Meal timing and tips for eating healthy

The key to a good healthy meal plan is not only what you eat, but when you eat it. This article will provide you with tips for eating healthy so you can plan meal after meal with the right macronutrients at the right time.  Your goal will be to continuously fuel your body with the proper food so that you avoid going into a catabolic state, have energy for your workouts and ensure your metabolism is chugging along quickly.

Below are some simple yet important steps your should follow in daily meal plan as part of a fitness program.

1. Eat 5-6 meals a day. Eating only a few very large meals per day isn’t easy for your body to handle. When you feed it small, frequent meals, you keep the machine chugging along and avoiding many of the pitfalls that slow down your metabolism.

2. Mom was right. Eat a good breakfast first thing in the morning. Be sure to have both carbs and protein because you haven’t eaten for a long period of time, risking catabolism and potentially impacting your metabolism. Plus, you need that energy to start your day off properly.

3. Eat some complex carbs one hour before working out. One simple word: energy.

4. Eat immediately after your workout. It’s important to have both protein and carbs. What’s unique about this meal is that this is the one time during the day that you want to have simple carbs, which will replace the depleted glycogen stores that you lost during your workout. Enjoy that white rice.

5. Drink water all day. It flushes the system, regulates body temperature and feeds nutrients to the body. The recommended dosage is about one ounce of water per pound of bodyweight.

6. Tailor off your carbs as the day moves along. Get your complex carbs in early during the day so you can get energized. Focus on your protein later on to meet caloric needs when you don’t need as much energy.

7. Be sure to eat before you go to bed. This goes against what some people believe in regards to ‘not eating after 6pm’. We disagree. What’s more important is that you don’t go into a catabolic state which will eat at your muscle mass and slow your metabolism. If you go 13 hours (from 6pm to 7am) without eating, you will definitely go into a catabolic state.