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How your midnight snacking could be killing you

We admit, there are many days where we are not going to bed at a reasonable time due to the distractions of our favorite late night television shows (darn you Jimmy Fallon), work, and just surfing the web on our tablet and smartphone. Too often, before we head off to slumber, we get something to eat.

We know this is directly correlated to our feelings of not getting enough sleep and the extra pounds showing up on our scale.

Unfortunately it’s been confirmed. A new study by researchers at the Salk Institute cautions against an extended period of snacking, suggesting instead that confining caloric consumption to an 8- to 12-hour period–as people did just a century ago–might stave off high cholesterol, diabetes and obesity.

The results, published on December 2, 2014 in the journal Cell Metabolism, add to mounting evidence suggesting that it’s not just what we eat but when we eat it that matters to our health. We should eat during the hours where we are also burning calories. For us, we would look at the hours of 6:00 am and 6:00 pm.

We are creatures of habit and we’re certain this pattern will be one that is difficult to break.

But we know we have to for our health. We know we still may stay up way past our bedtime in the coming years, but what we will change is when and what we eat. No more late night snacks and beverages. We’re going to stick to a meal plan that has us eating during parts of the day when we can optimize how we breakdown calories. We’ll let you know how this all turns out in a few months. Check back this spring to see our progress.

Join us over on Facebook for helpful tips to eating right, exercise and other tips to help you age gracefully.

Make it your New Year’s Resolution to stop eating at 6PM. And Happy New Year from everyone at FirstLight Home Care!

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