As long as you’re not eating a huge dinner later in the evening, you’ll be fine. When you eat, especially larger meals, you’ll have a spike in insulin and your body needs time to properly digest and metabolize your food, otherwise it can affect your quality of sleep, and make it difficult to fall asleep in general. You can also have digestive/tummy troubles if you’re consistently eating late and not giving yourself enough time between eating and sleeping
I’d say it largely depends on your goals as well as how you personally respond to large meals.
In my case, I have by far my largest meal of the day for dinner, about 2hrs before I go to sleep.If the meal is too small, I find I wake up starving in the middle of the night which is extremely counter productive to sleep.
Others may be unable to have large meals before sleep as digesting it could disrupt their sleep.
As for goals, fat loss and muscle gain etc, it doesn’t really matter when your largest meal of the day is, provided that you’re adhering to your calories(cut, bulk, maintenance value) and have your protein spread out semi evenly in addition to having an effective strength training regime(if you want to gain or retain muscle). This will optimize your progress.
Source : I’ve experimented with meal timings along with workout timings(morning, night) and found no noticeable difference. Your experience may vary.
Hey! Based on your post and replies to other comments, I’d strongly encourage you to chat with your doctor and get a referral to a dietitian (or contact a dietitian directly if that’s how it works in your country.) They can help you get your bloating and constipation under control and give you tailored advice regarding your daily diet and eating timing. Trained, experienced professionals will get you a lot farther than Reddit comments, and can give you knowledge and tools to build long term habits to keep you healthy and happy, even on a hectic work schedule like yours
If you aren’t feeling well then what you are doing isn’t working. But you have to work with what you got, so the answer might just be in improving the food you are choosing in your one meal (basically). My husband is an OMAD eater, and he has to pack in good nutrients for his one meal or bad things happen. That means you can’t go home at 10pm, eat a plate of chicken fries and chips, call it a meal and expect to be feeling ok. What you need needs to be nutrient-dense, and enough to sustain your body’s energy needs or it will catabolize itself and take what it needs from your muscles and other tissues.
I had a lot of years in my early adult life where I worked 2 retail jobs. I worked overnight, and then 6am to 2pm, and then slept. I also had young kids. So I tried to make my brief work breaks count and then really relied on dinner. I did what I could. But, that type of life wasn’t sustainable for me and I ended up needing (and wanting) to change to a more sustainable schedule. It all comes down to yourself, your needs, your priorities, and make them all work together. But if you are not feeling well and suffering health effects (bloating and constipation) then you need to make some changes somewhere because it’s not working and will eventually have a cascading effect on other areas of your health. Do you have the ability to eat a lunch (even if it’s just a quick one) and choose not to, or do you just flat-out not have the time? Even if you bring a couple of boiled eggs and a piece of fruit, it would take just a few minutes to eat and would be decent nutrition (even if not really enough calories).
Also, one thing to remember is, no matter how much you work your ass off, if you don’t take care of your health eventually it won’t matter and your work will eventually suffer, too.
it doesn’t matter since everyone’s different along with their daily routines but normally you don’t want to eat a meal too close to bedtime. know your body. im getting up there in age and i eat only 1 meal a day, usually breakfast or lunch and i drink fruit/veggie smoothies in between. i feel great. some people are really in shape ,have really strong metabolisms and work physical jobs. these people logically eat more. im overweight, don’t regularly workout while sitting most of the time at work so my eating habits work perfect for me.