One Meal a Day

Many people don't give a thought to when they eat. They eat when they're hungry and that's it. Whether they're hungry in the morning, at noon, or at midnight.

This strategy clearly doesn't work as waist size continues to balloon to new levels, heart disease and cancer continue to rise.

Diet gurus often proclaim 5-6 small meals a day is the best way to go. Feed the furnace, they say. This strategy of eating more often is new to human beings. It's far different from the hunter/gathering diets of prehistoric humans, and even the crop growing civilizations of thousands of years ago. Food, even when grown in abundance, could become scarce quickly and still had to be cooked. Fast food consisted of fruit and nuts, not a Big Mac and Coke.

Breakfast (like eating 5-6 small meals) is a relatively new concept to human beings. During the first millennium BC people were not likely to eat three square meals a day. Eating early in the morning took time away from the work of civilization builders, like the Greeks and Romans. ["The Hygienic System: Orthotrophy"]

Even in cultures that did consume a breakfast, you wouldn't find omelets, bacon, pancakes, and toast on their plates. Ancient people did not indulge in food as we do today. Food didn't come in prepared packages, precooked and ready to eat. If a family wanted bread, they had to bake it from scratch (including gathering the wheat for flour). If they wanted steak, they had to find and kill a deer. There simply wasn't enough time in a single day to make two meals. Ancient people ate a functional diet that enabled them to maximize their time. They didn't eat to lose weight, but to fend off starvation. Their diets, and their meal-timing, had a purpose.

Feeding the furnace is a new age approach to diet that overlooks the fact that the furnace needs a break from time to time. You can eat 5-6 small meals a day, a traditional breakfast, lunch, and dinner, forcing your digestive system to work around the clock, 24/7, or you can try a very different approach.

Try the ancient strategy of eating once a day. The approach that worked so well for Buddha, Plato, and Jesus.

Eat one meal a day (scientifically termed "intermittent fasting" or IF for short). Whether your one meal is in the morning or at night, you eat over the course of an hour or four hours, or you fast an entire day and overeat the next day, you're benefiting from the fasting period, a time without food in which your body takes a break from the rigors of digestion.

The Greeks feasted at night and fasted through the next day. Buddhist monks don't eat after noon. Nearly every religion incorporates fasting into their spiritual practices. Why would ancient (and modern) people, often faced with starvation, purposely not eat for 20 or more hours each day? What's the payoff?

First, daily fasting redirects energy to the brain and muscles that was once used for digestion to help your body and mind operate more efficiently [Fasting]. Second, fasting retrains your metabolism to burn fat instead of glucose as you avoid spikes in blood sugar and insulin [6) Intermittent fasting and infrequent meals (2 meals a day)].

Forget that intermittent fasting has been shown to slow the aging process in test subjects, reduces risk of heart disease, stroke, and many other diet-related diseases such as cancer. [Intermittent Fasting]

Daily fasting is a "functional" diet that has a tangible effect on the body. It is a great way to lose weight and stay healthy. By skipping out on breakfast you also skip out on having to digest a big morning meal. You help keep your blood sugar steady, and your energy high. [Some Find Weight Control Benefits in Intermittent Fasting]

Sure, a big meal will replenish your energy, but not until it's digested, which can take 8-10 hours. In the meantime, your body is expending energy to digest cereal, eggs, toaster pastries, oatmeal, and whatever else you've eaten. Your brain is literally competing with your digestive system for calories. If you eat at 8 in the morning, you could still be digesting the last of your breakfast at 4 or 5 in the afternoon. That means that around the time you're getting off work, you're still using energy to break down your morning meal. But if you eat at 8 in the evening, you'll more likely be energized at noon the next day, rather than feeling sluggish as your blood sugar spikes and dips with each early meal.

A better way. By waiting until the late afternoon or evening to eat, you make your diet work for you. Why waste energy digesting food all day when you can eat at night when you're idle? Why spend precious calories on digestion when you could be using them to think, work, or exercise at peak performance? Eating 5-6 meals throughout the day, or a large breakfast, cancels out the natural benefits of daily fasting. Every time you reach for a bagel, or a cheeseburger, you force your body to spend energy on digestion when it could be using that energy in other ways (helping boost mental acuity and overall energy levels, or detoxifying cells).

Play into your body's natural habits. Some people are naturally nocturnal eaters. Even when they have breakfast, lunch, and dinner, they are prone to snack late at night before bed because of stress or boredom. You may use IF to your advantage by purposely skipping out on your morning and afternoon meals, and eating a large dinner. If you eat a day's worth of calories between 6 and 9 PM, you're not likely to snack before bed at 10 PM.

It may not be easy for you to fast 15-20 hours every day, but if it's something you want to try, and are determined to stick to, here are tips to make time away from food a little easier.

• Chew gum. Sugar free gum can trick your mind into thinking you're eating something when in reality you're not.

• Stay hydrated. This will help the body function better as blood sugar levels off, and help keep your stomach full and hunger at bay.

• Tea can be an affective appetite suppressant because of its caffeine content. It is also full of very healthy antioxidants that help cleanse the body.

• Keep yourself busy. Focusing on work instead of food can help you fast for a long time without the slightest food craving. Find productive activities to distract yourself from eating.

Whatever you do, don't sit around waiting for that next meal. Live your life and open up to the benefits of fasting.

A warning!

Fasting for 20 hours should not be confused with starvation, but if you don't take great care to meet your nutritional needs, any diet can do severe damage to your body. Whenever you reduce calories, or fast, you must make sure you meet your daily needs in vitamins and minerals. Eating healthy becomes even more important between day-long fasts because your body doesn't have an opportunity to replenish its energy or nutrients except during a very narrow window each evening, or every other day. Your body may "learn" to use what it is given more efficiently, but that is no excuse to starve yourself of nutrients, even if you're getting more than enough calories.

Sources:

1. Herbert M. Shelton, "The Hygienic System: Orthotrophy", Chestofbooks.com
2. Fasting, Falconblanco.com
3. Kurt G. Harris, MD, 6) Intermittent fasting and infrequent meals (2 meals a day), paleonu.com
4. Intermittent Fasting, Wikipedia.com
5. Shari Roan, Some Find Weight Control Benefits in Intermittent Fasting, spokesman.com