Meal timing (or nutrient timing) is the concept of when you provide your body with certain nutrients. It can be further broken down into several aspects:

 

Meal timing: What time of the day do you eat your meals?

 

Meal frequency: How many meals are eaten every day? 

 

Meal spacing: How much time lies between each meal?

 

Macronutrient split: Are all the meals evenly split in regards to protein, carbs, and fats?

 

In theory, all these factors could be mixed together to result in endless possibilities for nutrient timing. You could, for example, eat six meals a day which was the traditional advice for fitness enthusiasts for a long time. Or you could fast for part of the day and gorge during a short window of a few hours like intermittent fasting proponents do.

 

You could also change the size of your meals and divide them into bigger and smaller ones, or you could size them evenly. Of course, there is also the possibility to eat certain foods before and after your workout, or maybe even during.

 

If you are somewhat familiar with the most common dieting trends, you know that there are actually advocates of all these dieting styles even though they seem to contradict each other quite a bit.

 

What most of them forget, however, is that nutrient timing only makes up a small fraction of the effect your diet will have on your health. If all the other factors beneath it on the nutrition pyramid have been accounted this one makes up maybe 5 to 10 % of overall results. 

 

Don’t get me wrong, meal timing is still important. Especially in regards to pre and post workout meals. But many beginners overestimate just how much impact it will have on your results. They often forget to focus on the more important things like calories and macronutrients first, before tackling meal timing.