Large lunch small dinner?

ipiddock

Just wondering if there is any science to this? Traditionally we (humans) eat more in our evening meal than any other meal during the day, probably in both quantity and calorific terms. Then soon after we retire to bed. Is that a waste of fuel? Does that food metabolise slower? It feels right to maybe have a larger lunch than a dinner. I usually work out of an evening after work, probably starting around 7pm and then getting home around 9-930pm. The last thing I want to do is eat a large dinner and then sleep, just doesn't feel right. Anybody have any thoughts on this?

dleon00

This is just my opinion: I do not believe that eating a large lunch and a small dinner is good for you. I try and eat the same amount for every meal. It also depends on how active you are and what your work out consists of; running, walking, weight training, etc. if your gym time or cardio is at night and your dinner time is right after, than your body is ready to replenish the fuel its last and your metabolism will keep working round the clock. For me I run or do the Insanity program and weight train everyday. I also eat a PB& J sandwhich with a protein shake or just a protein shake depending right before i go to bed and I still have lost weight or maintained the weight that I lossed. I am a Soldier deployed to Afghanistan, so we have to pick and choose what to eat and how much to eat if we want to be successful. Good luck on your journey and I hope this reply may help.

Martucha123

not all humans have larger dinner then lunch
in Poland we have huge lunch and small dinner
in Spain and Brasil at least where I am /was eating lunch was always bigger then dinner.

and no, it's not a waste, your body can store lots of food,
don't worry about it, you can base meal size on your personal preferences, your body will handle the rest

KANGOOJUMPS

hmm,,my biggest is for breakfast,,, my lunch is very light, works for me!, and to think, i used to skip brekkie and have nothing!, oh its glorious to get healthy!, dinner is medium.

LeggyKettleBabe

I usually have bout 65% of calories at lunch and lighter dinner because of early morning workouts and morning weigh ins. Also its hard to sleep well when your digesting a huge meal.

avt85

because I go the gym after work, I tend to have a light breakfast and lunch (roughly about 200-300 calories each) and then use the rest of my allowance on dinner (where I am also prone to binge--so in a way this kinda stops that).
I've been doing that since I joined MFP in March and have lost all my weight doing the exact same thing now and still doing it.

inkandsheep

I read this recently, too and have been trying it out on a few days... It does make sense in terms of when we need the most fuel for our bodies! I think sometimes especially if you work, it's just more difficult to have a bigger, hot meal for lunch whereas in the evenings it's easier to cook at home and dinner naturally ends up being bigger than lunch.

Mostly my breakfast, lunch and dinner are all around 320 calories and then I end up having about 250-300 calories worth of healthy snacks throughout the day. This way of eating just works better for me than having big meals and no snacks.

ChristineS_51

You may have heard the saying
"Breakfast like a king; lunch like a prince; dinner like a pauper" (or something like that) :laugh: I think that is subscribing to the idea that you should eat more early in the day so your metabolism can get a kick start and have lots of fuel during the more active part of the day. However, now that people go to gym etc it may not be so important?

I never used to eat breakfast. Now I eat a big breakfast, try and have fewer carbs later in the day. Seems to have worked for me - lost my weight since Christmas 2011.

PercivalHackworth

not all humans have larger dinner then lunch
in Poland we have huge lunch and small dinner
in Spain and Brasil at least where I am /was eating lunch was always bigger then dinner.

and no, it's not a waste, your body can store lots of food,
don't worry about it, you can base meal size on your personal preferences, your body will handle the rest

what my friend said.
Cultural habits pre-dominate over body needs, that's a fact.

When it comes to energy needs, they find themselves sucked by those very same Cultural habits. The body adapts, fortunately to the situation it finds himself to be. Hormonal systems adapts - regulates hunger/ satiety in accordance to what it receives.

What really matters is providing it what it needs, meals are a convention, food a condition :-)

sgarrard01

IT DOES NOT MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Everyone on here is most likely eating under there BMR, this is the basic amount of calories you need if your doing nothing all day apart from lying in a coma, its the fuel you need to run your brain, heart, digestion etc. This process goes on for 24hrs a day. If your eating under your BMR it makes no difference when you eat, Obdviously if you eat dinner 1hr before bed than your not going to sleep aswell or feel bloated in the morning as your stomach has been working all night! Your body is burning what you eat when it can to add into the fat/lean mass it's digesting to make up the difference to run itself!. It doesnt make a difference at low calorie levels.

Of course, the reverse can be said for people who eat 90-100% of their calories in one meal in the evening! (not a good idea).

If your unsure, do your own reasearch, theres lots of studies which have been conducted in this area, and i think only 1 out of all of them concluded that it's bad for you, all the others concluded that it doesnt make a difference.

tigersword

Well, food timing makes no difference. If you want to be technical, humans evolved to eat 1 gigantic meal every few days, and live off the fat stores from that meal until the next one.

About 10,000 years ago, at the advent of agriculture, humans started averaging one meal per day.

It wasn't until the late 1700's/early 1800's that people actually started to eat more than once during the day. So from an evolutionary standpoint, meal timing doesn't make any difference as far as your health goes. Contrary to what the fear mongers want you to believe, the human body is incredibly well adapted to just about any method of eating you want to use.

capricorn0120

I think it's really up to you. The only thing I would suggest would be to have dinner before 8 unless of course you tend to be active after that time.

My breakfast is normally 250- 300 calories, lunch 300-400 and dinner 400-500 calories. I adjust what I eat at dinner depending on how much I've consumed at breakfast and dinner.

FITnFIRM4LIFE

My biggest meal is at night 7-9pm,. Maintained weight a year, never had a problem eating at that time.

billsica

There is plenty of science on this.
google broscience. I believe they are a team of researches into all of these questions and more.

