Have You Heard Of Reverse Fasting? It's Better For Your Blood Sugar Than Skipping Breakfast

The sun cycle diet comprises a few simple steps, including getting direct sunlight on your skin every morning (whether from sun or sunlamp) and reverse fasting, which is a type of intermittent fasting in which you skip dinner instead of breakfast.

Reverse fasting is a little bit different from the traditional type of intermittent fasting because instead of eating dinner around 8 p.m. and skipping breakfast, you start your fast earlier in the day (preferably around 5 or 6 p.m.) and then fast for 12 to 15 hours. It's a subtype referred to in the scientific literature as early time-restricted eating or just time-restricted feeding. Researchers have found this type of fasting to be superior to just fasting anytime. For example, the results from a study on breast cancer survivors showed that starting your fast early in the evening (before 8 p.m.) was better than after 8 p.m. In that study, researchers asked breast cancer survivors to do a 13-hour fast and found that with just 13 hours between the last meal of the day and breakfast, people started losing weight and having a 36 percent reduction in breast cancer1 recurrence as opposed to people who were eating freely. And when you think about it, this diet is as simple as it gets. You just eat dinner at 6 p.m. and then eat breakfast at 7 a.m. There are no food group restrictions or calorie counting. In another study on reverse fasting, researchers found that if you eat dinner just 90 minutes early—and push your breakfast 90 minutes later than usual—your body will respond by burning more fat, even when you're eating the same number of calories.

The concept of reverse fasting is really about using the power of the sun and your circadian rhythm to inform your eating and sleep-wake schedule. Many people have heard about circadian rhythms, but did you know that we have a circadian clock in each one of our cells? It's true. All of our cells and organs have clocks that determine when our genes should be turned on and turned off. It makes sense that you can’t do all actions in the body at once. So when the sun goes down, usually the actions of digestion are turned off and the actions of repair and restoration are turned on. If you eat late at night, you may get slower digestion, inappropriate acid production, and more insulin resistance. This leads to fat gain, G.I. symptoms, and even diabetes. But, In the morning, shortly after sunrise, the digestive genes are more active again, which is why eating breakfast and not dinner is a great option for those looking to promote optimal health.

That means that five days a week you are doing a 12- to 13-hour fast—drinking only water or calorie-less liquids—and then two days a week, you are fasting for 15 or 16 hours. Remember to consume only water or low-calorie liquids up to 20 calories while fasting, and when you break your fast, eat a low-sugar meal and avoid processed foods.

The seemingly simple concept of living in harmony with your circadian rhythm is free and, in my opinion, should be recommended by all physicians as easy ways to improve inflammation, digestion, hormones, and disease.