Hello all. I have a very specific question I’m wondering if anyone can help me with. It’s with regard to intermittent fasting and a persons genetics.

I understand the benefits of I’fasting and how it works and I’ve often heard that eating your last meal of the day before 7pm is a good idea for these very reasons. For me, this rule of eating before 7pm is an absolute must. I intuitively discovered this some years ago by accident. 20 years without being able to lose a pound besides the fact that I am competing in triathlons and run a ridiculous amount of miles every week. I would exercise, also cut back on calories and lose only a little bit of weight which was mostly in the form of muscle. Life has always been a struggle because of this. Within 2 weeks of not exercising I would develop a belly just from breaking that 7pm rule. So the only thing which will enable me to lose weight, and rather dramatically I might add, is intermittent fasting. Now, there’s allot of screaming on the web that this is rubbish (the 7pm rule) and I believe that for some people it is, because so many of my friends and others out there believe that calories in and energy expenditure are the only two factors affecting weight loss. This, I know is rubbish with regards to my makeup. This brings me to the conclusion that there different genetic makeups among all people which influence a persons ability to lose weight. It’s easy to get caught up in the cloudiness of science with this, but I’m more interested in what is known rather than the known unknowns if you get what I mean.

I myself, if I eat after 7pm every day will develop breasts (I’m a man). I have not doubt this is due to high estrogen levels and hormone disruption due to my body’s inability to keep a stable hormone profile if I can’t get the relevant rest(This problem goes away if I stick to having early dinners and small dinners at that). This includes giving my system a rest by fasting for a minimum amount of hours per day, something which lies at the heart of intermittent fasting. That release of growth hormone, repair and the weight loss which follows is critical to my weight, physical appearance and mental health due to the hormone disruption I experience when I don’t do it. I will get unusually high insulin levels if I don’t follow my 7pm rules and become very insulin resistant very fast. I’m probably a scientific anomaly OR, this is an commonly inherited thing which has been recognized somewhere in the world?

My question is, is there any study surrounding why some people are like this and some people aren’t . I understand diet, nutrition and fitness more than most people(i have had to with this condition), so it’s not what I’m eating. Unfortunately most of the critics of this concept are those who have never had to face it, but that’s an age old story as it stands. If anyone is having trouble grasping what I’ve tried to explain, please let me know and I’ll try to clarify things.

Thanks very much. I really hope someone can shed some light on this.

Thank you for the article Stef. It’s a certainty that genetics are the cause, but I don’t think it’s metabolism that’s the issue. The reason I say this, and despite how my post appears, I think I have a reasonably high metabolism. I say this because if I don’t eat a big meal at night and eat before 7pm, the weigh strips off so fast I begin to think there is something wrong with me. It’s something I discovered a couple of years ago. I just intuitively felt that I should stop eating then and it had a strange affect on my body. Weight loss was one. At that time I had little knowledge that this could or would work. It’s strange how I came across it at all.

I was hoping to put some science behind it. I know that if I start having late night meals again my hormone profile seems get get out of control. I say this because I start to accumulate fat on my chest (and this has been the case my whole life) giving me the appearance of having breasts. It’s a humiliating thing for a man. I don’t even go to the shops when this happens in case somebody I know sees me. If I can wear a sweater then I’m more likely to go out. Another factor is that I almost completely lose any sex drive and energy. There’s clearly a massive hormone reaction to when I eat. I suppose I really just wanted to find something proven which can explain this condition. This is why I’ve come to this forum because intermittent fasting evokes hgh and probably other hormones necessary for normal male or female bodily function. If my hormones are being knocked off the perch then there must be a reason. I can definitely blame it on the genes, but that is an aerial view only. I really just want to be able to confirm that this is the problem and this is how I fix it. Right now, I might not be doing everything right because I don’t know why it works though what I do know is that the small meal no later than 7pm has a dramatic effect on my weight.

Thanks anyway. It’s hormonal for sure.
I just wanted to understand the science surrounding the reasons for it.
Any comments are welcome.

I know the below link isn’t authoritive, but there are a few studies mentioned here. It’s just about eating at night, similar to the subject matter.

http://www.mindthesciencegap.org/2013/02/28/late-night-snacking-the-tease-that-doesnt-always-please/