Maintaining a healthy and balanced body is not only about what you eat, scientists are also paying more attention to when you eat.
A growing body of research shows that consuming more calories early in the day can speed up weight loss and lower blood pressure, helping you feel fuller for longer.
Last year, scientists in Slovenia found that restricting eating times from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. reduced weight by about 10 pounds over three months. At the same time, body fat remained low and blood sugar levels remained stable. However, critics argue that the effect is simply because people consume fewer calories overall due to eating in less time. But is that really the only benefit?
According to leading British nutritionist Sophie Medlin, there’s a good reason to think about meal times, and it’s not just important for those who want to lose weight. According to them, the body’s ability to use food depends on its interaction with our daily routine, ie what time do we wake up, what time do we sleep and when do we exercise?
They talked about the best times for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and which times might be the most inappropriate to eat snacks if you want to lose extra weight.
According to Sophie Medlin, the research found that consuming more of your calories earlier in the day may have some benefits for weight and heart health.
Perhaps the most comprehensive research on the topic is a 2024 meta-analysis, which found that consuming more calories earlier in the day and restricting eating at certain times may lead to weight loss, although the reduction was relatively small.
According to Sophie Medlin, our body operates in a circadian rhythm of around 24 hours. These responses affect how efficiently our body converts blood sugar into energy and digests food, and they also affect our levels of hunger hormones.
In general, the body is more efficient at converting the sugars in food into energy during this part of the day, when we are most active, which can result in more calories being burned. Therefore, eating quickly provides more opportunities to use up energy through physical activity and movement.
A 2022 Harvard study included 16 adults who were overweight or obese. For the first two weeks, the subjects followed a routine of eating earlier in the day and then moved their meal four hours forward, while keeping their daily calorie intake the same in both cases.
Early eaters ate their first meal at 8 a.m. on average, about an hour after waking up. In contrast, late eaters started eating about five hours later. The first meal of some people was delayed till 12 noon.
Early schedule eaters ate dinner around 4:30 p.m., while late eaters ate around 8:30 p.m.
The results showed that the late eaters had significantly higher blood levels of hormones associated with hunger, while lower levels of compounds that are released by the body in response to fullness and satiety.
The researchers concluded that eating late may cause changes in the gut that increase appetite, which may increase the risk of weight gain.