Confusion about meal timing

[jenrhea]

Hello! I am on Day 13 of my first whole 30 (after a couple of flame-outs at previous attempts).  I'm going strong with this one and loving it, but could use some help with meal timing.  If I eat every 5 hours or so, that doesn't work with regular meal times.  After week one, I adjusted my meal sizes, but the time between lunch and dinner is usually 6-7 hours and I've been eating a handful of cashews around 4 hours after lunch because I'm hungry then.

I wake up at 4:30 for my workouts and am up and out of the house for the day until I get home around 6:00 or 6:30 pm when I start cooking dinner.  Breakfast is usually around 7:00 am, lunch around 12:00ish, and dinner some where between 6:00 and 7:00 pm. 

Any suggestions on that late afternoon hunger troll? 

[ShannonM816]

So, you wake up at 4:30 and don't eat anything until 7? Start there. For best results, eat within an hour of waking. If you're waking up for a workout, have a pre-WO meal -- doesn't have to be a lot, but should include protein and fat. Hard boiled egg and mayo, leftover chicken and guac -- just a little bit of each, a few bites, not a full meal's worth. After your workout, have a post-WO of a little bit of lean protein and starchy vegetable -- chicken or tuna or egg white, plus a little sweet potato. Again, a few bites of each, eaten pretty soon after your workout -- for many people this means eating before they shower after a workout, or in the parking lot of the gym.  These are both in addition to your three meals.

For the rest of it, if breakfast around 7, lunch around noon is working for you (you could adjust your lunch a bit earlier if you need to, if that works with your schedule), and the problem is going 6 hours from lunch to dinner, that makes sense. We don't expect you to go six hours between meals. It's fine to eat something then. Usually we recommend having a mini meal of protein, fat, and vegetables, or at least two of the three. The two things I'd watch with the cashews is 1) that they can be food without brakes, or something that is easy to eat mindlessly, the kind of thing that you plan on a handful and then look down and you've eaten most of a container, and 2) they can cause digestive issues for some people. Other options that might work for you: hard boiled eggs, olives, avocado or premade compliant guacamole, chopped vegetables, meatballs, or just leftovers.

 

[jenrhea]

Thanks so much, Shannon!  I have been pre-portioning the cashews, but I see how that can be improved with your suggestion.

As for the pre-workout and post-workout, I looked at the chart and based on my current weight, I was interpreting that it wasn't recommended for me.  Does the intensity and my current weight matter in that?

[ShannonM816]

I'm not sure what chart you looked at. Pre-workout in this case is important because you really need to eat something within an hour of waking up, because that helps regulate cortisol levels -- there's a little more about that here. Post-workout is for everyone who exercises with a fair amount of intensity, and is especially important for people doing strength training. If you were doing gentle yoga or just some walking and not getting your heart rate up or working on building muscle strength, you might not need it, but it has nothing to do with your weight, it has to do with the exercise you're doing. This article has a little more about what to have post-WO and why.