Health | Nutrition | Food
The Fire Diet — More Energy, Less Body Fat, And Better Sleep
Burn bright, sleep tight, and repeat
Imagine the following,
“It’s the end of a long day. You’re at home in your most comfortable pants, captivated by a new Netflix series. What are you eating? A whole mess of carbs… just hours before bed.”
What’s your first reaction? “If only dieting were that simple… sounds lovely but…etc.?”
Conventional wisdom would say that this is the exact opposite of healthy living. I mean carbs before bed. That’s bad right?
Well, it’s 2021. The world has been flipped on its head and it’s time to do the same to conventional wisdom. Here’s how you can boost your energy levels, reduce body fat, and sleep better at night. All by organizing your meals a little differently.
We’ve been thinking about carbs all wrong
Eating carbs at night. The cardinal sin of weight loss, or so we thought. Carbs are but one form of fuel, it’s all about how you use them. Eating carbs at night can actually become your secret weapon, if approached the right way.
If you’ve ever built a fire, you know it takes a nuanced approach. Simply throwing firewood onto a pile of newspapers and lighting it doesn’t guarantee success. The same goes for our bodies.
On the surface, eating healthy is easy. Eat healthy foods that fuel you and avoid those that don’t. Simple. But, factors like mood, energy, and hormones all play their part in making it difficult.
So let’s break food down do its simplest form. Starting with what we know to be true.
Calories are our body’s fuel. Each macronutrient with its own strengths and weaknesses. Although everyone’s body is different, we all process fuel the same way. In this order:
1st: Simple carbs
2nd: Complex carbs
3rd: Proteins
4th: Fats
If you think of your body like a fire, simple carbs are the gasoline. They erupt in intense bursts of flame before quickly dissipating. The more gasoline we use the more we need.
Fats, are like damp logs. Slow-burning, hard to light and providing consistent energy for hours. Complex carbs and proteins lie somewhere in the middle. Kindling and dry firewood.
Building a diet that fits your lifestyle is much like starting a fire. Most people want a diet that offers them physical energy, mental focus, and fat loss/maintenance. A good night’s sleep at the end of the day, is a bonus. A fire that burns hot as long as it’s needed and then dies down when it’s not.
So, how can you build a self-sustaining fire that burns all day long and dies down when it’s no longer needed? With a simple, nuanced approach.
How carbs work — and why you’re always hungry
Your body’s energy system is essentially a fire. When processing food, we use the most readily form of energy, first. If you throw gasoline, kindling, and a damp log into a fire pit at the same time, it’s obvious which will light first. The same goes for a meal containing all major macronutrients. Like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
The sugars will be used first, then grains, followed by the proteins and fats. But a funny thing happens when you through an arsenal of fuel onto your body’s flame at once. It craves more of what it likes, saving what it has for later.
When we eat carbs, especially simple carbs, our bodies produce a hormone called insulin. Insulin spikes are what cause hunger cravings. Even though we have fuel in our system to digest, we want more quick-burning fuel. We often eat more than we need merely because of insulin spikes.
In the past, when food was harder to come by, this wasn’t an issue. Once your body realized there were no more carbs to digest, it would move onto the proteins, fats, and eventually stored body fat. But, being that for most of us food is now easy to come by, our bodies rarely get to the point of digesting everything completely.
If you continue to fuel your fire with gasoline, that damp log will sit in the fire pit, charred and no good to anyone. A perfectly good source of energy will turn into burnt cinder, known as stored fat.
As a society, we hate stored fat. It’s why fat adaption diets such as the Ketogenic diet or Intermittent Fasting are so popular. They allow us to convert stored fat into energy. A win-win.
But, these diets aren’t for everyone. Ketosis is incredibly hard to track, and not everyone responds well to fasting.
So, I’ve concocted an easy-to-use structure for energy-optimized eating I call the “Fire Diet”. A compilation of the most beneficial aspects from many popular diets. It pairs well will ketosis and fasting but neither are necessary. In its simplest form:
Eat within a measured time window, supplying your body with its preferred fuel sources in reverse order. This keeps your fire burning bright during the day and the ability to die down when it’s no longer needed.
4 concepts that make the Fire Diet wildly successful.
- Eating within a time window allows space for proper digestion and hormonal optimization.
- Feeding in reverse order keeps you alert and focused.
- Carbs spike serotonin levels, helping you to sleep at night.
