Tips For Weight Loss – “WHEN” You Eat Matters More Than WHAT You Eat

Simple Tips For Weight Loss
(Last Updated On: July 3, 2023)

Do you have obesity? Are you worried about increased belly fat? You are not alone, many people are struggling and sad about obesity. They are searching for simple tips for weight loss. You might have tried many things reading and watching on the net, but you could not achieve your goal to lose weight. The main reason is you are not controlling your food, controlling the timing of your eating. This post is based on the video of Dr Palaniappan Manickam (Dr Pal), a Physician in California. Continue reading till the end and also watch the video talk explaining simple tips for weight loss.

Simple Tips For Weight Loss

As you know obesity is very important especially during Covid-19 because patients with increased belly fat or increased risk of complications, and this is true not only for Covid-19 but for any disease. Obesity and belly fat cause diabetes, and high blood pressure which in turn causes stroke and heart disease.

This post and the video are mainly for people whose body mass index is more than 25. If you are an Indian forget about the body mass index and measure your base circumference. In the video, you can see how to measure your waist circumference.

weight loss Man waist circumference
Man measuring waist circumference
waist circumference of woman
Woman measuring waist circumference

If you are a man having a waist circumference of more than 90 centimetres, or a woman having a waist circumference of more than 80 centimetres, then this post and video are for you.

Body mass index - Tips for weight loss
Body mass index

When the time comes, our belly fat would show the real power over our immunity.

Simple Tips For Weight Loss – “WHEN” You Eat Matters More Than WHAT You Eat

During Covid-19 times it was not the people who worked hard at home, it was actually the shirt and pant buttons who worked so hard not to pop out because of the increasing size.

Pant button pop out
Man showing pant button pop-out

Simple Tips For Weight Loss – Eating window and fasting window

You have to focus on two windows. One is the eating window and the other one is the fasting window. The eating window is the time difference between your first bite or drink when you wake up in the morning and the last bite or drink before you go to bed. The fasting window is your overnight fasting.

Anything other than water is not considered fasting. For example, if you drink your coffee at 7 am in the morning and if your last bite during your dinner is around 8 pm, then the eating window is between 7 am and 8 pm which is 13 hours. And your fasting window would be 11 hours. So the last bite does not limit only to your dinner. Any late-night snacks or ice cream before you go to bed, the cookie that you steal from your kid before going to bed, all those are considered the last bite. Anything besides water is considered the last bite.

Eating window

So create a 12-hour eating window. For example, your first bite or drink is at 8 a.m. You can have your last bite or drink at 8 pm. And nothing after that, just water so that you have an eating window from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and then a fasting window from 8 pm to 8 am. So there’ll be a 12-hour eating window and a 12-hour fasting window. If you can decrease your 12-hour eating window to like 10 hours or even 8 hours kudos to you. But at least start with a 12-hour eating window and then you’ll have a 12-hour fasting window overnight.

Fasting window

If you do that what will happen is during the fasting window your body will work so hard to repair all the damages and the abuses that you have done to your body in the morning. This is the most important and serious form of domestic abuse nobody is ever talking about. So what happens during the 12-hour overnight fasting window is we are not feeding regularly. So the cells will be starving for sugar eventually and then it has to work harder to extract energy from fat. That is the first step of weight loss. So with this method, we are also taking advantage of the hormonal fluctuation that happens during the 24-hour period. We call that a circadian rhythm.

Circadian rhythms

Do you know what are circadian rhythms?

Circadian rhythms are physical, mental, and behavioural changes that follow a 24-hour cycle. These natural processes respond primarily to light and dark and affect most living things, including animals, plants, and microbes. Chronobiology is the study of circadian rhythms. One example of a light-related circadian rhythm is sleeping at night and being awake during the day. The Average Teen Circadian Cycle image shows the circadian rhythm cycle of a typical teen. Source: Circadian Rhythms

Certain hormones get secreted at certain times in general as soon as the sun sets when the light goes down the building hormones in the body go down as well and the repair hormones go up. So if you keep on feeding the body after the sun sets, the hormone secreted might be ineffective and also of poor quality. So there is a reason why fasting has been a part of rituals in most religions.

My mom is very religious and she fasts all the time. She thinks that the more she fast the more rigorous she is. She can impress God so that she can get blessings from God. Actually, God is working inside the body when she is starving so that she can repair her own cells to prevent cancers, to prevent future diseases.

Read How To Train Your Immune System? – Top Lifestyle Hacks

Busy lifestyle and easy availability of food

The problem is with our busy lifestyle and easy availability of food. It is very difficult to maintain this fasting window. We keep feeding ourselves. We eat four times a day, six times a day, and even eight times a day. It is almost similar to the mom who keeps feeding the already obese kid and then she tells me that.

The fasting window concept is backed by science

The fasting window concept is backed by science as well. So what researchers did was they took two groups of mice and they gave them the exact same food. The only difference is the first group of mice can eat whenever they want to throughout the day, in the second group mice have to stick to it for eight hours or a 12-hour window. So in four weeks what happened was the mice that were eating throughout the day multiple times turned out to be obese, started having high blood pressure, and turned out to have heart disease. But the mice who were eating in a specific eating window turned out to be much healthier in the five-week period.

Simple Tips For Weight Loss – Stick to a consistent eating window schedule

So I’m taking so much time to explain this because this is such a simple step that you can do. You don’t have to be creative. All you have to do is to stick to a consistent eating window schedule. This is not involving any diet. At least to start with you can eat whatever you want and then stick to this particular window. And once you get into that mode then we can talk more about eating healthy in between that window.

When you start this new routine of sticking to an eating window you are going to be hungry. When you are fasting overnight just give it one week time. Your body will get used to it. So call for action. The first step to do is to look into your lifestyle and then see what is your current eating window.

Remember the first bite or drink when you wake up in the morning and then the last bite or drink before you go to bed. This will include the popcorn that you are eating during a late-night movie or if you have an argument with your wife and to calm you down you’re eating a late-night snack or an ice cream. But anyways besides water, everything else is considered as the last bite and you need to calculate the time difference accordingly.

Read How To Drink Water The Right Way?

Second, let’s say you’re eating window is 14 hours. For example, if you drink at 7 a.m. and your last bite is around 9 p.m. then you have a 14-hour eating window. Then your next step is to decrease to a 12-hour window. If you’re already in a 12-hour eating window please decrease it to a 10-hour eating window and remember this takes time. So you have to at least allow six weeks to notice some changes in your body.

How much time it will take?

When you are gaining weight did the weight gain over two weeks or two months or two years? So it is going to take some time. You don’t have to worry too much about what you are eating in between this eating window to start with. But if you eat healthily the advantages are much more. So at least to start with stick to this eating window and then don’t worry about what you’re eating at this time.

So it is high time that we bring it back closer to us. Don’t hate your belly button. Bring it closer. Love your belly button. The belly will love you more.

Credits: YouTube

Tips For Weight Loss – “WHEN” should you eat?

Final Thoughts

Hope that you found this post about simple tips for weight loss useful to you. Check your waist circumference or body mass index. What is your current eating window period? When do you start eating and what time do you stop eating? Check all these things and change your lifestyle. You don’t require any medication to lose weight, but you have to follow a good lifestyle and good eating habits.

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