Eat Yourself Thin

By Dr. Mercola

So you’re carrying some extra weight around, what’s the easiest and healthiest way to get rid of it? Many believe the answer lies in burning off more calories than you’re taking in, and while this theory sounds reasonable, the reality is more complex.

Many also believe that cutting fat from their diet is an essential step, but this too is a myth¹ that may actually prevent you from achieving the weight loss you seek.

It’s important to realize that you cannot exercise your way out of a poor diet. Research² shows exercise is largely ineffective for producing any significant amount of weight loss on its own.

Our ancestors did not have access to food 24/7, and from a historical perspective it appears your body was designed for intermittent periods of fasting. In fact, a number of beneficial effects take place when you go for periods of time without eating. For the last couple of years, I’ve suggested an intermittent fasting schedule that limits meals to a narrow window of six to eight hours a day — ideally by skipping breakfast, and having lunch be your first meal.

However, some people really struggle without breakfast, and I’ve more recently come to realize that you can skip breakfast ordinner — as long as you skip one of them. The key to remember is to only eat within a window of six to eight consecutive hours each day, and avoiding food for at least three hours before bedtime. However, due to the way your body generates energy from mitochondria production explained below, I am not convinced that it’s ideal to skip dinner. Another alternative is to have a very light meal as early as possible.

The Benefits of Avoiding Late-Night Eating

Eating too close to bedtime is another meal-timing factor that can sabotage your health. It’s important to have a minimum of three hours after your last food intake before you go to bed. Ideally, aim for as much as six hours between your last meal and your scheduled bedtime.

The rationale for this recommendation has to do with the way your body produces energy. Your mitochondria are responsible for “burning” the fuel your body consumes and converting it into usable energy. These tiny bacterial derivatives live inside your cell and are optimized to create energy from the food you eat and the oxygen in the air you breathe. Your cells have between 100 and 100,000 mitochondria.

Your mitochondria have a series of electron transport chains in which they pass electrons from the reduced form of the food you eat to combine it with oxygen from the air you breathe to form water. This process drives protons across the mitochondrial membrane, which recharges ATP (adenosine triphosphate) from ADP (adenosine diphosphate). ATP is the carrier of energy throughout your body.

A major side effect of this transfer of electrons is that some leak from the electron transport chain to react with oxygen to form the free radical superoxide. Superoxide anion, the product of a one electron reduction of oxygen, is the precursor of most reactive oxygen species and a mediator in oxidative chain reactions. These oxygen free radicals attack the lipids in your cell membranes, protein receptors, enzymes, and DNA that can prematurely kill your mitochondria.

Please understand that some free radicals are actually good and your body requires them to regulate cellular function. The problem is when you have excessive free radical production. Sadly that is the case for the majority of the population and why most diseases, especially cancers, are acquired. There are two possible solutions, increase your antioxidants or reduce mitochondrial free radical production.

I believe one of the best strategies for reducing mitochondrial free radical production is to limit the amount of fuel you feed your body when it requires the least amount, which is when you are sleeping. If you feed your body shortly before sleeping you will have large amounts of fuel your body simply has no need for, which will result in a massive increase in leakage of electrons that combine with oxygen to form free radicals, which damage your DNA, and thereby radically increases your risk of cancer.

This is one of the reasons why I rarely eat less than three hours before going to bed and frequently it is 5 to 6 hours. A review paper²⁰ that provides much of the experimental work for the above explanation was published in 2011, titled “Mitochondrial DNA Damage and Animal Longevity: Insights from Comparative Studies.”

It may be too complex for many laypeople, but the take-home message is that since your body uses the least amount of calories when sleeping, you’ll want to avoid eating close to bedtime because adding excess fuel at this time will generate excessive free radicals that will damage your tissues, accelerate aging, and contribute to chronic disease.

Take-Home Message: to Normalize Your Weight, Eat Real Food, Exercise Wisely, Intermittently Fast, and Avoid Eating at Night

Focusing your diet on REAL FOOD rather than processed fare is one of the easiest ways to sidestep dietary pitfalls and myths that make weight loss difficult. Beyond that, it’s really just a matter of tweaking the ratios of fat, carbs, and protein to suit your individual situation. One key though is to trade refined sugar and processed fructose for healthy fat, as this will help optimize your insulin and leptin levels.

We’ve spent decades trading healthy saturated fats for carbs and trans fats, and there can be no doubt that this has had an enormous influence on disease statistics, raising incidence of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s — all the top killers. For more detailed dietary guidance, please see my optimal nutrition plan. It’s a step-by-step guide to feeding your family right, and I encourage you to read through it. I’ve also created my own “food pyramid,” based on nutritional science, which you can print out and share.

Sources and References

• ¹ Authority Nutrition October 2015
• ² Obesity June 2007: 15(6); 1496-1512
• ³ Business Insider August 11, 2015
• ⁴ Epoch Times October 19, 2015
• ⁵ New York Times October 19, 2015
• ⁶ American College of Sports Medicine, High Intensity Interval Training (PDF
• ⁷ New York Times September 23, 2015
• ⁸ New York Times September 2, 2014
• ⁹ Mayo Clinic Proceedings March 2015: 90(3); 372-381
• ¹⁰ Nutrition and Diabetes (2015) 5, e172
• ¹¹ Nutritionfacts.org August 13, 2015
• ^12, 16 BMJ 2015;351:h3978
• ¹³ Reuters August 12, 2015
• ¹⁴ Foodnavigator-usa.com August 12, 2015
• ¹⁵ Medical News Today August 12, 2015
• ¹⁷ American Journal of Clinical Nutrition February 11, 2009: 89(5); 1425-1432
• ¹⁸ Nutrition Data, Foods Highest in Monounsaturated Fat
• ¹⁹ Open Heart 2014;1: doi:10.1136/openhrt-2013-000032
• ²⁰ Journal of Aging Research 2011 Article ID 807108

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