3 Reasons Why Meal Timing Matters for Health and Longevity

In our new book, The Longevity Plan, we report that living in rhythm is a key component for health and longevity.  In this article, I share the latest research showing why meal timing, or eating in rhythm, can allow you to eat more without gaining weight, prevent heart problems, and possibly even extend your life.

What is Meal Timing?

Just as it is important to sleep at approximately the same time each day, so too is eating at about the same time each day.  Emerging research shows that eating according to your natural circadian rhythm can optimize your body weight, prevent heart issues, and promote longevity.  In contrast, eating "out of rhythm" can set you up for a life of health struggles.

Longevity Village Meal Timing

“My life is simple. Because of this, it is easy to know when something is out of balance.”

—Maxue

Maxue, one of many centenarians we met in Longevity Village, rose each morning with the sun.  And by the time it had crested over the lush, green mountains, she had finished her simple breakfast of porridge and vegetables.

She ate her midday meal at about the same time each day, and it always consisted of the vegetables, fruit, legumes, or possibly fish that had been gathered and harvested that morning. In the evening, she would sit down for a light and early dinner with her family.

The only exception came during Chinese New Year, when the workload was lighter, the meals were bigger and the nights were longer. Even this, though, came in rhythm.

In the fall of 2012 when we first met, Maxue was 103.  She, like everyone else in the Village, had lived a life of almost perfect rhythm. And although she had been confined to a wheelchair for nearly a year following a fall that broke her hip, she was in good spirits.

When I asked if she had any other medical problems, Maxue laughed. “This is the first thing that has been wrong with me that I can remember,” she said. “Until my fall, I had not needed a doctor in my life.”

I marveled at this as I checked her pulse. It was strong and steady, and I told her so.

Still, Maxue told me, she sensed she wouldn’t be alive much longer. And if these were her final days, she said, that was fine. She would rise each day with the sun, as she always had, and make the most of the time she had left. She would spend her time with her family and continue her work.  She would live out her time with the same rhythm of life she’d always maintained.

“We are not supposed to be here forever,” she said. “It is very good to have a long and healthy life. And when it comes to an end that is good, too. That is part of the rhythm of our lives.”  Sadly, Maxue died peacefully at home a few months after we met.

Keeping Your Heart in Rhythm

As a cardiologist, I have a privileged perspective on the importance of rhythm in our lives. No matter how often I look at a person’s heart, be it in surgery or through an echocardiogram, I never cease to be amazed at what this exquisitely designed organ does throughout our lives.

To do this so well, and for so long, our hearts must stay in near-perfect harmony with our bodies.  The heart must speed up when we need more blood and slow down when that need has run its course.

Most people’s hearts beat about 100,000 times each day. Think of what that means when it comes to reliability. Can you imagine anything that, having been used more than 35 million times in a year, is likely to be just as good at what it does next year as it is right now?

When you think of it that way, it’s really quite astounding how rarely things go wrong. But sometimes they do. One of the most common problems is when the heart falls out of rhythm and the upper chambers are no longer beating in synchrony with the vent...