Doc Mac's

The PAUSE

Live Long! Live Well!

“Doc, is there a best time to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner?

THE BELL TOWER

Once upon a time, when I was a little boy, living in a small village in Mexico's Yucatan, the church had a bell tower and, within it, an enormous bell, so huge it always made me wonder how it didn’t fall; it had to weigh tons.

Three times a day, the priest would ring the bell, and it could be heard maybe a hundred miles away. When the bell chimed, everyone stopped what they were doing; most of the villagers worked at the sugar factory, and we all met up with our families and ate.

I remember that when the bell rang, I drooled because I knew I’d be eating soon. I’d run home, and my mother would serve me beans and tortillas for breakfast and beans and tortillas for lunch. But for dinner, there would be seafood along with the beans and tortillas. If one of my family members didn’t catch any fish, crab, or shrimp, then we ate pork.

I’ll never forget the day the bell fell. It was so heavy that it broke through the bell’s tower floor and crashed into the meeting room below. The village was fortunate that no one was injured, let alone killed.

Without the bell, people did not know when to break for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. This at first created a panic. People started eating early, just in case. Others waited too long, becoming too hungry and shaky, which was dangerous. But over time, the villagers noticed something strange. They heard their body speak to them. Their bodies talked to them through their stomachs, through their energy levels, or loss of mental clarity. They discovered that once they ate, their stomachs fell silent, their energy increased, and they could think straight.

The bell tower was eventually repaired, and the villagers went back to their routines of eating when it rang. But now they ate differently. They listened to the bell not to eat but to be with their friends and families. They learned to listen to their bodies for food.

The village had two notifications: the loudness of the bell to gather, and the subtleness of their bodies to eat.

The moral of the story: to optimize your hormones, weight, health, and mind, you need to...

WHEN HUNGER SPEAKS, EAT AND BE MERRY

Hunger doesn’t announce itself with a ringing bell. It shows up subtly and quietly in the body. It might feel like a gentle hollowing in the stomach, a fading of energy, a subtle irritability, or a growing difficulty in focusing.

True hunger builds gradually and is satisfied by real food, not by an “any vending machine in a storm" attitude.

When someone learns to listen inward instead of glancing at the clock, eating becomes a response to a biological alarm, not a mechanical one.

As you learned in The Book of Hormones, the hunger hormone, ghrelin, is a hormone of habit. If you make it a habit to eat when the bell sounds, your ghrelin hormone will be released just before you hear it.

Eating three times a day is a habit that is substantiated by the learned release of the hunger hormone, ghrelin.

THE ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION IS...

EAT TO OPTIMIZE YOUR HORMONES

When you wait for true physiological hunger, insulin sensitivity improves because the body is primed to receive nutrients instead of being force-fed on schedule.

Insulin resistance is the true scourge of health, as it responds to today’s modern, ultra-processed, formulated foods.

When insulin sensitivity is healthy, your blood sugar stays steadier, which reduces fat-storing insulin spikes and lowers cortisol’s need to “ride in as a firefighter” to manage the battles glucose chaos causes.

Hunger-based eating also restores the previously mentioned leptin–ghrelin rhythm: ghrelin rises to signal readiness for food, leptin responds appropriately as you eat, and the brain relearns to trust those signals rather than ignoring them. (Leptin Resistance)

Over time, eating when hungry supports healthier thyroid signaling, calmer adrenal output, and more predictable sex-hormone balance because the body perceives safety rather than scarcity or stress.

EAT TO OPTIMIZE YOUR WEIGHT

Eating when you’re hungry, rather than when the clock says so, realigns your weight with your metabolism. True hunger signals that stored energy has been used, and the body is ready to receive more fuel; eating at that moment improves insulin sensitivity and makes it more likely that calories are directed toward fuel and repair instead of storage.

When meals are driven by time alone, especially in the absence of genuine need, blood sugar and insulin are unnecessarily elevated, subtly training the body to store fat and lock its exit doors.

Hunger-based eating also restores portion control: people naturally stop eating sooner when the body’s satiety hormones are allowed to rise on schedule. When one eats quickly, the time needed for the satiety hormone to take effect has not yet been reached, and overeating may occur.

Over time, this approach of filling the tank only when necessary lowers metabolic friction, reduces overeating without restriction, and allows weight to normalize as a side effect of improved communication among appetite, metabolism, and fat storage. In other words, the body manages weight best when it’s actually listened to.

EAT TO OPTIMIZE YOUR HEALTH

Eating when you’re hungry instead of by the clock gives the liver the breathing room it needs to do its real job. The liver is a metabolic air-traffic controller, managing blood sugar by storing and releasing glycogen, processing fats, and detoxifying hormones and byproducts.

When food arrives only after true hunger develops, liver glycogen has been partially depleted, so incoming glucose is more likely to be stored efficiently or used immediately rather than converted into fat.

