I heard this expression with regards to meal timing the other day and had to share. A fellow sports dietitian suggested to her athletes not to make their day “bottom heavy” – meaning, do not save all your calories and food for the end of the day. Such a good visual when you think about planning your day.

Visualize your day as steady and consistent – a tube filled with water flowing through at an even rate. If you do not plan your meals correctly, the water flows too fast through the tube and there is a clog at the end. 

You all know by now what a stickler I am about meal timing – I think it could change the word! Let us use this as a moment to refresh. I believe the WHEN of eating is more important than the WHAT. Often if you figure out the WHEN, the WHAT sorts itself out.

I highly encourage you to:

  • Eat within an hour of waking
  • Eat every 3-4 hours thereafter
  • Eat within an hour pre and post workout

I notice all the time that most of our poor food decisions are due to not appropriately planning the day.If you go too long without food our metabolism does not work efficiently and then when you do decide to eat, we usually eat too much and store more of that food as fat. 

Visualize your day and spread out your calories more evenly to prevent the see-saw from being heavy on one side or loading all the calories too late in the day to make your day bottom heavy.

When you plan your meals better, your energy improves, you will likely achieve your ideal weight, cravings subside and it is much easier to think about food in a rational way. If you wait too long between meals you get hangry and can rarely make a good decision when you are hungry…and angry. 

Set alarms in your phone, set meal times in your calendar, think about your day the night before…set yourself up for success. Do not make your day bottom heavy – spread those meals out!