The Metabolic Power of Rhythm
Our bodies love rhythm. Even people who say they have no rhythm have rhythm. It's notable that our most basic, life-sustaining functions are rhythmic. Our hearts are meant to beat in a nice steady manner; if they don't, there's a problem. Our breathing, whether fast, medium, or slow, is most often uniform and even. Even our digestive systems want to be "regular." We're designed to be in sync with the rhythm of the sun, being more active in daylight hours and less active at night. We are not nocturnal creatures. Yes, we can force that on ourselves, but we're not designed that way.
So, while we may or may not be able to dance to a beat, our bodies still have rhythm.
What does this mean for our metabolism? If you're thinking this is where I tell you to eat breakfast, you're right. (It's about more than breakfast, but we'll get to that shortly.) Some of you are rolling your eyes right now, I know. But really, stop and listen for a minute, then decide for yourself.
Let me tell you about a study where researchers put a group of people on a 2000 calorie a day diet. In the first part of the study they consumed all 2000 of their calories at breakfast - one morning meal and that was it for the day. Every subject either lost weight or maintained their existing weight. In the second part of the study they ate all their calories in one evening meal. Exact same people, exact same 2000 calorie diet, but now every single participant gained weight. Every. One.
"But I'm not hungry in the morning." If that's the case, there's a good chance it's because your body rhythm is off. Are you eating most of your calories late in the day or at night? If so, you're probably shooting yourself in the foot when it comes to getting in sync with the patterns your body is designed to follow.
Our body wakes up expecting fuel to be added to our metabolic fire soon in order to get our systems revved up and ready to do their jobs. When we skip breakfast we're sending it the message that food is scarce. This can then trigger a response of storing fat to handle the lean times evidenced by the lack of food. Not the effect we want.
What about the rest of the day? Our metabolism is usually at its most effective about the time of day when the sun is highest, and then it slows down through the night. You've probably heard that it's a good idea to make lunch the largest meal of the day. This is one of the reasons why.
One of the problems with eating too many of our calories closer to bed time is that it gives our body a job to do while we sleep - digesting our food. What our metabolism wants to do while we're sleeping is focus on maintenance - detoxification, repair and growth of tissues and organs. When it's busy with other tasks it can't do that as well. It'll prioritize digestion but can't even do that as effectively since it's slower through the night than it is during the day. When we consider that eating later at night equates to second rate digestion and impairment of detoxification and repair and growth of other vital body parts, we have to ask ourselves if it's really worth it.
Common sense tells us that the most metabolically friendly way to eat is -
having a nutrient balanced meal within about an hour after waking,
making a nutrient balanced midday meal the largest meal of our day,
eating a final nutrient balanced meal in the evening,
choosing nutrient dense snacks according to our hunger, not mood or anything else,
and not eating anything within at least 2-3 hours before bed.
Are we going to do this every day? Nope. We're not robots or perfect people. But if we can keep this in mind and aim for it, we'll be working with our metabolism instead of against it, and we'll be way ahead of the game.
To read parts 1-4 of this series see the links below.