Satchin Panda, PhD

Addressing the circadian clock is more than a diet. In fact, it’s not a diet at all. It’s a lifestyle. It begins with knowing when to eat and when to turn off the lights. Just paying attention to those small parts of your day will go a long way toward preventing and delaying disease.

The longer your circadian rhythm is out of sync, the greater the risk of developing a serious disease.

Your performance at any moment during the day is primarily determined by what you did the night before—when you ate and how much you slept—because that is what sets your clock, which then primes your body and brain.

If you are experiencing any physical discomfort, or changes to the way you think, don’t ignore them: They are early warning signs of chronic illness.

The body remains in fat-making mode for a longer time after a late-night meal. Only after 6 to 7 hours of not eating does our body begin to start burning some fat. This is the critically important aspect of TRE: to stop feeding the engine that is your body and let it run on the fuel it already has. This is the only way to prevent or reverse weight gain and, ultimately, obesity.

So, if you’ve wondered why diets haven’t worked for you before—it’s quite likely that you weren’t respecting your circadian clocks. If you eat late at night or start breakfast at a wildly different time each morning, you are constantly throwing your body out of sync. Don’t worry, the fix is equally simple: just set an eating routine and stick to it. Timing is everything.

Eating at the same time every day is one of the most powerful ways to maintain a strong circadian rhythm.

Everyone should focus more on when they eat, instead of what they eat.

We assumed that fasting for 14 to 16 hours would break down muscles and we would see a reduction in muscle mass. Actually, we found the exact opposite.