We don’t eat breakfast.
Not because the internet said breakfast was killing us. We teach in the morning. Neither of us likes teaching with food in our stomach.
Most days we eat our first meal somewhere between noon and two. We might have a light dinner around five or six. That’s basically it.
Mondays are a little strange. Sometimes we don’t eat until four or five. One meal. Done.
We did not design a fasting protocol... That is just how we eat.
We try not to snack between meals.
I said try…
I have been a snacker most of my life. Midday can still get me. Night is the real struggle.
Dinner is over. I’m not hungry. Peggy isn’t hungry. We’re on the couch. The kitchen is about twelve feet away.
Twelve feet is close enough to cause issues.
There is comfort in eating then... I have done it for decades. I know I feel better when I don’t. Some nights stopping after dinner is still very hard.
Which is why this caught me…
Apparently your liver owns a clock.
Who knew?
So does a lot of the rest of the plumbing. Food is one of the signals that tells it what time it is.
We all have spent years fighting about the best way to eat… Low carb. Low fat. Vegan. Carnivore. Mediterranean. Count it. Don’t count it.
Dinner feels a team sport.
But maybe there’s another question worth asking.
When are you eating?
Not 16:8. Not an app. Not a clock somebody is selling. We already turned not eating into another diet.
The useful part is simpler. The body does not treat every hour the same.
The liver has circadian rhythms. Our gut seems to have rhythms of its own. Food may be one of the signals involved.
That does not mean science found the perfect eating window. It hasn’t. Late-night eating shows up next to liver trouble in some studies. That’s an association, not proof that the snack did it.
I’m not telling anybody to eat between 11:17 and 6:43.
But I am paying attention.
Maybe the body cares what we send down. Maybe it also cares what time we send it.
Back to twelve feet.
I’m not hungry at 9:30 pm.
I’m watching television. The kitchen is right there. Calling it a window does not fix that. Knowing about clocks does not fix that.
Sometimes I still want the snack.
Now I can ask the other question before I stand up.
Am I hungry?
Or is the kitchen twelve feet away?
You don’t need a monitor or an 18:6 plan for that.
Look at when you eat. When breakfast actually happens. When dinner ends. What happens afterward. Are you hungry? Or is it noon? Is everybody else eating? Are you bored? Have you spent fifty years eating something in front of the TV?
I already know one of my answers.
The kitchen is twelve feet away.
And that’s not very far!