The internal biological clock is regulated by diet, exercise and sleep-wake pattern which are also emphasized in Ayurvedic pillars of health as Ahar, Vihar and Nidra respectively. These three factors constitute our lifestyle. But most of the lifestyle management protocols does not include internal clock management. The health coach, nutritionist, counsellors or any such professional involved in preventive medicine are not even aware about basic principles of internal clock management.
See if this sounds familiar.
You wake up in the morning, thinking that today is the day you are going to eat
less and start losing weight. You are not hungry in the morning, so you skip
breakfast. You go to work, and by lunchtime you do feel hungry, but you have
small sandwich at desk. You congratulate yourself on your willpower. By 3 or 4
pm, that willpower is gone. You are hungry, cranky and fatigued and you are now
craving for some unhealthy choices such as sweetened coffee or cheesy burger.
After work, you are starving and exhausted. This is when the real trouble
begins. You reach to whatever comes your way. Even after dinner, you cannot
quit eating, when you feel full. Your blood glucose levels and insulin levels
are spiking, but you crave something sweet. You continue to snack until bedtime.
Unfortunately food consumed late in the day, won’t be digested. You may have
acid reflux, congestion or intestinal cramping. So your sleep is less restful
and you wake up feeling full from the night before. Starving yourself in the
first half of the day and bingeing in the second half of the day will sabotage
your weight management efforts.
Most of us have fallen into
this pattern. We consume more than half of the calories we require after 4 pm.
In one observational study, researchers found out that 50% of the participants consume
75% of the total calorie in afternoon and evening. They also found that people
further delay meals on weekends, worsening the metabolic jet lag effect on the
body. In the late afternoon and evening, the body is far less able to
metabolize calories, sugar and fat. People think that skipping breakfast or
lunch is saving calories for later, but this is not true. Your body is not a
simple machine that consumes a set number of calories every 24 hrs. Your
digestive tract has its own circadian rhythm. It is ready to go in the morning
and burns most efficiently at noon. After 2pm, it is progressively more
sluggish. People with slower metabolism or kapha prakriti who struggle to lose
weight have almost no ability to digest any food in late evening.
Your body’s ability to handle
a large infusion of calories means its glucose tolerance is higher in the
morning. And insulin sensitivity is also cyclical which goes on decreasing as
day passes. Your eating habits train your body to produce certain hormones
associated with eating, including ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin is produced in
the stomach and it is the only hormone the body makes to stimulate appetite.
Whenever you eat, you are training your body to anticipate food at this time,
and to make you hungry at the time when you normally eat. The hormone rises
sharply before you eat and decreases after you eat for several hours. Leptin
works the opposite way. It is released by your fat cells to tell the body that
you have had enough to eat. Leptin levels low before you eat and rise sharply
afterwards. Like insulin resistance, leptin resistance also developed in the
body due to late night eating. You brain stops receiving leptin signals when
you do not get enough sleep or when you eat at a time when your body would
otherwise be sleeping.
To break this vicious cycle, we have to adopt time restricted eating, narrowing the window of food intake. You need to experiment a little to get used to eating less at night. You need to prepone dinner time in small steps. Initially you have a piece of fruit or milk late night to combat the habitual hunger. Remember, you have to train your brain to signal hunger at the right time, drinking hot water with lemon may be supportive in this effort.
I will recommend to find out
your chronoprakriti from our website and maintain a sleep diary for a least one
week to follow your sleep wake pattern.
For more details do visit:
www.chronoprakriti.com
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