Little Step No. 22
What to do:
Protect the space BETWEEN your meals
Why this step works:
Often in the world of nutrition, a lot of focus is placed on what to eat to get the most nutrients into your diet. And whilst eating nutritious food is incredibly important for your health, having gaps between your meals, where you aren’t eating anything at all, is super important too, and yet this isn’t talked or written about as much.
So why are the gaps so important?
Once you've eaten a meal and your body has finished important jobs like digestion, a special ‘cleaning’ process is signalled that ‘sweeps’ the stomach and upper parts of the gut clear of any undigested food or bacteria.
Think of it a bit like a housekeeping team coming in to clear up after you’ve eaten.
The gaps between meals are important because the housekeeping team are only given the signal to come in and do their job around every 100 minutes, and this signal only happens when you're not eating. If you’re continually grazing all day, these signals may not happen effectively; and unwanted signs and symptoms such as bloating, gas and indigestion could start to appear.
There’s no hard and fast rule for exactly how long these gaps should be, but I’d recommend at least 2-3 hours of not eating between meals. And if you make sure your evening meal is before 7pm, this leaves a nice long gap for the housekeeping team to get to work overnight too.
This little step is simply to nurture healthful spaces between your meals so the body can get its housekeeping jobs done. Pretty amazing when you think about all these processes happening inside us, and for some, all we have to do is create space; for these spaces, your digestive system will be very thankful x