Food Timing & Accelerated Aging

What if we told you that one of the most culturally engrained food activities that we have grown up with, from the moment we popped our first molar and started to chew, is actually to blame for a significant portion of our health issues?

What if we told you that this activity, as harmless as it seems on the surface, actually triggers the brain lobes to fire off a cascade effect of emotional imbalances?

What if we also said that it leads to confusion, slower processing times, nervous system dysregulation, and the all too common mid-afternoon slump?

And what if we told you that the offender in question was eating in between meals – otherwise known as snacking?

We didn’t want to believe it either when we first stumbled into this research several months ago. But as the data has continued to pile up, it’s become hard to ignore the profound ways in which this seemingly innocent behavior is impacting the health of so many.

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From Nicole:

As a former grazer and snack connoisseur, I’d spent the better part of 40 years eating like a bird: a bite here, a bite there. An apple for breakfast, followed by a latte an hour later with a handful of nuts. Followed by a bite of cheese and some salad two hours later for lunch.

You get the picture.

And I am sure I’m not alone in this.

I never felt like there was anything wrong with it: my diet was largely clean. I wasn’t snacking on boxes of Captain Crunch or late night Taco Bell. I typically reached for fruit, veggies, lean protein, nuts, or a coffee in between meals.

But if I am being honest with myself, about 75% of the time that I was hunting down a snack, it fit into one of three categories: emotional eating, misperceived thirst, or boredom/habit.

Looking back and now having the insight that I do, I can confidently say that the timing of my food intake was at the root of my former digestive issues, inconsistent sleeping patterns, cravings, emotional fluctuations, unexplained fatigue, stubborn cellulite, and inflammation.

Through our collective research and individual client work, the insight we’ve gleaned over the past several months has been nothing short of eye opening. In connecting the dots between how imbalances can affect different parts of the body, it’s becoming increasingly evident that the effects of eating in between meals are both widespread and detrimental.

Using me as an example, let’s take a look at my prior eating habits to better understand what was happening underneath the surface.

A Day in the Life of My Diet, pre-2025:

· 7:00 AM: Two hardboiled eggs, with sauerkraut, half an avocado, and a grapefruit

· 8:30 AM: Apple and decaf latte

· 10:30 AM: Handful of almonds

· 12:00 PM: Salad with salmon, mixed roasted veggies, and a few gluten free crackers

· 3:00 PM: Half a grapefruit

· 5:00 PM: Grilled chicken with broccoli and steamed rice, 2nd half of grapefruit

· 7:00 PM: Handful of blueberries and 2 pieces of dark chocolate

Doesn’t seem too bad, right?

But this is what happens when the body’s 32 step, ~4 hour long digestion & detoxification process is interrupted: the activities it was working so carefully on - parsing out nutrients, purging toxicities and pathogens, repairing systems so they can operate at full capacity - all of it takes a back seat to the incoming item of food.

And ‘back seat’ is another way of saying that the body shifts priorities to the latest and greatest food and what it was previously working on instead gets stored, and rots. Zero autophagy, zero toxin clean out, zero fat burn.

So if you take the above example, my body was never able to fully complete the digestion process that day, because it was constantly stopping in its tracks to tend to my little nibbles of food– which interrupted the processing of breakfast, lunch, AND dinner from going through the very complex (and so very necessary) procedure from beginning to end.

My body was in full-blown ‘store in all’ mode.

Alongside this storage was the creation of byproducts, otherwise known as undigested waste from food. These types of waste vary in density, ranging from the lightest – CO2 – to some of the heaviest, including calcium and uric acid. Our research has begun to connect the dots between type of byproduct, its density, and the varied effects caused to the physical, mental, and emotional body. (Spoiler alert: the list is long.) Via our client work, we’ve started to see some fascinating patterns emerge - the inflammation caused by eating in between meals has been identified as a root cause of joint pain, vertigo, depression, constipation, blurred vision, cysts, and headaches, just to name a few.

Some of the most notable effects are the creation of bad bacteria, fat cells, and unusable hydrogens, which all have a detrimental effect on system functionality – leading to dehydration, dysregulation, and weight gain.

For those who are reading this right now and thinking “what about intermittent fasting? Doesn’t that give me a pass?” Sadly, not. What we’ve seen in our clients who fast for extended periods of time and then regularly eat during their feeding windows is increased stress to the metabolism and digestion, exacerbating the severity of some symptoms and making weight loss more difficult given the confusion that the body experiences living between two extremes.

So, back to my snack-driven lifestyle.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out why I couldn’t consistently sleep through the night or go two days without an unexplained energy crash. My body was desperately trying to play catch up at night and clean up the mess made by the timing of my food consumption during the day. This led to restless sleep at night, and energy crashes while I was awake. Turns out, if your body is digesting nonstop, that takes quite a bit of energy!

Enter, the No Snacking Challenge of January.

4 days, 2 or 3 meals a day, spaced 4 hours apart. Water only in between meals. Nothing else.

No coffee. No handful of grapes. No leftover piece of apple.

I won’t lie, I was a mix of terrified and displeased when I heard that I was to take part in this research experiment alongside Mary Jo and Laura. Day 1 wasn’t pretty. But I was surprised how quickly my body adapted to its new schedule. And (gasp) even started to prefer it. The initial changes we felt were soon reinforced by the data.

As we tested several key statistics before and after the challenge, it became abundantly clear how eating in between meals was accelerating the aging process. Our quality of life, quality of health, and aging rate numbers did a complete 180, virtually ceasing the aging process (and in some cases reversing it.)

My body’s aging rate pre-challenge was 179%, largely due the byproducts and inflammation from nearly 4 decades of regularly eating during the day.

Post challenge, my aging rate dropped to 17%.

One round of energy clearing to remove the stored scar tissue leftover from undigested food, and my aging rate dropped even further - to .02%.

Beyond the data, we also felt the changes - in a really significant way.

Gone were my random bouts of fatigue, and my Oura ring stats were reflecting increased deep and REM sleep – not to mention my mental clarity and emotional state were both consistently elevated. Pilates felt easier (when we’re not constantly digesting food, our muscles have more energy to do their job & get stronger.) At the end of the challenge, I was down 3 pounds.

Every single part of me felt better.

The list of symptoms I used to have, which were seemingly unrelated on the surface, disappeared fast when I took part in that fated challenge. 

Neither I, nor my colleagues, have gone back to how we used to eat. The results were that significant, for all of us.

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Despite the fact that we’re still nursing a bit of whiplash from upending our prior eating habits, we must say – it’s worth it. So very worth it, to feel as good as we do, and help our clients do the same.

Which is why we are now on a mission to extend this challenge to everyone we meet.

Give it a shot.

4 days, 2 or 3 meals per day, spaced 4 hours apart. Water only in between meals. (Bonus points if you hit 100 oz each day.)

See what you notice.

It just might blow you away.