We can regulate our metabolism through foods choices, mealtimes, and daily lifestyle practices. I define metabolism as the ability to digest and absorb the nutrients in food, and the ability to eliminate the excess. Excess takes the form of what we don’t use as well as accumulated toxins. The key to a healthy metabolism is the right foods at the right times.
Our digestion is not on call 24 hours a day; our body is most ready to receive nourishment at certain times. Eating at the proper times activates our metabolism, whereas eating between these times or skipping meals deactivates it. A person with a poor diet who sits down to eat at regular times will have better health than someone with a poor diet and poor eating habits.
Starting breakfast by 8:30 a.m., lunch between 11 and 1 p.m., and dinner between 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. are the best times of day for our meals. Lunch is the most important meal of the day to be consistent with as it has the greatest ability to regulate our metabolism
“The Complete Macrobiotic Diet” is a useful guide for getting to know the secrets of a healthy metabolism
-Start meals at the proper times and don’t skip meals
-Eat slowly, and chew food thoroughly
-Stop eating before full
-Sleep and rise early–the earlier you eat, the more active your metabolism will be
-Do not eat at least three hours before going to sleep
-Have daily, life related activity, especially cleaning and walking outside everyday
-Try to eat with other people
-Have a good belly laugh every day
-Do things for other people
[…] Denny’s blog entry on healthy metabolism for his simple and clear explanation of why regular mealtimes can make a […]
Hi Denny,
I love these simple reminders. I was startled to see an ad on TV yesterday encouraging people to get back to the dinner table to promote family harmony. My thought was that things must be getting really bad if the government sees it necessary to tell people to eat together. And of course there are far reaching health implications when families don’t eat together too.
It made me realise how different our lifestyle is from the norm. In another instance, I was at a work event yesterday that commenced at 9 AM and I pulled some freshly made biscuits from my bag. One of my colleagues looked startled and commented that I must have been up at the crack of dawn to make them! I wasn’t quite up at dawn, but it was certainly a priority to be up early enough to prepare good food for the day – I pointed out that I love to eat great food!
Your suggestion above to eat with other people would be a lovely way to bridge this gap in lifestyles that seems to be accelerating.
Madeleine.x
what do we do about keeping regular meals when our times change for daylight changing time and we are unable to change our work/ activity schedule ?
This is a good question and it is difficult to answer. In an ideal situation we would keep to the actual sun time and disregard an artificial change to Daylight Savings Time. This is nearly impossible for most of us because we live within a society that recognizes the yearly time change. My family has decided to adapt to this change and it seems to work okay even though it is not ideal.