This refilling of our fuel tanks of glycogen reduces unnecessary insulin demand and limits fat accumulation in the liver.

Hunger-based eating also creates natural fasting intervals, allowing the liver to shift into repair, fat-burning, and detoxification modes instead of being perpetually stuck in “fed state” traffic control.

Over time, this rhythm improves metabolic flexibility, supports healthier bile flow, reduces inflammatory burden, and helps the liver respond to hormones with precision rather than overload. Simply put,

EAT TO OPTIMIZE YOUR MIND

Eating when you’re hungry instead of by the clock quietly trains real self-discipline, not the brittle, white-knuckle kind.

Clock-based eating relies on external rules; hunger-based eating requires awareness, restraint, and trust.

Each time someone pauses to ask, “Am I actually hungry?” they strengthen interoceptive awareness, the brain’s ability to read internal signals, which sharpens decision-making far beyond food.

Mental clarity improves because blood sugar swings stabilize, reducing brain fog and reactive thinking, while cortisol no longer needs to compensate for unnecessary eating or for prolonged suppression of hunger. You must realize that cortisol is a fantastic hormone, but when elevated, it is the enemy when it comes to weight optimization. Eating too early or too late can cause stress on the body, and cortisol rises, which in turn raises insulin and prompts your body to switch to a fat-storing state.

When you take the eat when hungry approach, the mind becomes less preoccupied with food rules and more focused, present, and adaptable. In essence,

FINAL THOUGHT

I HOPE you are seeing to optimize hormones, weight, health, and mind; it is all about rhythm. Eating when your body tells you to is essential to maintaining your body's natural rhythm.

When hunger leads and the clock steps aside, eating becomes simpler, metabolism becomes smarter, and health stops feeling like a negotiation.

DO THIS NEXT

If you’re ready to stop guessing and start working with your biology, this is your next step.

Schedule a free consultation, and we’ll look at your hormones, weight, health, and mental clarity through the lens of how your body actually functions, not how it’s been told to behave.

There is no selling; my roster is nearly always full. I will teach you exactly what to do and even coach you for a week for free to make sure you understand precisely how to lose weight and feel great.

CLICK BELOW 👇🏼

​LEARN ALL 13 STEPS OF WEIGHT OPTIMIZATION IN ONE CALL​

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REVIEW OF THE PREVIOUS RULES

1. Eat God-Made Food
2. Eat Gourmet God-Made Food

Are you ready for the fourth rule of weight optimization? This rule is the humdinger.

I’ll meet you here next week. Oh, and I have a suggestion for gourmeting your next meal, along with a link to the second tool for gourmeting the Meso-Menu.

COOK GOURMET

As we improve health by testing God-made foods for inflammatory responses, more on that in a future blog, you learn how to make the Meso-Menu gourmet in the same way: by testing one minor, intentional upgrade every time you cook.

When I ask gourmet chefs where to begin, most give the same surprising answer: Start with salt and then add pepper. You think that would be a no-brainer, but they don't use just any salt or any pepper. I shared with you in the last blog how we test different pinches of salt to find the ones that our taste buds enjoy. This week, test gourmet peppers.

Salt is the foundation of flavor, and different peppers change a dish in other ways: some sharpen, some soften, some brighten, some deepen.

And all it takes is a pinch. (And yes, a pinch is great for your hormones, your weight, your health, and your mind. We’ll get into that soon.)

In our home, we keep a salt-and-pepper collection. Each morning, when you make your first meal of the day, try a different salt or pepper. One pinch. One experiment. One small daily gourmet moment.

Becoming a gourmet cook isn’t about mastering soufflés or plating like a Michelin chef.

• It’s about exploring.
• It’s about curiosity.
• It’s about learning the building blocks of real flavor.

And it all starts with something beautifully simple: a pinch of gourmet pepper and a willingness to taste. Below is an Amazon link to a splendid gourmet pepper sampler to get you started.

​GOURMET PEPPER KIT​​​

US-IE

Vicky and I are retired, and our passion besides teaching others how to optimize their hormones and weight is to live every day to its fullest. Here is this newsletter's Us-ie.

We took a step back in time at the Roman Theatre of Málaga

Right at the foot of the Alcazaba, this ancient theater dates back to the 1st century BC and is one of the city’s oldest monuments. Once hidden for centuries, it now stands as a reminder of Málaga’s Roman roots and rich history. Whether you’re into archaeology or just love exploring beautiful historic spots, this place is a must-see!

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Medical Disclaimer

The information contained in this newsletter is provided for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, nor should it be construed as medical advice or a substitute for professional medical care. No doctor–patient relationship is created by this content. Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified healthcare provider before beginning, modifying, or discontinuing any supplement, medication, diet, or health program, including but not limited to zinc, especially if you have a medical condition, are pregnant or nursing, or are taking prescription or over-the-counter medications. Individual responses and requirements vary, and any reliance on the information provided is solely at your own risk.

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