Timing your last meal of the day

missyyclaire

It's starting to make me curious if it would be best to finish my last meal of the day 4-6 hours before going to bed. I've tried many things and do trust that if I decide to try this, I will. A dear friend that follows this WOE and who seems to have a good grip on the science of it all and I were talking at dinner tonight. If I understand correctly, if we'll finish our food 4-6 hours prior to bed, we give our body a real fighting chance at doing what it's good at while we're at rest. Mainly getting our hormones in check, especially leptin. But if we go to bed on a full tummy, we counteract the body's attempts to do what it's good at.

Any thoughts from y'all? Have any of you tried this...and did you see any difference in your weight loss?

I'm convinced a ketogenic diet is good for me, but after a 2 week stall, I'm looking to tweak....

SadKitty27

I have stalled out for longer than two weeks at a time before. In fact, I usually lose one pound during that tom, and then 2 pounds or so after it (that seems to be the trend lol.) At first when I started keto, I lost lot much faster, but it does slow down a bit as your body gets adjusted.

Honestly, I've never tried timing my meals as sometimes things get hectic at home (I even miss meals from time to time, but of course that's not intentional.) I'm not so sure if that really has any bearing on it.

Personally, I'd look through your diary and compare what foods you ate to when you lost the most consistently. If you've added new foods between said time period, then try abstaining from said new foods for a month or so, and see if the weight loss resumes (sometimes certain foods cause hangups.)

For me, dairy (especially cheese) slows me down a bit. I seem to be doing Ok with sour cream though.

I'd also check to make sure you're hitting macros, and eating keto friendly foods.

Personally, I aim for 70 % calories from fat, 25% from protein and around 5% or less from carbs. My numbers usually look something like 73 grams of fat, 55 grams of protein, and 9 carbs (those were my numbers on the 27th of this month) 73.6 of my calories came from fat, 24.6 came from protein, and 1.8 % came from carbs (that carb percent is only considering net carbs though, and my net carbs that day was only 4.)

That seems to be my sweet spot in terms of macros (there is a very knowledgeable lady who posts on these forums who said those were her targets and it worked well for her, so I gave it a try and it ended up working for me as well.) You'll have to play around and see what works for you.

Oh, and make sure you're drinking plenty of water too. Sometimes not drinking enough water will do it. Also, if you're eating a lot of processed foods, or foods high in sodium that could be it as well.

PS: The scale can lie. Make sure you're weighing yourself in the same clothes (or without) when you wake up (before eating or drinking) after you use the restroom. Also, try measuring. There have been times when the scale has gone up for me, or stayed the same, but I was losing inches / dress sizes.

bethierose

I try to eat my last meal of the day 3-5 hours before bed just because I'm doing intermittent fasting and my timing works out that way. I have only been doing that as long as I've been doing IF, so not sure if it's one or the other, or both..

Jasmine_James

I kind of stalled after my first month or so on keto. Went from 175 to the low 160s pretty quickly and then just couldn't get into the 150s during February or March. Then I introduced bulletproof coffee, and didn't realize but along with that started intermittent fasting. I usually eat dinner between 6 to 7 p.m. and then I have my bulletproof coffee in the morning and I'm usually not hungry until noon. I haven't been forcing this -- just listening to my body. But in April I have lost 5 pounds and have been consistently around 155 (I'm on the cusp of seeing 153-154 on the scale; I can just tell that I will see those low 150s later this week).

Like SadKitty, I've also had to cut back on cheese. I haven't had to eliminate it. I have one serving of cheese every day, actually. But for a time I was eating cheese with 2 or 3 meals a day and that seemed to be too much for me.

So, I would say listen to your body but IF has helped me get through my stalled period.

P.S. I consider myself intermittent fasting even though I have bulletproof coffee in the morning -- but some people might say that doesn't count; that the coffee is like a food. So, I'm not sure if I really qualify as IF but I'm only chewing between noon and 6-7 p.m. every day.

Jasmine_James

Oh, also, I would say if anything I have learned that when you stall you just need to change things up. Keep your body guessing. Eat more. Do a new form of exercise. Eat less. Eat differently. Whatever it is, I have found that just throwing my body some type of curve ball usually breaks the stall.