What is the reason for "eating less at night"? Do your body’s functions need rest?

As the saying goes:

“The emperor’s breakfast, the minister’s lunch, and the beggar’s dinner.”

It means to eat well for breakfast and eat well for lunch. If you are full, you should eat less at dinner. Do you want to eat as rough as a beggar at night? wrong! So in this article we will figure out what to eat for dinner. Eat a good breakfast, a full lunch, and a small dinner. This is a relatively reasonable diet rule.

Breakfast

First of all, breakfast, special attention should be paid to the fact that breakfast must be eaten. Skipping breakfast is prone to gallstones and gastric ulcers, duodenal ulcers, colitis and other digestive diseases.

Lunch

The second thing is to be full at noon, but not too full. Seventy to eighty percent full is most appropriate. If you have a weak spleen and stomach, it is recommended that 50% to 60% fullness is enough.

Dinner

Finally, the dinner should be small, which means that the dinner should be 20 to 30% full and can provide some necessary energy. Because most people rest relatively late at night, unlike the people in ancient times who worked at sunrise, rested at sunset, and rested when it got dark. In today's society, people have to work overtime, study, or participate in some social activities at night, so they fall asleep later. Therefore, modern people can replenish the energy needed by the body by eating a proper amount of dinner.

What are the principle requirements for dinner?

There is a saying I would like to share with you: it is better to eat less, to eat vegetarian food first, and to eat early is better. This means that it is better to eat less for dinner, and it should be mainly vegetarian or light, easy-to-digest food. Avoid big fish, big meat, fat, sweet and thick taste. And the time for dinner should be as early as possible, not later. Some people often have dinner at seven or eight o'clock, or even late at night, for various reasons. This will have a very bad impact on the body.

So some people say: "I am a vegetarian, so I have to eat enough at night!"

Is this right?

In fact, this is not right.

Let’s talk about the dangers of eating too much for dinner.

From the perspective of the functions of the internal organs and the operation of the meridians

Based on the functional classification of the internal organs of our body, five to seven o'clock in the evening belongs to the kidney meridian, and seven to nine o'clock is the pericardial meridian. At the time of day, from nine to eleven o'clock is the time of Hai, which is the time of the Sanjiao Sutra. Regardless of the function of any meridian, overeating will not have a good effect on promoting digestion. On the contrary, it will cause burden on the kidney meridian, pericardium meridian and triple burner meridian.

Because it takes about three to four hours for food to enter the stomach. During this time, the food is decomposed in the stomach and then discharged into the small intestine. The essence of the food is absorbed through the small intestine and large intestine. But at this time, the functioning of this function is already in a relatively dormant state. If you eat too much, it will seriously block the upstream and downstream channels of the triple burner meridian. The heat required to decompose food in the stomach comes from the kidneys, and this period of time at night is the stage of autumn harvest and winter storage, and kidney qi is stored. At this time, it will hinder the storage of kidney qi too much, causing The kidney yang does not collect or hide, which violates the principle of the basic physiological functions of the viscera.

The above is analyzed from the perspective of viscera function and meridians operation in traditional Chinese medicine. Now let's look at it from another angle.

If you eat too much for dinner, your stomach will expand rapidly in a short period of time, and the entire stomach will be five to six times larger than on an empty stomach. Digesting food requires more energy, and the blood required by the gastric body will increase significantly.

Heart disease patients

In this case, there will be a phenomenon where the stomach robs the heart of blood, causing the heart's blood supply to drop sharply. If some patients originally have certain heart diseases, Heart problems at this time are likely to lead to coronary heart disease. In severe cases, it may even induce cardiac arrest, that is, sudden death.

I have encountered such a case in clinical practice before. The patient suffered from myocardial infarction and had just been discharged from the hospital not long ago. He ate dumplings at home in the evening. As a result, he ate too much at one time, and he felt a little full, so he wanted to go for a walk to digest.

As a result, shortly after leaving home, myocardial infarction suddenly recurred, and he died due to lack of timely rescue. This is a very painful lesson.

Diabetes

Another thing that needs special attention is diabetic patients. Diabetic patients have weak spleen and stomach functions, and the function of pancreatic islets has declined. At this time, if you eat a lot at night, the accumulation of food in the intestines and stomach will greatly increase the burden on the spleen and stomach. The spleen is in charge of transportation and transformation. If food stays in the body for too long, the spleen will produce or feel dampness and heat evils. In traditional Chinese medicine, the function of pancreatic islets belongs to the spleen. Therefore, we see many diabetics whose blood sugar levels never drop because they eat too much.

Hepatobiliary patients

There are also patients with hepatobiliary diseases. The liver is the only detoxification organ in our body. If you eat too much at night, it will increase the burden on the liver. In mild cases, it can cause fatty liver, and in severe cases, it can lead to cirrhosis of the liver. Even because the liver meridian is not flowing smoothly and the oil is blocked, it can cause liver cysts, liver tumors, gallstones and other diseases.

Special attention

Another aspect that is not noticed by everyone is that people who usually have Yang deficiency, that is, people who have low firepower, low blood pressure, weakness, and are terminally ill. Wait, it is very dangerous if you eat too much for dinner.

To use an analogy, many of us may have seen a stove burning at home to keep warm in winter. The fire in the stove is certain. If you add a little more carbon each time, the fire in the stove will burn brightly and will not go out, and the temperature in the room will be maintained well. But if we add a lot of carbon to the furnace at one time, in most cases the fire will be suppressed at once and the fire will be completely extinguished. Why? Because the energy generated by the original fire in the furnace is not enough to provide the energy required to burn several times more carbon.

The energy required for the reception, digestion, and absorption of food in the body mainly comes from kidney fire. But the fire provided by the kidneys every day or every time is limited. If these kidney fires can only help the spleen and stomach to digest one pound of food, rather than eating two, three, or even more pounds of food at one time, then the kidney fires will not be enough at all.

So it is conceivable that this will directly affect the survival of the source of our life. To take an extreme example, consider a patient who has experienced a recovery. We may also have heard or seen that some patients suddenly become energetic and want to eat food when they are terminally ill and about to die. At this time, the family members mistakenly think that the patient is getting better, and will prepare a lot of food or supplements for the patient, but Instead of getting better after eating, the patient died soon after. This is because the patient is relying on the last bit of Yuan Yang Qi to experience the phenomenon of returning to the light. Just like when a candle is about to go out, it will suddenly flicker and then go out. Therefore, you must not give the patient too much food at this time. If the patient eats too much, he will die soon. Because the patient's kidney yang, that is, yuan yang, is running low at this stage and is in danger. If the remaining kidney yang is provided to the intestines and stomach to digest and absorb food, it will be impossible for other human body functions to start again.

It can also be seen from this extreme example that we must protect the kidneys and kidney yang, so that they can quietly and effectively return to the kidney yin at night. This is A true regimen.

In many cases, the extension of the treatment course, the increase in the difficulty of treatment, the recurrence of the disease, and even the emergence of critical situations are often related to the intemperance of dinner, so this must attract everyone's attention.