#148 Optimal Meal Timing for Fasting and Circadian Rhythms Lecture

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Do you want to know what it is?

Siim Land (0:03)

Body, mind, empowerment.

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Get stronger, faster, smarter, quicker, friendlier, more helpful, more driven.

SPEAKER_3 (0:11)

Everything the body needs.

SPEAKER_1 (0:13)

Control your mind.

Siim Land (0:17)

Yeah, hello again from me. So, you know, given that the theme of today is like optimization and optimizing the inside 24-hour period, then we can't neglect food and eating because that's like one of the most important things for any living organism to do. And it's also like something biohackers are especially interested in. So there's a lot of room for optimization in our diets and especially the food choices and when we do it and in what quantities and in what formulations and combinations, all those things. So, you know, if you were to try to define what is optimal nutrition, then you may you might have heard from many different people like don't eat meat, don't eat vegetables, don't eat, you know, gluten or whatever it is. Those are very vague terms and very vague definitions of trying to define what is good to eat. So actually, you know, an objective definition of optimal nutrition would have to include. It would have to be like very objective in a sense. It's not specific. It's not tailored to a specific individual or it has to be have this sort of objective appliance that you can apply to any situation. And the term that I like to use for optimal nutrition is eating the right things in the right amounts at the right time. So this definition covers all of those things objectively. And you can change it all the time depending on the situation. Like you can change the nutrients, you can change the amounts, and you can change when do you consume them. And all those things differ between people. What's their metabolic status? What's their nutrient requirements, et cetera. So we're not, you know, one diet isn't the best thing for another person because we have different metabolisms and different conditions. So the goal of my, you know, this lecture is to kind of give you these principles and guidelines about how do you find these right things, the right amounts, and what's the right time for eating.

And timing is actually one of those pretty underlooked aspects. So you know that some foods are better than others, but science is also becoming to know more that the timing of when you consume them is actually a lot more important than we previously thought, especially with the new research and new studies about circadian rhythms and chronobiology, those sorts of things. Our environment sends us certain signals that stimulate and govern many of the body's own physiological processes. So those are the circadian rhythms inside your body.

And those circadian rhythms are connected with the light and light and darkness cycles of the environment as well. So the timing is actually one of the essential components to optimal nutrition and diet.

So I'm not going to be talking a lot about the circadian rhythms, but this is a good you know, ovary of the basics. So first of all, they are circadian rhythms are these biological day and night cycles, both inside yourself, as well as the ones that are happening around you. Like the planet itself is a massive circadian rhythm, like day and night, the sun and the moon, wakefulness and sleep, eating and not eating, those sorts of things.

Secondly, these rhythms are controlled not only by light, but also by food, movement, temperature, even like magnetic frequencies and those sorts of things. They all affect how these circadian patterns affect your physiology. And third, misalignment from these rhythms is very much associated with things like diabetes, obesity, depression, neurodegeneration, just chronic fatigue, being tired, insomnia. And yeah, like it deranges your body because you're out of sync with the natural rhythms that you're supposed to be following. And on the opposite hand, being aligned with these rhythms is going to just make it that much easier for you to stay healthy and also, you know, be more productive and be more happier.

Fourth, sleep. Sleeping is pretty important for keeping yourself aligned with these circadian rhythms, because sleep is the recovery process where your body is repairing itself from the daily activities, and especially physical activities and even like thinking and memory or attention.

And lastly, one of the easiest or one of the core principles of these circadian rhythms or the alignment of them is to try to get more sunlight during the daytime and when it's dark outside, avoid as much as light as possible, because the light is a very powerful stimulator of these rhythms, and if you're shooting artificial light into your eyes in the evening, then you're not really telling your brain that it's time to sleep. You're telling it the opposite, that it's time to be awake. And this is causing like this misalignment and the disruptions of these rhythms, which then leads to a lot of health problems.