Ep. 11 - The 3-Hour Dinner Rule: Fix Midlife Insomnia and Cortisol Spikes After 50

If you’re waking up at 2am with your mind racing, struggling with stubborn belly fat, feeling exhausted no matter how “healthy” you are… this episode is for you.

In today’s episode of Tea With Sophie, I’m sharing the one simple change that transformed my sleep, metabolism, anxiety, digestion, and energy during perimenopause — and why I believe it’s one of the most overlooked habits for women over 50.

After spending thousands on functional testing, supplements, and expert advice, the breakthrough came from something shockingly simple: changing when I ate.

In this episode, we’re talking about:

•  Why women over 50 suddenly struggle with sleep 
•  The connection between cortisol, belly fat, and waking at 2–3am 
•  The “3-Hour Dinner Rule” that changed everything for me 
•  Why deep sleep is essential for hormone balance, muscle repair, brain health, and fat loss 
•  The truth about late-night eating in menopause 
•  How a simple overnight fasting window can help your body work with you again 

This is one of the most important conversations we can have about midlife health — because without sleep, your body will fight you no matter how healthy your diet or workouts are.

If this episode resonates with you, share it with a friend who’s struggling in silence with midlife sleep or metabolism changes.

More resources: Visit SophieUliano.com/podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Three hours. That is the thing that changed everything for me in Perimanopause and beyond. Hi, Sophie here, and welcome to another episode of Tea with Sophie. Okay, so quick little bit of history. When I went into perimenopause at about 44, 45, everything changed. Now one of the things that prompted this change was sleep. So my sleep, suddenly, it was almost overnight. I wasn't sleeping as well. I was waking up at about 2, 3 in the morning, tossing and turning, mind racing, couldn't go back to sleep. Woke up in the morning, wasn't refreshed, felt sluggish, brain fog, fuzzy brain for a lot of the day. Started to have a little bit more anxiety. I'd never had anxiety before, digestive issues, hadn't really had that since my early 20s. Started to gain over time a little bit. I saw my muscles change, I saw some belly fat appearing. And I just wasn't feeling well. And I went to see a lot of functional doctors, integrative doctors, wasted thousands of dollars, to be honest with you, because I did endless testing, Dutch testing, this testing, that testing. And I had IVs and I had bucket loads of supplements, very expensive supplements given to me to fix all these supposedly different things that they had detected were wrong. But nothing worked, nothing fixed it. And then I did this one thing that really changed everything. It prompted all the subsequent changes I made because it was so incredibly effective. So I stopped eating at 7 p.m. at night. I stopped. It was kitchen closed after 7 p.m. Now this gave me three full hours of no eating before I went to bed. At the time I went to was going to bed at about 10 p.m. And so what happened was really after maybe two or three nights of doing that, my sleep dramatically improved. After about three to four weeks of doing this, then all the other changes, everything started to get better. My gut health felt better, my metabolism felt like I was burning fat more easily. I felt obviously better and more alive in the day. The anxiety went down. Everything started to get better without one simple change of kitchen closing at three hours before I went to bed. Now, sleep. Let's just talk about why sleep is an absolute non-negotiable for women over the age of 50. Non-negotiable. So as a holistic practitioner, I really teach these five pillars of lifestyle medicine. Everything has to be holistic. We can't just focus on diet or just focus on exercise. We need to focus on all these aspects of ourselves. We are holistic beings. But I would almost say that the pillar that supports all the other pillars, or put differently, the most important pillar, is sleep. Because when you are sleep deprived, it's not just that you're going to feel crappy and sleep and awful in the day, which we do when we don't get enough sleep. It's actually much more serious than that. So I want to just take a moment to tell you what goes on when you get deep, proper REM sleep. There's deep sleep. So what happens is your hormones get a chance to reset. So when our hormones are chaotic in perimenopause and beyond, and then when we're in menopause, so it is you you really need that um deep REM sleep for that. Now, there are a couple of crews that come out at night. So there is the cleanup debris crew for your brain. This is so important for uh dementia prevention. Um, never mind uh brain fog that we can get in Paris and menopause. So it's called autophagy. All that debris is cleaned