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Meal Timing: How Much Time Is Acceptable And How Much Can One "Tweak?"


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I'm on Day 16 and things are going well. I just want to get a sense of fine tuning the spacing between meals. My specific challenge is that work days often involve a substantial break between lunch and dinner. This is not usually a problem on the days that I train after work because I have my workout fuel to bridge the gap but on rest days or morning workout days it gets tricky. Today for example is a resting day. I had breakfast at around 8 and lunch at 12:30. I was hungry for lunch but not ravenous and thus became satisfied before finishing the full portion of my beef/bison chili. However, I have to take my son to his Tai Kwon Do class after work which pushes dinner out until around 6:30. It is currently 4:30 and a few minutes ago I finished the remaining portion of chili, assuming it was better choice than eating something I hadn't planned. I probably would have been uncomfortable had I eaten all of it earlier, but would that have been better than sticking in an additional feeding? I really want to beat my old habit of grazing, but my hunger has always peaked in the late afternoon and a space of six or more hours seems like a bit too much. I had already kicked the sugar dragon before starting Whole 30, but I am a veteran of the six meals a day with unlimited veggie snacks and I'm not quite sure how and when to determine that I can really trust my body's signals.

FYI, my training is the basic CrossFit Endurance protocol: three days on, one off, with five or six weekly WODs plus a minimum of three runs (short interval, long interval, stamina).

Any help would be appreciated!

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You should be eating enough to be comfortable going at least 4 hours between meals. If you feel hungry faster, you probably need to look at increasing the fat content of meals because fat keeps you feeling full longer. However, if you get hungry, it is fine to eat. But rather than eating veggie snacks or a piece of fruit, eat a meal. Maybe a small meal, but a real one with protein, fat, and veggies.

Personally, I took more than one year to get to where I was comfortable eating just three meals per day. At first I ate 4, 5, and sometimes 6 meals per day. I work from home so cooking and eating whenever I was hungry was easy. However, as my meal composition improved, I have gotten to where three meals per day is easy and some days I could almost make do with two.

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Thanks! Today I decided to have a second cup of bulletproof coffee. I think the risk of slipping into old habits will be lessened by my not adding an extra nosh. Save for a brief period about four years ago, I have never been in the habit of drinking coffee all day long, but I can get really terrible when it comes to self-justifying extra food. I'm a pretty sound sleeper (I have literally slept through a mortar attack) and even at my highest level of coffee consumption it did not interfere with getting to sleep and staying asleep. I'm feeling a little bit more revived and less hungry now, so we'll see how it goes.

Of concern is that I am on day six of a seven day prednisone taper for the mystery rash and hydroxyzine to cool the itch. I didn't notice any troubling side effects at first but now I worry that they may be affecting my appetite and energy levels. I am especially worried that I won't be able to cut off the hydroxyzine because the itch comes back if I'm not downing it about every six hours. Today and yesterday feel like a setback after such progress. The intermittent slumps that screw up my workday that I thought I had beaten have returned along with the urge to snack as the afternoon gets late. So many years of my life have been spent on "plans" that I believe I have really lost touch with true hunger and am not a good judge of reasons why my appetite or stamina fluctuate. Do I have any hope of getting that "tiger blood" back?

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