Chapter 6 – Limit When You Eat: HELP Explained

In 2023 we are working through the 10 chapters of The Health, Energy & Longevity Plan, digging deeper into each aspect of the plan on a monthly basis. If you’d don’t want to wait, click here to access the whole booklet now.

Most dietary advice relates to what you should eat, but when you eat can be just as important. 

Time-restricted eating and longer periods of fasting can be extremely beneficial. For one thing, you’re giving your gut a rest. If you finish eating at least three hours before bedtime (by 6 pm for example) your resting heart rate will lower sooner and improve sleep quality.

You’ll also begin to create an extended period of lower insulin levels as your body burns through most of its glycogen by morning. Because insulin is a growth and storage hormone, when levels are elevated your adipocytes (fat cells) can’t release fatty acids into your bloodstream to be turned into ketone bodies, an alternate source of fuel for your cells, by your liver.

If you skip breakfast and just have black coffee the fat-burning continues. You can even have melted butter or heavy whipping cream in your coffee without raising insulin levels, and yet this little bit of fat makes you less hungry. You may find it relatively easy not to eat your first meal until noon.

Congratulations! You will have just completed your first time- restricted feeding window by not eating for 18 hours.

You slept through several of them, and sipping on coffee meant your body was either burning the small amount of fat in the butter or cream or was only burning your stored fat. Either way, you were a fat- burning machine!

As you become fat-adapted through a low-carb diet and time- restricted eating you may find you can extend your fasting window to nearly 24 hours, eating just one meal a day, sometimes called OMAD.

If that one meal is sufficiently filling with healthy fats and protein and limited carbs, even it won’t spike your blood sugar. You’ll go to bed feeling full and satisfied, and you’ll be in fat- burning mode constantly.

The way you can know for sure that you’re burning fat is by measuring your ketones. This Keto-Mojo glucose and ketone meter is a great tool, which lets you measure both your blood glucose and ketone levels with a single finger stick. More on that in chapter 10.

You may eventually want to consider longer fasts, such as a #3DayCancerPreventionFast. Longer fasts such as these promote autophagy, or cleanup and recycling of defective mitochondria and other organelles. They also can reboot your immune system, and put increased stress on any cancer cells in your body. Many cancer cells can only get energy from glucose, and so by raising ketone levels and reducing blood glucose they may be stressed enough to be killed.

Basic recipe for daily 13-hour fasting:

1. Finish eating for the day three hours before bedtime.
2. That's it!

Basic recipe for daily 18-hour fasting:

1. Finish eating for the day three hours before bedtime.
2. Have coffee or tea with heavy cream instead of a full breakfast.
3. Eat lunch and dinner within an 8-hour window.
4. Rinse and repeat!

Remember to check back each Wednesday for another post offering practical advice and education about topics addressed in The Health, Energy & Longevity Plan.

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Lee Aase

Lee Aase is the founder of HELPcare LLC, which provides comprehensive membership, marketing and management services for provider-owned HELPcare Clinics, as well as metabolic health education and coaching for people interested in restoring health and reversing disease through lifestyle changes. Lee and his wife Lisa live in Austin, MN and have six married children and 18 grandchildren.