Mystery of the Cure

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. We have all heard this over the years, and if you haven’t, then no doubt you’ve heard something similar. If you don’t start off with a hearty protein-filled breakfast first thing in the morning, you will not have the necessary energy to make it through to lunch. In fact, some say if you start out with a protein rich breakfast, and snack continually on healthy foods up until the lunch hour, your metabolism will be humming along, burning off more energy than you take in because your body will be in a constant metabolic state—the way it is supposed to be. This is the message that’s been pushed at us since we were toddlers. Even my grandma took the bait, one of the wisest women you could ever meet. “Make sure you eat something that will stick to your ribs,” she used to tell me. Meaning, if you eat a good, hearty breakfast, it will set you moving on the right path so you can make it through ‘til lunch. Not so fast. While this may have been the typical way of thinking for years, is it actually true? Is this the best way to improve your metabolism, lose weight, and stay healthy? Is it possible we got it wrong when it comes to eating patterns and optimizing health? Just as the invention of the Hubble telescope in the 1940s has forever changed how scientists view the state of our universe, so too has modern technology changed our understanding of the benefits of adopting time-restricted eating patterns. When considering the evidence, Dr. Edward Dewey discovered that if a person skipped the early morning meal, that person had clear and significant health benefits. He just didn’t have the science to prove how it worked, nor would he have the benefit of such science throughout his medical career. As you will soon see, science now confirms that starting the day by fasting from the previous evening’s meal until around lunchtime enables one’s body to optimize health and enhance performance: both mentally and physically. The science revealed by Dr. Mark Mattson, as put forth in his book The Intermittent Fasting Revolution, leaves little doubt about the benefits of intermittent fasting. And as it turns out, God Himself, through Moses and Aaron, instructed the children of Israel to eat in that exact same pattern over three thousand years ago. Not only did He command it to the generation that Moses led out of Egypt, but this commandment applied to the following generation as well. In total, two generations ate in the time-restricted eating pattern of which God taught them to eat for forty years. In my mind, there is no doubt. He did this because it would bless them. The book of Exodus tells the familiar story when God used Moses to free the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage. God brought plagues upon Egypt to convince Pharaoh to free them from bondage, He parted the Red Sea, and the Angel of the Lord led them out of Egypt. The preincarnate savior of the world, Christ Jesus himself, was the one who led them into the Sinai wilderness and into the promised land. (Num. 20:16, Judges 2:1, Jude 1:5) This is where they began, with what turned out to be a very long, four-decade, pilgrimage to the land promised to Abraham and his descendants. Two and a half months into their journey, they realized they were quickly running out of the supplies they had prepared before they escaped out of Egypt (Exod. 12:39). As a result, they started to complain mightily. The rabble rousers, as described in Numbers 11:4, got them all worked up to the point where they accused Moses and Aaron, saying that they led them out to the wilderness to die and that they were going to starve to death. The Israelite people were so distraught that they even wished they had remained slaves in Egypt where they, at the very least, would have “pots of meat” and be able to “eat bread to the full” (Exod. 16:3). “Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not. And it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily’” (Exod. 16:4–5 NKJV). The children of Israel cried out; God heard them, provided for them, and began instructing them on the eating pattern by which they should eat. He taught them that when to eat was more important than what to eat, and that fact stands true today. He taught them the Mystery of the Cure and how to flip the metabolic switch.