14 DAY TRIAL // We’ve heard countless swore by the dieting rule of never eating past six or seven o’clock in the evening and we’ve even heard researchers rebuff the effectiveness of such a measure. A new study comes to link for the first time the time of eating with the weight gain, with the obvious conclusion being that, in order to drop the extra pounds, we must pay heed to our body’s internal cycle and eat only at appropriate hours, as Science Daily says.
What this practically means is that we’re bound to gain weight if we keep irregular and unusual meal hours. Eating in the middle of the night, when we should be sleeping (and our organism is the first to know that), is guaranteed to lead to weight gain because the regulation of energy by the body’s circadian rhythms is different than throughout the day. This would explain, for instance, researchers say, while night shifters usually pack more pounds than their colleagues who work their hours during the day: it’s because they eat when they shouldn’t.
“How or why a person gains weight is very complicated, but it clearly is not just calories in and calories out.” Fred Turek, professor of neurobiology and physiology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and director of the Center for Sleep and Circadian Biology, explains for Science Daily. “We think some factors are under circadian control. Better timing of meals, which would require a change in behavior, could be a critical element in slowing the ever-increasing incidence of obesity.” he further adds.
If the findings of this study (performed on mice that, just like humans, also have a preference for high-fat foods) also apply to humans, this could mean that the obesity epidemics that is currently ravaging the US and countries in Europe like the UK could be reversed by simply setting fixed meal hours. It would also come to confirm what dieters and nutritionists have been saying for quite some time, namely that we’re to avoid eating past certain hours in the evening because this is when our metabolism slows down and we’re thus effectively raising our chances of gaining weight.
“Our circadian clock, or biological timing system, governs our daily cycles of feeding, activity and sleep, with respect to external dark and light cycles. Recent studies have found the body’s internal clock also regulates energy use, suggesting the timing of meals may matter in the balance between caloric intake and expenditure. The researchers next plan to investigate the molecular mechanisms behind their observation that eating at the ‘wrong’ time can lead to weight gain.” Science Daily concludes by saying.