Ever wondered how simply changing when you eat might be the game-changer for your health and fitness goals? That's exactly what we're unpacking on today's Tea with Tina podcast. I'm sharing the untold story of how meal timing, a factor often left on the back burner, can revitalize your nutrition strategy. From night shift nurses to anyone struggling to align their meals with a hectic lifestyle, I've got practical tips drawn from personal and professional encounters that could make all the difference.
Join me as we discuss not only the "what" and "how much" of eating, but the "when" that could unlock better digestion and hunger management. I'll delve into my own journey with thyroid medication and how the mandated dinner time shift unexpectedly led to improved well-being. It's a casual conversation, but the insights are serious business for anyone looking to enhance their health journey. So grab a drink, get comfortable, and let's talk about how to take control of your meal timing and, in turn, take control of your health.
Ever wondered how simply changing when you eat might be the game-changer for your health and fitness goals? That's exactly what we're unpacking on today's Tea with Tina podcast. I'm sharing the untold story of how meal timing, a factor often left on the back burner, can revitalize your nutrition strategy. From night shift nurses to anyone struggling to align their meals with a hectic lifestyle, I've got practical tips drawn from personal and professional encounters that could make all the difference.
Join me as we discuss not only the "what" and "how much" of eating, but the "when" that could unlock better digestion and hunger management. I'll delve into my own journey with thyroid medication and how the mandated dinner time shift unexpectedly led to improved well-being. It's a casual conversation, but the insights are serious business for anyone looking to enhance their health journey. So grab a drink, get comfortable, and let's talk about how to take control of your meal timing and, in turn, take control of your health.
Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Tea with Tina podcast. Today we're going to be chatting about meal timing, maybe something you've heard about, maybe something you didn't think was a big deal, but I'm going to be showing you some realistic, applicable ways that meal timing could benefit you. Alright, let's dive in. All right, let's dive in. Welcome to the Tea with Tina, your favorite podcast, where we talk all things health, fitness, lifestyle and maybe a little bit of tea gets spilled. We chat all about this in a super casual environment. So grab your beverage of choice, sit back, relax and enjoy. All right. So meal timing.
Speaker 1:
Meal timing can have an array of benefits. For instance, one big one could be that you don't necessarily need to cut your calories more. You simply may just need to move around the timing of your meals. And as somebody who has worked with people who had crazy shifts were like night shift nurses. They worked 24 hour shifts, they were on call, maybe they were overnight workers and as somebody who had a changing schedule and continues to have an evolving schedule, I've worked, you know, your typical eight hour days. I've worked 12 hour days. I've had times where I would work for stretches at a time and I wouldn't get a break. So I really had to alter my eating, and the thing that has helped me has been meal timing. Okay, so let's kind of get into that. Meal timing is really all it is. Is the timing of your meals right, the timing of your meals? And there's actually a couple ways that we can go about this and think about this. You know there's not just like, hey, when you time your meals, you need to do it this way. I want you to more so think that you know if you have a set calorie goal in a day or something you're shooting for. It's not like, oh my god, you have to eat six small meals a day or something you're shooting for. It's not like, oh my god, you have to eat six small meals a day or you have to do three medium meals a day. It doesn't matter how you get the calories in it. More so matters if it works with you and your schedule.
Speaker 1:
The one thing I will say that I've personally noticed and I always thought was more of a myth until I experienced it myself is that eating a smaller dinner before bed and leaving a good amount of time before bed to um can really help with, I think digestion and hunger in general, because I think a lot of us under eat throughout the day and then when dinner comes we go hog wild. Or we eat a regular dinner um earlier, like maybe five, and we go to bed at 10 or even 11 or later and we're like snacking on potato chips or whatever because we weren't eating enough in the day, because we're bored, because we're still hungry. So if we eat a normal amount throughout the day and kind of taper off and maybe eat that smaller dinner, I think we would be better off. And the reason I came about this is because of my thyroid medication. So I chose to take my thyroid medication at night because you actually have to wait four hours so you can't have anything for four hours before taking this medication to make sure it's optimally absorbed In the morning. I could do it in the morning, but you have to wait like an hour and then you can't have any caffeine for at least an hour and I'm like, oh no, this can't work. So it just wouldn't work with my schedule.
