Eat Earlier At Night for Better Health
The time you eat your last meal of the day can be an important factor in your health.
Recent studies show that people who eat dinner at least two hours before bedtime have a 20 percent reduction in cancer risk for breast and prostate cancer combined. “Morning people” who have a natural affinity for getting up early in the morning are at particularly high risk for cancer when eating dinner too close to bedtime, compared to “night owls” who are up more than 2 hours after eating.
Avoiding food at least two or preferably three hours before bedtime helps optimize mitochondrial function, which is key for optimal health and chronic disease prevention. Eating dinner in the afternoon, or skipping supper altogether and fasting until the next morning combats weight gain by reducing hunger, increasing fat burning and improving metabolic flexibility to burn both fat and carbs.
Not only are you what you eat. You are how you eat and when you eat.
This advice runs counter to the standard dietary recommendation to eat three meals a day with small snacks in between. Today, science is telling us that all-day grazing — especially on processed foods — has been identified as a key driver of obesity and chronic ill health.
Because our ancient ancestors did not have access to food consistently, our body was designed for intermittent periods of fasting. Eating a very early dinner, or skipping it entirely, alters the way the body burns fat and carbohydrates, resulting in reduced hunger and improved fat burning. Many metabolic functions operate at their peak in the morning and early in the day, becoming less efficient as the day draws to a close and your body prepares for rest and sleep.
Avoiding late-night eating is a simple way to prevent cellular damage from occurring — damage that might otherwise impair your mitochondrial functioning, lower your energy level, and ultimately contribute to all sorts of degenerative disease, including cancer. Chronic inflammation is a hallmark of cancer, and by feeding your body late at night, the excess free radicals generated in your mitochondria will simply fuel that inflammation.
In recent years, it’s become increasingly clear that your body simply isn’t designed to run optimally when continuously fed. If you eat throughout the day and never skip a meal, your body adapts to burning sugar as its primary fuel, which down-regulates enzymes that utilize and burn stored fat. As a result, you start gaining weight, and efforts at weight loss tend to be ineffective.
Benefits of Eating Dinner Before 7
To lose body fat, your body must be able to burn fat. Without this metabolic flexibility, the fat stays and exercise will not budge it out of place. To learn more about eating well, moving well and thinking well, call 480-325-6977 to schedule a free consultation. The Doctors at Foresight Chiropractic, the Valley’s premier Wellness Center, are Board Certified Atlas Orthogonal upper cervical specialists, certified Wellness and Advanced Muscle Integration Technique practitioners.
Resource:
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/09/03/eating-early-dinner-or-skipping-supper.aspx
