It seems the brilliant researchers who study our circadian clock, that internal timekeeper, have tuned in to an important factor for weight management.
I attended a lecture by Satachin Panda, Ph.D. of the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences. It seems a blue light sensor in the retina measures ambient light level and sets the time to go to sleep and wake up every day. Dr. Panda and his associates also study the body’s organ and hormonal systems, believing that each has its own circadian rhythm. In the process of exploring how the liver’s daily cycles work, Dr. Panda found that mice who eat within a 12 hour period were slimmer, healthier mice than those who ate the same number of calories over a longer period of time.
When & What
Based on these findings, when we eat may be equally as important as what we eat. As a health coach I see many women struggling with obesity. Almost without exception, these women are night eaters and often forego breakfast because they don’t feel hungry. Could it be their night eating has thrown off their circadian rhythms? It seems likely, since they also are poor sleepers. Should we all, like Dr. Panda’s mice, should consider limiting the time in which we eat if we want to be a healthy weight?
It turns out that intermittent fasting seems to be good for most people, not just those who are obese. Many people I work with are experimenting with intermittent fasting, and findings lean toward success in weight loss when the rest period is even longer than the 12 hours Dr. Panda used for his mice. Eating breakfast at 8 a.m. and finishing your last meal by 6 p.m., except for plain tea or water, gives you full 14 hours of fasting.
I remember coaching a young woman who moved to the States from South Africa. She became overweight and was quite distressed by it. She told me she ate a low nutrient breakfast (coffee and muffin) early in the day, grabbed a quick high fat lunch around 2 pm and grazed on snack foods in the evening until she went to bed. I asked her what her eating was like growing up; her response was breakfast at 6, lunch at noon, dinner at 6, with no snacking. Her weight was fine in South Africa. I think she demonstrates that our bodies have a rhythm for eating as much as it has a rhythm for waking and sleeping.
Intermittent fasting won’t result in rapid weight loss. We can be impatient people, and stop doing something if we don’t get quick results. But no one gains weight rapidly, so why would we expect to lose it rapidly? If we did, we would be losing muscle mass along with the fat we want to shed.
You Want to Lose Weight.
Some time ago I wrote a piece on “Grab and Go” where I advocate for focused eating in the form of meals. This falls in line with our body’s rhythms and our woman friend from South Africa is a good example of what happens when we snack.
Intermittent fasting, coupled with nourishing, appealing meals may be your most effective experiment with weight loss and successful outcome yet. I focus on this in my virtual 6 Weeks to Diet Freedom Program where I coach not only on planning, preparing and eating nutrient rich foods but also include intermittent fasting experiences. You may feel you can only use the intermittent fasting protocol 2 or 3 days a week because of your lifestyle, and it turns out that is quite effective too. It’s not all or nothing, anti can be constantly modified to meet your life’s demands.
Weight gain doesn’t happen overnight. It is most often a slow, gradual process, where the needle slowly moves up. That needle can be reversed with a patient, focused commitment to changing your food for the better and using what we know about our body clock to give ourselves the best opportunity to burn the most energy each and every day.
Does this idea od the body clock’s influence on weight and metabolism make sense to you? Will you experiment with this idea? Please join the conversation.
You can find more information on my 6 Weeks Program here.