Speaker 1:
So I, um, I decided to do it at night and this forced me to cut off eating. You know, around five or so, um, now there's some nights I go over a little bit like it's not, but yeah, pretty much at five I stop and I've always been somebody who's ate later. I would eat at like 7 30 at night. My dad would come home late. I'm just accustomed to eating later in the day and honestly, I didn't really notice anything. It's not like I wake up with indigestion or I have trouble sleeping or I'm super bloated, but I just noticed overall I felt like my like my body worked better. I um, like my cravings, like I cut my time off, I ate when I needed to, and I just felt better, like normal functioning, like I'm not saying it's like a holy grail thing, you're gonna lose all this weight, but I think overall you'll just notice that your body functions better.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so I going to say that and I apologize if you hear a lawnmower in the background, because my neighbor just decided to start mowing his lawn you know I always hear podcasters talk about this and I was never a victim until now. So I'm just going to kind of find a different place to podcast, but anyway, so that's a big one that I see. With that, you kind of heard me saying eating a smaller dinner. I want you to entertain the idea of what would different size meals look like for you, because I'm somebody that I've experienced an array of meal sizes I have done like. An example would be have you ever eaten like a really big breakfast out somewhere? Like maybe you get eggs and pancakes and bacon, like it's a full spread and you're not hungry all day Because it's a large breakfast. It's probably over a thousand calories thousand calories, right. But you don't eat the rest of the day because your body, so it kind of balances out and maybe you eat a small dinner or even like a normal size dinner.
Speaker 1:
I know I do this a lot when I travel. We don't feel necessarily like stopping for lunch because we have stuff to do, so we'll eat a big breakfast and a moderate to big dinner. Right, you can do this in your everyday life. There's nothing wrong with doing that. So why don't you eat a larger breakfast? A lot of the times I eat a larger breakfast 500 to 700 plus calories because I can't always eat right away.
Speaker 1:
My mornings are super busy and I might not find myself eating. I'll eat like six and I won't be able to eat again till noon. It's a long time to go without food at six and I won't be able to eat again till noon. It's a long time to go without food, at least if you're me, and so the bigger, nutritious, filled breakfast helps me get through the day. So maybe you're somebody who's a shift worker and you're running around at your job and you don't have a time to eat, so it would benefit you for whatever your first meal of the day is Because I know breakfast might not be in the morning for you guys you might need to eat a big meal or, if you just have a job like that, a bigger meal up front load the calories so you stay satisfied can help you out.
Speaker 1:
You can also kind of sneak in small, easy-to-consume meals like a protein shake, something that you can just grab on the job. My nurses, my shift workers, manual laborers who maybe, like I said, they don't get a set rest some sort of shake. You keep a bar in your pocket to munch on really fast in between doing activities. You got to think like that because I feel like so often we see you know the people who give the nutrition advice. I'm just going to be honest it's like they sit at home all day and do nothing. That's why I really have tried to.
Speaker 1:
Just from working with so many people, I saw this gap in the fitness industry. Nobody shows the reality. Everybody tries to make it look pretty and listen, I'm all about aesthetic. Everybody tries to make it look pretty and perfect and it's like listen, listen, kathy, I know you sit at home all day and you spent two hours assembling this meal to look IG worthy, but I want to show, I want to see real life scenarios, like I want to see the nurse and I actually never forgot this because I read this the nurse she said that she would sit when she had to go pee. She pulled out her protein bar and she would eat it in the stall and that was when she would get her protein and like she needed it to hold her over to lunch.
Speaker 1:
And I'm like you know what? That's a great idea, though, and that's practical, and it doesn't look sexy and it doesn't sound ideal, but it works. We need more of that and that's what that's what I'm here to give you, okay. Just, we need more that real, practical advice, okay? So that's what I want you to think. I almost, almost want you to think away. Don't think that you're wrong or you're not doing something right If your meal doesn't look like you know, kathy's pretty smoothie bowl that's probably loaded with carbs and sugar even though it's quote unquote healthy. Okay, I want you to think about how is it going to fit your life? It just, you know, sometimes you got to do what you got to do right, so we have that. You know, sometimes you got to do what you got to do right, so we have that, you know.
