Reclaiming Your Eating Rhythm: A Path to Healthier Relationship with Food

The rhythm of life is a powerful force. From the steady beat of your heart to the cyclical nature of the seasons, everything follows a pattern, a pulsation that governs how things move and function. One of the most important rhythms that affect our health is our circadian rhythm, the 24-hour cycle that governs our sleep-wake patterns, hormone production, and metabolism. This rhythm is closely tied to the light and dark cycles of the sun, which means that when we eat can be just as important as what we eat. In this blog, we’ll explore how your eating is connected with your circadian rhythm and how to find a healthier, more balanced approach to eating that supports your metabolism, boosts your energy, and helps you feel better overall.

Understanding Your Eating Rhythm

The concept of eating rhythm is based on the idea that our bodies are attuned to the rhythms of the natural world, particularly the cycle of the sun. Eating rhythm refers to the timing of your meals in relation to this cycle. Every person has a unique eating rhythm, shaped by their lifestyle, environment, and personal preferences.

However, many of us fall into erratic or chaotic eating patterns that disrupt our body's natural rhythms, i.e. through dieting, parenting, work schedule etc. This can lead to a range of health issues, including digestive problems, emotional distress, binge eating, and fatigue. For example, if you regularly skip breakfast and eat a large dinner late at night, you may be setting yourself up for metabolic imbalances.

Our metabolism isn't just a simple machine that burns calories at a steady rate. It's a dynamic system, intricately tied to our hormones, circadian rhythms, and overall lifestyle. One of the key hormones at play is cortisol, often referred to as the ‘stress hormone’. Cortisol levels rise in the early morning, which plays a role in helping to wake us up. This is part of the body's natural circadian rhythm, often referred to as the "cortisol awakening response" (CAR). Cortisol, a hormone produced by the adrenal glands, typically begins to increase about 30-45 minutes before waking, peaks shortly after waking, and then gradually declines throughout the day.

This early morning rise in cortisol helps to prepare the body for the day ahead by increasing alertness, boosting energy levels, and regulating various bodily functions, such as metabolism and immune response. It essentially helps to transition the body from the restful state of sleep to the more active state needed during the day.

Eating in the morning can feel energizing, and this is partly due to the interaction between food intake and the body's natural rise in cortisol levels. When you wake up, your body is already gearing up for the day, thanks to the increased cortisol, which helps boost your metabolism and energy levels. Eating breakfast provides your body with the fuel it needs to take advantage of this metabolic boost.

When you eat in the morning, especially a balanced meal with carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, your blood sugar levels rise, providing immediate energy. This, combined with the natural cortisol spike, can make you feel more alert and ready to take on the day.

However, if we skip breakfast, we're missing out on this natural boost. When you don't eat in the morning, your body remains in a fasting state longer, which can increase stress on your system. Over time, skipping breakfast can lead to low energy levels, increased hunger later in the day and elevated cortisol levels throughout the day, contributing to weight gain, particularly around the abdomen.

Your metabolic rate, or the speed at which your body burns calories, is closely linked to your body temperature. When you wake up in the morning, your body temperature is relatively low, as your body has been in a state of rest and repair overnight. As you begin your day, your metabolism starts to increase. Some studies suggest that metabolism is more efficient earlier in the day with a slight peak in metabolic rate during midday. This aligns with the idea that your body is naturally more prepared to handle food intake and activity during the middle of the day.

As the day progresses, your metabolism gradually starts to slow down, with a noticeable dip between 2:00 PM and 4:00 PM. This is a time when many people experience a natural energy slump and may feel the urge to reach for coffee, sugar, or energy drinks. However, this dip in energy is a natural part of your body's rhythm and does not necessarily require intervention with stimulants. To counteract it, try having a light well balanced snack, taking a short break or a walk. Power nap is also a great idea if that’s available for you. Sometimes, dehydration can contribute to fatigue. Drinking water or herbal tea can help maintain energy levels.

As the evening approaches, your body experiences a slight rise in metabolism between 5:00 PM and 8:00 PM, which is when dinner is typically consumed. However, after 9:00 PM, your metabolic rate decreases again, preparing your body for sleep. During the night, your body shifts its focus from digestion to repair and maintenance, meaning that any food consumed late at night is not as efficiently metabolized.

