NEW YOU Health Tip: Timing is everything when it comes to weight loss.
Calories matter; exercise matters – Now the latest research published in the International Journal of Obesity says that time matters. “This is the first large-scale prospective study to demonstrate that the timing of meals predicts weight-loss effectiveness,” said Frank Scheer, PhD, MSc, director of the Medical Chronobiology Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. To test the theory, researchers studied 420 overweight participants in Spain and classified them as early or late eaters, depending on when they ate their biggest meal – lunch. The late participants, who ate lunch after 3 p.m., lost significantly less weight and were also more likely to skip breakfast. Additionally, researchers accounted for traditional factors that affect weight regulation, including caloric intake, hormones and sleep duration, and found that there was no significant difference between the groups. As a result researchers concluded that timing matters for large meals, but found no significant evidence to prove that the timing of smaller meals mattered.
