3 hours between meals is not enough to allow proper motility. For most 5 hours isn't either. Understanding why comes down to a concept Kieran calls bolus distancing, and how meal spacing interacts with your small intestine's motility.
New to this? Start with the pillar guide: How do you tell if you have SIBO.
What Happens If You Eat Too Soon After Your Last Meal?
Let's say it's 11am and you're eating a clean lunch, chicken breast, rice, broccoli and maybe a small drizzle of olive oil,
For 7 hours this meal is still in your small intestine. It's still in there until 6pm.
If you eat at any point before it's left this meal essentially gets stuck (due to ileal braking and disruption of the mmc), being left to ferment whilst the food above catches up,
What Is Bolus Distancing?
This is because of a concept I have called bolus distancing, which states that at any one time no two boluses (meals) should be in the same intestine.
If you consume another meal whilst meal 1 is still in the small intestine the likelihood bacteria ferment and overgrow is much higher,
If you wait until it has left instead of getting stuck the gastrocolic reflex pushes it further down the large intestine which is positive for digestion.
How Many Meals a Day Is Best for SIBO and IBS?
By this logic it seems 2 meals a day spaced 7-9 hours apart may be best for SIBO and IBS patients, as it reduced the total amount of time a meal would sit in the small intestine potentially being fermented,
A few things to note are:
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Fats may slow gastric emptying, meaning the time it takes for a meal to leave your small intestine is longer
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Proteins may slow small intestinal transit also, so this is a factor to account for
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Methane SIBO obviously slows transit time, which in this case some of it can be offset by use of prokinetics
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Poor bile flow and low stomach acid are also factors which play into the total time it takes food to leave
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High stress may also play a role, as with a sedentary lifestyle
The important part is you do your best to space meals to the point where consumption is avoided whilst the small intestine has contents within,
Can You Safely Eat Every 5 Hours Instead?
If one has working stomach acid, bile flow, doesn't live a sedentary life and utilises prokinetics I think reasonably 5 hours could be a safe stretch,
And of course not everyone who violates this law gets SIBO it just likely increases the risk factor. If your current eating feels good digesting and gives you good regular bowel movements then it's probably good for you
What If You're Highly Active and Need More Frequent Meals?
I assume everyone would, but for those who are highly active and need more fuel more often it may be wise to help digestion along if meal spacings will be shorter
If someone was to go for three meals then I think motility work would be extremely important (as we well know) and this framework I think applies best to people not eating gigantic amounts of food to begin with.
That's fine and is the case for many, just focus a lot on your motility for those three meals and don't add things that are incredibly hard to digest and I'd possibly lower fats and maybe protein too ngl
Does Meal Volume Outweigh the Benefit of Separating Meals?
I'm curious overall though, do you think the benefit of more regular small bowel emptying and seperation of meals from the upper gi vs lower is completely outweighed by food volume? I would say it's nuanced and depends on the person, as some in this space feel better on OMAD,
Thank you and this is the biggest issue I see that's gonna come of this, slowed motility is going to lead to a fair amount more overgrowths which are already present in the bodybuilding space.
Which Factors Slow Down Small Intestine Transit Time?
It is important to note that fat seems to slow emptying from the stomach the most, and protein slows transit of the small intestine,
I'd also look into your stomach acid, bile and gut lining as these can affect motility and overall health massively
I would say that's likely partly a histamine reaction, but yeah sugar is much easier to digest on the body and therefore has a slightly faster transit time in some cases
Should Everyone Follow the Same Meal Spacing Rule?
Then i would say you're one of these people who have to deviate from the rule in order to make things work for you, in that case focus on digestion motility and easier to digest foods
If it works for you then awesome, biology is not an exact science I just share what I think will help the largest majority of my audience
Which makes me think that although two meals a day may be optimal in perfect circumstances, we probably have to bridge the gap first and work on all underlying factors which probably led to them getting gut issues in the first place,
Interesting how under studied this is though. In fact there's not much massive work on most nuanced views in this space
