Four O'Clock

Confession:  I have not been staying within the boundaries of my A+ Diet since about the beginning of December.  A good deal of what I am eating IS within the parameters, but I have been eating wheat and sugar every day.  Frankly my tummy feels yucky, but wheat is so convenient and sugar is clearly an addiction.  There is, however, a distinctive pattern of failure that I am noticing...one that I am unsure how to change...it's Name is 4:00PM.

If I am being a conscientious eater, I can go from 5:30AM to 4:00PM without indulging in sugar or wheat without really much effort.  But, I'll-be-danged, when school gets out one of the first things I do is find some comfort food to shove into my mouth.  I've identified a few reasons.

1. As an elementary worker, I eat lunch between 11-12.  I am actually very hungry at 4:00...especially if my lunch time was on the early side.  
2. I have a natural blood sugar and serotonin dip at around 4:00pm.  Biochemically, my body is craving something to help pick it back up.  Sugar and carbs work fastest (but don't last very long).
3. Comfort.  I pacify myself with food.  By 4:00,  I've given about 300 commands, used about 4,000 words, managed 8 solid hours of classwork, and managed the learning and behavior of 23 individual students...and that's on a GOOD day.  Factor in kids with behavior problems, strange schedule changes, assemblies, shoe tying, booger wiping, tattle managing, and finding tasks to fill extra time and I am just ready to exhale at the end of my day.  It's work that I love, but it's not peaceful, quiet work. Eating a donut (or two) or dipping endlessly into a bag of pretzels LITERALLY feels like an exhale.  

          It's really difficult to give up something that physically helps soothe you.  I'm sure that's part of why some people can't quit smoking or won't give up drugs or excessive drinking.  We know it's BAD for us in the grand scheme of life, but for the moment, it helps us cope in a VERY real way.  

Sooo, I have this problem.  How do I get through 4:00?  I know that there is a different way of eating in foreign countries that would probably be more beneficial to me.  Many cultures have a built in snack break in the late afternoon.  They then don't eat dinner until 8:00-9:00 at night.  This snack break is a pause in the day...not just the wolfing down of a granola bar in the driver's seat of my SUV.  They drink tea or coffee, have a light snack, and hang out for a while...without feeling pressure to go-go-go.  That sounds GLORIOUS to me.  I imagine if I knew I had a built in snack break from 4:00-5:00, I'd be less likely to quickly cram the contents of a drive-thru bag into my mouth as I speed down the highway toward home.  (I notice my kids are also very hungry around 4:00...so they snack and then don't want to eat at 6:30, when dinner is ready)

How can I go against an entire nation's cultural norms?  CAN I go against an entire nation's cultural norms? Do I just tell my family that there is a new way of doing mealtime around our house?  Maybe.  Anybody else up for a mealtime-timing experiment?  Here we go . . .