- It’s simple, unrestrictive, and easy to follow.
Build your fire using this simple strategy
Dr. Andrew Huberman is a popular neuroscientist that specializes in body optimization. Aside from his work at Stanford University, Andrew hosts an amazing podcast called the Huberman Lab.
On Andrew’s podcast, he shares how he eats to maintain consistent energy, stay focused, and sleep better at night. It’s the basis of what I’ve adapted into the Fire Diet.
Eating in the reverse order that your body prefers has profound benefits on boosting healthy hormones, sustainable energy, and indirectly creates a cleaner diet. It pairs well with fasting and fat adaption as well.
Here’s how it looks in action:
The morning
The first thing you do in the morning sets the tone for the rest of the day. Personally, I like to wake up, stretch, and drink this hydrating elixir.
Regardless of if you practice intermittent fasting or not, when you wake up in the morning you are in a fasted state. Breakfast can be eaten at any time as it’s merely the first meal you eat after night-sleep. It’s where you break your fast. “Break-fast.”
Personally, I don’t eat until 12 PM each day to complete 16 hours of fasting, but this is not necessary. Just make sure that your first meal consists solely of fats/proteins. Breaking a fast with fat trains your body to use fat as fuel. The core concept of fat adaption. If you run out of fuel, your stored fat is the next best resource.
To summarize: Eat fats/proteins as your first meal. Fast, if your body responds well to it.
Throughout the day
After your first meal of fats, you can start to introduce proteins and fibrous carbohydrates, such as vegetables, into your diet.
My first meal of the day is always bone broth. I buy a dehydrated powder and add a tablespoon to boiling water. Bone broth has numerous health benefits including aiding in digestion and improving gut health. Shortly after, I have a combination of meats, vegetables, and pre-/probiotics.
If you’re new to the concept of gut health, here’s a quick breakdown:
Your body contains a unique and ever-changing culture of bacteria based on what you eat, breathe, touch, and smell. Within it, there are good and bad bacteria. Prebiotics support existing good bacteria. Probiotics, introduce new good bacteria that kills bad bacteria.
**For a more in-depth explanation of gut health I recommend reading Giulia Enders’ book “Gut”.
Now, back to the diet. Eating fibrous vegetables as opposed to heavy carbs keeps your body in a state of action. We are reward-driven by nature, and will naturally experience a crash after eating foods that are high in carbs. As our energy levels generally decrease throughout the day, abstaining from carbs until the evening keeps us focused and alert.
To summarize: Introduce greens throughout the day. Save the majority of your carbs for the evening time.
In the evening
Now, the moment you’ve been waiting for. The carbs, everyone’s favourite food group. Amongst many things, carbs make us feel safe, warm, and fuzzy. They also make us feel full and help us sleep.
When we eat carbs our bodies release serotonin, nature’s tranquillizer. If you’ve ever experienced a food coma, what you’re describing is the release of serotonin making you groggy. Carbs are delicious but they also cause us to gain weight.
Removing them altogether is not a viable option as we need them. Prolonged low-carb diets can affect our hormones, spiking cortisol (stress) levels and lowering testosterone. Regardless of your gender, testosterone is important.
So, try keeping your evening carbs as complex as possible. This means foods like rice or potatoes as opposed to sugars. Combining them with protein and fibre helps reduce insulin spikes as well.
Although this is a ramp-up diet, meaning more carbs in the evening, play around to find what suits your body best. Personally, I try to eat the majority of my sugary foods 4–6 hours before bed. Although the half-life of sugar is short it will keep me up at night.
Lastly, as we’re on the topic of sleep. Try to eat your last meal about 3 hours before bed. Digestion of a heavy meal can interrupt REM sleep. Use carbs as a way to ease into your evening wind-down as opposed to parlaying your food coma into a good night’s sleep.
To summarize: Eat the majority of your carbs as your last meal, 3 hours before bed.
There you have it (to summarize)
Healthy eating is simple, yet we make it complicated. Train your body to use the correct fuel at the correct time by eating in reverse order.
Good things come to those who wait. Optimize your energy system by saving your carbs until the end of your day. Hormonal balance and sleep are a great bonus as well.
If you’re looking for more ways to solidify healthy living, here’s a great morning routine:
For more stories like this one, follow me at Hudson Rennie. Let’s connect on Twitter as well, where I share tips on health and happiness. :)
