The Optimum Time To Eat Dinner Has Been Revealed – And It’s Pretty Ludicrous

So realistically, if you can’t hit 5pm, when’s the best time to schedule dinner?

“Any time between 6 and 8pm is an ‘ideal’ dinnertime,” registered dietitian Tracy Lockwood Beckerman previously told HuffPost. “That’s because it gives the average person enough time to digest before hitting the hay around 10 or 11pm.”

That being said, the ideal dinnertime will differ based on your circadian rhythm — or more specifically, if you’re an early bird or a night owl.

“It’s different for early birds versus night owls because the longer the night owls are up, the higher the odds they may go back for a late night snack,” Beckerman said. “Night owls should eat dinner later than early birds to reduce the chance of mindless snacking, empty calories and unnecessary munching late at night.”

But for those late night eaters like me, you might want to push your dinnertime forward, just a bit.

“Being too full could negatively impact our sleep by possibly leading to acid reflux,” Beckerman said. “If there’s too much food digesting in your stomach and you lie down, it could potentially put pressure on your oesophageal sphincter, resulting in unpleasant reflux.”

Alisa Vitti, a functional nutritionist and the CEO of Flo Living, added: “Eating too close to bedtime can decrease the quality of your sleep, increase inflammation and can absolutely make weight management more difficult as well as increase the likelihood that you will experience night sweats or hot flashes.