Thinking is hard but rethinking..WELL! Let me tell ya!

So in life you think a lot. Don't you think? Haha! No pun intended. But the thing is how much of your thinking is productive? Gosh, for me, I would say somewhere less than 10%. I think this is true for most women. For men...hmmm...I can't say, I'm not a man. I think about all kinds of things. As Dr. Seuss says, "Think and wonder. Wonder and think."  I'll think about something and then wonder it into oblivion. There will be no wondering left. I'll research it up, down, right and left and all over the internet, talk to friends and family about it and I don't think I actually know any more than I did when I started thinking about it. In fact I usually know LESS and have a much higher level of confusion! Anybody else have this problem?

The reason I bring this up is because of my newest confusion of what to eat, when to eat, how much, why, what helps, what doesn't, what keeps your hormones in balance, what kinds of foods are best, worst, do I react better to some and not others...yada yada yada! For example, I've been "thinking" about how often I should be eating for a while now and these are the highlights of what my so-called research has turned up:

* Eating every 2-3 hours increases your metabolism.
* Eating every 2-3 hours doesn't increase your metabolism.
* Fasting for a day will help you burn more calories later.
* Fasting for a day will decrease your metabolism.
* Eat when you're hungry.
* Don't wait till you're hungry to eat.
* Digestion takes 4-5 hours.
* Wait for your food to go through the digestive process before you eat your next meal.
* Eat when you first wake up.
* Don't eat within 3 hours before you go to sleep.
* Eat 30-60 minutes before you go to sleep.

You see where I'm going with this? There's sooooo much information! Too much information! Everyone has something to say, some point to prove, and possibly something to sell! So I really just need to remember to keep me at the forefront of it all. I was trying to eat about 7 in the morning and then again at about 1 in the afternoon. I think that was just too long for me and I was way too hungry. So then I put a snack back in my morning between my breakfast and lunch. Generally speaking I don't feel a need to eat in the afternoon. But that depends on my workout plan - yoga vs. strength training vs. cardio. Sometimes I need to eat mid-afternoon/early evening and other days no, I don't need to eat until after I work out. And sometimes when I do eat before I workout I feel sick during or after so I won't be doing that anymore.

I guess what I'm trying to say is how often you eat and how much you eat is up to you. I find all these variables to be different for pretty much everyone I know:
* Number of meals - 1, 5, 8?
* Length of time between meals
* Time of first meal
* Time of last meal


 What do you do to feel your best where your meals and meal timings are concerned? I'd be curious to know.