How to improve meal timings
We often worry about what we should eat when it comes to trying to control digestive symptoms, but did you know that when you eat could also be affecting your digestion and, ultimately, your overall health? Some tips to help improve meal timings are as follows:
- Plan breakfast well
- Snack if need be, but not unnecessarily
- Eat a good lunch, preferably no later than 4-5 hours after your breakfast
- Have dinner as early as possible
- Don't eat after 6pm
- Get into a good routine and stick with it.
Throughout this blog I go into these tips in more detail, so you can work on improving your digestion by implementing better routines.
Could better meal timings improve your digestion?
1. Plan breakfast well
Whilst there has been much debate about whether or not you should opt for breakfast in the morning, the general consensus is, yes, you should. However, if you don't always feel like eating first thing, this isn't necessarily an issue as some recent research has also suggested that intermittent fasting could be a beneficial tactic.
Whilst there are different variations of intermittent fasting, a popular version is to simply extend the overnight fast up to 12-16 hours. This means eating breakfast slightly later in the morning which could, in turn, allow for better insulin sensitivity, blood sugar responses, and even weight loss.
Interestingly, however, there is also a suggestion that this pattern of eating could allow for better digestive function, including minimising some of the stubborn symptoms associated with IBS such as abdominal discomfort, bloating, diarrhoea, and nausea.1 A separate study also suggests that extending the overnight fast could be protective of your liver, one of our key digestive organs.2
After all, we are designed to have breaks from eating and, in Western societies, food has never been as readily available as it is nowadays! Fasting naturally gives your digestive system time to process the food which is already there, more efficiently - but it also gives crucial repair and regeneration processes the chance to take place. So, plan those breakfasts timings well!
If you wake up hungry and start feeling light-headed if you don't eat fairly quickly, then this type of morning fasting is not for you. The key to the best health for you personally is to experiment with what suits your body best – some people need an early breakfast to get them going.
2. Snack if need be, but not unnecessarily
Snacks are another big debate when it comes to people attempting to eat healthily and improve their diet, countering bad habits. So, should we be snacking or could it be detrimental?
Generally, if we're planning good meals (which are well-balanced, with a good combination of complex carbohydrates, fibre, protein and healthy fats), the need to snack should be somewhat reduced. However, that's not to say that healthy snacks aren't allowed.
On average, it takes around 3-4 hours for your stomach to empty of its latest meal. Now, this can vary depending on how much we eat and which types of food, as liquid foods such as soups will generally empty from the stomach quickly. Therefore, depending on content of your most recent meal, a healthy snack can help tide you over until your next offering, preventing your blood sugar levels from dropping.
Below I've listed some recipe ideas for healthy snacks, including sources of protein and essential fatty acids in order to help keep you feeling full for longer:
Salted Caramel Bliss Balls
Caramelised Onion Houmous
Savoury Egg Muffins
Roasted Spicy Nut Mix
3. Eat a good lunch, preferably no later than 4-5 hours after your breakfast
When it comes to lunch, we have reason to believe that eating a more substantial meal is a better tactic than eating heavily later in the day. For one thing, our insulin sensitivity is thought to be better earlier in the day (so we're better able to handle those carbs); but also, this gives your digestive system more time to process your meal, rather than trying to deal with a large meal when your body should be preparing for sleep.
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, much of the attention is diverted towards our digestive organs (including the stomach) earlier in the day, which falls nicely in line with the advice to eat more around lunch time and opt for a lighter dinner. Also, it seems that eating lunch too late in the day could also prove problematic. In a weight loss trial, those eating lunch before 3pm, compared to those who opted for lunch after this time, were more successful in their weight loss efforts.3 Remember that it takes around 3-4 hours for a relatively light meal to leave the stomach; so unless you had a massive or very late breakfast you will be ready for lunch around 4 hours later.
So, my advice is not to have lunch too late. You should make an effort to eat, say, between 11am and 1pm, which means you don't risk your blood sugar levels falling off too much after breakfast. Including good sources of protein and healthy fats in your lunch will help to see you through much of the rest of the day, avoiding uncomfortable hunger pangs come the afternoon.
4. Have dinner as early as possible
Whilst it helps to plan the majority of your calories into the earlier hours of the day, many of us are still in the habit to having a final meal of the day around 5-6pm. My advice is to avoid eating any later than this, as we want our final meal of the day to be at least 3 hours before bed time.
Having a reasonable rest before heading off to bed gives your stomach time to process your latest meal and the majority of gastric emptying will have occurred before you settle down for the night. This will not only help to protect against tricky symptoms such as acid reflux or heartburn, but it may also have other benefits in terms of more general digestive and overall health, as I go on to explore next.
Top tip: if you do find that symptoms of acid reflux bother you come evening time, supporting your stomach with a digestive complex such as Digestisan may be helpful.
My Top Tip: Take 15-20 drops of Digestisan in a little water 3 times daily. I recommend taking it before meals to help prep the digestive system and combat digestive issues that might spring up after eating.
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5. Don't eat after 6pm
Is it fact or simply a myth that we should refrain from eating after 6pm? Well, as I mention above, it seems that refraining from eating after this time is actually a habit that could help support your digestion and overall health, and there are at least a few explanations as to why this might be beneficial:
- Firstly, from a practical point of view, deciding firmly that we stop eating earlier in the day means we're less likely to consider overindulging by adding an extra meal or snack into the mix. Eating beyond dinner time will only add to your daily calorie count, so you may also be likely to struggle to manage a healthy weight if this is a regular habit. This means that a fairly simple way to avoid unwanted extra pounds is to implement the '6 o'clock rule'.
- Next, by eating your last meal of the day no later than 6pm and not being tempted to eat again until the next morning, you're extending the overnight fast as discussed above, giving your digestion time to rest and recuperate. As we saw, this could give you a better chance of achieving a decent period of fasting and could potentially ease a number of symptoms, including many of those that we associate with digestive conditions such as IBS.1 This is a better option for people who need breakfast first thing on waking.
- Finally, there seem to be some metabolic advantages to refraining from eating too late at night. Whilst total calorie consumption is an important consideration, there may be more to it than that. Research suggests that we may be better able to handle and process carbs earlier in the day (read my blog on this topic for more info); and another trial suggests that more energy may be used up whilst processing meals earlier in the day rather than later at night4- good news for bloating and problem waistlines, perhaps?
6. Get into a good routine and stick with it
As with all areas of nutrition, individual differences are thought to be at play, to some extent, in terms of how we respond to different foods and regimes; therefore it's important to stick to what works well for you.
As well as individual differences, as a species we are thought to respond well to certain routines. This is why, for example, we respond well to sleeping at night when it's dark and being more active during the day when it's light. These patterns of behaviour help us to maintain healthy circadian rhythms which, in turn, are also thought to positively affect our metabolism.
Therefore, whilst we may experience social jetlag if our sleep patterns become disturbed, a phenomenon called metabolic jetlag may occur if our daily rhythms are messed up, which could have negative implications for our digestion, metabolism and, ultimately, our waistlines.5 Ever feel more bloated, uncomfortable or even sick if you eat out of step with your normal routines? This could be why!
This is why skipping meals as part of fad diets may not do our waistlines any good in the long run. So, my advice is to get into the habit of implementing some of the timings mentioned throughout this blog and stick with them in order to help support your digestion and metabolism.
1. https://www.avogel.co.uk/food/what-is-intermittent-fasting/
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22608008
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3756673/
4. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/oby.20460
5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3731391/
