When should you have your first meal?
Meals should be scheduled throughout the day based on your hours of sleep and individual features such as your health, well-being and daily routine. According to many recommendations, the optimum time to have breakfast is within one hour from getting up. But is this really true? What about people who start out early, like 4 or 5 am? Everything depends on whether you feel hungry in the morning. If you are awaken by rumbling in your stomach, you should rather not postpone your breakfast. But if you feel full, you can easily have your first meal at a later time.
Can I skip breakfast?
However, it is worth considering why you are not hungry in the morning. Maybe you had your dinner too late or you ate too much? This is a mistake that should be eliminated, because overwhelming your digestive system before bedtime will affect sleep quality and interfere with the body’s ability to regenerate.
However, if you are not hungry in the morning until, let’s say, noon, despite having had your meal at the right time, you can consider skipping a typical breakfast. There is a lot of research on the impact of the first meal on body weight. Some indicate that people who ate breakfast had a lower BMI, other – that those who skipped the first meal consumed fewer calories during the day.
You may also come across analyses stating that by not eating breakfast, people tend to lose control of their appetite. Perhaps that’s what drives people into eating like a horse at night time? Let’s look into this.
How many meals a day?
Most likely, you have heard about the recommendation to have five meals a day, three main meals and two snacks. This solution suits many people, but it will not work for everyone. A study by Heden et al. showed that for obese women, having three meals rather than six a day resulted in lower insulin and triglyceride levels. However, many people feel better when they eat ‘less but more often’. This is also true for people who find it hard to meet their calorie target – having more meals makes it easier.
How often?
You must have also heard that having regular meals is a major factor in the weight loss process. This seems to be essential due to postprandial thermogenesis or blood insulin levels.
To maintain the regularity, successive meals should be eaten every 3 or 4 hours, depending on how many of them you will have. To find the right number of meals, you should consider the time you go to bed and remember to keep a two- or three-hour break between dinner and bedtime. So if you have breakfast at 7 am and go to sleep around 10 or 11 pm, your dinner should be scheduled for 8 pm at the latest. All the other meals should be scheduled between these two times.
Mind your health
A healthy person can set a number of meals that suits their individual daily routine. Things get more complicated if you have health issues. Then you need to consider a meal schedule that will not aggravate your condition. For example, if you suffer from reflux, you should eat 5-6 small meals to prevent overproduction of gastric acid, which could exacerbate your symptoms. Things are similar for gastric ulcers patients. People with metabolic disturbances, such as diabetes, insulin resistance or reactive hypoglycaemia should adjust the number and timings of meals based on examination results. Less but more often is not always the way to go.
The eating window
One might think that getting up early promotes a healthy lifestyle. And it does, unless you go to bed late. In that case, it’s more of a challenge to schedule regular meals throughout the day. But a solution exists.
An interesting method to plan and schedule your meals is what we call the ‘eating window’. It is based on time ranges within which you can eat. The most popular option is a 8-hour window alternating with 16 hours of fasting. For people who are new to this intermittent fasting method, the recommended ratio is 10 hours eating and 14 hours fasting.
This eating habit allows you to extend the time without meals in order to relieve the digestive system. Unfortunately, it will not work for everyone – if you have any health issues, your should consult your doctor first.
Health comes first
Regular meal times will help you control your appetite and make better food choices. The right number and timing of meals support maintaining a healthy weight, boost concentration and help prevent postprandial drowsiness. As a result, both your health and body will improve.
Literature:
- Gawęcki J. (ed.): Żywienie człowieka, podstawy nauki o żywieniu. Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, Warszawa, 2012
- Schoenfeld B., Aragon A., Krieger J., Effects of meal frequency on weight loss and body composition: a meta-analysis. Nutrition Reviews, Volume 73, Issue 2, 1 February 2015, Pages 69–82.
- Jakubowicz D, et al, High caloric intake at breakfast vs. dinner differentially influences weight loss of overweight and obese women. Obesity (Silver Spring). (2013)
- Pereira MA, Erickson E, McKee P, Schrankler K, Raatz SK, Lytle LA, Pellegrini AD. Breakfast frequency and quality may affect glycemia and appetite in adults and children.J Nutr. 2011 Jan;141(1):163-8
- Farshchi HR, Taylor MA, Macdonald IA. Beneficial metabolic effects of regular meal frequency on dietary thermogenesis, insulin sensitivity, and fasting lipid profiles in healthy obese women. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005 Jan;81(1):16-24
- Heden TD, Liu Y, Sims LJ, Whaley-Connell AT, Chockalingam A, Dellsperger KC, Kanaley JA.: Meal frequency differentially alters postprandial triacylglycerol and insulin concentrations in obese women. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2013 Jan;21(1):123-9