Get all of our Thanksgiving recipes, tips, and more with Everything Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving dinner should be eaten considerably later in the evening, according to some, while others prefer to eat it in the early afternoon. In any case, we usually eat too much and feel swollen and drowsy afterward. Is there a particular time of day that is ideal for beginning the feast?
To determine the ideal time to consume a large meal, such as Thanksgiving, we spoke with two gastrointestinal specialists. This is what you should know.
It’s best to eat earlier
Marie-Pierre St-Onge, an associate professor of nutritional medicine at Columbia University and center director of the Go Red for Women Strategically Focused Research Center, which is funded by the American Heart Association, admits that Thanksgiving is a day when people tend to overindulge, but she says there are ways to balance that. For a number of reasons, she told HuffPost, it’s better to consume the majority of your calories early in the day.
“If you overeat at an earlier meal, it’s easier to adjust throughout the rest of the day,” St-Onge stated. “It’s also not a good idea to eat large meals right before bed because you’ll be full and have undigested food in your stomach, which can cause gastric reflux in people who are prone to it.”
She stated that if you lie down immediately after a large meal, food tends to gather and may induce reflux.
According to a 1,000-person YouGov survey, the majority of Americans eat Thanksgiving meal between 4 and 5 p.m.
St-Onge advises giving your body a few hours at the end of the day to process everything before bed in order to prevent this problem. The time it takes for food to pass through your digestive system depends on several factors, but two to three hours should be plenty.
The amount of fiber in the food, the quantity of liquids consumed simultaneously, “the person’s individual gastric motility, [and] the nutrient compositions of food,” are some examples. Naturally, you want to give yourself extra time if the dinner is larger, St-Onge stated.
The key is moderation
Although eating a large meal, such as Thanksgiving, earlier in the day is ideal, Kelley Bradshaw, manager of the Nutrition and Wellness Service at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, notes that “ultimately, what really matters as far as not having that discomfort [post-meal] is what you eat and the amount of what you eat.”
Bradshaw told HuffPost, “You’re probably going to feel pretty uncomfortable if you had a giant Thanksgiving meal that was three servings of everything at [lunchtime], but if you ate at 5 or 6 [p.m.] but just had one serving of everything and balanced everything out, you might feel okay just because it’s the quantity of things.”
Avoid skipping breakfast
On Thanksgiving Day, skipping breakfast might seem like a smart decision because it makes more room for turkey and pumpkin pie, but it might actually backfire.
More about Health
“People may want to skip meals earlier in the day to’save’ all their calories for this meal when we have these big eating events coming up,” Bradshaw explained. “However, that can cause some indigestion because your stomach is still producing stomach acid [even if] you don’t have any food for it to break down.”
Indigestion may result from this when you do eat. Bradshaw went on to say that skipping meals can result in overeating since it lowers blood sugar.
To keep your energy and blood sugar levels stable, try to have a balanced breakfast consisting of lean protein and slower-digesting, fiber-rich carbohydrates. Include whole-grain bread or whole fruit (instead of juice), eggs, and low-sugar Greek yogurt or a protein shake. “These types of activities will provide you with energy in the morning, preventing you from feeling hungry when you go to eat your Thanksgiving midday meal,” Bradshaw stated.
Therefore, you can avoid overeating by having a little snack (such as a quarter cup of nuts or a piece of fruit) between breakfast and the main meal.
Make time for exercise and movement throughout the day
The key to success is balance, as usual. It’s a good idea to do some exercise after a big dinner like Thanksgiving to make up for the extra calories you’ll be consuming. St-Onge suggests breaking up the celebrations with some neighborhood walks and engaging in more demanding exercises or activities before to the supper.
Walking not only burns calories but also helps with digestion and provides a respite from the table, which can help reduce the amount of mindless eating that occurs on Thanksgiving Day and throughout the year.
Thanksgiving is only one meal, therefore it’s acceptable to overindulge without feeling guilty or anything else bad. Bradshaw makes an effort to reassure customers who are concerned that Thanksgiving is only one meal and they may still eat their favorite cuisine. Bradshaw stated, “We don’t have to eat that same, identical, enormous meal four times or four days in a row.”
Using a scale from 1 (gorgeous) to 10 (full), she helps people understand hunger cues. Bradshaw stated, “We don’t want to linger on those extremes.” On a day like Thanksgiving, “we want to hover around a 3-8 where you’re hungry and then you get full but you’re not stuffing yourself; I want to feel full but not so full that I can’t walk and I feel uncomfortable.”
1,000 U.S. adults participated in the HuffPost/YouGov survey, which was conducted from November 14–16. The sample was drawn from YouGov’s opt-in online panel to reflect the demographics and other traits of the adult U.S. population.
YouGov and HuffPost have partnered to provide daily opinion surveys. You can participate in YouGov’s nationally representative opinion survey and find out more about this project. You can get more information about the polls’ methodology here.
