When you have dinner later than usual, do you find that it impacts the quality of your sleep? There is emerging evidence that eating within a narrow window can promote weight loss, better sugar control and more importantly, reduce pro-inflammatory markers[i],[ii].
A game-changer to my health was giving my body some time-off digestion after dinner.
Growing up in Malaysia, my father would invite us to have supper, a meal after dinner where we would be snacking till 10pm. I would be eating things like fried chicken, a large ‘bao’ or anything that tickled my fancy at the nearest hawker stall. Malaysians are the ultimate foodies and will eat 24/7 if they can. Unfortunately, eating too late at night may over-work our kitchen and reduce house-keeping time. What do I mean by this?

Our bodies will always prioritise food and digestion over general house-keeping so if I was to eat every hour, there would be no time for general house-keeping. What I mean by general house-keeping are the day-to-day necessary bodily functions to detoxify, strengthen neural pathways, consolidate memories renew and repair cells. The last thing we eat or drink signals the body to wind-down and prepare for house-keeping.
Night-time is when the body’s housekeeping team works best as it isn’t busy doing the day-to-day functions needed during the day.  Ideally, I aim to stop eating at least 3 hours before bed, giving at least 12 hours off kitchen duty and re-routing my body’s reserves to general house-keeping. This practice is coined time-restricted eating; compressing your eating window to a smaller time-frame e.g. 7am to 7pm. Consequently, taking the burden off your digestive system.
We still don’t know the definitive eating-window for every individual: a range of eating-windows have been studied with 8 hours appearing to be the most beneficial in people with diabetes.
Here’s the thing, 10 hours may not be practical or sustainable for most people as it cuts out at least 1 social human requirement (e.g. lunch, dinner). Luckily, a more realistic and sustainable 10 hour eating window can be beneficial too (e.g. eating window of 9am-7pm) [iii].
Another reason time-restricted eating can be good for health is that it promotes autophagy. Autophagy is the body’s natural way of recycling tired cells into new, refreshed cells. Fasting can promote autophagy and fast-tracks the body’s natural recycling and quality control system, ensuring removal of damaged cells to make way for development of refreshed cells. Current advances show that autophagy can also envelop pathogens and even destroy them[iv]. This means that time-restricted feeding not only keeps the body healthy but can also act to boost one’s immune system.
Think of it like this: when food is plentiful, our body allows aged, damaged, redundant organelles and junk proteins to pile up. When food is scarce, it turns on autophagy and removes unnecessary components and kick-starts the recycling process.
Time-restricted eating is a simple yet effective means of ‘time-managing’ your body, plus it’s free and simple to do! Start slowly by compressing your eating window to 12 hours for 2 weeks then reduce to 10 hours for optimal health.
For the full 10 steps to boost your immune system, go to 10 Steps to Boost Your Immune System
References:
[i] Mccalmon S, Galappaththy SL, Bulchandani S, Cabandugama PK. Fasting off “The COVID-19”. Mo Med. 2021; 118(2):164-167.
[ii] Jamshed H, Beyl RA, Della Manna DL, Yang ES, Ravussin E, Peterson CM. Early Time-Restricted Feeding Improves 24-Hour Glucose Levels and Affects Markers of the Circadian Clock, Aging, and Autophagy in Humans. Nutrients. 2019; May, 11(6):1234. Published 201
[iii] Wilkinson MJ, Manoogian ENC, Zadourian A, et al. Ten-Hour Time-Restricted Eating Reduces Weight, Blood Pressure, and Atherogenic Lipids in Patients with Metabolic Syndrome. Cell Metab. 2020;31(1):92-104.e5. doi:10.1016/j.cmet.2019.11.004
[iv] Cuervo AM, Macian F. Autophagy, nutrition and immunology. Mol Aspects Med. 2012; doi:10.1016/j.mam.2011.09.001, 33(1):2-13.