Time-restricted eating

There’s a new trend in nutritional science that espouses skipping breakfast altogether or postponing breakfast until later in the day. Sound crazy? It’s not. It actually makes good sense.

In the past, as a nutritionist I would vary my advice depending on the individual and their particular health issues but for the most part encouraged eating breakfast for this reason: raising blood sugar levels and thereby energy levels, setting the tone for the rest of the day. Balance that advantage with the obverse: waiting to eat, doing some light activity and in so doing, burning more body fat. Added to which, the digestive system gets a longer break.

I have advised some clients to give their system at least 12 hours of rest which means restricting eating and drinking to the first bite (or sip) in the morning to the last bite you take at night. This might be 8:00am to 8:00 pm. During the interim period, the digestive system is less taxed and therefore able to do its work better when it receives more food the next day. So, none of this is new.

What is new is the idea that this time restricted eating might have other benefits we’ve never before considered. These include increased muscle mass, improved physical endurance, reduced risk of breast cancer and slowing the aging process. What’s also new is the notion that any ingestible substance you put in your mouth besides water will trigger xenobiotic metabolism – the set of metabolic pathways that modify the chemical structure of compounds foreign to the body’s normal chemistry. This includes coffee and unfortunately even lemon water!

Why does this make sense?

Humans are diurnal beings which means we are on a circadian rhythm (a biological process that displays an oscillation of 24 hours). How does this affect digestion? When we eat, the presence of food activates enzymes that work best during a 12 hour daytime period. After 12 hours the enzymes start to shut down and so food eaten at night is not properly digested upon consumption. During periods of fasting, your body spends less energy digesting food and more energy repairing and regenerating new healthy cells. So if you are one of those people who get up in the night to eat, you might want to reconsider that practice.

If you are an athlete, restricted eating is important for muscle gains and endurance. If you can limit yourself to an even shorter window than 12 hours, you may experience even more benefits, 9 hours being the minimum window for eating, 15 hours for fasting.

But anybody can benefit from this regime. There are many more advantages and few, if any, disadvantages. So why not try it? Your health could be better off for it.

If you are interested in learning more about time restricted eating, I encourage you to search for information by Dr. Rhonda Patrick and/or Dr. Satchin Panda, the leading researchers on this phenomenon.