out only in this deep sleep. Also, the repair crew come out and they repair your gut. Think of your gut a little bit like a cobbled street. So a lot of foot traffic in the day, the cobbles become loose. So the repair crew come in and they can fix that and they can help to repair your gut health. So we've got hormones, we've got brain health, we've got gut health, and we've got deep, deep rest, deep sleep that we all need anyway. So that is why it is absolutely non-negotiable. Now, um, also another very important thing, I'm looking at some questions because I had a lot of questions that I put out to my community before this episode, is that that is where your muscle repairs or builds, because muscle repairing is muscle building. So just think about this. You you've worked out in the day, you need rest and recuperation, but recuperation, but you need your muscles to repair and build. So all of this is happening while you're in this deep sleep, and that is why it is so important. Now, I want you to really understand that sleep deprivation equals cortisol elevation. So just make that your mantra. Sleep elevation, sleep deprivation, excuse me, sleep deprivation equals cortisol elevation. When you are not getting enough sleep, your cortisol levels throughout the day are going to be elevated. Now, what why is that a problem? Well, high cortisol uh levels means that you are going to hold on to fat for survival. Okay, and most of this fat is going to be stored in your midsection if you are a woman, particularly over the age of 50, or if you're a woman who is has gone through menopause. And that can happen, I understand, with some women much, much earlier than menopause for a variety of different reasons. But that is that is where that fat will be stored, and that's why so many of us struggle with belly fat, with this visceral fat that gets worse and worse unless you really understand it and know how to deal with it. Now, you can do whatever you want. You can eat well, you can train well, you can do all the other things, all the other things that we hear about, but your body will fight you if you are not getting this deep sleep. Okay. So uh that is one of the one of the one of the biggest culprits. Now, what is wrecking this deep sleep? What is the problem? Why are we not getting this deep sleep? Well, one of the biggest culprits that nobody is talking about, because so many women, I've got a question right here. In fact, I've got a number of questions of women saying, suddenly I don't know why I can't sleep anymore, right? So I'm gonna give you your answer right here. It is what you're eating and when you are eating. So I want to talk about this three-hour rule and the 12-hour overnight fast that again changed everything for me and many, many women that I've worked with. All right, so three. Just think, three hours. Right? Research is clear. If you sleep on a full stomach or even a half full stomach, you will not sleep well. You just will not. So rest and digest has to happen, and you you you you you've got to have both of those, you've got to rest in order, you can't do both at the same time, excuse me. So you've got to be able to digest fully, and then you need to rest. So if you pair this, this three-hour rule, with an overnight fast, 12 to 14 hours, which is what I recommend for most of my clients, and and you'll find your sweet spot with that. Some women sit very, very well with 12 hours. It's very natural to do a 12-hour fast. I'd barely even call it fasting, because it's naturally what our bodies were designed to do. Some women decide to go a little bit longer, 13, 14, maybe a tiny bit longer if there are certain conditions such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, type 2 diabetes. Then I might treat that or recommend the duration of the fast to be a little bit longer, but it's a case-by-case basis. But for most of you, you want to think, okay, around 12 to 13 hours is the sweet spot. Okay, so that's your magical combo. Don't eat about three hours, you know, at the very minimum two hours before you go to bed, and then you're gonna have this beautiful, natural overnight fast where cleanup crews, hormone balancing, muscle building can all happen. So uh uh now I just to lay out what that might look like. So for me, I would stop eating at seven, kitchen clothes. And what's beautiful about this is it also counteracts late-night snacking because most people, when research was done, most people, most of their calories, 50% of their calories are eaten in the evening. And I think it's quite hard, isn't it, for a lot of us? Because it's when we wind down, we're when we're watching TV, we're watching Netflix, and we're sort of used to snacking. And it is a habit that you really, really want to break if you want to release that, not just release the belly fat, but honestly, if you want to be healthy and and get deep sleep. So in some ways it