Time Restricted Eating

I’m a huge fan of time-restricted eating and not because it’s the latest craze, but because it makes sense.

For decades now we've been told to believe that having 3 meals and 2 snacks per day “boosts metabolism” but research is coming out (in spades!!!) to say just how very wrong that is.

Every time we eat, no matter what we eat, we cause insulin to be released and insulin is our primary fat-storing hormone. Its job is to shunt that harmful sugar OUT of the bloodstream where it can cause all sorts of inflammatory and cardiovascular damage and into our cells where it's used for energy production.

Sounds great on the surface, right? Our body doing what it's trained to do? But when we keep on giving it food, simple carbs or not, we are always putting the system under a heavy load in several ways.

And you know where we store it when it's insulin-induced fat storage?

Right around our guts!!! Yep. The spare tyre. The love handles. The veranda over the tool shed. The reason last year’s jeans don’t fit. You get my drift? So, when we are eating and snacking all the time, especially higher carb foods:

Number one we are spike spike spiking that insulin (hello fat storage), especially around the liver first.

Number two we are putting extra pressure on our digestive tract.

Number three we are not giving the body the chance to dip into the fat stores we have so thoughtfully laid down for it over the years, so we find it difficult to lose weight.

Number four we don’t give our bodies the chance to “clean house”. If we are always digesting food, and food digestion is our body’s TOP priority, then it diverts precious resources away from getting rid of toxic or dying cells, precancerous cells, damaged cells or healing and manufacturing new cells.

To lose weight we have to have not eaten long enough for our body to have digested food, used the glucose floating around in our bloodstream, used the stored glycogen in the liver (too much of this leads to fatty liver) and then and only then dip into our fat stores.

Once most people have digested their food it’s like “oh, morning tea cool I’ll have a muffin”!!! Our poor old bodies are hit in two ways –number one MORE food to digest and if it really IS a muffin then a massive sugar hit so double the insulin spike.

It’s quite simple really. Push the time out between your last meal of the day and you're first (doesn’t matter which way you do it - either earlier dinner or later brekky, and the standard time seems to be about 14-16 hours but you can go longer if you want and are comfortable with it) and stop the snacks if you REALLY don’t need them.

And if you really DO need them, ask yourself why?

Do you have blood sugar issues? Are you pre-diabetic, diabetic or have metabolic syndrome? Is it a habit? Do you have adrenal issues that require constant fuelling? Are you nutrient deficient? Are you premenstrual? Are you bored?

We shouldn’t HAVE to snack between meals if we don't have metabolic issues and we’ve had a good quality nutrient-dense meal with some good carbs (yep, don’t ever expect me to jump on that no carb bandwagon….), some quality protein, some good fats and enough calories.

Yes, ENOUGH calories. Calories are not the enemy here. The TYPE of calories and how often you eat them are more of a problem in this case.

So, there you go. Nothing crazy. Nothing super restrictive. No calorie counting, portion control or food group deletion. Just some good ol common sense and giving our poor old bodies a break.

STOP EATING!!! Well, so much and so often anyway.