The human body loves routine.
Most ‘cycles’ are time and response based, in other words, what happens inside your body over a 24hour period and what positive or negative responses the body experiences during this time. Digestive Health Specialist and Author of The Ultimate GUTFIXx, Scott Manthias shares his tips on how you can understand your personal metabolic cycle.
image via pinterest
I split my day into 3 by 8 hour periods – 4am to 12pm midday – 12pm midday to 8pm – 8pm to 4am – each period representing an opportunity for the body to perform certain functions.
4am to 12pm midday is the time for elimination of yesterdays waste.
Most people grab a piece of toast and coffee for breakfast and put off passing waste from the day before until the later hours of the morning or later in the day or even the next day. This is a very unhealthy way to live life.
A bowl of enzyme rich chopped fruit in the morning before heading out will activate the colon and release yesterday’s waste. Along with this enzymatic activity 60% of the simple carbohydrates (fruit sugars) go straight to the brain. This is why fruit is great in the morning for getting the mind to work, especially when preparing to go into the work environment.
The issue with taking protein into the body at breakfast time means the body stops attempting to eliminate and has to start digesting. The body is naturally geared to ingest, digest, absorb and eliminate, but only does one function efficiently at a time. Have you ever attempted to eat a sandwich whilst sitting on the loo – it’s virtually impossible.
The role that fruit plays in getting the day going is in many cases underplayed and over shadowed by the belief that breakfast IS when proteins should be consumed. This is not the case if you want regular bowel movements and avoid the build-up of unprocessed proteins in the small and large intestine.
Mayo Clinic research reveals that red meat can take between 24 and 72 hours to fully break down in the small intestine. If the body is under stress then this time can double.
Unprocessed proteins end up rotting in the intestinal tract, creating a site for unwanted bacteria, inflammation and ultimate diseases such as IBS, Colitis, Diverticulosis and Colorectal Cancer.
So fruit is a great cleanser first thing in the morning in preparation for a new round of nutrient rich food from 12 onwards.
12pm-midday to 8pm is the time for ingestion, digestion and absorption.
I take the bulk of my food during this time enabling my body to start the breakdown process before I retire at night.
Because of lifestyles most people work a 9 to 5 job and take their main meal in the evening, going to bed with a full belly of protein meaning the gut machinery will have to work overtime to break this food down.
Ideally after 8pm the breakdown process should be complete and absorption begins in the small intestine, at the same time waste begins to drop into the large intestine ready for release the next morning.
After 8pm the immune system has an opportunity to reboot itself, the nervous system is recharged because the body is seemingly in a relaxed state – this is not the case if the digestion process continues long into the night.
Often energy and lethargy issues arise when this whole process of elimination, ingestion, digestion and absorption is out of balance.
Right now the human nervous system is under massive attack. I have clients seeking advice on how to improve their gut function but at the same time their work life balance is out of whack.
From an integrative perspective your primary nutrition is everything going on in your external world – positive or negative. Regrettably the focus IS on the external world through the need to acquire and maintain a certain lifestyle. I am seeing people in great conflict with this as the pressure to maintain self-imposed lifestyle standards impact on their ability to digest life comfortably. This in turn impacts on their gut function, which in turn impacts on the body’s ability to absorb valuable nutrients to keep the body energised through the day.
The 8pm to 4am sector of the absorption process is just as critical even though much of this is sleep time.
The sympathetic nervous system prepares the body for intense physical activity and is often referred to as the fight-or-flight response. The parasympathetic nervous system has almost the exact opposite effect and relaxes the body and inhibits or slows many high-energy functions.
During sleep hours the body should be in a parasympathetic state allowing for a complete reboot of the immune and nervous system but just as importantly the lymphatic system.
The lymphatic system is sometimes referred to as the body’s septic tank system. It is during the sleep hours that toxins move through the lymph system, the liver releases toxins and kidneys finish their job of cleansing the body. The bladder and the bowel become the receptacles for all waste in the body; finding balance is critical to good health.
So we are back at the start of the day.
The quality of the waste leaving the body is totally relating to the quality of the food taken into the body. The more life your food has the more life your body will receive.
The Ultimate GUTFIXx is now available for purchase.
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