It's no longer a secret:skipping meals does not allow you to lose weight in a healthy way and you must, on the contrary, be sure to eat well 3 times a day. What is less well known is that the time you eat meals also affects the rate at which you lose weight, and breakfast and dinner are particularly affected.
The University of Surrey in Guildford, in the south of England, has published a study which suggests that you should delay breakfast by around 90 minutes and eat dinner early if you want to lose weight effectively and with minimal effort. The researchers used volunteers to whom they imposed strict meal times:one group delayed the usual breakfast time by 90 minutes and advanced dinner time by 90 minutes while the other group kept normal hours for a total of 10 weeks. Changes in caloric intake, body composition, and blood circulation (to see the implications for diabetes and heart disease) have been observed.
Participants had to provide blood samples before and during the experiment as well as a "logbook" indicating the nature of the meals. It is important to specify that there was no imposed diet and that each person could eat what they wanted. The team of scientists found that the first group that changed their meal times lost an average of twice as much fat as the other group. Although they could devour anything and everything during these meals, participants in the first group tended to eat smaller amounts than the others. Study author Dr Jonathan Johnston explains:"Our research has been done on a small number of subjects, but it is enough to show that small changes in our meal times can be beneficial for our bodies. […] However, these adaptations are not easy to make because they are not always compatible with obligations and family life. […] We will use these early findings from other larger studies on fixed mealtimes ". If you can adapt your schedule a bit, it's worth a try, right?
