How many times have we heard about what you need to eat strictly by the hour. And that you need to eat breakfast yourself, share lunch with a friend, and give dinner to the enemy. And what if you do not eat after 18:00, then you will lose weight before our eyes. And what if you want to pamper yourself with something tasty, but harmful, then you need to transfer this food to the first half of the day, and even better - to the morning, and then these calories seem to not be considered. In fact, things are not so simple, and new research has confirmed this once again.
According to research by the American Heart Association in 2020, the transfer of the main volume food consumed in the morning and the first half of the day does not affect weight in overweight adults weight.
“We have long wondered if what a person eats during the day affects how the body uses and stores energy,” said study author Nisa M. Marutur, MD, is an associate professor in the Department of Medicine, Epidemiology and Nursing at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. “Most previous studies did not control calories, so it was unclear if people who ate earlier consumed fewer calories. In this study, we only changed meal times. ”
Before 13:00 or after 17:00
Marutur and her colleagues followed 41 overweight adults in a 12-week study. Twenty-one people followed a dietary regimen with limited meals for certain hours, eating 80% of the daily calorie intake by 13:00.
The remaining 20 participants ate at regular times during the 12-hour window, consuming half of their daily calories after 5:00 pm. All study participants ate the same healthy food. Weight and blood pressure were measured at the beginning of the study, then after 4, 8 and 12 weeks.
At the end of the study, the results showed that people in both groups lost weight and experienced a drop in blood pressure regardless of when they ate.
“We thought the first group would lose more weight,” said Marutur. “However, this did not happen. We saw no difference in weight loss between those who consumed the majority of their calories earlier and later. We also didn't notice any effect on blood pressure. "
This is another fact in the piggy bank of supporters of morning gluttony, which, in terms of calorie content, can be equal to the daily norm. The calories received in the morning do not disappear anywhere and do not dissolve in the air like magic. Weight maintenance or weight loss is influenced by the composition of food and its calorie content, and not by its distribution by the hour.
