What your eating window actually tells you
What these numbers can and cannot tell you
The eating window is simply the span from first food to last. The overnight gap is the rest of the day. Neither has a target attached to it here, because attaching one would be inventing a recommendation the evidence does not support.
The average gap between meals is the number closest to the mechanism people care about. It is also the one most distorted by averaging. Three meals evenly spaced across twelve hours is a different day from three meals plus continuous grazing, yet both can produce the same average. If you want that number to mean something, count the snacks honestly.
A note on coffee with milk, juice and anything with calories in it: those end a gap. Black coffee, plain tea and water do not. This trips up more people than any other part of the exercise, because a milky coffee at seven does not feel like the start of the eating window and physiologically it is.
If you want to actually test this
Testing meal timing is reasonable. Doing it alongside an elimination diet is not, because two variables moving at once produce a result you cannot attribute to either. Finish the diet work first, hold the food constant, then change the spacing and log for long enough to see a pattern rather than a good week.
Minthe is a wellness and self-tracking tool, not a medical device. It does not diagnose or treat any condition and isn't a substitute for professional medical advice. If you have red-flag symptoms such as blood in your stool, unintentional weight loss, difficulty swallowing, persistent vomiting or a fever alongside gut symptoms, see a clinician rather than tracking them.
Frequently asked
What is a good eating window for bloating?
Nobody can tell you, so this page will not pretend to. There is no trial establishing an optimal eating window for bloating or IBS. The mechanism people cite, the migrating motor complex, is real. The leap from that mechanism to a specific number of hours is the part with no evidence under it. What the calculator gives you is your actual pattern, which is a measurement rather than a target.
Does the migrating motor complex need a specific gap?
The MMC is a housekeeping wave that sweeps the small intestine between meals and is interrupted by eating. Cycles run roughly 90 to 120 minutes in fasted people, with wide variation between individuals and between cycles in the same person. That is a description of physiology, not a dosing schedule. The jump from it to a rule about snacking runs well ahead of what has been shown.
Will longer gaps between meals reduce my bloating?
For some people yes, for some no, with no way to know which you are without testing it. Grazing and constant snacking do plausibly interrupt the cleanup wave more often. It is also true that people who space meals frequently change several things at once, eating less and eating differently, so attributing the result to timing alone is usually wrong.
Is intermittent fasting good for IBS?
The evidence is thin and mixed. Some people report improvement and some report worse symptoms. Long gaps can also make reflux and gastritis symptoms worse rather than better. Fasting is not a neutral intervention and it is a poor idea to layer it on top of an elimination diet, since two changes at once make both unreadable.
Should I space meals if I am also doing low FODMAP?
Change one thing at a time. If you alter your eating window during an elimination or a reintroduction challenge, you have two variables moving and no way to tell which produced the result. Timing is worth testing. It is worth testing on its own, after the diet work is finished.
Is my data stored?
No. The arithmetic runs in your browser, nothing is transmitted and nothing is saved. There is no account and no cookie on this page.