Are You Eating at the Right Time? — The Science of Meal Timing

We can spend hours obsessing about what we eat. Calorie counting, tracking macronutrients, carb restriction, and the latest debate about organic versus processed food are all things we take extremely seriously. However, whilst we focus on the contents of our plate, we completely overlook a crucial question: What time are you eating?

We are discovering now in nutritional science that our body isn't merely a simple engine that burns whatever fuel we throw in it. It operates on a complicated internal schedule. Eating healthy food at the wrong time completely alters the way your body digests it.

Let’s look at the amazing science behind timing your meals using your circadian rhythm, and see how this can completely transform your health:

All the cells in your body have a 24-hour cycle that is regulated by a master clock in your brain and is known as your circadian rhythm. It is the factor that controls when you're awake, when you sleep and when your hormones are fluctuating.

Your gut, your liver, your pancreas all have their own 'peripheral clocks'. In the morning as you wake up, the sun rises, your body starts preparing for a day of eating. Your sensitivity to insulin is high at this point, which allows your body to efficiently turn what you eat into energy. As evening approaches, your body enters its' repair and cellular clean up mode. If you consume a large evening meal at the wrong time, it is essentially like forcing your factory to run a full production line just as all of your workers are shutting up for the day.

There is a profound scientific truth in the old saying: 'eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.' Studies carried out in chrononutrition (the study of how food and timing influence the body) demonstrate that DIT (Diet Induced Thermogenesis - the amount of energy our body requires to digest and process food) is much higher in the morning. If you eat a 500 calorie meal at 8 am, a good proportion of it will be burned by the sheer effort your body is undertaking to digest it, whereas, at 10 pm, the metabolic effect is low, your insulin sensitivity has dipped, and you're far more likely to store the meal as fat.

The modern society that thrives on late night working, constant scrolling through screens and craving takeaway at midnight is causing some severe physiological damage. At night time melatonin, the hormone responsible for sleep, starts circulating. Melatonin actively suppresses insulin secretion, so eating whilst melatonin is high means your blood sugar stays high for much longer and dramatically increases your risk of type 2 diabetes. As your digestive system needs to work and produce acid to digest your food, eating immediately before lying down will cause acid to rise into your esophagus and will likely disrupt sleep as well as give you a heart burn attack. Lastly your body never gets the opportunity to burn through its stores of glycogen and use up any fat reserves due to an always late night meal and your mid section size will increase over time.

An easy way to take advantage of the science of meal timing without tracking calories is by practicing time-restricted eating. Simply restricting the time that you eat your food during the day to a window of 10-12 hours. For example, if your first bite of food at 8 am, you shouldn't ideally be eating anymore past 6 pm or 8 pm to give your body a 12-14 hour fasting window. During this period your body will repair its gut lining, your liver can get rid of toxins, and your metabolism becomes more flexible, allowing you to naturally burn fat stores overnight.

A fix doesn't mean a lifestyle overhaul: 1. Do not skip breakfast. 2. Have your last meal at least 3 hours before you intend to sleep. 3. Keep meals to the same time as much as possible; your body gets accustomed to receiving food and will get used to metabolising food.