One of the numerous, and unfortunately widely accepted myths in today’s dietary culture is the idea that, for the purpose of weight loss, one needs to stop eating after a certain time period. Whether it’s 6 p.m. as in the picture or 8 p.m., which is more common, both scenarios actually have no basis in science and are simply incorrect.
Like everything living around us, our body functions based on energy. The body’s energy needs are expressed in calories. Basal metabolism indicates our daily caloric needs in a resting state, meaning the energy our body spends on digesting food, breathing, functioning of our organs, etc. When we add our daily activity (walking, running, training, sex, etc.), we get our daily caloric expenditure. After that, the only thing you need and what has been needed in the countless diets throughout history is to be in a caloric deficit! How? In two simple ways: either we consume fewer calories than we expend or we expend more calories than we consume! These are two sides of the same coin, and they revolve around your preferences and ambitions, whether you want to associate weight loss more with nutrition or exercise/movement. Ideally, for quality assurance it’s of course best to combine both.
Besides that, it’s really not necessary to complicate things and ‘re-invent the wheel’, which is often characterized by the exaggerated and mystical claims of increases in calories of the same slice of pizza over a time difference of one minute. The body registers calories. The time when we consume them is entirely irrelevant, as well as whether we consume them in fewer larger or more smaller meals. The only thing I would add is that I wouldn’t recommend eating anything, especially ‘heavy’ food, two to three hours before bedtime, but other than that, don’t unnecessarily complicate the process that you’ll want to give up on from time to time anyway. Self-imposed unrealistic restrictions won’t be of any help on that journey, so don’t give them too much attention. Things are actually much simpler than most of us perceive them. Not easier, but simpler. And that’s part of the beauty of this process. It’s up to you to ‘simply’ embrace it.
Original release date: March 10, 2022.