EZ Method 5(b) Blue light and your appetite
Ever wondered why you can't resist eating late at night or while working in an office under these types of lights?
Let's join some more dots...
Simply, and subtly, it's the blue light that comes out of your LED bulbs, tv, tablet and smart phone
(What is blue light? See EZ Method #5(a)
How can that be possible?
We'll take me for instance yesterday morning, I woke up with every intention of extending a 23 hour fast into a 48 fast, however, my wife decided to make almond and coconut cookies and the smell of her waving them in my face saying 'try them, they're only almonds, they're great, they're lovely, just have one, I made them for you' meant I ended up trying one and then eating 5 or 6... nothing strange about that, because we all know the 'obvious' attraction to the smell of food, and especially freshly baked cookies but what about the more subtle, but equal attraction... blue light
Living, and working under blue artificial light is the same as waving cookies under your nose from a appetite perspective ... irresistible
We are designed to hibernate, eat fat, fast, and burn fat to create heat in the winter season
We are also designed to eat more, put on weight and absorb light in the summer
We are seasonal creatures (less so if you live on the equator)
No wonder I always wanted to eat chocolate and sugar when I worked in a dealing room
This applies the world over, but especially for Northern Europeans and Americans seasonally
So if you have the heating on (summer signal) and have blue light (the strongest biologically dominant colour in the visible spectrum - summer signal) in your home, then this is going to have a huuuuge, almost irresistible affect on your appetite and eating control
if I'm out late or exposed to blue light, like the smell of good food I don't even bother resisting it anymore... I just indulge and avoid blue light it next time ... it's too stressful otherwise. Eating late at night is never a good thing, but blue light at night is the same
The bad news is that the blue light will make you 'fancy' things grown with blue light in them... sugar, foreign importer carbs, etc
The good news is the whole thing gets much easier if you simply block the blue or turn the lights off
We all know the process of baking and cooking, smelling the food and then getting ready to eat it... it's not subtle, it's part of the enjoyment. but what IS subtle is the light that accompanies food, and no one has told you about it until now... it's making you hungry for bad, out of season food (if like everyone else you have insulin spiking blue light on at home in the dark winter months)
My intuition tells me that if you live and work inside your UV exposure is going to be minimal, and so your body will crave light in any source it can get. Blue light, no UV or IR is a recipe for disaster - sugar cravings are going to be the tip of the iceberg
Take home message: don't bother trying to fix your food diet until you fix your light diet
Blue light can be like a cheesecake an hour of you're bathing in blue light