Need to change my eating schedule, but there's a snag with exercise

January 3, 2024 12:10 PM

For the past ten years, I've been skipping both breakfast & lunch and then consuming all my calories between 8:00 PM and midnight. Eating a lot of food shortly before bed probably isn't healthy, but there's one advantage: My evening runs are much easier after having fasted for 18 hours.

I typically run 4 miles (6.4 km.) at 6:00 PM three times per week. I'm overweight so I run slowly at about 11 minutes per mile (6:50 per km). When I run on a completely empty stomach, all is good. But on those rare days when I happened to eat lunch (or even just breakfast!), I feel like total shit, even if my meal was small. My breathing is difficult, like I can't get enough oxygen. I feel weak and get easily tired, and I have to take walking breaks.

I want to change my eating routine so that I eat three normal meals. The main thing that's stopping me is the issue with my cardio workouts.

I suppose it's possible that if I started eating breakfast and lunch every day, my body would eventually adjust to it, but I'm looking to see if anyone else has ideas on how to address this problem.

posted by alex1965 to Health & Fitness (8 answers total)

I recommend running in the morning after you wake up, perhaps rising earlier than usual if needed, then you'll have the whole day to eat the calories you need. Bonus: running in the morning will wake you up and elevate your mood for the entire day. (I also recommend consuming most calories for breakfast, and most of them as fats and protein. Your last meal of the day should be light and easily digested so you don't develop reflux or other disorders sleeping on a full stomach.)
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:22 PM on January 3

I also prefer working out on an empty stomach. Is moving your workout to the morning an option? I know if you run outdoors and live in the north, light levels might make that challenging this time of year (but then, where I am 6 pm is well into dark too).
posted by eirias at 12:22 PM on January 3

For various reasons, morning running isn't really an option. It has to be after work, around 6:00 or 7:00 PM.
posted by alex1965 at 12:24 PM on January 3

Can you graze instead of eating three meals? I'm also a person who naturally wants to skip breakfast and lunch and go nuts in the evening, because eating too much (which isn't a lot for me) makes me feel sluggish (perfect for falling asleep, though, since I have trouble). I would get irritable from low blood sugar doing this, though, so I figured out a few other options:

If I'm having a long day out of the house, I eat a dense but small, high protein/low fiber breakfast, bring nuts to snack on throughout the day, and eat most of my food as dinner and a late snack.
If I'm at home all day, I graze and eat very small portions of whatever I feel like. I tend to do one food at a time, though, vs an assorted plate.
if it's a combo, I'll either: have breakfast and only have vegetables for lunch (more like green, watery, salad-y ones than hearty root veg or legumes, too filling) or skip breakfast, have the same lunch as I would breakfast, and do the veg meal around 2-4pm.

You said that even small meals bother you, but can you play around with what those meals are? I find that traditional meal combos are often too filling - like a protein and fruit or carb, for example. I do much better with just yogurt or just eggs or a piece of dense rye with nut butter - mixing foods seems to make them digest slower.
posted by wheatlets at 12:54 PM on January 3

A few questions: do you have the same eating schedule on days you don't run? How do you feel during the day? Do you feel hungry or tired, or are you pretty used to this? Also, why do you want to change your eating routine? You mentioned a vague sense that eating all your calories in a small window isn't healthy. Is there another reason?

I'm just an internet stranger, but a few ideas to try: what if you started eating breakfast and/or lunch on days you don't run? Then you could work up to doing it on days you do run. Or, what if you just decided that you were going to have a few not-great runs for a while, while you change your eating schedule? I suspect you're eating so much at night that you're not super hungry for breakfast, but maybe have a very small amount of food for breakfast (like a piece of fruit or yogurt) and lunch and just see how that goes.

Also, is your current routine working for you? Because it doesn't sound necessarily bad. And you've been incredibly consistent with your running, which sounds like a great health behavior.
posted by bluedaisy at 1:03 PM on January 3

Bluedaisy brings up a good point. When I have all my food between 8 and midnight, I'm not really ready for breakfast either. I would feel gross, too - but when I stop eating earlier or at least eat the bulk of my food earlier, I'm fine. Are you able to fast or eat very lightly for a day before trying the new schedule?
I also like the idea of starting very small and working your way up to a full size meal.
posted by wheatlets at 2:12 PM on January 3

I am not a doctor, but I don't think feeling crappy if you eat is a good thing, and I'd check with a doctor about that. I could possibly understand if you ate immediately before exercise but you're talking about hours before, I think your digestive processes should have handled the food by then (unless, maybe, it's possible to "train" your body to this flow of food/no food?)
posted by TimHare at 2:43 PM on January 3

How about liquid calories for breakfast and/or lunch? A protein shake, even something like Ensure, might help you get in a routine whereby all of your calories are not consumed in the evening. I like working out on an empty stomach too, and I find that liquids 2-3 hours beforehand are long gone from my system (or at least it feels that way).
posted by JohnnyGunn at 4:01 PM on January 3