For a proper functioning of your bodily systems, right food at the right time is vital. We generally focus on what to eat but generally forget to evaluate when to eat, specifically when it comes to size of your meals.
Fuelling & feeding your body is a unique & personalised process & the factors that impact your diet varies from individual to individual. What time you get, what you do before the breakfast-workout, making kids read for school & what time you start your work are all the factors to be included while deciding. All these activities require energy. Besides, we have to perform a lot of activities during the day whether you sit at a desk, deliver a report, meet clients, how you spend your lunch break & if your one day differs from the other- all these define your daily energy requirement.
When we ask the obvious question- when should we have the biggest meal of the day- it is driven by your personal routine & what you want to achieve for your body.
Whatever your individual fitness goals may be- you want to lose weight, build muscle or maintain fitness level, your body needs fuel throughout the day so that you have enough energy to carry out your workout, daily professional & personal chores- in effect getting important things done.
The worst feeling is after having completed a small meal a while ago, you are heading for a meeting & your stomach says feed me! So why does this happen? Probably you are having your biggest meal at wrong time of the day
A recent study shows that ingested calories are utilized more efficiently during morning hours rather than evening hours & this is manifested through improved weight loss even with iso-energetic calorie intake. Breakfast as the biggest meal is considered to be the best strategy for weight control. However if you train at 4 am as I do, eating a big breakfast is not possible (although I generally eat my breakfast at 8 am since I workout empty stomach). However, if you wake up at 5 & train at 8, a big breakfast can become part of your daily routine. If you are controlling your weight, having a big breakfast is a good idea.
Thinking of eating a lot during lunch?
Most of us do since we need a nice break from our workday to sit & have a meal & stock up energy in a big way. For some of us having a big lunch is our dopamine that helps us relieve our workplace stress. However, be mindful of what makes up the basis of your meal. If your plate is full of fast digesting carbs, it will make you feel tired during the middle of the day (after lunch dizziness). However, if your lunch consists of protein & veg, you will feel energetic for the rest of the day. It is important to note that having a big lunch is less efficient than a big breakfast, however it certainly has positive benefits when compared with having a big dinner.
According to another recent study, having dinner as their largest meal tends to find it easier to maintain muscle mass during dieting. It all depends on your personal goals. So if you are looking to bulk up, having dinner as the largest meal is a great option. However, you should remember while making dinner your biggest meal that digestion of food roughly takes 3 hours & you may not be awake that long. So if dinner is your biggest meal of the day but you haven’t digested the food fully, there are higher chances that it can negatively impact your sleep.
Eating a large meal before going to bed can lead to bloating & stomach discomfort & that will impact your sleep. Besides, during night your sleep hormone, melatonin activates which suppresses insulin production. So if you are having high carbs during dinner, it will spike your sugar level since the glucose cannot be exported freely to different parts of the body. We have discussed this in our earlier blog on sleep hormone.
If you suffer from insomnia or sleep apnea, consider making dinner your smallest meal which will improve the quality of sleep. Getting proper sleep is as important as nutrition or workout.
A lot of us eagerly wait for snack time more than we wait for sleep time. We get roughly 80% of calories from meals & balance 20% from snacks. Given that 1/5th of our daily calorie intake comes from snacks, we have to make sure that our snacks do not become the biggest meal of the day. Therefore, be careful what you snack throughout the day. Consider the following if you snack:
- Instead of energy bar, consider fruits & nuts
- Instead of cookies, consider a home made mix that consists of raisins, nuts, cranberries & seeds. Make sure that this mix is limited to 30 gram given that it is calorie dense.
One-size-fits-all model doesn’t work while evaluating when we should eat our biggest meal. Your personal fitness goals will determine your biggest meal of the day. We are all unique with bodies that respond differently to certain environments.
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