Ok, so eat at least 6 small meals a day.

dont eat after 7pm

don't mix peas with mashed potatoes.

rondom41

Makes sense to me!

skinnyinnotime

I don't think it matters, you should eat how suits you best. My dinner is usually the largest meal of the day, although sometimes at weekends if we have a big lunch I'm just not hungry enough later to have a big dinner too.

stfuriada

Calories at the end of the day matters.

TheVimFuego

There is plenty of science on this.
google broscience. I believe they are a team of researches into all of these questions and more.

Ok, so eat at least 6 small meals a day.

dont eat after 7pm

don't mix peas with mashed potatoes.

Made me smile

I think there is some logic in the 'Breakfast like a king ...' line of thinking ... But personally I delay 'breakfast' until later in the day, it just suits me more ... Everyone is different ...

kneazle22

It is my personal belief that breakfast should be your biggest meal of the day you are giving your body fuel to get up and get moving. On the oppisite end of the spectrum, your body still need calories to burn in stasis, but the quantitiy is not as significant, lunch is our chance to boost our energy for the remainder of the day. That being said at the end of the day you should always eat what you need to meet your calorie intake for that day, your body needs those nutrients, so I guess in short I find if i eat larger meals at lunch it gets me through the rest of the day with plenty of energy.

mjsunshine16

I think it is based on your own bodies needs. Everyone is different and needs to learn what works for them.

Sidesteal

All that matters is that over the course of time, fat oxidation exceeds fat storage. This happens regardless of what both of these processes do in the short term, if you're eating in a calorie deficit.

Hypothetically speaking, even if you only ate before bed and never any other time, you'd by default, oxidize fat during the day when you're not eating.

It
Makes
No
Damn
Difference


This assumes equal amount of food and equal activity, so that we are only talking about the non-behavioral effects of the meal timing itself.

AmyB_1992

Just wondering if there is any science to this? Traditionally we (humans) eat more in our evening meal than any other meal during the day, probably in both quantity and calorific terms. Then soon after we retire to bed. Is that a waste of fuel? Does that food metabolise slower? It feels right to maybe have a larger lunch than a dinner. I usually work out of an evening after work, probably starting around 7pm and then getting home around 9-930pm. The last thing I want to do is eat a large dinner and then sleep, just doesn't feel right. Anybody have any thoughts on this?

I've been brought up having a small lunch and a large dinner, on my days off I get up at about 11 so I don't really have time to cook lunch, and we have dinner at around half 4-5pm so it's not really before we go to bed.

marinweb

All that matters is that over the course of time, fat oxidation exceeds fat storage. This happens regardless of what both of these processes do in the short term, if you're eating in a calorie deficit.

It
Makes
No
Damn
Difference

The more I read, the more this seems the case. "Generally Accepted" fitness rules don't necessarily mean they are right. Meal timing seems to be more of a performance thing (eg. more energy for workouts if you eat carbs before) than a body composition thing.

It makes sense. Anyone really think hunting man had the luxury of 3 - 6 meals a day?

JanSmelly

I eat a small breakfast and a small lunch, a small snack, and then a huge dinner with a snack after dinner. Breakfast isn't my favorite meal of the day, but I am hungry so I eat enough to get me through. I workout after lunch when the kids go down for nap and I don't really want to throw up my food. We have homemade family dinners every night and that is where I like to spend my calories. For me it's a combination of enjoying my cooking and spending time as a family and having a big dinner satisfies both.

auroranflash

I purposefully eat light during the day so I can have lots of calories left for dinner, since, when I cook, I just estimate the calorie counts the best I can.. I am usually hungriest in the evening, anyway... I've been doing that for the past two months, at least. It has worked out fine for me.

All of the super smart people who have achieved great success on here have said that it doesn't matter, and I believe them (even if years of saboteur thinking from websites says differently).

ElizabethRoad

The theory of eating your largest meal earlier in the day makes perfect sense if the body resets at night. But that's not what happens. If you eat a large meal right before you go to bed and don't burn it all off during sleep, you'll still have that fuel available the next morning.

vlynnvale

I used to prefer the large lunch/small dinner option because of exactly what you're saying. Just relaxing after eating a large dinner didn't help in my progress.
But now that I'm cooking for my family every night (not on a meal plan and like to EAT!), I save my biggest calorie meal for dinner and work out beforehand to give my metabolism a boost.

elliott82

My trainer suggested we eat five small meals of protein and carbs throughout the day (veggies and fruits being most of the carbs) and then for your last meal eat a protein and a fat (peanut butter, nuts, avocado, cheese). he said since it takes longer for the fat to break up in your body, you will be working it off in your sleep.

londoneye

Just wondering if there is any science to this? Traditionally we (humans) eat more in our evening meal than any other meal during the day, probably in both quantity and calorific terms. Then soon after we retire to bed.

You've clearly never lived in Spain! Large, late lunch around 2 or 3, then a snack for dinner around 10pm. I much prefer it!

iLoveMyPitbull1225

Personally, I eat light all day and save about 600-700 calories for dinner, and I work out in the evenings after work. So that leaves me with somewhere around 1000-1200 ish cals left for the rest of my day. I dont eat back all of my excersise calories. I dont think it is a waste of fuel. You have to replenish and nourish your body, and then you sleep (or at least you are SUPPOSED to) for 8 hours. Thats along time to go without eating, and thats if you eat as soon as you wake up.

tigersword

My trainer suggested we eat five small meals of protein and carbs throughout the day (veggies and fruits being most of the carbs) and then for your last meal eat a protein and a fat (peanut butter, nuts, avocado, cheese). he said since it takes longer for the fat to break up in your body, you will be working it off in your sleep.

Total myth, with no science at all to back it up. Trainers have zero education on nutrition, that's the absolute last person I'd look to for advice.