You don’t always have to go on a strict diet to lose weight. Sometimes it is enough just to change the time of eating. This follows from a new study by American scientists.
The experiment involved 16 people, they were divided into two groups, all participants ate exactly the same food. But the time of its reception was different. The study was published in the renowned journal Cell Metabolism.
Important Finds
It would seem that 16 people is not a lot. Can such a small study be trusted? But, firstly, they were examined from head to toe, and secondly, the conditions of the experiment were very harsh. And the findings of scientists turned out to be very eloquent and revealing. So you can trust the results.
The main question that the experimenters set themselves was how the late meal time affects the weight gain of a person, and what mechanisms are involved in this. Here are their findings, unambiguously confirming that late eating contributes to the development of obesity:
- it significantly enhances the feeling of hunger, which lasts for 24 hours;
- it reduces blood levels of leptin (satiation hormone), which lasts for 24 hours, and increases the amount of the hunger hormone – ghrelin;
- it reduces energy consumption during wakefulness;
- it lowers body temperature during the day.
- it increases the activity of adipose tissue genes that promote the accumulation of lipids (fats) and inhibit lipolysis (fat breakdown).
Do I need to explain that all these mechanisms together can effectively work on obesity?
“Larks” live better – healthier
During the experiment, all participants ate the same size meals, eating three times a day. They were meant to correspond to breakfast, lunch and dinner. But the time of their reception was very different.
In the group, let’s call them “larks”, they started and finished eating earlier. They had breakfast 1 hour after waking up, lunch after 5 hours and 10 minutes, and dinner after 9 hours and 20 minutes. The last meal was 6 hours 40 minutes before bedtime.
The “owls” skipped breakfast (in reality, many do this, claiming that they have no appetite in the morning) and ate for the first time 5 hours and 10 minutes after waking up. For example, if a person woke up at 7 am, then he ate at 12.10. The second meal was after 9 hours and 20 minutes, and dinner after 13 hours and 30 minutes. It inevitably turned out to be late, ending approximately 2.5 hours before bedtime (if a person woke up at 7 o’clock, then he had dinner at 20.30).
Interval diet needs to be adjusted
If you look closely at such a diet, you will see that it fits into the framework of the so-called interval nutrition. It is very fashionable today, and it is characterized by eating in a fairly short time window of about 9-10 hours and a long break between dinner and breakfast – in the experiment it was about 15 hours. According to modern views, such nutrition should reduce weight due to autophagy (self-eating of body reserves) during a long interval between dinner and breakfast. So the study showed that one long pause for weight loss is not enough – the scientists found that autophagy was inhibited with a late meal.
Therefore, it is also necessary to adapt to eat so that dinner ends 6-7 hours before bedtime. Let’s be honest, with today’s lifestyle it’s not easy. Figure out if you can do it or not. But the game is worth the candle.