What’s the best time to have dinner

It’s not only what you eat that matters – your body clock plays an important role in how you metabolise food.

Spanish eating habits say – Have breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and have dinner like a pauper. In Spain, it’s common for lunch to be your biggest meal of the day while evening meals tend to consist of light bites.

In the UK and US, it’s more usual to have a light lunch followed by a bigger meal in the evening. From reducing obesity to preventing cardiovascular disease, numerous studies now show that our internal body clock, or circadian rhythm, plays a powerful role in how we process food – and our overall health.

Here’s why – and how to schedule your meals to capitalise on it.

Set your clock to the right ‘time’

Marta Garaulet, from the University of Murcia in Spain observed two patients who experienced different weight-loss results, despite living together and following the exact same diet.

One had lunch around 13:00 (1pm), while the other could only eat later because of her class schedule. The student eating an earlier lunch had lost much more weight after six-weeks. This led her to investigate the intriguing possibility that meal timing itself could have a huge influence on weight loss.

Similarly, in a small randomised controlled trial, 32 healthy women ate the same meals for two weeks. Those who ate a later lunch showed poorer blood sugar control and burned fewer carbohydrates.

But why should eating the exact same food at a different time of day have such a powerful effect? Frank Scheer, a Professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, said that it’s because “we’re not the same person in the morning and the evening from a biological point of view.”

That’s because eating at a time when our body clock suggests it’s time for sleep could create a biological mismatch called “circadian misalignment.”

Eat earlier to be less hungry

The effects of later eating may extend beyond blood sugar control. Research has found that later eating made participants feel hungrier the next day by disrupting the hormones that regulate appetite and satiety. Those who ate later produced less leptin, a hormone that tells our brains when we’re full.

At the same time, meal timing influences how our bodies store fat. Instead of breaking fat down, later eating can lead our cells to store fat. Over time, this could make it more difficult for the body to stay at a healthy weight.

Meal timing may therefore be especially important for people who carry genetic variants that make them more likely to put on weight. Later eating could be linked to a higher body mass index among individuals with higher risk of obesity, while eating earlier reduced this risk.

Eat a big breakfast for better heart health

There may be heart health benefits to earlier eating too. In a study of more than 100,000 people in France, those who ate breakfast later had a higher risk of cardiovascular disease. The researchers also found that a longer overnight fast, achieved by eating earlier in the evening rather than delaying breakfast, was associated with better heart health.

This may be particularly relevant for shift workers. For those who do work at night, the advice is, therefore, to limit food intake to the daytime where possible.

Be mindful of whether you are a ‘lark’ or ‘owl’

Of course, when we eat isn’t entirely within our conscious control. Our chronotype – the now concept that some of us are morning larks or night owls – has been found to influence our mealtimes.

Morning types are more likely to follow a Mediterranean diet, whereas evening types are more likely to delay meals and eat more energy-dense foods later.

Crucially, our chronotype also influences how our bodies respond to food. Morning types tend to have earlier peaks in insulin sensitivity as well as an earlier release of melatonin than evening types, who as a result of later eating, are more vulnerable to poorer glucose control and weight gain.

Therefore, we should be more mindful of our “lark” or “owl” predisposition and that later eaters would benefit from gradually adopting earlier evening meals.

Then we also need to consider that the duration and quality of our sleep affect our hunger and cravings.

How to eat smarter

The practical advice is relatively simple. Aim to eat at regular times and eat fibre-rich carbohydrates such as whole grains, legumes (beans, peas and lentils) as well as fruit, earlier in the day when the body is better able to process them. In the evening, opt for a lighter meal, ideally one rich in protein.

In the evening, it would benefit us to include foods that help to support sleep, such as nuts and seeds, as well as tryptophan-rich sources of protein, such as chicken, salmon and tuna, as it has been shown to improve sleep quality.

So, what time is the best time to have dinner? Well, there isn’t really a best time – but ideally we should eat our largest meal earlier in the day, and have our evening meal at least three hours before we go to bed.

Source: bbc.com

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