Circadian rhythm & Metabolism

Living in the Pacific Northwest means short and often dark winter days, needing to supplement vitamin D and watching for seasonal disorders.

In a fascinating recent podcast Dr. Rhonda of FoundMyFitness explored the topic of circadian clock and interesting findings around metabolism with Dr. Satchin Panda.

Two actionable takeaways for me were as follows:

• When you eat matters. The body operates in two modes: Active/Feeding metabolism and Rest/Repair metabolism. Restricting feeding to a 8–12 hour window seems to have a positive impact in body composition and endurance, even without any other change in total calories or diet quality. Giving the body 12+ hours a day in Repair mode seems to pay big dividends. Different to popular intermittent fasting protocols, the Time-restricted feeding clock starts when anything other than water is ingested — even coffee, unfortunately. That said, this adds to the growing support for fasting as a powerful tool for health.
• Use light to avoid zombie mode. It takes light brighter than 1000 lux to wake-up various organs and systems in the body. Using light boxes and/or specialized lamp bulbs strategically installed around the house is a good way to help the body fully wake-up when it’s still dark outside during winter months.

It’s no big surprise our bodies evolved to work best by being active and feeding when there’s daylight and repair when it’s dark. Unfortunately modern living completely ignores that rhythm and we continue to learn more about different ways that can impacts us.

Late night Netflix with chips clearly isn’t in our DNA. Since moving to a cave isn’t in the cards I will settle for Netflix no chips, very bright light mornings.