Food Patterns

Like many of you, I am a creature of habit when it comes to my daily intake of food, especially while in this masters program. Overconsumption of food with such eating patterns often leads to metabolic morbidities (excessive accumulation of visceral fat, etc.), especially when associated with a sedentary lifestyle such as a college student who spends most of his time at his laptop... Lol.

Source: What we eat, how much and how often changes over our lives. milsamil/Shutterstock

I often find myself eating the same thing for breakfast (coffee and frozen microwave pancakes and bacon or sausage). For lunch, I pick a salad from my hydroponic garden when fresh lettuce and spouts are available. For dinner, it could be anything but try not to be much red meat. So generally is Turkey or chicken.

Most of the time I eat 2-3 meals, and maybe a snack or two. However, I tried to get my meals all within a certain timeframe. You may know it as intermittent fasting. I try to eat breakfast at around 11 AM and also try to complete my dinner before 7-8 PM (that is extraordinarily difficult sometimes).

I look at Intermittent fasting as not a diet, but rather a dieting pattern. I started with a 16 hour fast and worked my way to 18 and then hopefully to 20 or 21 hours. Fasting for 16 hours and then only eating within a specific 8-hour window. For example, only eating from noon-8 PM, essentially skipping breakfast or in my case delaying breakfast until 11 or 12, having lunch at two or three and dinner at seven.

The cellular and molecular mechanisms by which intermittent fasting enhances health and hinders disease processes involve activation of adaptive cellular stress response signaling pathways that intensify mitochondrial health, DNA repair, and autophagy (Mattson, Longo, & Harvie, 2017). Limiting the daily duration of food intake to 8 hours or less, in healthy and overweight people have exhibited effectiveness for weight loss and promotions in multiple health indicators including insulin resistance and decreases in risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

A few things that are difficult to break the habit of eating for me as with most Americans are sugar and bread. Sometimes my unhealthy sugar bingeing would lead me down the cookie aisle or lead me into the day-old bakery at my local market. It has taken me a while to realize sugar, and bread addiction is not unlike a schedule one drug addiction, the same chemical reactions in the body happened for sugar as for cocaine according to research.

Altered dopamine receptor expression due to a "DRD2 Taq1A A1 allele" polymorphism may confer vulnerability to alcohol and drug addiction (Yeh, Trang, Henning, Wilhalme, Carpenter, Heber, & Li, 2016). The notion of food addiction is that a subset of obese individuals who carry this polymorphism may also overeat to compensate for diminished dopamine signaling.

I also take a few supplements: Vitamin D, C, and a good B-complex. I also take omega 3, perilla oil, magnesium, as well as a tincture that I developed with over 40 different herbs ( I called it "Everything but the kitchen sink tincture") My goal is to be an "80% / 20% Vegan" by the end of the year. Having my roots in the South ( Louisiana) makes it difficult to transition to a predominantly vegetarian or vegan lifestyle.

References:

Mattson, M. P., Longo, V. D., & Harvie, M. (2017). Impact of intermittent fasting on health and disease processes. Ageing research reviews, 39, 46-58.

Yeh, J., Trang, A., Henning, S. M., Wilhalme, H., Carpenter, C., Heber, D., & Li, Z. (2016). Food cravings, food addiction, and a dopamine-resistant (DRD2 A1) receptor polymorphism in Asian American college students. Asia Pacific journal of clinical nutrition, 25(2), 424.