makes it easier because you're drawing a line in the sand, just going, that's it. You're you're you're saying to yourself, and you want to put put it into a lovely affirmation or mantra, is I love closing the kitchen, or you know, I open the I close the kitchen to open myself up to vibrant health. So this is what the work I do with my clients. We always want to attach something really positive. So it's not like, oh, kitchen closed, like a child, like your parents going, you can't have another snack, because then we sort of tend to fight against that. So attach a really beautiful connotation, you know, kitchen closed, because I am becoming open to inviting in the most glorious sleep and vitality and wellness, something like that could be helpful. Um, all right, so um finish at seven, and then what you would do, this is my framework, is you would then not eat, so you'll break your fast not before seven the next morning. And when you do break your fast, I'm gonna get to this in a moment about eating and what to eat, but that is the idea. So finish at seven or finish at 6:30, and then I'm this is what I do right now actually, because I go to bed a bit earlier, and then I'm not gonna eat uh before 6.30 in the morning. I mean, that's super, super easy to do. Sometimes for me it's it is a little bit later, it might be 7 or 7.30. And then I'm going to break my fast. And then I am going to eat. So this takes me to the next point, which is the sort of second in order of importance, is you must eat more. You must eat more to change your body composition after 50. I know that might be a surprise for some of you, but it is essential. The biggest mistake that I see women doing is eating less, restricting, doing these crazy time fasting windows at the wrong time of day, but basically restricting themselves. Now, what happens when you do that? You are sending a message to your body that you are in famine. We're in restriction, we're in famine, we're withholding, we're restricting. Your cortisol goes up as a result because your body reads that as stress. You're stressing meat right now, and then it is going to hold on to that fat, and the fat is stored as belly fat. Okay, so you definitely need to eat more. Now, I'm what I'm not talking about is calories in, calories out, right? Um, obviously, uh this model, well, it doesn't work for anybody, but calories in, calories out model doesn't does not work for women in midlife and beyond. Um, but really important to understand, because I've got a question here about from one lady who doesn't have breakfast, but when you under eat and you skip meals and you restrict, I just want you to know, particularly breakfast, that your body is going to read that as famine, your cortisol is going to be raised and it's going to stay elevated at a time when you do not need it to be elevated. So, what you want to do is what I call front loading, which is what I recommend to all of my clients now. Front loading is basically having as many of your calories as you can in the first two-thirds of the day. You've heard the expression, eat like a king at breakfast, a queen at lunch, and a pauper in the evening. Whether or not you like that expression or not, it it's you can see where it's going. It's like just eat as much as you can, sort of a breakfast for that time in the day. I'd say breakfast and lunch, honestly. You really want to nourish yourself with quite a lot of food, maybe a little bit lighter in the evening, but you still do need a really good nourishing meal in the evening because you are going to, you know, close your kitchen. So you want to be really satiated. There's no point having a little tiny, hardly anything for dinner because then you know you will get hungry. Um, so um most so that is get most of your nourishment in the first two-thirds of the day. Now, the other piece is that every single meal you need to get in quality, all the micro uh macronutrients, exactly uh excuse me, quality. So you need quality protein, quality fats, and quality complex carbs. Okay. So did you hear what I said a little bit earlier? It's what you eat and when you eat. So this is secondary to getting enough sleep. And when you start dialing these things in, you are going to you are you're going to notice such an enormous change in your body and your waistline and your health. And the beautiful thing is that you feel so good that it's sustainable. It's not, you're not on a diet anymore. It's like, I love this. This really works. So when we talk about quality proteins, let's just quickly run through what I mean by quali, I mean quality macros. Let me quickly go through what I mean here. So, quality proteins, you hear some people talking about clean protein. That's the most bizarre term. There is no such thing as a, I don't know what that means, actually, clean protein. So I prefer to use the word quality. So if we're looking at quality protein, to