Great find to support an early eating window for an 18/6 Intermittent fasting protocol.

It would be interesting to see if someone that normally follows 18/6 eating later in the day would have any different results making it an early window. I won't be trying it that way because I have never been able to eat early in the day. I don't think I could even do it just for curiosity sake. But can you tell my brain is curious? Lol

Earlier this week I read this from Dr. Naiman:

"No breakfast, lighter lunch, and larger dinner also maximizes the body’s natural shifts between sympathetic (“fight or flight”) and parasympathetic (“rest and digest”) nervous system tone, with higher alertness and activation from sympathetic tone during the day while under-eating, and higher parasympathetic resting tone in the evening during the fed state.

Typically, the fed state starts when you begin eating and for the next three to five hours your body digests and absorbs the food you just ate. Insulin rises significantly, completely shutting off fat-burning and also triggering excess calories to be stored as fat.

After the first few hours mentioned above, your body goes into what is known as the post–absorptive state, during which the components of the last meal are still in the circulation. The post–absorptive state lasts until 8 to 12 hours after your last meal, which is when you enter the fasted state. It typically takes 12 hours after your last meal to fully enter the fasted state.

When you’re in the fasted state your body can burn fat that has been inaccessible during the fed state. Because we don’t enter the fasted state until 12 hours after our last meal, it’s rare that our bodies are in this fat burning state. This is one of the reasons why many people who start intermittent fasting will lose fat without changing what they eat, how much they eat, or how often they exercise. Fasting puts your body in a fat burning state that you rarely get to enter during a normal eating schedule." -from https://dietdoctor.com/intermittent-fasting/time-restricted-eating

If I understand what he's saying correctly, it seems like it's better to have the last 6 hours of an 18 hour fast be during the daytime when I'm more active so I can take advantage of the fasted state when fat-burning is at its highest level. If one is an early riser, I guess it wouldn't make any difference when those hours fell.

wozy46 wrote: »

Earlier this week I read this from Dr. Naiman:

"No breakfast, lighter lunch, and larger dinner also maximizes the body’s natural shifts between sympathetic (“fight or flight”) and parasympathetic (“rest and digest”) nervous system tone, with higher alertness and activation from sympathetic tone during the day while under-eating, and higher parasympathetic resting tone in the evening during the fed state.

Typically, the fed state starts when you begin eating and for the next three to five hours your body digests and absorbs the food you just ate. Insulin rises significantly, completely shutting off fat-burning and also triggering excess calories to be stored as fat.

After the first few hours mentioned above, your body goes into what is known as the post–absorptive state, during which the components of the last meal are still in the circulation. The post–absorptive state lasts until 8 to 12 hours after your last meal, which is when you enter the fasted state. It typically takes 12 hours after your last meal to fully enter the fasted state.

When you’re in the fasted state your body can burn fat that has been inaccessible during the fed state. Because we don’t enter the fasted state until 12 hours after our last meal, it’s rare that our bodies are in this fat burning state. This is one of the reasons why many people who start intermittent fasting will lose fat without changing what they eat, how much they eat, or how often they exercise. Fasting puts your body in a fat burning state that you rarely get to enter during a normal eating schedule." -from https://dietdoctor.com/intermittent-fasting/time-restricted-eating

If I understand what he's saying correctly, it seems like it's better to have the last 6 hours of an 18 hour fast be during the daytime when I'm more active so I can take advantage of the fasted state when fat-burning is at its highest level. If one is an early riser, I guess it wouldn't make any difference when those hours fell.

Yep. This makes sense to me and aligns with what I've always read in various places. It also seems to be the most common way people just naturally fall into IF so I think that says a lot.

That's the opposite of my schedule. lol. I am not a morning person and my appetite is very low in the morning. Even before going low carb I found that the earlier I started eating the hungrier I was throughout the day. If necessary I can completely skip lunch provided I haven't eaten breakfast.

Of course I don't IF. I typically have a coffee with hwc that I slowly sip on from about 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. (thanks to my Yeti for keeping it toasty!) Then I typically eat lunch between 2 and 3. Then dinner between 6 or 7. Bedtime snack around 10:30ish. This schedule seems to work best for me.