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The #1 Thing You Should Do This Year To Improve Your Health
By Tara McCarthy | Article
After my recent chat with Professor Jordan Peterson, I’ve been thinking about what he said: work on improving at an individual level before seeking to change the outside world.
I somewhat agree with him on this. Of course it is necessary for individuals to perform well in order for our civilization to thrive. However, if we on the right become excessively introspective and fail to intervene on the macro level, I believe that the policies of the left will cause our society to come crashing down around our ears within a matter of decades.
Also, if any one of the great leaders you can think of from throughout history had waited until he had his own life exactly the way he envisioned before he became involved politically he would never have been able to do his great work because self improvement is an endless game.
What’s more, living in democratic countries, or republics, the need to be aware of political goings on, and indeed to practice political activism (eg: voting) is a requirement if the democratic system that many of us value is to continue.
So in my view, we have no choice but to do both. We must seek to improve ourselves, our families, our communities, and our countries because no one else is going to do it.
If we leave things be, those who wish to take advantage of the system, and us, the citizenry, will be allowed to rule, and this has gone on for too long!
So, I’ve decided to share with you one great way that you can help your country by helping yourself:
Disclaimer: I am not a medical expert. Please check with your doctor or registered nutritionist before making lifestyle changes that might impact your health. If you are already suffering from a disease such as diabetes or heart disease, this is even more important.
I recently came across some information that I feel you deserve to know.
Unfortunately, the mainstream media is often slow on getting this information out to the general public, so I believe it’s my duty to share it with you.
It has to do with something called the ‘eating window’.
The eating window refers to the time each day that you spend either eating or between meals.
If we account for 8 hours of sleep a day, there are 16 hours in a day to be awake. Most people’s eating window in first world countries lasts for 15 hours!
Scientists who study lifestyle disease, particularly cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, have found that tightening your eating window to 9-12 hours can drastically reduce your risk of developing lifestyle diseases.
For example, cancer patients were found to cut their risk of cancer regrowth by 36% simply by keeping their eating window to the 11 hours after they wake.
In practice, that means if they woke at 7.30 am, they’d eat until 6.30 pm. Simple! I know.
Scientists aren’t exactly sure how it works, but they speculate that as the day goes on your organs become fatigued and don’t do such a good job of processing food any more.
This results in the liver becoming overloaded and a lot of the food that should have been turned into energy gets stored away as visceral (unhealthy) fat which increases your risk of lifestyle disease.
The other thing that might be going on is that your body cannot switch into the ‘rest and repair’ state while you are busy consuming or digesting food.
This means your body never gets the chance to expend energy on doing the important maintenance jobs (like cleaning out poorly functioning cells which might eventually turn cancerous) that keep your body in tip top condition.
What we do know is that if a pharmaceutical drug could provide these kinds of health benefits it would be all over the mainstream media and Big Pharma would be making billions off it!
For example, I wake up at 8 am on week days and I’d be willing to have a short eating window to get the most benefits from this practice, so I eat until 5 pm each day.
Eat as you normally do.
Only have water. Even coffee or herbal tea, though void of calories, can stimulate your liver when it should be resting as they contain products that need to be processed by the liver.
That’s fine. You can ‘cheat’ up to 2x a week and still reap most of the benefits.
Scientists have found that earlier eating windows create better results. But if you’d prefer not to eat during the first few hours you wake up, that’s not a problem. Just ensure that you stick with your evening cut off time.
At first, you might find yourself feeling hungry or satiated at odd times, but your body will quickly adapt to this.
After about a week you’ll find that you no longer feel hungry in the evening because your body isn’t ‘expecting’ to eating during that time and you’re getting enough food during your eating window.
I recommend that you just have a small protein shake after an evening workout and then stop eating. Consider moving your workout to earlier in the day for best results.
3.30 pm is the time that most people have the best muscle reaction time if it’s possible to fit this into your day.
Yes, real actual scientists are recommending this practice! Listen to these three PhD researchers who specialize in preventing lifestyle disease discuss their research on this topic:
Have a question?
Feel free to ask me in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer you.