Speaker 1:
Can you get a quick little snack in, maybe, like there's a ton of different options. Can you have two big meals? I've heard of people eating one large meal. The Rock does this and in a way it's kind of like intermittent fasting. But you don't have to worry about intermittent fasting. It's not like a make or break, but you can do one big meal. You could do three moderate meals. You could start with a big meal in the beginning and taper off throughout the day. You can do six small meals or six moderate meals. You can do three medium meals with two snacks. So the options are endless.
Speaker 1:
But I encourage you to look at your day and see like would it benefit me to do a bigger meal first thing? Or maybe you're somebody who wakes up and you're not hungry. So it's kind of the reverse you might eat something really small just to kind of get something in your stomach, like berries or a protein shake. I always encourage you to get something. Don't go completely fasted. Maybe coffee with a protein shake in it, you know something light, and then maybe you eat a decent lunch, you have a good lunch break, you eat a really nice lunch and you have a moderate dinner, you know. So it's all about your schedule and you know.
Speaker 1:
Listen to your hunger cues. Pay attention to how you feel throughout the day. Do you crash at a certain point? Maybe that's when you need a snack. Maybe you eat lunch at noon and you go to the gym at 5 pm and you don't have anything in between. So when you get to the gym, you're feeling low energy. Maybe you need to pack a snack to eat while you're on your way to the gym. Right, there's a lot of good opportunities to time your meals.
Speaker 1:
Speaking of working out, that's another thing. If you find that you're low energy or hungry or drained around your workout, in particular pre-workout, can help, yes, but timing your pre and post-workout meals can help, and I'm a prime example of this. Okay, ever since I got diagnosed with Hashimoto's. My recovery sucks. I've tried everything. I think it's just a symptom I have.
Speaker 1:
So I will work out and my muscles will be really sore and if I do not eat within like two to three hours I will feel very weak, like my blood sugar is low and I've had to shift my nutrition where I'm either eating a full meal before my workout. I give myself like a half hour hour Everybody's digestion's different. I would say up to about two hours is a good window. A half hour to two hours before your workout, depending on how food sits in your body and what the food is, would be a good range. Okay, so I might eat a full meal to go into my lift or I just need something like a balanced snack. I need something, or I will die and then usually after I'm eating something like it'll be my full meal if I did like a pre workout, or I'll have like creatine or just a little snack and it helps kind of replenish everything that I lost and I feel like myself getting energy back. And I mean, if you're hyperglycemic, this could be something for you. You get that low blood sugar or you know.
Speaker 1:
I was never officially diagnosed, but if I don't go without eating, like I just have no energy and I crash, so I have to continue to eat throughout the day to support that. Okay, so definitely, that is probably the number one skill that most people lack is especially with fitness is just being self-aware. Teach yourself to just check it on yourself throughout the day. How do I feel when I wake up? Am I hungry? Am I not hungry? Why is that? Did I eat food the night before? So I wake up and the food's still sitting in my stomach. You know, oh, oh, I feel like I have an energy crash in the middle of my shift. Maybe I should eat something you know. So try to be self-aware, see what's going on and just find the gaps. Okay, and if you have questions about that because I hope this kind of started a thinking wheel going on in your brain I wish I could give you specific advice, but literally everybody's case is completely different, so I cannot. So hopefully this sparked, like I said, some ideas.
Speaker 1:
If you need help and you're still struggling, feel free. There's a new feature in the podcast. If you go into the description, you should be able to send me a text, send me a text with a question about the meal timing or like whatever you thought of. Like, hey, I'm, I'm a nurse and I'm thinking about doing this, this and this. You think this is a good idea? Would this be a good pre-workout snack? Whatever questions you have, send them to me and I will answer you. Okay, we're here to help. I'm here to serve. So I hope that you enjoyed this episode. I would appreciate it if you shared it somewhere Facebook, instagram, maybe shared it with a friend, whatever you want. Tag me if you share it publicly. That's how more people see this and get helped out and get more value. So thanks again for listening. I hope you have a great rest of your day and we'll chat soon. Bye.