Health News Update: When You Eat is Critical to Long Term Health
Hello again, everyone:
As you know, I am always looking for foundational lifestyle upgrades that advantage us to lower our inflammatory burden and promote a longer healthspan and lifespan. Because we are all born with genetic ‘clocks’ that coordinate and control all of our biochemical functions, having lifestyle activities (such as when we eat) that align with our clocks turns out to boost health significantly. Here are the main takeaways:
“Research from animal models suggested that aligning food intake with rhythms could enhance metabolic efficiency and improve health outcomes,” Ruiz explained. “We wanted to investigate whether these findings translate to humans and how the timing of the eating window — early, late, or self-selected — affects weight loss, fat distribution, and cardiometabolic health in men and women with overweight or obesity,” he said. All participants were randomly assigned to one of four time-restricted fasting groups: early fasting (food consumed between a median of 9:45 a.m.-5:30 p.m.), late fasting (food consumed between a median of 2:20 p.m.-9:30 p.m.), self-selected fasting, or treatment as usual. Study participants also received nutrition education on the Mediterranean diet and healthy lifestyles.
“The greater reduction in abdominal subcutaneous fat observed in the early fasting group highlights the potential metabolic advantages of aligning food intake with the body’s natural circadian rhythms. This finding suggests that early time-restricted eating could be particularly beneficial for improving fat distribution and reducing obesity-related risks.”
— Jonatan R. Ruiz, PhD
Bottom Line:
This is a good study for several reasons:
· They compared 4 types of food timing.
· They instructed people on improved food choices and lifestyle activities.
· They found that all types of time restricted eating worked, but early feeding worked the best.
· Loss of body fat and improved cardiometabolic health will equate with lowered body inflammation.
· Early eating is easy to do, costs nothing, and works the best.
Early fasting (described above) probably worked best because it is the only one that aligned with our natural circadian clock rhythms. While it is the best one and the one that I most highly recommend, sometimes jobs or other life situations will not allow early fasting. This paper showed that all types of time restricted eating are beneficial, but the early eating approach had the best results. There are lots of people that do not have any appetite in the morning, and unfortunately, that is problematic as it distorts your biology and can have serious health implications as it will allow the continuation of a large inflammatory burden among other issues. There are a couple of fixes for that:
1. Start a late fasting protocol…once you have that down, try #2.
2. To re-align your circadian clocks, you will need to start eating some kind of breakfast. If you have ANY chronic health issue and do not eat breakfast, it means your circadian clocks need to be reset. To do this, one way to get your clocks aligned and improve your health is to have your regular dinner but only eat half of it and have the other half for breakfast. This works better than you might think. The long-term goal for successful early fasting is to:
a. Have a breakfast.
b. Consume 80% of your total caloric intake before 2 PM.
c. Dinner is the lightest meal of the day, typically 20% or less of your daily food and caloric intake. Give yourself 3 to 6 weeks to get used to this.
d. Consume all of your food/calories within a 10-hour window and have 14 hours per day without any calories but stay well hydrated.
e. Shift your food choices to an unprocessed, whole-foods plant-based plan where 10% or less of your calories come from animal sources.
This is the plan that I follow and highly recommend as it is where I see people make the greatest health improvements. When you eat and what you eat are foundational. In other words, nutrition is the priority simply because the nutrition that you get from your food is what determines your biochemistry, which is what determines how each and every cell functions (physiology), which is what is the main determinant or consequence of how sick or healthy you will be…now and in your future.
Because most of us are lifelong learners in different fields, my goal is to pass along what I am learning that has truly foundational and long-term application and importance for all of us. That is why I write these blogs…to pass along this vital information. Our bodies are miraculous Temples so we should honor and treat them as such, and we all can learn how to do this better and better as part of our shared responsibility. Thanks for reading this and all the best to you and yours.
