Sleep Nutrition: Consider Meals Throughout the Day
- allygallop
- 6 hours ago
- 5 min read
MLB Winter Meetings is a week-long get-together where high-ranking members from each MLB team assemble. From what’s highlighted in the media, one would think the Meetings are dedicated to General Managers signing free agents and agreeing to big trades. That’s the first half of the week. What’s omitted from the media is the second half once the front office leaves: the medical and high-performance team members connect and collaborate. This fall, I had the opportunity to be involved in a sleep panel for the team physicians.
This blog is a bit different in style compared to how I normally post. It’s more to provide insight on the sleep panel I contributed to, some key themes, and research articles to highlight.
Sleep Nutrition Presentation: A Broad Overview
Last month I wrote on the topic of carbohydrates and their impact on sleep. With me on the panel were two physicians who are the co-founders of the Sleep Performance Institute. My part of the presentation could have touched on a variety of topics, including total caloric and macronutrient intake, caffeine intake and stacking, melatonin and other supplements touted as beneficial for sleep, etc., but I wanted to hyper-focus my take-home message for the physicians. I highlighted managing meal patterns throughout the day to promote better sleep.
Working in baseball, and a trend I’ve noticed with male athletes in general, is a hyper-fixation on recovery nutrition. There’s no doubt this is important, but there’s seemingly much less focus on what players are doing leading up to game time. It’s as if recovery nutrition fixes everything ignored during the day. Yet a player underfueling prior to competition places their performance at risk, whether it’s production at the plate, reaction time, maintaining sprint speed to pull a double into a triple, or the mental clarity necessary to make the right play. Players also create a large calorie deficit that needs to be corrected at the post-game meal.
Poor fueling habits could be due to game day nerves that suppress appetite, an untrained gut that can’t handle the dietitian’s desired meal plan, a player preferring to feel “lighter” during the game, or one who wants to “save up their calories” for the post-game meal. The game is done, so let’s eat! Why focus on the details?
The problem is, the size and content of the post-game meal can greatly affect one’s sleep. The majority of MLB games occur at night, meaning a player is eating anywhere from 9:15-11pm (even later if they take their meal home or order room service when on the road). The solution is not to avoid eating at the post-game meal, but to set the stage throughout the day to better help the player manage their choices, portions, and hunger late at night.
A few areas I shared with the physicians included the following:
The hormone melatonin: As it’s released, melatonin acts on the pancreas to reduce insulin secretion, triggering a cascade that reduces insulin sensitivity and ultimately impairs glycemic response. (1) A larger meal later at night is handled differently compared to earlier in the day when melatonin levels are at their lowest.
Delayed feeding: Research in those with overweight and obesity, including weight loss trials and research in intermittent fasting, consistently show that the more delayed an eating window is and/or the more calories consumed later at night, the more likely someone is to be obese or to regain weight previously lost during a dieting phase. (2) In delayed feeding groups, study participants tend to report less satisfaction between meals, which may contribute to them eating more, waking up hungrier, having lower leptin levels (the fullness hormone), and higher ghrelin levels (the food seeking hormone). (3-5) A hungrier player feeling less satisfaction from the previous meal and with a higher ratio of ghrelin-to-leptin is going to seek more food out.
Caloric distribution: The 2022 Mealtime Study involved feeding participants three meals per day, but manipulated each meal’s calories. First, participants consumed 45% of their daily calories at breakfast, 35% at lunch, and the remaining 20% at dinner for four weeks. After a one-week washout period, the participants had their diets flipped, consuming 20% at breakfast, 35% at lunch, and 45% at dinner for another four weeks. Front-loading calories resulted in a significant reduction in subjective hunger and appetite, which may assist with dietary compliance. Given both meal patterns were isocaloric, there was no change in body weight between both trial arms. (6) Other research has shown post-prandial ghrelin reduction with a morning meal compared to the same meal provided in the evening. (7)
Larger meals: How do you feel after eating a massive Thanksgiving meal? Tired, hot, and uncomfortable. Signals from the body that help induce sleep include a reduction in body temperature. Larger meals prolong gastric emptying, take longer to digest, and contribute to a core body temperature that remains elevated, affecting sleep signaling. (8) Plus, lying down horizontally after a large meal may induce reflux, making it even harder to fall asleep.
What also occurs nutritionally when a player cycles through and reinforces poor sleep and sleep deprivation? Saidi et al. (2024) have noted an increase in energy intake upwards of 25%. (9)
By starting the day with a higher-protein breakfast, dosing meals throughout the day, and ending with a reasonably-sized post-game meal, reinforcing a regular frequency of fueling is foundational for a player and their sleep. Otherwise, delayed feeding and lopsided meals favouring nighttime fueling affects the player not only hormonally, but potentially worsens their body composition and increases body weight.
Further Reading: Sleep-related Blogs on My Website
Additional Helpful Papers
These two papers are not referenced in this blog, yet are very helpful for learning about sleep nutrition:
Halson (2014): Sleep in elite athletes and nutritional interventions to enhance sleep.
Rackard et al. (2025): Nutrition strategies to promote sleep in elite athletes: a scoping review.
References
(1) Santos, H.O., Genario, R., Tinsley, G.M., Riberio, P., Carteri, R.B., ... & Mota, J.F. (2022). A scoping review of intermittent fasting, chronobiology, and metabolism. Am J Clin Nutr,115(4):991-1004. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34978321/
(2) Wang, J.B., Patterson, R.E., Ang, A., Emond, J.A., Shetty, N., & Arab, L. (2014). Timing of energy intake during the day is associated with the risk of obesity in adults. J Hum Nutr Diet,27(Suppl 2):255-62. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23808897/
(3) de Castro, J.M. (1987). Circadian rhythms of the spontaneous meal pattern, macronutrient intake, and mood of humans. Physiol Behav,40(4):437-46. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3628541/
(4) de Castro, J.M. (2004). The time of day of food intake influences overall intake in humans. J Nutr,134(1):104-11. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14704301/
(5) Vujovic, N., Piron, M.J., Qian, J., Chellappa, S.L., Nedeltcheva, A., ... & Scheer, F.A.J.L. (2022). Late isocaloric eating increases hunger, decreases energy expenditure, and modifies metabolic pathways in adults with overweight and obesity. Cell Metab,34(10):1486-98. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10184753/
(6) Ruddick-Collins, L.C., Morgan, P.J., Fyfe, C.L., Filipe, J.A.N., Horgan, G.W., ... & Johnstone, A.M. (2022). Timing of daily calorie loading affects appetite and hunger responses without changes in energy metabolism in healthy subjects with obesity. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36087576/
(7) Qian, J., Morris, C.J., Caputo, R., Garaulet, M., & Scheer, F.A.J.L. (2019). Ghrelin is impacted by the endogenous circadian system and by circadian misalignment in humans. Int J Obes (Lond),43(8):1644-9. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30232416/
(8) Szymusiak, R. (2018). Body temperature and sleep. Handb Clin Neurol,156:241-51. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30454599/
(9) Saidi, O., Rochette, E., Dambel, L., St-Onge, M.-P., & Duché, P. (2024). Chrono-nutrition and sleep: lessons from the temporal feature of eating patterns in human studies - a systematic scoping review. Sleep Med Rev,76:101953. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38788519/
