Health Experts Suggest There Is a Best Time To Eat Dinner During the Winter Season

Every year, our bodies struggle to adjust to the time change as our clocks are set back one hour in the fall, resulting in shorter days in the winter.

However, oftentimes, we neglect to consider how the timing of our meals during the winter season may affect the quality of our sleep.

Health experts recently discussed this phenomenon, suggesting that we should move our dinner time to align with our circadian rhythm.

If you are one to get out of work after the sun has already set in the winter, it's likely that you're eating the most filling meal of the day at a time when health experts suggest you should have already stopped eating for the night. It's a tricky situation, indeed, but one that bears discussing with your primary care provider in conjunction with a registered dietitian.

Below, we report on the interesting debate as to what is the best time to eat dinner during the winter season.

If you're perseverating over precisely the best moment to eat dinner during the winter season, luckily, it is more of an inexact window during which your meal time should align with your circadian rhythm.

According to a report in Self, if your bedtime is earlier in the winter than it is during other parts of the year, Shabnam Sarker, MD, an assistant professor of medicine and gastroenterologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, suggests that your dinner time should shift earlier, as well.

“Eating earlier in the day is generally better for overall health, as it aligns with the natural circadian rhythm. It has been associated with improvement in cardiovascular risk factors such as obesity and diabetes," Dr. Sarker tells Self.

“When it’s nighttime, melatonin signals to the gut that it’s time to slow down,” added Ashkan Farhadi, MD, a gastroenterologist at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center.

Add it all up, and keeping your dinner time the same but going to bed earlier in the evening primes your body for chaos and throws your sleep out of whack, which can be extremely detrimental to your overall health.

Therefore, while there isn't a single, set time at which everyone should eat dinner during the winter — given the complexity of everyone's unique schedules — there is a general timeframe that we should consider as a rule of thumb. “We usually recommend making dinner the lightest meal of the day and to avoid eating 3 to 4 hours before bedtime,” Dr. Sarker suggested.

If you're pressed for time, you can check out these lazy vegan recipes for time-strapped families.

In conclusion, it is best to avoid making dinner your heartiest, heaviest, largest meal of all your waking hours, and it is best to schedule your dinner for three or four hours before bedtime.

This should allow for sufficient time to digest your food and prime your body for sleep.