Timing your meals correctly not only helps clear your skin, it can increase your metabolism too! In this lesson we are focused on meal timing, because when you eat your meals can make a significant difference if you want to have clear skin.

Our bodies are the most insulin sensitive in the morning, and the most insulin resistant in the evening.

When your body is more insulin resistant, your pancreas needs to pump out more insulin to do its normal job, because cells are less responsive. If insulin levels get too high as a response to a spike in blood sugar levels from your meal, it can trigger a hormonal reaction that floods the bloodstream with androgens. Having high androgen levels will stimulate skin cell overgrowth, oil production, and inflammation, resulting in acne.

So because our bodies are more insulin resistant in the evening, this means acne-related hormones are more likely to spike after a heavy meal in the evening, so avoid eating heavy meals late at night. 

Eating heavy meals late at night also increases inflammation, because your body won’t be able to use all the food as fuel for energy. 

Studies recommend consuming the most calories before 7pm. You can also try consuming more calories at breakfast & lunch than at dinner time. This way, your body has more time to burn off more calories during the day.

Studies also show it’s best not eat after 9pm, but if you must, have the fewest possible calories in order to reduce the hormones that could trigger acne. If you don’t feel hungry for breakfast, you could be eating too much at night when you’re better off consuming more calories in the morning.

Because your body is more insulin sensitive in the morning, you could benefit if you eat more carbohydrates earlier in the day and eat more protein in the evening.

If you want to get more specific with your meal timing, follow the time restricted eating principle. Following this principle means that all meals must fall within a time window of 8 to 12 hours.

You start your body’s internal meal clock with the first sip of water, coffee, or bite of food in the morning.

After that, you have 8-12 hours to eat all your meals. For example, if you start eating at 6am in the morning, you have until 6pm at the latest to finish dinner. Just like how our bodies can shift when we change our sleeping cycle, meal times can also change the body clock.

This means that eating late can have negative effects on the body and metabolism similar to what happens when you sleep late. When we have our meals can also impact liver health, which we’ll cover in the next lesson. Meal timing is something that is often overlooked in treating acne, but I can share with you in my personal experience that it has made a difference between having a pimple appear the next morning vs. waking up to clear skin.

Photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash