You should eat a BIG BREAKFAST – it is the SMART THING to do.
But ……… YOU CAN’T.
Early in the morning – your STOMACH just isn’t in the mood. The idea of consuming anything more than a strong cup of coffee, is unthinkable.
Your stomach is only prepared to accept food, after 10 am in the morning. Your stomach is a night owl, not a lark.
Stomach has a mind of its own
It is not your imagination…….. a team of Australian researchers have discovered, that stomach’s can tell time.
In fact, they are not simply taking cues from the master clock in the brain, the stomach has it’s own clock hanging on the wall. This clock determines whether your stomach is open for business.
When the stomach is open for business, it is happy to accept lots of food, but when it closes up shop, small amounts of food, trigger the I AM FULL MESSAGE.
So eating food when your stomach is closed, is a NO GO.
The spring mechanism
The team tracked the operating times of mouse stomachs. The mice were allowed to eat as much or as little as they liked, whenever they liked. The mice did not get to choose what was for dinner, they ate standard mouse chow – so there was no confounding temptations, which could impact on stomach operating times.
Don’t know about you – but I can ALWAYS find room for chocolate.
The team kept tabs on how sensitive the stomach nerves were to being stretched, monitoring their mechanosensitivity, every 3 hours for a period of 24 hours.
NOTE : When your stomach fills up with food, your gastric vagal nerve fires off a message, letting your brain know how much food you’ve just eaten, this should stop you from eating TOO MUCH.
Stomach operating times
What it takes to be FULL, depends on the time on your stomach’s clock. Mouse stomach’s can accommodate a lot more food in the wee hours of the morning, than they can in the middle of the day.
Since mice are nocturnal, this makes perfect sense.
The mouse stomach is open for business, when it is out and about, but closed for business when it is sleeping. Mice are supposed to party all night – humans are NOT.
The clock sets the tone
The researchers discovered, stomach capacity is determined by the stomach’s CLOCK.
This finding means, that if your stomach can’t do breakfast, it could be, because your stomach is in its own time zone. Not that unthinkable – hearts often get the timing wrong.
Jet lag impacts performance
Negatively. Jet lag is not a health move…..
You body’s day shift and night shift need to be co-ordinated for you to burn fat efficiently.
So all of you needs to be in the same time zone, for you to function at your best.
The time zone shuffle
The way you get over jet lag, is by living in the new time zone. It takes a few days, but you eventually get over the time zone disconnect. If your stomach is in a different time zone to the rest of your body, you need to force it to live in the SAME time zone as the rest of you.
That means –
- Feed it breakfast – even a little will help shift the clock.
- Don’t feed it midnight snacks. No matter how much is whines, send the message that this is not the time to be operating.
It might take a few days, but your stomach clock will eventually synch it’s clock, to the rest of your body. The pay off……….. better body chemistry.
Further reading
 |
 |
 |
| Maybe it’s time to invest in appetite suppressing glasses | The secret to eating less is to serve up a little more | Please sir my MORs want a little MORE |
Interested in learning more about the chemistry behind those extra fat layers ?
Subscribe to E-spoons, to get e-mail updates once a month to learn how to keep your body chemistry balanced so you can burn off the extra fat.
NOTE : Privacy & spam policy. Spoonful of Science will not rent, trade or sell the e-mail list to anyone. You can unsubscribe at any time by following the unsubscribe link.