Changing your meal schedule can help lose weight

Washington, Jan 7 (PTI) Trying to lose weight? Changingyour eating schedule - such as having an early dinner or evenskipping it - can help reduce h...

Washington, Jan 7 (PTI) Trying to lose weight? Changingyour eating schedule - such as having an early dinner or evenskipping it - can help reduce hunger pangs and boost fatburning.

"Eating only during a much smaller window of time thanpeople are typically used to may help with weight loss," saidCourtney Peterson, an associate professor at University ofAlabama at Birmingham in the US.

"We found that eating between 8 am and 2 pm followed byan 18-hour daily fast kept appetite levels more eventhroughout the day, in comparison to eating between 8 am and 8pm, which is what the average American does," said Peterson.

The study is the first human test of early time-restricted feeding (eTRF). This meal-timing strategy reducedswings in hunger and altered fat and carbohydrate burningpatterns, which may help with losing weight.

With eTRF, people eat their last meal by the mid-afternoon and do not eat again until breakfast the nextmorning.

The research suggests that eating a very early dinner, oreven skipping dinner, may have some benefits for losingweight, although further studies need to take place to confirmthat theory.

Previous animal studies showed that eTRF helped rodentsburn more fat.

The human body has an internal clock, and many aspects ofmetabolism are at their optimal functioning in the morning.

Therefore, eating in alignment with the body's circadianclock by eating earlier in the day may positively influencehealth.

This first test of eTRF in humans follows rodent studiesof this approach to weight loss, which previously found thateTRF reduced body fat and decreased the risk of chronicdiseases in rodents.

During the human study, researchers followed 11 men andwomen with excess weight over four days of eating between 8 amand 2 pm, and four days of eating between 8 am and 8 pm.

Researchers then tested the impact of eTRF on caloriesburned, fat burned and appetite.

Participants tried both eating schedules, ate the samenumber of calories both times and completed all testing undersupervision.

Researchers found that, although eTRF did not affect howmany total calories participants burned, it reduced dailyhunger swings and increased fat burning during several hoursat night.

It also improved metabolic flexibility, which is thebody's ability to switch between burning carbs and burningfats.

Whether eTRF helps with long-term weight loss or improvesother aspects of health is still unknown. A larger, morecomprehensive study will need to take place to find out,Peterson said. PTI MHNMHN.

This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.

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