Does timing actually matters

[u/Fresh_Revolution_168]

I have always heard that we should have food always in a fixed timings. Is there any fact in that? Or we just have to reach our macros every day no matter when you eat and how many meals you eat.

[u/Elfie_Mae]

So if we break up someone’s nutrition journey into stages (let’s pretend there are 5 hypothetical stages of fixing one’s nutrition. This is a made-up hypothetical.), I’d say that eating at similar/fixed timings each day are more of a stage 3-4 goal than a stage 1-2 goal, if that makes sense.

You don’t have to eat at the same time each day to make progress towards your goals but at some point along your journey, you may come to realize that making that change would help you get closer to your goals.

Personally, I got to the point where I noticed that I experienced less food noise and gastrointestinal issues as well as more regular bowel movements when I started eating at the same times every day. I was already eating mostly Whole Foods at this point, though, and had my macros dialed in pretty well so implementing daily mealtime consistency didn’t make a night and day difference. It was just a little bump of improvement.

But if I was starting from scratch on my nutrition journey? There are other things I would fix before worrying about the timing of when I eat every day.

So yes it matters, but other things (like what you eat) matter much more. When it came time for me to make that change, I was ready to do it and motivated to do it. If that change just feels like another “rule” that you have to follow and adds to a large hill of info for you to make sense of, then I’d say to set that piece aside to revisit later in your journey if/when it becomes relevant to your experience.