Does Nutrient Timing and Meal Timing Matter?

While the diet wars may rage on, it's pretty universally accepted that what you eat matters when it comes to weight management. In other words, out-eating our body's energy needs leads to weight gain, and eating less than our body needs to go about its business leads to weight loss.

Diets high in sugary drinks, fast food and empty-calorie snacks typically promote weight gain, while those higher in fiber-containing fruits, veggies and other plant based foods typically support a more healthy body weight.

What has traditionally been less clear, however, is to what extent – if any – when we eat plays a role in the weight equation. 

Eating a wholesome, high-protein breakfast means avoiding mid-morning junk food snacks at the office and eating the wholesome lunch we packed at home (instead of bingeing on fast food), then you better believe meal timing matters.

And if cutting ourselves off after dinner means not eating high-calorie snack foods -- like chips, ice cream, and other highly palatable garbage that we’re likely to overeat -- then heck yes meal timing is important.

But as you can see, it’s less about the when as it is how much.

What recent research is revealing about meal timing is that it seems like condensing the total amount of time we eat during the day seems to have some serious health benefits. For example, limiting your eating window to 8 hours (say, from 10am to 6pm) seems to be better than the typical 12- to 14-hour window.

If you are lean and simply want to maintain your existing body composition, consuming more carbohydrates throughout the day will likely be fine.

If you want to lose body fat, first control overall food intake, then aim to consume a majority of carb dense foods during and after exercise sessions (for about 3 hours after). Outside of the 3 hour window consume primarily protein and fat, while consuming fewer carb dense foods (25% of less of meal made up of carb dense foods).

If you want to gain muscle, the nutrient timing principles are similar — simply add more calories overall.

In all cases: Assess your progress and adjust as necessary.

Disclaimer: The information on this POST is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional advice. The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. All content, including text, graphics, images and information, contained on or available through this article is for general information purposes / educational purposes only, and to ensue discussion or debate.  

Thank you …I've long counselled my patients seeking weight loss to front-load their calories (and carbs) to the early part of the day – an eating pattern I'd describe as "breakfast like a prince, lunch like a king, dinner like a pauper."  

This pattern of eating generally serves my patients well, being easy to follow, facilitating greater hunger control throughout the day and ultimately, producing weight loss that doesn't require extreme, unsustainable measures such as low-carb dieting, intermittent fasting or juice-only "cleanses." 

I came to this approach based on the observation that when my patients skimp on breakfast and get stingy with calories and carbs at lunch, their excessive hunger and feelings of deprivation typically result in feeling starved by mid-afternoon and dinnertime. 

The consequence? Overeating at dinner by leaps and bounds, and incessant grazing after dinner despite being physiologically full, almost like they've got a sweet itch that just can't get scratched. 

Want to add word or two?

Given the terrific results my patients experience, I continue to employ this overall approach to weight loss, though the emerging scientific research has shifted my thinking in terms of why it seems to work so well.

By consuming most of one's calories in the early part of the day, well within a 12 -our window of "first bite," do my patients lose weight as the result of minimizing the amount of calories consumed once the 12 hour window has closed?

Or is there a separate mechanism at work that would explain why bigger breakfasts are metabolized more efficiently than bigger dinners?

I expect that more and more researchers will start riffing on the studies described above, attempting to replicate the findings with more diverse populations and over longer periods of time.

Others will no doubt attempt to identify the precise biological mechanism that explains these results and can shed informative light into whether there are optimal eating patterns for weight control. There are still many questions that remain unanswered, but I, for one, am watching this space closely. 

But for now, it seems reasonable to believe that when we eat – not just what we eat – is indeed likely to matter in terms of weight and metabolic health.

Your comment ….?

And interestingly, timing your eating window to daylight hours may also have some health advantages by syncing up circadian rhythms.

On a related note, when it comes to meal frequency, the old “rule” that you should be eating 5 - 6 meals spaced every 2 - 3 hours doesn’t have much, if any, scientific backing. In fact, most current research suggests that lower meal frequencies (2 - 4 feedings) during a condensed time period is probably a better idea for most people.

When you exercise regularly, the body is primed for fat gain or fat loss just as it’s primed for muscle gain or muscle loss during specific times of the day. 

The wrong foods at the wrong times sabotage your efforts in the gym. The right foods at the right times enhance those efforts.

Once we account for energy balance, timing nutrient intake can up-regulate metabolism, shift hormonal profile, and alter body composition.

Manipulating nutrient intake can also help someone take advantage of certain anabolic hormones, namely insulin.

Nutrient timing is an important strategy, but it’s not for everyone.

If you’re new to healthy eating, don’t worry about timing for now. Start by improving the overall quality of your food and incorporating the basic habits into your life. Once you build a foundation of nutritious eating, then consider adding the nutrient timing habit.

Should I stop eating after 8:00 pm?

Which is better: to eat 3 or 6 meals a day?

Does it really matter if I skip breakfast?  

Because meals can be a central part of our social life-and busy schedules can contribute to chaotic eating patterns, many disregard the fact that food is more than just fuel. When (and what) you eat impacts your future health (and today's performance).

Food consumption affects the central clock in your brain. This clock controls circadian rhythms and impacts all aspects of metabolism, including how your organs function.  

Restricting daytime food and eating in chaotic patterns disrupts normal biological rhythms. The end result: erratic meal timing can impact the development of cardiovascular disease CVD), type-2 diabetes and obesity.

Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day