It’s not just about WHAT you eat, but it’s WHEN you eat!

Did you know that it’s not only important to look at WHAT you eat, but also WHEN?

Every time you eat, your cells absorb sugar (glucose) into the blood. Your body stores any remaining glucose as glycogen in your liver and muscles for use later. If there’s too much glucose in your blood, and your stores are full, the glucose can then be stored in fat…this is why high blood sugar can lead to weight gain.

After your food is digested and your blood sugar levels return back to normal, your body is able to tap into fat reserves, and burn fat cells instead of glucose. This is great, because it means that you can reduce fat or keep it off, simply by intermittent fasting! You obviously don’t want to take it too far, and make your body think it needs to be in survival mode and slow down your metabolism.

In general, it takes roughly 2 hours after eating a meal for your blood sugar levels to return back to normal. If we continue to eat every couple hours, our blood sugar will stay elevated, and instead of our body tapping into fat, it’s just moving the excess glucose into creating more fat.

So what’s the safe recommendation?

In general, it’s best to stick to 3 meals a day (no snacks), and to have a 12-14 hour fast every night (after you eat dinner, be done for the night until breakfast the next morning). Drinking a shake is best in the morning, because it is easy to digest, especially after a fast! As with everything, each person is different, so this may not work for everyone – for example - kids need more food more often, so don’t go by this rule for them. Also, people with diabetes may need to modify this to some extent as well. Review your thoughts on this with your health care provider to make sure they agree before proceeding with this!