me, it's like, okay, if I'm going to eat protein, what am I getting? What's the most bang for my buck that I'm getting in that caloric investment? So, what I want to get is the one thing that we need, the the biggest nutrient that we need as postmenopausal woman is fiber. So, what I want in my protein is I want fiber, I want antioxidants, and I want phytochemicals and phytonutrients. Why? Because I want to lower my risk of chronic disease as I get older, as well as keeping myself, you know, in great shape. And the foundation of that is going to be your gut gut health. And the only way that you can um, you know, the sort of most important way uh for you to start uh learning how to heal your gut as a gut health specialist is fiber. And so going back to the quality protein, yes, you could have some animal protein, animal flesh, um for sure. Most of it tends to be a little higher in saturated fat, not great for postmenopausal women. But if I'm eating animal flesh, I'm not getting fibre, antioxidants, um, phytochemicals, phytonutrients, um, just you know, barely in meat. But if I'm eating plant-based sources of protein, such as beans, legumes, chickpeans, nuts, seeds, lentils, uh, etc., and a plethora of beautiful vegetables, then I'm getting protein and I'm getting all of those nutrients that I really, really want, plus tons and tons of other micronutrients for optimal health. So to me, that is a quality protein. It doesn't have to be either or. You don't have to go to an extreme, but definitely leaning in the direction of a very plant-rich, plant-rich sources of protein is going to benefit you enormously. And, you know, there are certain very specific benefits with certain plant-based sources of protein that will help women with um menopausal issues such as hot flashes and things, and that would be something like uh soy. Um, but I don't want to get into that too much here. Okay, so let's talk now about quality fats. So, quality fats are going to be whole sources of fats. Um, so rather than I've mentioned saturated fat, you you want to minimize that as much as you possibly can in your diet. But then if we talk about oils, so even if we come away from the whole oil debate of whether olive oil is healthy or seed oils are healthy or whatever, which I don't want to get into here. Nonetheless, whatever oil you're talking about, whether it's pressed, extracted, distilled, whatever it is, is is going to be it's nine calories per gram. So basically, one tablespoon is 120 calories. And most people actually use obviously way more than one tablespoon. You that would just disappear as you're sauteing an onion. So it can really, really build up. So for those women who are on both a weight release journey and want to increase, increase the insulin sensitivity, it's a really good idea not to have these oils. So, but but you need very healthy fats. So lots of seeds and nuts and avocados, and then getting in some omegas as well, your EPA, DHA, maybe in supplemental form, is how you're getting those healthy fats. But now we're going back to each meal. So you want to have all that lovely protein in your meal, you want to have your healthy fats in a meal, and you need complex carbs. And this is where I see a lot of women the wheels fall off the bus because they've been on these low-carb diets. They're told that they shouldn't be eating carbs, and that absolutely is not true. We know that complex carbs are associated with weight release, with optimal health, with adding healthy years to your life, and I can go on and on. So I am talking about whole intact grains, whether it's your quinoa, which is actually technically not a grain, but your quinoa, your brown rice, wild rice, farrow, barley, buckwheat, whatever, those lovely whole grains are so, so healthy. Slow release carbs, they they slow release that glucose into your blood. Um sweet potatoes are absolutely my favorite, and there are many other beautiful complex carbs that I highly recommend that you eat. So we're filling every meal, every meal, breakfast, lunch, and dinner with those macronutrients, quality macronutrients, and we're eating enough. Now, the other thing is we also want to fill our all three meals, or certainly I would say breakfast and lunch, with lots of non-starchy vegetables. So non-starchy vegetables are things like um lettuces and cucumber and celery and think about all radishes, think about those beautiful veggies that are crunchy, watery when you bite into them. So they're wonderful. We eat them raw and they provide a lot of volume, and it's providing a low caloric volume to your diet. And this is very important, and this is why it's beautiful when ladies get the ladies who come to work with me, they go, I've never eaten been so satiated and satisfied because they're eating so much more when we put all these things together. And of course, this volume triggers the stretch receptors in your stomach