Isn’t it fascinating that our bodies stick to a pretty similar rhythm every day?
The same part of our body repairs itself at the same time every day. Our bodies are in a constant cycle of repair.
Its called circadian rhythm.
It dictates when we’ll feel tired at night and what time we’ll wake up in the morning.
What if tweaking your diet and lifestyle in line with your circadian rhythm, you could make it easier to stay in shape? What if without changing the types of food you’re eating, just the times you eat them, you could lose weight?
Lets use me as an example.
My natural desire is to not eat until at least lunchtime, then to pretty much graze all day until about half an hour or so before bedtime.
Over the last couple of months, I’ve brought my dinner much earlier, which has made me hungrier earlier in the day, so I’ve also started eating breakfast. Surprisingly to me, breakfast has gradually become the biggest meal of my day!
Eating breakfast has a knock on effect of me not being ravenous at lunchtime and so I haven’t been snacking the rest of the afternoon away.
This means I’m hungry for an earlier, proper sized dinner, and can more easily make it through to bedtime without any more food. Mentally, this works for me. My no food after dinner rule means no sneaking to the fridge for ‘just a bit of cheese’, which invariably leads to goodness knows how much more extra intake.
By the time I’ve added these changes up, I’m getting a kick-start of food to tell my body its time to get going in the morning (although I’m waiting until I get hungry, not eating just because I got up). My body has fuel to use while I’m busy, rather than running from empty.
I’m also giving my body the signal that no more food along some quiet wind-down time means its time to sleep.
My sleep quality is much better. Last night our little girl wriggled *all night* and where previously I’d have needed a bucket of coffee to wake me up, I’m actually absolutely fine – no coffee!
What this also means is that I’m getting a 12-14 hour fast overnight and two 4-5 hour fasts during the day too. Daytime fasting has a different effect to overnight fasting.
Fasting in general is great for your hormones, your digestion and for helping your body get used to finding its fuel from your body fat when it runs out of food energy.
And because of this ability to use fat stores for energy, hunger levels tend to drop, and mental clarity tends to increase too just because your body isn’t constantly trying to digest your most recent snack.
Not to mention the calories you save by skipping the odd bit of extra food!