Setting Up Your Eating Timeline
Using hunger and fullness cues to dictate one’s eating habits has become a popular strategy for reorienting hunger away from external prompts (i.e., “The clock says 12 pm, so it’s time to eat.”, “My Fitness Pal says I have 300 calories left in my budget, so I’m allowed to eat.”) to internal signals. This is an important skill to practice, since the body arguably does the best job at calorie counting.
However, discussions about hunger cues and intuitive eating (another important skill to practice) may leave people with the impression that eating behaviors are supposed to be unstructured. Perhaps meals should be less planned and scheduled and more “go with the flow” of hunger. This begs the question: should one have an “eating pattern”, or should daily eating be without a format?
Dr. Cal Newport, Ph.D. is a professor of computer science at Georgetown University and bestselling author of numerous books on focus and productivity. Although he does not speak about diet or nutrition, he does lean-into the rich benefits of daily structure for removing distraction and inviting-in deep work and productivity. Notably, he encourages time blocking: “you give your time a job, as opposed to having a [to-do] list”. Essentially, proactively planning-out one’s day leads to better outcomes than “going with the flow” of checking-off a to-do list.
Being proactive about daily eating patterns may also offer benefits.
Nancy Clark, sports dietitian and best selling author of Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook, also believes in the benefits of proactively setting up an eating schedule. Nancy coined the concept of an “eating timeline” to promote a healthy eating pattern that supports people’s daily activities. While many people skimp on earlier meals in the day (i.e., breakfast, lunch) only to gorge on food at the end of the day (i.e., snacks before dinner, large dinner portions, after-dinner munchies), setting up an eating timeline creates a balanced, rhythmic intake of food throughout the day.
Creating an eating timeline encourages stable food intake during the active parts of the day in order to fuel daily activities and appropriately satisfy hunger. This pattern of eating aligns well with our circadian rhythms, which are closely tied to our metabolism and digestive system. For example, if a person tends to wake up at 7am and head to bed around 10pm, they might choose to eat at 8am, 12pm, 4pm and 8pm. Ideally, each meal would contain an even distribution of the calories and other nutrients that person requires each day.
What’s more, following an eating timeline does not negate the importance of using hunger and fullness cues to dictate eating. In fact, having an eating timeline can help a person to better identify and tune-into their internal hunger and fullness cues. Without an eating timeline, it is common to forego earlier meals due to an increased ability to ignore hunger in the morning hours, only to disregard one’s fullness cues in the evening due to a decreased ability to appropriately respond to satiety. With an eating timeline in place, hunger and fullness become more rhythmic and more easily identifiable.
Rather than relying on hunger to dictate when to eat, use hunger and fullness cues to dictate how much to eat at each meal. This can lead to improved energy throughout the day, increased meal satisfaction, more enjoyment of exercise, less irritability, better weight management, and better sleep.
Just as Dr. Cal Newport touts time blocking for increased productivity, proactively blocking-off meal times during the day can lead to an improved relationship with food and overall better health outcomes.
To learn more about your individual nutrient needs and how to build them into an eating timeline, consider working with me! Schedule a FREE Discovery Call here to learn more.