Excess holiday eating can disturb your body’s food clock, along with eating late at night. We all have a master clock, “which keeps track of time and coordinates our biological processes with the rhythm of a 24-hour cycle of day and night”. (1) In addition to our body’s master clock, we also have other clocks, including a food clock! Isn’t the body fascinating? The food clock helps us make the most of our meals, regulating genes that help with digestion and absorption of nutrients. In addition, our food clock anticipates our eating patterns, which is why we might experience stomach rumblings at lunch time! Scientists have known for awhile that our food clocks can be reset by excess eating and by eating at odd times. People that do shift work are extremely susceptible to this. A research team at UCSF recently demonstrated that the protein called PKCγ is critical in resetting the food clock if our eating habits change. This reset is not so good for our metabolism, since the food clock is tied to eating during day hours (when we traditionally foraged and hunted). If you overindulged during the holidays or are in a late night eating pattern, time to get your food clock back to a healthy metabolic even keel! Join my Cleanse, Revive, and Thrive Cleanse starting Jan 10th! See here for details!
1. University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) (2012, December 21). How excess holiday eating disturbs your ‘food clock’. ScienceDaily.
