein options on my rotation. I can't get the good baked tofu and other vegetarian convenience foods in this rural area I am living in like I could out east. There is some, but not as much.

Spring is a tough time for us frugal/local eaters, since there is actually very little produce available. Radishes, green onions, spring greens. Now asparagus and peas and new potatoes are coming in so there is something to get excited about. Not too much longer and there will be strawberries! Like Tishtoshnm suggested, I splurged on some broccoli last week when BF was here and had it in tofu stir fry last night for dinner. Didn't have an appetite problem that time, in fact I had to tell myself to stop chowing down on it to avoid overeating! I have some baby spinach that we also bought for salads, I think the remainder of that is going into some soup. The Eastern Europeans eat schav this time of year but I can never get my brain around cold soup. You can make it with spinach or other greens and lemon, but there's that dang acid thing again . . .

We went from cold and wet to 80 in one windy storm. With no leaves on the trees for shade. Usually nice weather for gardening but it was so hot. A tough adjustment.

I hear you. You already have your adjustments in mind, however, so I'll go back to the water. Citrus isn't the only good infusion! I couldn't find a good list of low acid foods, but I'd venture that you might be able to use cucumbers, mint, and parsley for infusions. Ginger is alkaline and is great in infusions. Just throw in big (angled) slices. Maybe some other green herbs. Spinach might even be good. Can you have melon? Honeydew makes a delicious sweeter water. Watermelon juice mixed with water is also good. Just water it down to the point where it still tastes nice but isn't highly sugary.

Can you have hibiscus? It's mildly diuretic, so either good or bad for you. Aqua de Jamaica is easy to make. You can buy a big bag of dried hibiscus online if you don't have a Mexican market near you. Boil a ratio of 4:1 water to hibiscus for about five minutes, stirring, and set aside to steep. Strain and add some agave nectar (if you don't mind that) or a little clear fruit juice for sweetening if you like. You might also like it straight.

Other things you could use for a little sweetening include sweet corn, peas, and carrots. If you don't have a juicer, run them through the food processor until soupy and squish them through a cheesecloth lined strainer.

When I transitioned to spring water, during college, I often used a chemical flavor, like Crystal Light, for the first few months (what did we know?). Unless or until you find a water you like the taste of, why not make up several gallons of an infusion at a time? Keep it in the fridge in a water jar, and drain off bottlesful as you go, or, if you have a lot of bottles, fill 'em all up at once. I do that after a party with the leftovers in my water jar. I have a case of those Italian bottles with the wire bail stoppers. Recently, I also found some on the go glass water bottles on Amazon, which have silicone sleeves (hard to break) and go all parts in the dishwasher.

Oddly, honeydew and cantaloupe are supposedly some of the worst offenders. So is hibiscus, and I love that tea! Too acid. I can't get my mind around vegetable infused waters, same way I can't get my mind around cold soup. But no matter, if I want to flavor my drinking water I can use chamomile, that makes a fine iced tea. When watermelon season hits I am going to try that too. Watermelon with mint sounds tolerable. I often drink fennel and ginger teas too. Not sure where they fall on the low acid diet spectrum, but I'm not obsessive about it. My appetite is back, I'm sure it was just the fast change in seasons. Now it's in the low 60's again after being in the high 80's. I just have to work to transition into my spring/summer schedule of lighter eating in the evenings. I was happy that it was cold enough this morning for me to have one of my favorite breakfasts--oatmeal with maple syrup!

That's so weird about the melon! I know it's about the acid once it's in the digestion, but still.

I get it about the the vegetables, but cucumber is a fruit! And mint is in lovely drinks. I'm not sure how good for you a huge amount of camomile is (it has sedative properties as well as blood thinning), but you could dilute it to the point where it's just a little flavor rather than full on tea. You could do that with other herb teas as well. I bet rooibos would be good too.

Do give the parsley a chance on a day you're feeling adventurous. Just put a stalk of parsley in the water for 12 hours and take it out. It makes the water taste refreshing and slightly "green" without imparting a huge amount of flavor.

The fennel and ginger sounds good too. Again, dilute it some for drinking water so you can drink more.

Now you're making me hungry! I don't usually put anything on oatmeal, but I don't know if I could resist maple syrup!

Grainlady, good to know about the hydration. I have days where I am hungry all day, today being one of them, and nothing satisfies me. I woke up very early and started with a coffee and hadn't had water until later in the day and then the "craving to eat" went away. I didn't make the connection. I do have to make it a point to drink more water throughout the day.

I go through days where I just don't feel like putting anything together, it may last days even, but it goes away. I usually eat whatever is there but am never satisfied. I hope this hydration thing helps!

Yes, I wondered about the chamomile making me a tad too relaxed during the day. I often have a cup of chamomile tea at the end of the day, but stopped due to it being hot outside, so I should switch to drinking it cold. I have some rooibos too.
And yes, weird about cantaloupe! That and grapes and golden raisins are supposed to be on the no-no list but one of these days I may take a walk on the wild side and eat some cantaloupe, lol. Most of it off-season here is horrible anyway, sort of tastes like cucumber actually . . . Today I lucked out and a friend gifted me with a whole tray of cut up watermelon!! I definitely have to work at the hydrating!!
I'm going through a major hot flash spell and I think I may be sweating more than normal too which could also contribute to my "dehydration." I have slacked off on my soy consumption, I buy tofu but it goes bad on me. Had some this weekend, it was YUM! I don't overdo it on the soy so don't worry about that. And non-GMO always! Tofu is the only soy thing I really like. Just like with regular milk, I don't consume soy milk fast enough to keep it from going bad on me, even the little cartons. Thanks to Grainlady cueing me in on that fact that soy interferes with thyroid medication absorption, I no longer have soy on my morning cereal. In fact, I don't do much cereal other than oatmeal hot in the winter and fall. I snack on granola a bit with my yogurt, but try not to get started on it very often. My friends make their own and they say that home made granola is crack!
The main thing I have to remember is to have "dinner for lunch" and a light dinner, emphasis on vegetables. It's difficult for me to do that, I have thrown out so many vegetables because I didn't eat them soon enough and they went bad. I know I should clean and fix them up on the weekends, but my weekends end up being very hectic. Saturday I don't feel like doing anything, and then Sunday afternoons I have to go visit with my dad. I used to take Mondays off of work, but summer is my busy time since I work at an Arboretum and now is the time I need to be out doing work on the grounds almost constantly!

Any chance your budget would bend to hiring a high school kid to come prep vegetables for you? Or buying the prepped packets? Throwing them out wastes more money than paying for someone to prep them!

Re breakfast, how about some muesli with your yoghurt instead of crack? I'm not a big cereal eater but that's my choice. I can't drink milk in any quantity, but plain non-fat yoghurt is good with lumps. :)

It sounds like you have a handle on it now. It's sure to get hot again soon. Maybe now's the time to plan some dinner for lunch meals?