It’s Not What You Eat, It’s When You Eat

This post is brought to you by our sponsor, “Always Eat After 7 PM”. The opinions expressed below are my own.

After spending years trying to find the right diet/lifestyle for me, I’ve been reading Always Eat After 7pm: The Revolutionary Rule-Breaking Diet That Lets You Enjoy Huge Dinners, Desserts, and Indulgent Snacks—While Burning Fat Overnight by Joel Marion and following along with the accompanying meal suggestions. So far, I’m happy with the process and food recommendations. For me, health is about more than just weight loss. Good health means controlling your weight, having more energy, having clear skin, and most importantly, preventing illness by eating nutritious foods. This book is helping me achieve my goal of learning how to live a healthier lifestyle in order to have more energy and prevent developing lifestyle illness in the future. Here are a few reasons why I love this book:

 

1. Freedom

I love the freedom that I have during meal time. I chose this book because it does not focus on cutting out foods from your diet. Sure there are recommendations on what you should limit, but nothing is off limits.

Reading this book has taught me about intuitive eating. I’m eating when my body tells me to, rather than forcing myself to have a bowl of yogurt for breakfast because I feel like it’s the healthy thing to do even though I’m not even hungry. On this plan, you eat the most when you’re naturally hungry, you don’t go to bed hungry, and you can even indulge your sweet and salty cravings before bedtime. 

The Always Eat After 7pm plan has allowed me to eat freely without feelings of guilt creeping up. When I decide to have one cookie or scoop of ice cream at 9pm (I’m eating a chocolate chunk cookie that I learned how to make from the book at this very moment), I can do so and still be within the guidelines of the meal plan! 

2. Easy to Follow

The Always Eat After 7pm program is a much more enjoyable and realistic way to lose weight and achieve good health compared to most of the popular diet plans that you may have heard of. Since most meal plans tell you all the things that you should not eat, one of the most difficult things for people when they embark on a journey to improve their health is figuring out what they can actually eat. 

Planning out meals is a pretty overwhelming task for me at times because I like to eat just about everything, but I’m definitely not an expert chef in the kitchen. 

That’s okay though!

This book comes with a daily meal plan and is full of delicious, easy-to-make recipes. The best part is that I already have most of the ingredients that the recipes call for in my fridge and pantry right now. All of the ingredients are easily accessible and economical so you won’t hurt your bank account or budget. 

This program is more about when you eat than what you eat which is far easier to manage.

 

 

3. Carbs, Late-Night Eating, & Breakfast

Everyday, we hear about one diet after another that claims to be the end all, be all for health and weight loss. The problem with most of these diets is, they are not actually backed by science. Always Eat After 7pm is backed by so much scientific evidence that supports why the plan actually works.

Your metabolism is what enables your cells, tissues, and organs to perform necessary functions that turn food into fuel for respiration, circulation, and digestion. Most of us are always trying to ramp up our metabolism to lose weight. I learned that your metabolism is still hard at work, even while you’re sleeping, which puts to bed the myth that eating at night makes you gain weight.

However, research shows that an average person’s metabolic rate is no different at night than it is in the day. That means your metabolism does not actually slow down at night. Whether it’s 8am to 8pm, your body uses energy the same way, so you don’t need to fear having dinner before bed or eating a late night snack!

One of the things that I was surprised to learn is that carbs are not the enemy. Nope, not at all! We’ve been traditionally taught to avoid carbs, have an early dinner, and never eat before bed. But the fact is, the latest scientific research shows us this earlier model is not the most ideal.

You can eat as many healthy carbs as you want. Carbs are the fuel that give us the energy we need to get through the day without feeling sluggish which is necessary for those of us who need a boost of energy. You shouldn’t be afraid to eat carbs because “avoiding carbohydrates and restricting calories later in the day can have an adverse effect on your thyroid hormones, which play a major role in metabolism. When the thyroid fails to secrete enough of the hormones that control metabolism, this can trigger symptoms like fatigue, depression, weight gain, thinning hair, and dry skin.” So not only do carbs give you energy, they also make you look cute too!

The book also debunks a lot of myths about eating breakfast. We’ve all heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. We’ve also heard that if you don’t eat breakfast, your metabolism will slow and you’ll gain weight. 

But it kind of seems contradictory though, how can not eating make you gain weight? When eating balanced meals, consuming fewer calories should help you lose weight. 

Turns out, breakfast is NOT the most important meal of the day. In fact, eating breakfast is not even necessary at all. Research shows that cutting breakfast from your daily diet could reduce your caloric intake by 400 calories per day.

The British Medical Journal published a study in 2019 that was conducted in the US and UK over the course of 30 years. The study revealed that breakfast-eaters consumed 260 more calories per day than non-breakfast eaters. Those who skipped breakfast also weighed less than breakfast-eaters on average. 

Learning this completely reshaped the way that I thought about breakfast. This week, I’m skipping breakfast for the first time and I’ll admit, I’m nervous about it. I’ll let you know how it’s going in next week’s blog!

Recently, I was able to learn a little more about the book’s author, and his motivations for writing the book. Joel Marion, is a best-selling author, fitness expert and nutritionist debunking the myths underlying traditional dieting and offers a simple, highly effective weight loss program. Here’s what he had to say about his new book.

 

A Word from the Author

What inspired you to write the book?

“After authoring 6 best selling books it was glaringly obvious there were 2 huge misconceptions about dieting that needed to be exposed. The first is that you can’t eat late at night or before bed, which science now shows is NOT true. And second, you can’t eat large portions that satisfy your natural instinct. This book solves both these problems by providing an evidence-based, enjoyable approach to dieting that can be used by any person to quickly achieve their weight loss goals.”

You mentioned that you’re a six-time best selling author, what is different about this book compared to your others?

“Although many of the concepts are similar, the biggest difference is that you don’t have to deprive yourself of your favorite foods. You don’t have to deal with the burden of eating every few hours. And you don’t have to skip the carbs at dinnertime or avoid eating before bed.”

How difficult is the Always Eat After 7 PM plan to follow?

“It’s not. And that’s exactly why I wrote the book. While any diet is never truly easy, it can be more enjoyable and much easier to adhere to when you understand how Always Eat After 7pm works because it caters to our bodies natural instincts.”

 

I seriously can’t get enough of this book. It’s full of valuable nuggets of knowledge about how to get healthy without starving yourself and cutting the things you love out of your diet.

Always Eat After 7pm: The Revolutionary Rule-Breaking Diet That Lets You Enjoy Huge Dinners, Desserts, and Indulgent Snacks—While Burning Fat Overnight by Joel Marion is now available to purchase. 

So what are you waiting for?! Grab your copy today. Learn more about the book and how to purchase here!

This post is brought to you by our sponsor, “Always Eat After 7 PM”. The opinions expressed below are my own.