Losing weight seems to be difficult but if you carefully plan your diet, you might reach your goal faster than you thought. Consuming healthy and non-fattening foods is important, and so is strategising the timing of eating them. There are many diet plans in existence now that chart out the ideal timing of eating meals. For instance, some diets like intermittent fasting stress on eating early in the day to digest food easily and lose weight. A new study claims that timing your meals can help people shed extra kilos by focusing more on reducing the appetite than burning calories. The study established a link between meal intake frequency and boosting of energy metabolism.
The study that was published in the journal 'Obesity' states that Early Time-Restricted Feeding (eTRF) - a kind of intermittent fasting wherein dinner is eaten in the afternoon - led to people burning fat, instead of carbohydrates, for energy.
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Planning meal timing helps in weight loss
Eric Ravussin, co-author of the study said, "Coordinating meals with circadian rhythms, or your body's internal clock, maybe a powerful strategy for reducing appetite and improving metabolic health."
Courtney M. Peterson, lead author of the study added, "We suspect that a majority of people may find meal timing strategies helpful for losing weight or to maintain their weight since these strategies seem to naturally decrease appetite, which may help people eat less."
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The researchers studied 11 adult men and women who had excess weight, between November 2014 and August 2016. The participants were asked to follow two different meal timing strategies: a control schedule that involved eating three meals during a 12-hour period with breakfast at 8:00 a.m. and dinner at 8:00 p.m. and an eTRF schedule that had participants eating three meals over a six-hour period with breakfast at 8:00 a.m. and dinner at 2:00 p.m.
The team discovered that eTRF schedule propelled the process of fat burning over a 24-hour period. It also showed improvement in appetite by lowering the levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin.