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Micro wisdom delivered to your ears every morning in voice notes ranging from 3 to 15 minutes long. Wisdom on how to live a healthier and more fulfilling life. Every podcast will ground you in the present moment to ensure you know what's important, the here and now.
Hello. Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to the one day at a time podcast. So today I'm talking about a study, looking at is it better to eat your food earlier on in the day or is okay to spread it from when you wake up to when you go to sleep? Like what's actually better?
Speaker 1:Is there any benefits? So weight loss, your metabolic health, all this type of stuff. Right? So there are some studies out that show that not eating after 3PM leads to greater weight loss. And one of the reasons for this is obviously a lot of us consume our snacks and, high calorie foods, in after after dinner.
Speaker 1:There's one study done on when people had, five hours of sleep versus seven hours of sleep. I think it's five and a half hours of sleep versus seven and a half hours of sleep. It showed that the group that only slept five and a half hours actually ate more calories in the day, but all of the calories that were, eaten extra came after the dinner snacks after dinner. Okay. So kind of like all the days all gone, tired, it maybe kicks in towards the end of the day, and you feel like you need a little bit boost, your hunger levels go up and you go for those snacks after dinner, and that's where the extra calories came from.
Speaker 1:So it could be something to do with this. Right? But let's have a look at what the actual research study done. It was done by the University of Alabama Birmingham. Okay.
Speaker 1:So they're interested in to see an early So they What they call in the research and you'll come across this perhaps is early time restricted feeding. Okay, so ETRF. So they defined ETRF as eating within a consistent window of ten hours or less and fasting for the rest of the day. And early is key here because the window starts morning and ends in the late afternoon. Alright?
Speaker 1:So in previous research on ETRF, Sammie says that it helps induce weight loss like I mentioned, but also to improve blood pressure, insulin sensitivity even in the absence of weight loss. Okay? So they wanted to look at this again. And the the kind of theory is that if you align your energy intake with your metabolism's natural circadian rhythm, it may work better together. Okay?
Speaker 1:So, you know, when you look at the research on walking, for example, it's good to go for a walk and get outside between, like, eleven and 2PM when the sun is out, get some direct sunlight and all this stuff. We know this is good for us. We know that we align ourselves with this. We feel better. Right?
Speaker 1:But it wants to look at it wants to look at into this even more in-depth. Okay? Let's have a look at, you know, eTRF and then perhaps slightly different, but, not quite eat the entire day. Okay. So what they did was they got a fourteen week study.
Speaker 1:There was an eight hour window versus twelve hours. Okay. So, you know, is it there's a difference. Not a huge difference. So the e t r f group, they were told to eat between 7AM and 3PM at least six days a week.
Speaker 1:And then the twelve hour group, were instructed to eat all of their meals within one twelve hour window at least six days a week. So that could be from, you know, 9AM till 9PM, 8AM till 8PM, whatever it is. I think a lot of people kind of have those general eating windows, maybe a small few, who knows? And they were told as well to eat 500 calories less than they require to maintain their weight and exercise between seventy five to hundred and fifty minutes a week. Okay?
Speaker 1:So it was 90 participant, 80% 90 participants, 80% female. Average age is 43. BMI, thirty nine point six. Average. Okay?
Speaker 1:So what did the study find in terms of weight loss? So the actual ETRF group actually lost a bit more fat, than the 12 over group. It's not statistically significant, but it's a bit. And you might be thinking, well, I might as well do that then. Hold on.
Speaker 1:Hold your horses. For blood markers, there was no difference in blood glucose insulin and other metabolic risk factors, but the eTRF group did experience a greater reduction in diastolic blood pressure. Okay? But again, it's not statistically significant. So slight improvements here, but things may be not practical.
Speaker 1:Okay? So both groups did try to eat 500 calories less. Okay? But the early calorie group, okay, had more metabolic adaption and their deficit was actually 214 calories greater than 12 o group. Okay?
Speaker 1:So when they looked at the data, there was more of an adoption, which meant that they were in a bigger deficit. That explains the slight difference in fat loss because if you equate everything, NG wise, you're looking at the same. But there was this is what the research so the researchers I'll I'll I'll say it out I'll read out how it says it in the study. Okay. So it says according to photographic food records, both groups reduced calorie intake by the same amount, about 580 calories per day below what was predicted would maintain their weight.
Speaker 1:There's slightly more than 500. However, when the researchers applied a formula that takes into account metabolic adaption, it indicated that the eTRF group actually had a caloric deficit that was 214 calories per day greater than the twelve hour group. That explains the difference. Okay? Now this isn't surprising.
Speaker 1:If you restrict the time window you can eat, you're likely gonna eat less calories. However, does it what does that do for your relationship with food? Okay? Dinner is the largest meal of the day for most people. Breakfast is no magical benefit to breakfast in itself.
Speaker 1:It's more this is consuming your calories between 7AM and three. Right? So breakfast in itself at 7AM isn't the magical ingredient here. It's just aligning with daylight. You know, you wake up, you eat, and it kind of goes circadian rhythm.
Speaker 1:It doesn't to be seven, it could be ten, you know, maybe it could be six, it could be, eleven. Who knows if it's the same if it's the same in terms of like when the sun goes down later in the day, for example, in The UK right now, it goes down maybe seven, 8PM. So could you do could you do it at, twelve till eight, you know, or could you do it less than that? You know, these are things, the questions that if you look into them too much, you might think, well, maybe it is better. It's more optimal for me to do it.
Speaker 1:But what you need to look at is practicality of these things. Like, okay, there's slight benefits to it. But look, if you've got a family and kids and stuff like that, like stopping eating after 3PM is hard. Like what, you know, what if you want to eat out in the evenings? When the summer nights are coming and you wanna go for food with your family and friends or you wanna cook something, when the the sun is still out 7PM, you know, you don't wanna be thinking of like limiting to this window, all for what?
Speaker 1:Or perhaps you do lose a tiny bit more fat over the course of fourteen weeks, but you lose out on your emotional health, your social side. You you feel restricted. You are restricted through time. Okay. So we can't escape the restriction of energy intake.
Speaker 1:So there's one restriction we have to abide by and it's like we have to abide by the laws of energy. Right? So, laws of thermodynamics, energy balance. We're looking at that and we're going, okay. That's one thing we have to actually stick to.
Speaker 1:Okay. It's one thing. But do I have to add more limitations to that and make my life harder for me to squeeze a little bit more out that may actually not even be a thing for me. Maybe in the study, slightly on average, slightly better, but maybe for me, no. And these are the things you gotta think.
Speaker 1:This is how you think about all these things. You know, you see a lot of people come out and talk about studies like this, and, like, there's a slight benefit here. You know, I'm not really interested in like a two or 3% improvement because I'm not an athlete. I'm not like an Olympic athlete. I'm trying to squeeze performance out.
Speaker 1:I'm looking at like lifestyle. I'm looking at my whole life. I'm looking at what studies show clear differences to things that are practical that I can do. Right? That's the main thing you wanna look at because if they're not practical, this is gonna stress you out more.
Speaker 1:Okay? So we know that when you look at total health, yes, you've got nutrition, you've got training, but you've got the mental, the emotional, social, all of it comes together. You can't just look at one thing. Right? So overall, what's the message here?
Speaker 1:Message is there might be a slight benefit for you, in the research to eat your calories, you know, front load them as they would say earlier in the morning until 3PM maybe, but no problem if you wanna do it whenever you want. You have to do what works for you. You can try things out. Like I say, you might find a benefit of making sure you have breakfast in the morning because you might feel like you got more energy for a workout or work. I know a lot of people are the opposite.
Speaker 1:And one member did ask me the question and said, I don't really like breakfast. And I'm kind of one of those people. Sometimes I have breakfast, sometimes I don't. Like, I might have something small before I train. I like to train at eleven or twelve.
Speaker 1:And it's like, you know, that works for me. But some people want a big breakfast and they feel like they need it. But again, it is up to you and you have to find this out for yourself. But don't limit yourself to rules that you can't abide by. Right?
Speaker 1:It's that's the important thing here. You know, there's potentially an improvement to mood aligning yourself with your circadian rhythm. There's a lot of these kind of benefits that could happen. You know, for sure walking, maybe eating with it, worth a go, worth a go perhaps. But yeah, that covers time, early time restricted eating.
Speaker 1:I covered the water fast, I covered it all. In a nutshell, for you and me listening, we are just we're just not the athletes, we're just the normal everyday person. And that's fine, know, like, not seen as a bad thing. We're just the everyday person. Do we need to hyper optimize or micromanage and look into these things?
Speaker 1:Or do we focus on the big boulders and then we crack on with the rest of our lives? I think we focus on the big boulders. You know, I I think we focus on the big things and then we can divert our time and attention and energy to other things that, when we're gonna look back on our lives, we're gonna go, yeah, thank God. Thank God I didn't like hyper analyze my, my eating window, stressing myself missing out on evening plans because I had so many nice dinners in the sun with my friends and family when I look back on. Not to be grim, but, you know, I'm 31 now, I've got a who knows how many summers I got left, but say I've got 40 summers left.
Speaker 1:You know, you're not gonna see me wasting any of my summer nights thinking, I'm on my early time time restricted feeding, guys. So unfortunately for all of you, any plans after 3PM, I'm not eating. And I'll just be there, and I'll talk about how I'm on this plan all the time, and I'll talk about how it should be healthy for you and how all of you should do it. La la la. And I go, mate, get out.
Speaker 1:Go away. We don't care. We're here to have a chat in life, have a have a giggle, because that's healthy for you, having a laugh with your friends and family big time. And don't overlook that. Don't overlook the social element you will sacrifice.
Speaker 1:And I say this as well to people I speak to who are like, hey, Scott. I I was low weight in lockdown one. I've gained some weight since lockdown, which is obviously normal because lockdown one was like like an experiment really. Like, what do you do when you've got absolutely loads of time when you can't go anywhere and you you can't really drink alcohol already unless you wanted to do it inside? You were living a artificial lifestyle.
Speaker 1:And the question you ask yourself is, what am I willing to sacrifice lifestyle wise for a certain physique? Because every physique level comes with a sacrifice. Okay? Sometimes people don't see it as a sacrifice. So this is the thing, when you see a personal trainer or a martial artist or someone that loves training and you see them in shape and they shred it and they think, they don't feel like they're sacrificing because they love doing what they're doing so much.
Speaker 1:They are a personal trainer, they're on their feet all day, they train, they love it. Same as like jujitsu guys who are doing it all the time, martial artists, they're like doing it all the time. They don't think it is sacrifice because they love it. Okay? And as a consequence of that, they burn a lot of calories.
Speaker 1:They wanna eat well for their training. They don't see it as sacrifice. But for most of us, we don't maybe have that love for, a sport. Some and, you know, our jobs aren't revolved around health fitness sometimes. So if your job isn't like a personal trainer or you've got, like, a lot of time to spend on, like, getting into a sport you love, you might find that you have to, like, quote, sacrifice time, and sacrifice kind of lifestyle factors to get to the the physiques they do, that they kind of have naturally with their lifestyle.
Speaker 1:So you have to look at the lifestyle and the outcome of the lifestyle. And of course, a lot of lifestyles that or physiques that you look up to or want to have have lifestyles that may be not compatible with what yours is because you could be a desk worker, you could be, you know, you could be a new mother, you could have three or four kids and you're trying to work a job and you're trying to balance everything and you're really like, how do I even increase my lifestyle to be like super active and stuff? It's really stressing me out. Maybe you can't. And you say, I'll do my best to make sure my energy intake doesn't exceed what I need, but, you know, I'll do the workouts two or three a week if I can.
Speaker 1:I'll get my steps in and I'll see how I go from there. And maybe one day I will find something I love I can get stuck into for extra few hours a week, and maybe that will change my physique. You know? But it might it'll it'll come as a byproduct of that as opposed to to as opposed to forcing that lifestyle change. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Because you're gonna feel like you're losing something. So the lifestyle change has to come from a place you really wanna be doing it and then as a side effect. For example, I've been doing jiu jitsu for seven months and I love it. You know, I go multiple times a week, like, maybe four maybe five times an average a week. And as a side effect of it, my physique has changed.
Speaker 1:I go to the gym a bit less. I'm doing more jiu jitsu. I've leaned up a bit. I think I've lost maybe tiny bit of muscle. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's just, like, the weight loss has made made me look a bit smaller, but I look more, like, athletic or nimble, basically. And I haven't tried to do that. I haven't gone to jiu jitsu go, and I I hope my physique changes. It's just a side effect or, like, a byproduct of this lifestyle that I'm now leading that's more tailored towards that, which is really more active than what I was before. More of of weightlifting only, power strength is doing that.
Speaker 1:And it's just that's how it is. So hopefully, that's good overview for you. Have a good day. Remember to focus on your one big thing if anything is stressing you out. And if you have any questions on this topic or you want the links to the recent studies, let me know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do what works for you, but there is the the the difference isn't miniscule, so think of practicality over everything. Have a good day. Speak soon.