Exercise Enhances Time-Restricted Eating Benefits

Exercise can enhance the benefits of time-restricted eating, training your metabolism to be fit and flexible, and creating conditions where cellular and mitochondrial cleanup are working at their peak, according to Dr. Steven Grundy. Exercise does not have to be challenging cardio workouts; it can be gentle, like yoga or walking. (PSA: People with a history of disordered eating should avoid intermittent fasting, listen to their bodies, and eat when hungry.)

• Autophagy is the body’s process of cleaning out dead or damaged cells, often overnight while we sleep or when we are in prolonged periods of non-eating.

Your muscles are metabolic organs, which store sugars and fat, gobbling up glucose quickly after you eat, then storing the extra for you in form of glycogen. Excess glucose also gets stored as fat.

• About 12 hours after your last meal, your body will have burned up all of its ready glucose. That is when the body is ripe to access stored glucose in your fat.

Both exercise and time-restricted eating (or intermittent fasting) are forms of hormetic stress, meaning they challenge your cells to become more resilient by exposing them to measured amounts of stress.

• Much like exercise stresses your muscles to make them stronger, exercising in a fasted state preps the body to burn fuel more efficiently and to access fuel other than glucose (like fats or ketones) for energy.

Exercising in a fasted state promotes greater energy production and is very good for metabolic health.

• When your body has burned up all its excess glucose and depleted its stored glycogen, it switches to burning free fatty acids, a process called ketosis.

Exercise also stimulates muscles to secrete myokines, chemical messengers that regulate hormones, improve insulin sensitivity, and stimulate neural health.

• Exercise even increases production of proteins called neurotrophic factors (BDNF and FGF), both of which strengthen synapses and help create new neurons, resulting in a better mood and clearer thinking.

Strength training or resistance training is also very effective in promoting mitogenesis, the process of cell division which produces new cells for growth and replaces old and dying cells.

**Content provided for educational and informational purposes only. It is derived from information from Dr. Steven Grundy’s Energy Paradox book. It is not to be considered medical advice.**