Time Restricted Eating

“Time restricted eating is not healthy, it’s just cutting calories.”

“Intermittent fasting is just starving yourself, there is no research to support this concept.”

Have you heard this before? I disagree. Here’s why…

Time restricted eating was never about cutting calories, it’s all about eating within the body’s natural circadian rhythm. We now know that our organs have a cycle of when they are supposed to slow down for the night, and if we are continually eating during this phase we make them keep working leading to weight gain, loss of sleep and disease.

Nutrition is based on two concepts.

The first concept is that if you have two people on the same diet, the person eating less calories will lose weight. This is why counting calories is extremely popular.

The second concept, which has been repeated thousands of times in a lab setting, is that if you feed two identical mice the same calories but one gets a balanced ratio of carbs, fat and protein and the other gets just carbs and fats, the one who is eating carbs and fat will not only gain more weight but will start to develop diabetes. This is part of the reason the “fat is bad” for you myth started, however that’s a story for another day. This tells us that the quality of food is extremely important, aka not all calories are created equal.

There should be a third concept of nutrition – the timing of eating. In 2012, a researcher named Satchin Panda PhD was very interested in circadian rhythm of not only mice but the organs as well. They took two genetically identical mice and gave them the exact same high fat diet. One group had full access to the food throughout the day and the other group was restricted to an 8 hour window. The mice who were eating in a smaller window soon learned to eat the exact same number of calories as the mice eating throughout the day. The mice eating the high fat diet throughout the day developed metabolic diseases as expected (this has been done over 10,000 times) however, the mice eating within an 8 hour window, the same diet and the same calories were completely healthy and had normal blood sugar levels and cholesterol levels. These benefits continued for mice throughout a full year or more which is equal to much longer in humans. Timing of eating made all the difference, not the calories or the food content. The most amazing part of this study was that the mice who had developed disease from eating all day long reversed the disease when they went to an 8 hour eating window.

Eating windows are measured from the time you have your first bite of food in the morning until you have your last bite before bed. The most benefits researchers found happened when all food was consumed within an 8-11 hour window. But there were benefits all the way up to 14 hours, at 15 hours was when things went downhill. A 15 hour eating window looks like someone eating right when they wake up at 7 AM and then having their last snack or drink before bed at 10 PM, not too uncommon.

This has been repeated many times with humans as well. One study took two groups of people all who had a BMI over 25 and had them eat in a 14 hour window and a 10 hour window. They didn’t tell them what to eat, just when to eat. The group who ate in a 14 hour window saw no changes, however the group that ate within a 10 hour window lost 4% of their bodyweight over a 4 month period. This was all without any change in nutrition or calories, just a change in eating patterns.

On top of all this research is now finding that our organs actually have a circadian rhythm as well and it’s set by when we eat food. For example our pancreas releases insulin to help with our blood sugar. 2-3 hours before bed our sleep hormone melatonin starts to rise. Research shows that melatonin actually inhibits the release of insulin from our pancreas. This means that if you are eating a few hours before bed your blood sugar is going to be less regulated and more fat is going to be stored.

Time restricted eating is the missing key for many people. Not only can it be beneficial for weight loss, but also a health benefit for your organs.

Sit less, move more

Sitting:

• 
     Alters metabolic function
•    Causes decrease in bone density
•    Reduces insulin efficiency
•    Alters enzymes responsible for regulating cholesterol
•    Alters and harms blood vessels

Many jobs require you to sit and work at a computer. There are only so many options for mobility during the day.

1. Change your sitting position throughout the day. Lean forward, lean back, lean side to side. There is not a single posture that’s the best posture while sitting, because all of them are damaging.
2. Use a standing desk and alternate between sitting and standing throughout the day. Standing too much in one position can still be problematic for your knees, hips and low back.
3. Sit on a balance disc. They are inexpensive and you can sit them right on your chair. Even using it sporadically throughout the day is beneficial. We carry something called the Back Vitalizer in our office that can also be used like this and is easy to travel with (it deflates which is great for airplane travel).
4. Use a yoga ball if it’s not distracting to your co-workers. Using it sporadically is best because of people getting fatigued and a yoga ball can magnify postural problems if there are some.
5. Take frequent breaks and move as much as you can during them. If you are working from home, you could get more creative.
6. Use a treadmill desk and walk very slowly while working.
7. Use talk to text to do emails. Make sure to review your emails first for mistakes before sending! This is something I utilize often to reduce the amount of time I’m sitting at a computer. 

The more you move, the more you live

Keeping basic functional movements is key to having a healthy lifespan (how long you live a healthy life, not just how long you live).

Older people in the poorest health generally have the least mobility. Incorporate these five mobility exercises into your routine to prevent future problems. 

1. Get on the ground and back up again without someone helping you or having to hold on to something. When someone who can't do this falls it's extremely dangerous. Especially if they fall outside during the winter they end up having to crawl until they can find someone to hold on to or having to call for help. 

2. Squat down deep to end range of hip and knee motion, just with body weight. The majority of the population sits all day long and never uses most of their hip or knee range of motion. They bend with their back or they kneel down when trying to get something off the ground. In my chiropractic office, we see injuries every day caused by people bending down with their backs to lift something off the ground instead of using their legs and squatting down. 

3. Reach your arms overhead. Many people don't reach above their head on a regular basis. We see many people who have severe loss of shoulder mobility when they get into their 70's and older. Some even have a hard time doing their hair. Usually it is not from an injury, it's just from lack of use. 

4. Low impact interval/sprints. As people age, they lose their ability to move quickly without getting hurt. Having the ability to sprint or quickly get out of the way can prevent injuries. If you are around kids, I'm sure you have witnessed many times that moving quick can save them from getting hurt. Most people lose the ability to sprint properly in their 30's. 

5. Turn your head from side to side as far as it goes. 90% of people work from a computer and never do anything besides stare straight forward. I'm surprised people don't get in more car accidents because many people lose 50% of more of their neck range of motion as they age and checking their blind spot while driving is nearly impossible. If you lose neck mobility, it can lead to other back issues as people are twisting their back to see rather than turning their neck.

You've heard "if you don't use it, you lose it." That saying for mobility should go "if you move it, you won't lose it."

It only takes a few minutes a day to do these motion exercises and it will make a massive difference for your health down the road. 

95% of Americans need to focus on their nutrition

Less than 5% of adults participate in 30 minutes of physical activity each day, only one in three adults receive the recommended amount of physical activity each week. (source: hhs.gov)

Add that to the fact that more than 80% of Americans have a metabolic problem due to diet, and it is a recipe for a nationwide health crisis.

Find what works for you. And know that it will alter during different periods of your life.

I have three kids, a full time job and so does my wife. I need a routine that allows me to stay in shape without spending two hours a day working out so I can spend as much time as possible home with my wife and kids.

My current routine is doing 15 – 20 reps of body weight exercises daily, and then doing a 10-15 minute sprint workout on a spin bike.

I move and walk as much as I can throughout the day and put a lot of focus on nutrition -- low carb, high protein, low sugar, lots of green veggies, etc.

This routine works extremely well FOR ME at this phase in my life and probably other people who are already in shape.

I’m not willing to sacrifice more time to work out than I currently am. So for me personally, I need to put my energy on what I’m eating to stay in shape.

So if you can’t devote more time to exercise, then you need make a major shift to focus on your nutrition.