Changing meal times

[annc3333]

 I know one of the major rules of Whole 30 is to eat within an hour of rising.  I'm struggling with this because of evening hunger.  If I get up at 5, eat at six, then eat five hours later at 11, then stretch the time to dinner to five (six hours), then by 10 when I go to bed I'm pretty hungry again.  It would work much better for me to wait to eat until about 8, then at 1 and then 6 or 7.   

 

How do other early risers make this work without a snack either in the afternoon to stretch out to dinner time or a snack before bed?

 

Or maybe I should go seven hours between breakfast at 6am, lunch at 1pm, then dinner six hours later at 7?  Seems a long time between meals but maybe this is a normal eating pattern and I am just so used to eating meals and snacks I am not used to it.

 

Thanks,

AnnC

[jmcbn]

Eating within an hour of wakening is key to rebalancing your hormones.

If this is leaving you hungry in the evenings and you find you can't eat more at each meal than you are currently eating then you may do well having a mini meal at some point after M3 - be sure to have protein & fats (& preferably veggies) though, & not fruit which will cause an insulin spike.

I usually go about 6hrs between M1 & M2 so it is do-able, but then I eat to the high end of the meal template (& then some!) and have been eating this way for some time.  Bear in mind that the meal template is the minimum recommendation and it's okay to eat more.

 

[JenX]

I frequently go 6+ hrs between meals due to my schedule. Generally breakfast is around 7, lunch is 1, 1:30'ish and dinner is around 7pm. I very rarely need a snack between (but have protein/fat/veg minimeal on hand in case i do need one). One thing that helps is if I can get a workout in over lunch. In that case I'll have a pre-workout bite at 11:30 of HB egg, or some chicken and olives, then workout from 12:30 -1:30 and eat lunch at about 2pm. its days where I don't workout that are a bit more challenging.

[annc3333]

That makes sense, having an extra hard boiled egg and some cucumber and a bit of olive oil in the late afternoon so as to have a later dinner is doable and shouldn't make a huge difference on outcomes, I wouldn't think.  

[pingu]

This all sounds like good advice. I am the other way around, with all my early meals squished together. I have breakfast at just after 7, then my lunch break is 11:30.

I try to get to bed by 9. So it is ok to have dinner at around 5 and leave it at that?

Or sometimes if I go out for a walk I won't have dinner until 6:30. What do do then? Is it ok to leave 6.5 hours between meals?

[jmcbn]

If you can go 6.5hrs between meals then that's fine - I'd probably up the fat/protein content of your meal 2 to give you a little extra staying power if this way of eating is new to you...

[pingu]

If I go for a walk, could I have a mini-meal beforehand? Feel like maybe a pre and post meal are a bit too much for a walk.

[KristenD]

It'll be interesting once school starts again because I eat breakfast at 6:30, lunch at 10:30 and dinner at 7. I am going to have to have a snack because I do Cross fit at night at 5:30 and that's way too long in between meals

[jmcbn]

If I go for a walk, could I have a mini-meal beforehand? Feel like maybe a pre and post meal are a bit too much for a walk.

A snack/mini meal and a preWO meal are much the same thing except that in a preWO the recommendation is for protein & fat, whereas the snack can be any combination of two of the three macronutrients - so , protein & carbs, protein & fat, or carbs & fat. The mini meal would be a little of everything. Ok, so a walk isn't a work-out but protein & fat is probably the best combination to go for either way IMHO.

 

It'll be interesting once school starts again because I eat breakfast at 6:30, lunch at 10:30 and dinner at 7. I am going to have to have a snack because I do Cross fit at night at 5:30 and that's way too long in between meals

If you're doing crossfit with uch a long gap between meals then you should be including a preWO meal anyways, & a post WO meal when you're done.

Protein & fat before (something like a hard boiled egg, or some chicken & mayo/olives), protein & starchy carbs after (the favourite here is chicken & sweet potato). No fruit directly before or after.