The Most Dangerous Times to Eat

Circadian rhythms have a strong relationship with our eating habits. Changing our mealtimes is essential if you want to improve your health and lose weight.

The Importance of a Good Breakfast

You’ve probably had cereal or toast for breakfast today. It’s common to think that we shouldn’t have heavy food first thing in the morning, right? However, scientists have proven otherwise.

Consuming most of our daily calories during breakfast is highly recommended by many specialists and nutritionists. Changing our mealtimes isn’t that bad of an idea, after all.

There is a study of this topic focused on women who were actively trying to lose weight. The women who lost more weight were the ones who had lunch earlier during the day, whereas the women who were used to having late breakfasts had a higher body mass index.

Because of these results, professionals are investigating the reasoning behind the connection between eating at a given time and our body clocks. This has already been nicknamed “chrono-nutrition.”

The Timing of Your Meal

When we think of “body clock,” we often think of sleeping. However, we carry a body clock in practically every cell of our bodies. They help us wake up in the morning, since they regulate our blood pressure, temperature, hormone levels, etc.

Are irregular and late mealtimes affecting these internal cycles?

Some experts, such as Dr. Pot, explain that our bodies work under a 24-hour cycle and our metabolism has an optimal time for every metabolic process to happen. Therefore, having a large meal in the evening affects your body, since it was already preparing for rest at night.

Dr. Jonathan Johnston from the University of Surrey stated that, even though it is well known that digesting food in the evening is bad for our health, it is still not fully understood why this is. Some say that it’s connected to the energy our body uses when we process a meal, which is higher during the morning rather than the evening. Although this is just a theory.

Comprehending the connection between our mealtimes and our health can be a key factor in battling the obesity epidemic; thus, it’s highly important. Dr. Johnston also said that we should focus on when we eat, not only on what we eat. This little detail can become a crucial turning point in our society’s eating habits.

Furthermore, he also said that people with disrupted body clocks, such as shift workers, should also take notes on when they should eat. Not only that, but previous studies confirmed that this happens with animals too, and now they’re trying to see if a human circadian rhythm is also affected by mealtimes.

In a small study involving ten men, Dr. Johnston observed that postponing their mealtimes by five hours noticeably altered a biological indicator of their body clocks. According to Dr. Johnston, the findings suggest that eating at certain times might help people deal with a disrupted body clock, a condition that can have serious health consequences.

The bottom line

Although the connection between mealtimes and our body clocks is still not known, having a proper meal schedule and focusing our calorie consumption early during the day are key to sustaining a healthy lifestyle.