Lose More Weight By Changing Dinner Time

Carl Lowe | Jan 30, 2013 | Comments 0

Researchers looking into weight loss strategies have found that if you’re trying to lose weight, when you eat may be as important as what you eat.

Scientists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), in collaboration with the University of Murcia in Spain and Tufts, have found that eating earlier in the day speeds weight loss compared to the effects of later meals.

“This is the first large-scale prospective study to demonstrate that the timing of meals predicts weight-loss effectiveness,” says researcher Frank Scheer. “Our results indicate that late eaters displayed a slower weight-loss rate and lost significantly less weight than early eaters, suggesting that the timing of large meals could be an important factor in a weight loss program.”

The researchers studied 420 overweight people who followed a 20-week weight-loss treatment program in Spain. The participants were divided into two groups: early-eaters and late-eaters, according to the self-selected timing of the main meal, which in this Mediterranean population was lunch.

The main meal contained 40 percent of the total daily calories consumed. Early-eaters ate lunch before 3 p.m. and late-eaters, after 3 p.m. They found that late-eaters lost significantly less weight than early-eaters, and displayed a much slower rate of weight-loss. Late-eaters also had a lower estimated insulin sensitivity, increasing their risk for diabetes.