Late-night eating can disrupt your circadian rhythm, including cortisol production, particularly if it affects your sleep quality. Poor sleep or sleep disruptions can lead to elevated cortisol levels the following day. Additionally, a large meal high in sugar or fat might cause your body to stay more alert, potentially affecting cortisol release. However, the specific impact on cortisol may vary based on the individual, the type of food consumed, and how frequently this occurs. 

Addressing Common Challenges

While creating a balanced eating rhythm can have profound benefits, it's not always easy to implement, especially if you have a busy lifestyle or work irregular hours. Here are some strategies to help you navigate common challenges:

1. Busy Workdays: If your job makes it difficult to find time for regular meals, try to plan ahead. Pack a lunch and healthy snacks the night before, and carve out a few minutes during your day to eat mindfully. Even a short break can make a big difference in your energy levels and overall well-being.

2. Parenting and Family Responsibilities: For parents, especially stay-at-home parents, finding time to eat can be a challenge. It’s easy to fall into the habit of eating leftovers from your kids' plates or skipping meals altogether. To counter this, try to set aside specific times for your own meals and make them a priority. Remember, taking care of yourself is just as important as taking care of your family.

3. Night Shifts and Irregular Schedules: Working night shifts can throw your natural rhythms off balance, leading to cravings and fatigue. If you work nights, consider eating smaller, more frequent meals with a focus on low-carbohydrate, high-protein foods. This can help stabilize your energy levels and support your metabolism during your working hours.

4. Travel and Time Zone Changes: Frequent travel can disrupt your eating rhythm, especially if you're crossing time zones. To minimize the impact, try to adjust your meal times to the local schedule as soon as possible. Eating light, nutrient-dense meals can also help your body adapt more quickly to new environments.

For many people, the biggest challenge in establishing a healthy eating rhythm is overcoming deeply ingrained habits and beliefs.

The Problem with Skipping Meals

In a culture that promotes restrictive dieting and a fear of food, many people have internalized the idea that eating less is the key to ‘success’ and are now struggling with a cycle of chronic dieting. When we skip meals or drastically reduce our calorie intake, our bodies interpret this as a sign of scarcity. Evolutionarily, this response made sense: when food was scarce, our ancestors needed to conserve energy. So, the body slows down the metabolism, holds onto fat stores, and reduces the energy used for building muscle.

Skipping meals can have a significant impact on your body, often leading to overeating later in the day. When you skip a meal, particularly breakfast or lunch, your body goes into a state of energy deprivation. Hunger levels steadily rise throughout the day as your body seeks to make up for the missing fuel. This not only leaves you feeling physically hungry but also intensifies cravings for foods that are quick sources of energy—often high-calorie, sugary, or processed foods.

One of the main reasons for this is unstable blood sugar levels. After skipping a meal, your blood sugar tends to drop, leaving you feeling lethargic, irritable, and experiencing dips in energy. When your blood sugar is low, your brain signals the need for a quick fix to bring those levels back up. This often leads to cravings for carbohydrate-rich and sugary foods, as these are the fastest sources of glucose for your body to absorb and use. Unfortunately, indulging in these foods can cause a spike in blood sugar, followed by another crash, creating a cycle of energy dips and cravings that is hard to break. This also is often linked to emotional eating, where hunger is so intense by the time you eat that it’s hard to control portion sizes or make healthy choices. Many people who skip meals find themselves overeating or binge eating in the evening, consuming large quantities of food to compensate for the earlier restriction (while it is important to acknowledge that this is not the only reason why people binge eat / overeat, it is a significant one). To prevent these cycles, it's essential to maintain a consistent eating schedule with balanced meals that include adequate protein, healthy fats, and complex carbohydrates, helping you stabilize energy levels and avoid mood swings.

If you skip meals regularly and don’t consume enough protein throughout the day, your body may enter a state where it starts breaking down muscle tissue to meet its energy needs. This is especially true during prolonged periods of fasting or under-eating (i.e. being on a restrictive diet), where the body lacks adequate nutrients and resorts to muscle tissue as a source of fuel. When your body begins to break down muscle for energy, it not only reduces your muscle mass but also lowers your basal metabolic rate (BMR) – the number of calories your body burns at rest. A lower BMR means your body requires fewer calories to function, so even if you maintain the same caloric intake, you may start to gain weight or struggle to lose it. Additionally, without sufficient muscle mass, your body may become less efficient at burning fat during physical activity. This can create a cycle where the more you restrict food and the longer you skip meals, the more your body breaks down muscle, which ultimately slows down your metabolism – to counteract this, it’s essential to consume adequate protein throughout the day and avoid skipping meals ensuring your body has the nutrients it needs to preserve muscle mass, maintain metabolic health, and support overall well-being.

