Hello, I’m Dr. Scott Watkins and today I would like to talk about what I consider to be one of the most fundamental concepts in functional medicine and in our overall health. There is significant evidence that food sends messages to our bodies. Genes are turned on or off activated or suppressed in response to what we take in. This occurs in our own genetic material but also in the genetic material of the millions or hundreds of millions of bacteria that live in our gut. The foods we eat affect us in so many ways one of the things that have changed over the years is the amounts of food that we consume. I recall reading an article comparing the fast-food meals that were available in the 1950s and 1960s to what we could purchase in more recent times the burger today is much larger the fries today are much larger and the drink is absolutely enormous in comparison to what was sold in the 1950s or 60s. This results in a huge increase in the number of foods that we eat. Standard American diet or the acronym S.A.D. is high in fat and carbohydrates it is highly processed there is little to no vegetable or fiber content it is generally high in sugar the meals we are now served in restaurants are actually two and a half to three times the portions that we should be consuming, and this is before the appetizer, the add-on salad bar, the sugary drink, and possibly even dessert. For any questions regarding Time Restricted Eating or any of Functional Med 411’s products feel free to get in contact with us!
I’m not blaming the restaurant industry they are simply responding to what the public has wanted. The institute of functional medicine teaches the value of an elimination diet or food plan. For many clients, the elimination diet will decrease the foods that you eat to possibly just six separate foods and must be continued for three to four weeks for the diet to work. The elimination diet is a very good option for reducing inflammation in the stomach and gut, for allowing the body to heal, and by slowly reintroducing essentially one food at a time it allows the clinician to discover what foods the patient can tolerate and what foods cause problems. I have found this to be too significant of a starting point for many of my patients, fasting is limiting caloric intake to less than 600 calories per day one to two days per week. Time-restricted eating is eating for eight hours per day and fasting for 16 hours each day many people eat from 11 am to 7 pm I will specifically focus on time-restricted eating as I think that is more accessible to a western population. With time-restricted eating the goal is to eat for eight hours per day and fast for 16 hours per day many clinicians find that eating from 11 am until 7 pm is ideal. Some of this I believe is societal as eating your evening meal at seven pm allows most people to eat with their families if they so desire. The eight-hour eating window is what is important, this can vary during the day depending on your lifestyle, if you prefer to eat at 5 pm in the evening, adjust accordingly. If you prefer to eat at 9 pm in the evening adjust accordingly, it is important to remember to stop eating for 2-3 hours before going to bed to reduce the risk of gastroesophageal reflux disease or GERD. This occurs when the acids from the stomach which can protect itself from those acids reflux or flow into the lower part of the esophagus and literally burn the lining of the esophagus. The esophagus is not able to protect itself from the acids this leads to chronic changes which can lead to Barrett’s esophagus and can possibly lead to esophageal cancer. Many of us already fast from about seven pm in the evening until about seven a.m in the morning assuming those are the times that we eat breakfast. This is already a 12-hour fast and a lot of that is accomplished while we are sleeping which makes that a little bit easier so to begin the fasting process I simply suggest moving the morning eating time until about 8 am so you’ve achieved 13 hours. Do that for about a week or so until that’s comfortable for you and then move until 9 am and you’re in a 14-hour fast. 14-hour fasts do allow more time for healing but again the optimum goal appears to be 16 hours so simply move that into your eating from 11 am to 7 pm or whatever eight-hour period works for you.
During the time that you are fasting it is very important to stay hydrated what you drink however must be non-caloric or not have calories in it so no sugar in your drinks and no milk in your coffee your choice of liquids is variable, water is usually the simplest and easiest to obtain, green tea has compounds and antioxidants in it which will help heal the gut, black tea and black coffee actually have powerful antioxidants which can be helpful, again they should not be sweetened or have milk. Added electrolyte drinks can be especially helpful if you are exercising, however, it must be non-caloric I’ve always been a fan of sweetened drinks, not sodas, but sweet tea especially. I, therefore, had some difficulty getting off of the sweet tea, I used artificial sweeteners for a short period of time to get myself off of the sweetened drinks. I now use very little to change the flavor of the tea that I am drinking, artificial sweeteners have been shown to be probably much worse for us than sugar itself so we don’t want to be consuming artificial sweeteners, but if you need that for a short period of time to get yourself off of the sweetened drinks I do feel that is acceptable. I have always been a fan of changing just one thing at a time changing two things at a time is much more difficult and harder to tell what is working for you, I, therefore, ask patients to fix their times of eating first get yourself to the point where you are comfortable eating just eight hours per day and fasting for 16 hours.
Once you’ve achieved that work on getting off of the sweetened drinks then and only then do I ask people to begin changing the foods that they are actually consuming. I do not suggest of course that you break your fast by eating donuts or milkshakes that won’t be very tolerable for you and defeats the purpose. This slow change may seem to take some time but the benefits are well worth it, the foods we should try to eat eventually are less processed, more fresh fruits and vegetables, and organic is better. Eat the rainbow of foods, this refers to eating a variety of different colors of foods as different colored foods have different nutrients. Whole Foods to me refers to that little bit of a blueberry that you get in a blueberry muffin or in cereal this is not what you’re shooting for you want to eat the actual whole food and probably less meat. I find this a little bit controversial, the less meat we eat seems to be better however in patients who are working out or trying to gain muscle, it is difficult to obtain the amount of protein without some meat consumption.
Time-restricted eating is anti-inflammatory, this is because the periods of time where you are not eating allow the gi system to heal. This allows a reduction in the inflammation not only in the gi tract but in the entire body time-restricted eating decreases reflux by not eating for at least two to three hours before bedtime. Reflux is a major problem and decreasing that is worthwhile. Time-restricted eating also allows for a better relationship with food, I’ve had a number of my patients tell me that with eating eight hours per day they feel they are controlling the food or eating rather than eating controlling them. Time-restricted eating results in decreased visceral fat and weight loss, visceral fat is metabolically active, and reducing belly fat is very important as it sends signals to the body. It is not simply storage fat, time-restricted eating also prepares you to go on to other food modifications.
-Dr, Scott Watkins M.D.