and the iliac break to send a message to your brain going, Hey, we're full, we've eaten enough. So it's a natural appetite regulation mechanism that you have. Not only that, but a lot of these plant compounds are also going to help your body to naturally release GLP1, naturally, right? Again, that's that you're giving those satiete signals, like I've had enough. It's a sort of appetite, you we have these beautiful appetite regulation um checks and balances naturally in our system. And unfortunately, with with ultra-processed food and the food um landscape that we live in, that's where it all gets messed up. But that's for another episode. All right, so we've gone over what you need to eat, we've gone over how you need to eat it. So, to recap, really good night's sleep, kitchen closed, three hours before you go to bed, 12 to 14 hour fast overnight. When you about within 30, no more than 60 minutes after waking, you break your fast with a really, really good breakfast. Most of my clients have beautiful smoothies. We have various other breakfasts where we're getting in all of those beautiful nutrients, and we're getting and peppering in lots of other micronutrients as well. So I think why my clients feel so amazing and they never feel hungry anymore is that you're you're you're flooding your body with your cells with these nutrients, and it's super, super satisfying. Okay. And then you're gonna have a really, you know, wonderful big lunch as big as you can. And I know a lot of us eat at night with our families, so you sort of find a way of working that out, but you'll have your lovely dinner, and then you know, that's it. And um, there is a a few little nuances and details that I could go into with um protein distribution throughout the day, but again, that's for another episode because I don't want to make this too long. I just want you to get the important pieces here. Okay, now finally. Alcohol. So alcohol is something that is not doing you any favors, particularly over the age of 50. Sorry to have to say this. We metabolize alcohol very differently over the age of 50. It doesn't help you sleep, it sedates you, and that is a huge, huge difference. So alcohol suppresses REM sleep. I'm going to say that one more time. It suppresses REM, that sleep that you really need, the deep restorative sleep. And this is a sleep where your brain consolidates memory, it processes, processes emotion. It is so important, right? So you can sleep eight hours and wake up feeling like you barely slept, particularly after you've had, you know, half a bottle of wine or a couple of glasses of wine, right? Because you didn't get quality sleep. You got that, oh, I just knocked myself out, that sedation. So in midlife, um, when our hormonal buffer is already much, much lower, um, alcohol amplifies cortisol disruption. It works directly against sleep. It works against everything that this lovely three-hour window is doing. So, what I'm not saying is never, right? Have a glass of champagne every now and again, or a special occasion, or something like that. Um, but definitely eliminate it, I would say, most of the time, or at the very least, um, minimize how much alcohol that you are ingesting. Um, all right, so just remember you cannot properly rest if you are still digesting. And just remember that we have this, our parasympathetic nervous system that keeps us calm, it regulates our nervous system. The more, the the older we get, the more we really need to pay attention to that, because your parasympathetic nervous system needs to be pampered, it needs to be looked after, and that's why eating with the our natural body circadian rhythms is so so important and not restricting ourselves because that will backfire. So if you are if you are suffering, if you're really, really struggling after after the age of 50 or after the age of 45, then keep coming to these conversations because I have great, I'm I've got a lot of beautiful, uh very, very smart uh women and experts and researchers lined up for you. So if you're watching on YouTube, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any of my upcoming episodes. And you can go to SophieUliano.com forward slash podcast and find all the other episodes that I've got for you if you prefer listening, plus lots of other information. Okay, so that concludes this episode of Tea with Sophie. Give it a try, close that kitchen. Remember, I close my kitchen and I open myself up to deep sleep and vibrant health in my 50s, 60s, 70s, and beyond. Give it a try, and no matter what you do, do not restrict. That's we don't want anything that is gonna take your appetite away, especially you restricting because you don't want to push your body into famine mode as we get older. We want clear brain, we are we want brain health, we want uh um heart health, we want to lower our risk of chronic disease, and we want to feel fantastic. And this is how.