Regular meal skipping can lead to significant disruptions in the hormonal balance that regulates hunger, metabolism, and overall energy use, which in turn may affect general health. When you frequently skip meals, it sends mixed signals to your body, triggering changes in the production and regulation of hormones like leptin, ghrelin, and thyroid hormones, all of which play crucial roles in maintaining energy balance and metabolic health.

Leptin is often referred to as the "satiety hormone" because it helps regulate energy balance by inhibiting hunger and promoting the feeling of fullness after meals. It is produced primarily by fat cells, and its levels typically rise after eating, signalling to the brain that you have enough energy stored and can stop eating. However, when meals are skipped regularly, leptin production can decrease, particularly if skipping meals is part of a chronic calorie restriction pattern. Lower leptin levels reduce the satiety signals sent to your brain, which can lead to increased hunger and cravings, especially for calorie-dense, nutrient-poor foods like sugary snacks and fast food.

Ghrelin, often called the "hunger hormone," works in opposition to leptin by signalling hunger and promoting the desire to eat. Ghrelin levels increase before meals and decrease after eating. However, when meals are skipped, ghrelin levels rise significantly, making you feel much hungrier than normal. This spike in hunger can lead to overeating when you eventually do eat, as the body tries to compensate for the lack of energy intake earlier in the day. The more ghrelin is elevated, the stronger the cravings for quick, high-calorie foods, as the body prioritizes fast sources of energy to overcome the hunger.

The thyroid hormones, including thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3), are critical regulators of metabolism. They control how efficiently your body converts food into energy and influence the rate at which calories are burned. When you regularly skip meals, your body may interpret this as a sign of insufficient energy availability, prompting the thyroid to reduce hormone production as a means of conserving energy. This can slow down your basal metabolic rate (BMR), which is the number of calories your body burns at rest to maintain basic functions like breathing and circulation. A drop in thyroid hormone levels can result in a condition known as hypothyroidism, where metabolism becomes sluggish, leading to fatigue and weight gain.

The interplay between leptin, ghrelin, and thyroid hormones can create a vicious cycle. Skipping meals may initially lead to an increase in ghrelin and a decrease in leptin, which results in intense hunger and overeating when you finally eat. This irregular eating pattern can then further depress leptin and thyroid hormone levels, slowing your metabolism and making weight management more difficult. At the same time, the constant spikes in ghrelin leave you vulnerable to repeated overeating, creating a loop where the body is constantly oscillating between energy conservation and energy overload and additionally, disrupted thyroid function can lead to fatigue, depression, and impaired cognitive function, affecting overall quality of life.

The Psychological Aspect: Fear of Food and Diet Culture

In today's society, the relationship many people have with food is often shaped by fear, anxiety, and confusion, largely driven by diet culture. This pervasive mentality not only promotes unrealistic body ideals but also fosters harmful eating habits and a negative psychological relationship with food. For many, food has become something to fear, rather than a source of nourishment and pleasure, leading to a cycle of restriction, guilt, and obsession.

Diet culture often demonizes certain foods, categorizing them as "good" or "bad." This binary thinking may lead you to develop a fear of eating foods perceived as unhealthy, particularly those that are high in calories, sugar, or fat. This fear can result in obsessive behaviours around food choices, constantly scrutinizing labels or avoiding social situations where "forbidden" foods might be present.

When you do consume these "bad" foods, you may experience intense guilt or shame, believing that you’ve compromised your health or weight loss goals. This emotional burden can fuel a cycle of restrictive eating followed by periods of overeating or bingeing, as the psychological pressure becomes too overwhelming. The guilt and shame surrounding food choices can also lead to distorted body image, low self-esteem, and even disordered eating patterns like orthorexia, where an obsession with eating only “pure” or “healthy” foods takes over.

Diet culture is deeply embedded in modern society, perpetuated by media, social influencers, and even some health professionals. It glorifies thinness and equates it with health, worth, and beauty. As a result, many people feel pressured to constantly diet or restrict their eating in an attempt to achieve an idealized body shape that is often unattainable and unhealthy. 

Diet culture also perpetuates the notion that willpower and self-control are the keys to success, which can lead to feelings of failure when you inevitably struggle to maintain extreme or unsustainable diets. The emphasis on quick fixes, detoxes, and fad diets further promotes an unhealthy relationship with food, as you learn to fear not just certain foods but also your own hunger cues. This environment makes it difficult to view food as a source of fuel and nourishment, rather than something that needs to be controlled or restricted.

