Health News Update: Why Am I Fixated on an Anti-inflammatory Food Plan?
Hello again everyone:
Some of you may know that I am writing a book about how inflammation will cause, perpetuate, and/or aggravate every known human ailment, including aging (also known as ‘inflammaging’). Here is a sentence from my book that explains why I am so focused on the proper type of food plan:
“I have not yet seen a satisfactory and stable resolution of a chronic health condition without a clean food plan.”
This is why I am always recommending an unprocessed, whole-food, plant-based dietary pattern. Investing your time and effort towards a gradual or comfortable shift to this type of food plan will offer the greatest improvements in health and optimal aging no matter what shape you are in. Refer to my last blog (2.17.25) for help and resources to move into a better approach to food.
Additionally, when we live a lifestyle that goes against our inborn circadian clocks, we distort our biology and cause problems with our ability to be healthy and function well. There are two things that really set off our normal/optimal circadian rhythms:
When we sleep. To fix this, go to bed before 10 pm and get at least 7.5 hours of sleep. There can be a lot more to this, such as blocking blue light and avoiding screens at night, turning off WiFi at night…however, often fixing when and what we eat makes your sleep way better so start there and see what happens.
When we eat. To fix the eat part, I strongly recommend eTRF, or early Time Restricted Feeding. Basically, you consume 80% of your total daily calories by 2 pm, but you always have some type of breakfast before 10 am or within 2 hours of waking. Lunch is your main meal of the day, and you then have a very light dinner, only 20% of your total daily calories, and you consume all of your calories for the entire day within a 10-to-12-hour window. Breakfast like a princess/prince, lunch like a Queen/King, dinner like a pauper…
This form of intermittent fasting has many benefits, and one of the greatest ones is that is facilitates autophagy. Autophagy is an essential anti-inflammatory life process that utilizes the immune system to keep your entire body cleaned out of infections, tumors, inflammation, toxins, debris, gunk and more. Autophagy happens primarily at night, during sleep, in the absence of calories. Without autophagy we would die quickly, it is that important.
However, effective autophagy needs at least 12 to 14 hours WITHOUT CALORIES OF ANY TYPE. This is why eTRF is so critical to long term health. Imagine that your custodial crew (autophagy) is unable to complete its job, which means that when you wake up in the morning, the place (your body) is only partially cleaned out. You are now living in a hoarder’s house, full of gunk that blocks essential life functions and leads to an accumulation of debris and inflammation. By going to eTRF with an unprocessed, whole-foods plant-based food plan, you can reasonably expect to feel a lot better because you will have lowered your inflammatory burden and realigned your body chemistry via better circadian rhythms.
For example, our circadian rhythms cause our body to be insulin sensitive in the morning and have a full digestive crew in the kitchen. By late afternoon, that same meal that we had in the morning will take two to three times as long to process, plus we will be insulin resistant and our blood sugar will stay elevated longer…thus eating heavier dinners can cause indigestion, elevated blood sugar, weight gain, unprocessed foods that alter the microbiome, more inflammation, more cravings, tendency to eat more at night because we cannot feel as full as fast…all because we went against our natural body clocks that say eat less at night and most of your food before 2 pm. We are made that way…why fight it?
Bottom Line:
Combining an unprocessed, whole-food, plant-based food plan with eTRF makes sense if you are looking to avoid or overcome any chronic health issue. This is the foundation your body needs to repair, heal, and revive. It is also a gentle and doable approach that most of us can do without any worries. Give it a try and let me know how it goes, please.
(Please note: If you have any diagnosed health condition, clear this with your health care practitioner or do this under some medical supervision. While this approach is extremely safe and most of us can undertake this, it may not be appropriate for some such as those with diabetes.)
