Are We Inherently Night Eaters?

It is now known that the sympathetic nervous system virtually rejects eating! Here is the heart of the problem: most of us eat under stress during the day – and we're not supposed to! We are supposed to eat very little! That's the way the human body was designed. When you take a flesh machine designed to run on very little food and overwhelm it with food, bad food to boot, bad things are going to happen. Recent scientific literature on intermittent fasting proves my point. I published this theory seven years ago and since then, many in the scientific community embraced the concepts I set forth. However, scientists work according to predictions, and life is about surprise. The best and smartest scientists working in this field have already been predicting that we humans are not designed to eat much food during the daily working hours. We have inherited mechanisms that compensate us when we don't eat.

When we do as we were originally intended, when we take advantage of our primordial hardwiring and limit food intake during the day, we realize a host of amazing benefits: increased energy, increased and improved food/fuel utilization, increased alertness, increased toxin removal capacity, improved stress-handling ability...The list of benefits goes on and on.

On the other hand, when we overeat the wrong stuff during the day the list of disabilities, drawbacks, downsides and health consequences is equally as devastating: diabetes, heart attack, obesity, arterial clogging, constipation . . . on and on it goes.

Humans are inherently night eaters. Our autonomic nervous system is well programmed for night feeding. At night the body is under the dominance of the parasympathetic nervous system, which is triggered by eating large meals. This nightly nervous system is responsible for the regulation of critical nightly functions including relaxation, digestion and sleep.

Any interruption in the parasympathetic nervous system may cause severe side effects including: insomnia, indigestion, chronic fatigue, agitation, inability to cope with stress, physical weakness, craving for sweets and eating disorders.

The premise of the one main meal per day - at night - goes against all industrial interests. It means less money spent on breakfast, less on lunch, less on commercial products and less on doctor bills. An army of nutrition experts would tell you that this goes against any conventional dietary approach and doctors recommendations. Regardless, this is how humans are supposed to eat and if they don't, they will suffer the consequences like most people today do.