If you, like many of us, are entrenched in diet culture, food can become a constant source of stress and anxiety. Instead of enjoying meals or eating intuitively, you may obsess over calorie counts, macronutrients, and portion sizes. This hyper-focus on food can take a mental toll, leading to increased anxiety, depression, and even social isolation as you may avoid events or situations where you feel like your eating habits might be judged or where you might "lose control."

Chronic dieting, especially when it involves extreme calorie restriction or cutting out entire food groups, can also lead to psychological deprivation. Even if someone is physically consuming enough food, the constant restriction and focus on "dieting" can create a mental state of deprivation. This can lead to cravings, overeating, or bingeing, followed by more guilt, reinforcing the cycle of food fear and dieting.

One of the most insidious effects of diet culture is that it teaches you to ignore or distrust your body’s natural hunger and fullness signals. Many diets encourage people to eat according to rigid schedules, portion sizes, or calorie limits, rather than listening to their body’s cues. Over time, this can lead to a disconnection from hunger and satiety signals, making it difficult for you to eat intuitively.

As you become more disconnected from your body, you may struggle to recognize when you’re truly hungry or full. This disconnection can make it easier to fall into cycles of undereating or overeating, further reinforcing the belief that your body cannot be trusted when it comes to food decisions.

To combat the psychological damage caused by fear of food and diet culture, it's essential to shift the focus from restriction and weight loss to nourishment and overall well-being. This involves cultivating a healthier relationship with food.

Reframing food as a source of nourishment and enjoyment, rather than something to be feared or controlled, can help break the cycle of guilt and shame. This may involve challenging long-held beliefs about "good" and "bad" foods, and learning to embrace all foods without judgment. Encouraging a mindset that prioritizes physical and mental health over achieving an arbitrary number on the scale can also be a crucial step in breaking free from diet culture’s harmful messages.

Encouraging Our Clients: Focusing on Progress, Not Perfection

At Eat At Ease Counselling, we understand the importance of emphasizing nourishment over restriction for our clients. Many of the individuals we work with have spent years dieting and have developed a deep fear of food. We encourage our clients to focus on signs of progress towards rebuilding their relationship with food, such as increased energy, better sleep, and improved mood. These benefits are often the first indicators that your body is responding positively to the changes, and they serve as valuable milestones in your journey toward better health.

Establishing a healthy eating rhythm is a deeply personal journey that involves tuning into your body, experimenting with different approaches, and making adjustments based on how you feel. It's about finding the balance that works for you, not just in terms of what you eat, but when you eat. By paying attention to your eating patterns and making gradual changes, you can support your body's natural rhythms, boost your metabolism, and develop a healthier relationship with food.

At Eat At Ease, we understand that everyone's journey with food is unique. Whether you're struggling with binge eating, or simply looking to feel better in your body, we're here to support you. Our approach is grounded in the latest research and tailored to meet your individual needs. Together, we can help you find an eating rhythm that nourishes your body and mind.

If you've found yourself in cycles of restrictive eating, emotional eating, or struggling with guilt and fear around food, you're not alone—and we can help.

We understand how diet culture can deeply affect your psychological well-being. It promotes unrealistic ideals, leaves you feeling disconnected from your body's natural hunger and fullness cues, and often leads to feelings of shame and frustration. Many of our clients come to us feeling overwhelmed by rigid food rules, anxious about eating, and battling with a constant fear of losing control. These experiences can take a heavy toll, not just on physical health but on mental and emotional well-being too.

Eat At Ease Counselling aims to help you reclaim a balanced, intuitive relationship with food. Our approach is rooted in empathy, focusing on supporting you in developing a more compassionate understanding of your body and its needs. We guide you through the process of breaking free from diet culture’s toxic messages, helping you rebuild trust in your body’s natural signals and find peace with food. Whether you're struggling with chronic dieting, binge eating, or emotional eating, we offer counselling and long-term group programmes to help you restore a healthier, more mindful approach to nourishment.

At Eat At Ease, we believe food should be a source of nourishment and joy, not stress and anxiety. Together, we work towards your overall well-being, helping you let go of food fears and develop a relationship with food that is both peaceful and sustainable. You can visit us at [www.eatatease.ie] or follow us on Instagram @_eatatease for more resources and support.