Meal Timing?

jaybirdaz79

Howdy, MFPers!

Wondering if any of you try to match the consumption of your meals to certain times of day, and if so, have you noticed any difference in your weight loss or gain?

For instance, I've read that it's important to eat something within half an hour of waking up to kick-start your metabolism.

Or this, don't eat anything after 5...or 6....or 7.

Or the old adage, eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.

Any and all opinions and experiences welcome!

RelCanonical

I time my meals so that I'm not hungry, lol. It ends up being the opposite of that advice. I eat half my calories after 6pm. Lunch is about 40%, and breakfast is about 10% of calories. It helps me stay in a deficit.

Teabythesea_

Meal timing does not matter. You dont need to "kick start" your metabolism... your metabolism is always working. It never stops. Eat on a schedule that leaves you feeling the most satisfied, it's as simple as that.

JBanx256

Time of day is completely irrelevant in terms of weight loss. You can eat a big breakfast or no breakfast. You can eat until 6pm or you can eat all night long (FYI, I work 12-hour rotating shifts). Your body doesn't somehow just know what time it is and decide to shut down (until you die. Then weight loss doesn't really matter anymore, right?). People live in different time zones, travel around the world, observe daylight savings time, work swing shifts, etc - nobody randomly gets fat or skinny based on what their clock says. If so, everyone could just manually adjust their watches and it'd be the latest miracle fad diet.

For performance, on the other hand, there is something to meal/nutrient timing.

sardelsa

Yea I wouldn't pay any attention to that. Do what works for you and your schedule.

I eat breakfast every morning, otherwise I'm useless. I eat about half or more of my calories from 6-11pm. I go to bed shortly after eating. I do try to get 20-40g of protein at regular intervals, not sure if that has affected my results but it definitely helps regulate my hunger.

This has worked well for me adherence wise, which has positively affected my results.

JLose65

I have freed myself from any food timing logic and aside of of course counting the calories here, that’s has been the trick for me. Just past menopause, I started getting bad food cravings at night, no idea why, whether I ate welll for breakfast lunch and dinner or not. So I decided I’d just go with imy appetite since I’m really not hungry in the morning, except for needing coffee. When I read about the intermittent fasting idea I felt so freed! I slowly eat little bits during the day, then eat the most in the evening and at night when I’m hungry. So now I don’t eat so much and I hardly miss it. Of course, I’ve cut out all the chips and unhealthy snacks, but now that I’m eating healthier with goals in mind and seeing the calories go in, it’s more motivational for me. Just need to get the will to exercise back!

pierinifitness

Eating when you’re hungry can best be described as perfect meal timing if you know the difference between real hunger as opposed to an excessive desire to eat out of boredom, habit or an emptiness in your life that you fill with food.

MikePTY

Part of the reason why losing weight is harder than it needs to be is because we have assigned all of these arbitrary rules to things "don't eat after this time" "don't eat these foods" "don't eat foods with these ingredients" and so on and so forth. None of it matters, it just makes your success harder. Just focus on eating at your calorie goal, and let the rest be background noise. This can be simpler if you let it.

Daisy_Girl2019

I feel like I needed to eat 2-4 hours before I workout or else I will lose my momentum.

apullum

Eat on a schedule that works best for you. There’s no truth to myths about when you should or shouldn’t eat in order to lose weight.

neugebauer52

Over the years I have tried different approaches: from one meal a day all the way up to 3 main meals and 4 snacks in between. I am happiest with a small breakfast (about 15 % of total), lunch (25 %), dinner (45 %) and snacks (15 %) and I have no problem with the daily calories calculated by MFP for weight loss.

stricklee11

Based on my food diary, lunch tends to be the highest in calories followed by dinner then breakfast. I do have 1 snack between each meal. The days I have a high calorie lunch (600+cal) are usually the days I end up going over mostly because I didn't leave myself enough calories for the rest of the day (I eat lunch at 11:30 due to my work schedule).

Review your food diary to see if you can find a pattern and plan your meals accordingly.

HereToLose50

If you are breathing then your metabolism is working.

What works for me currently is waiting until around 11 am or 12 pm before I drink or eat anything at all. I don't have even coffee or water before then or else I get hungry soon after.

I'm doing 2 meals and whatever amount of snacks fit my calories that day. It gives me a little more freedom in food choices since I can have more calories per meal. The timing also means I eat dinner later in the day and don't have night time munchies before it's time to turn in.

In the past what worked was a larger protein filled breakfast that kept me full for hours. What helps is realizing sometimes I need to adjust my eating habits to stay on track long term. It doesn't have to be rigidly one way or all is lost - other than eating less calories than I burn overall.

lemurcat2

pjayperrin wrote: »

Wondering if any of you try to match the consumption of your meals to certain times of day, and if so, have you noticed any difference in your weight loss or gain?

It's important to eat in a way that helps you feel most satiated and not to struggle to stick with your calories. This is going to vary person to person, so it's important to pay attention to what works for you. Beyond that, timing makes very little difference.

Your metabolism is going always, and eating before bed makes no difference either.

I find I am most satisfied with 2 or 3 larger meals and no snacking, so that's what I do. When there are 3 meals they are roughly the same size (breakfast is a little smaller, but still around 400-450 cal), and I usually eat soon after waking unless I run in the morning and if I run in the morning I eat after my post-run shower. On average, I eat at 6, 12, and 9 -- I get home late, and sometimes work out in the evening.

On some days, usually when I have dinner plans, I am more likely to skip breakfast, have a smaller lunch (or on the weekends, to have meal around 10:30 or 11), and then have a larger dinner (usually pre concert or theater) earlier than my usual one.

RelCanonical

This is a pyramid kind of showing what's most important in nutrition. Timing kind of something to test if you've already got everything below it on point, but for most people on here, it's not going to be worth it. The more focused you are on peak athletic performance, the more important it is to move up the pyramid. The standard office worker probably isn't going to notice a different beyond micronutrients.

JeromeBarry1

This article, published March 6, 2019, is the clearest summary I've seen explaining all that is understood about the what and why of meal timing. It forces me to seriously consider making changes to my own life. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190304-how-meal-timings-affect-your-waistline