"I didn't even get into this to lose weight. I wanted to try it because of all the health benefits towards longevity and anti-aging." is what Alain told me as we began to discuss time-restricted eating.
What is time-restricted eating?
Why might you want to give it a shot?
Heres an intro course, Time Restricted Eating 101.
Time-restricted eating is when you restrict your feeding time to a window throughout the day. The way I have been experimenting is I eat between 12:00 pm - 8:00 pm.
You may wonder what a typical day like using this protocol. Typically, I wake up in the morning, take a shower, brush my teeth, get dressed, and begin my day.
Some days I do a workout in the morning, on others I have clients early and get to it. I usually pack my lunch the night before and take my food with me.
So far I've only experimented with not eating breakfast. It's been the easiest for my lifestyle.
After listening to the found my fitness podcast, host Rhonda Patrick a Ph. D in Biomedical Sciences exposed me to the possible health benefits of Time Restricted Eating. Through very informative interviews with the likes of Dr. Valter Longo & Satchin Panda there was a lot of new information for me to experiment with.
I'm currently using the 16/8 Approach, which means that I fast for 16 hours a day, then eat between the previously mentioned 12:00 pm-8:00 pm window.
What are some of the benefits of this approach? Imagine that inside your body there are battles going on. Just like any battle you have one side that will bring benefit to you and another that eager to bring you down. It's like game of thrones going on inside your body. When a person fasts for a long enough time there's a process called autophagy that takes place.
What is autophagy? Autophagy is cell death. Cell what? Why would you want to kick off any process of death? Nature in its infinite wisdom brings fresh life from death. How does autophagy do this?
Let's take this example straight from nature itself. In the "wild" a hungry lion instinctively goes after the old & weak members of the herd it's hunting.
Your body kind of does the same thing. Think of autophagy as the lion. It looks for the cells in your body that are weaker and eats them first.
What makes this interesting is that if you follow up your fast with eating high nutrient quality foods in your feeding window. Your body begins to create new cells made up of good ingredients.
Research has shown that you could be a little more flexible with your diet, but if I may nudge you, I'd like to ask. Wouldn't you rather be made of the best ingredients?
It's an interesting experiment to run on oneself. A word of advice is to be mindful of how your body feels. At first your body will take time to adapt to this form of eating. Usually during the adaptation phase which can take different amounts of time for each individual your body may put up resistance.
I've literally seen the whole spectrum. From those that within two weeks they literally are singing the praises of fasting because they lose weight, have less pain, and sleep better. To those that feel like they get sick, dizzy, and are low energy till they get through the adaptation phase. The only way you will know how it works for you is to of course experience it. Experience is the way humans learn the best.
I hope this has been a good intro to time-restricted eating. Send your questions in. I'd be happy to answer them and help you on your journey.
Till next time...Be well.
Track Of The Day - You May Be Right - Billy Joel
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