When embarking on a weight loss journey, what you eat is just as important – if not more important – than physical activity.
But does when you eat affect your weight loss efforts?
The short answer is yes – your eating patterns and how you time your meals can make a noticeable difference in the amount of weight you lose.
Your body is a complex machine, and irregular eating patterns can disrupt your body clock, which in turn affects your appetite, digestion, and, ultimately, your ability to lose weight healthily.
In this article, we take a closer look at how the timing of your meals influences your weight and appetite. Plus, some simple tips to help you eat regularly and build a healthy eating pattern.
Why Meal Timing Affects Weight Loss
For a long time, personal trainers and nutrition experts claimed that the “calories in versus calories out” model is key to successful weight loss.
While creating a calorie deficit can help, weight loss is more complex than that.
There is no doubt that what you eat is important, but when you eat also plays a key role in successful weight loss.
So why is that?
Even if you won’t hear it tick, your body has its own clock.
Your body’s clock (also known as circadian rhythm) rules your life, regulating your sleep-wake cycle and playing a fundamental role in your health and well-being.
Without your circadian rhythm, you wouldn’t be able to optimise energy expenditure or have sleep patterns that follow the “normal” sleep times at night.
Your circadian rhythm and sleep patterns are also linked to the proper functioning of your digestive system. Specifically, your digestive system is activated in response to light during your waking hours and gradually slows down as darkness falls and melatonin is released by your body.
This means that your internal clock is structured in a way that makes your body more inclined to digest and metabolise food during the early hours of the day.
As the day proceeds, your metabolic rate slows down and becomes less efficient.
For example, according to a study published by PubMed, a dinner consumed at 9 p.m. has different metabolic effects than the same dinner consumed at 6 p.m.
Another study, published in Nutrients, indicated that weight loss may be affected by consuming food during the later hours of the evening. This is because your body’s ability to burn calories may be lower during this time compared to the early hours of the day.
Eating late at night leads to a decrease in the rate of calorie burn and encourages the accumulation of fat cells (adipogenesis). Additionally, it hinders the breakdown of fat (lipolysis), ultimately resulting in the growth of fat.
A 2017 study also revealed that people who eat at night before going to sleep, as the hypothalamus dampens down activity in the brain, generally have greater amounts of body fat, even if they follow a balanced diet and do physical activity.
Even eating later in the day can lead to increased body fat. According to Medscape, delaying a meal by four hours can significantly influence your appetite, calorie-burning rate and fat-storage mechanisms which can affect your ability to lose weight.
This means that for people who often stay up late at night, work swing shifts, or simply have busy schedules, weight loss can become more challenging.
Moreover, when you eat irregularly or on the go, you also tend to make bad food choices, because you are inclined to opt for frozen ready meals or unhealthy snacks.
I know that in this day and age when everyone has a busy schedule, more people tend to eat on the go or later in the day.
For many of us, sitting down for a meal at the same time every day seems impossible.
However, eating regular meals helps you keep your blood sugar stable and maintain a metabolic balance.
It is essential to be mindful of the timing of your meals in order to take care of your health and well-being and ensure that you see noticeable weight loss results.
Tips for Eating Regular Meals With a Busy Schedule
When you are pressed for time to meet deadlines or catch a flight back home, eating regular meals may seem the least of your worries.
When life gets busy, eating is often put on the back burner.
As a result, you end up having huge stretches of time in between meals which often leads to binge eating.
Sometimes, you might go all day without eating anything at work. Then, when you get home from work, you grab take-out because there’s no food in your fridge.
However, a few smart tactics are available to help you maintain a healthy diet and eat regular meals despite a hectic schedule:
- Create a meal calendar – During busy days, the most common challenge is deciding what to cook. To avoid this dilemma, create a meal schedule that includes different meal options for each day of the week.
- Plan ahead – Planning ahead is the best way to ensure that you are sticking to a regular eating schedule. For example, you can prepare and cook in the evening all of your dishes for the next day.
- Set alarms – Alarms are a quick and easy tool that supports scheduled eating. This can be easily done on your phone to make sure you eat your meals at the right time.
- Don’t keep unhealthy snacks in the house – According to a 2017 study, snack consumption can be associated with meal skipping. Make sure you only store up healthy snacks such as fruits and nuts and avoid eating more than 3 snacks a day.
- Pre-cook and freeze meals – There are many freezer-friendly meals that are easy to make ahead. When you’re short on time, simply heat them in a microwave or oven and enjoy your meal.
- Buy pre-chopped – Pre-chopped items are a convenient way to cook a quick and healthy meal. Especially when making a recipe with a lot of ingredients, pre-chopped veggies can save you a lot of time.
- Don’t skip breakfast – Ideally, you should have breakfast within two hours of waking up in the morning. Even if you don’t feel hungry right when you wake up, you should at least have something small because it’s still essential to provide your body with fuel to start the day.
- Cook one-pot recipes – One-pot meals are easy to make and easy to clean up which makes them the perfect choice when you’re in a hurry.
Last but not least, it is important to be flexible with your meal schedule. While you cannot control your schedule at all times, you can take simple steps to prevent hunger pangs and chaotic eating.
For instance, you can keep a healthy snack handy in case you find yourself in a situation where you need to eat a main meal at an unexpected time.
There’s nothing wrong with postponing a meal time every once in a while as long as you keep a regular eating behaviour most of the time.
The Bottom Line
Constantly skipping meals and eating on an irregular schedule can lead to a chaotic relationship with food.
Not only can it mess with your physical health, but it can also make weight loss more challenging.
Moreover, blood sugar levels can fluctuate when you skip meals or eat at odd hours, leading to mood swings and fatigue.
That’s why it is essential to establish a regular eating pattern that works for you and stick to it.
At Bring on Life, we understand that weight loss is not just about counting calories. Our one-on-one coaching program is more than just a personalised workout – it takes into account all the factors that can affect your ability to lose weight, including your eating patterns and meal timing. We will work with you to develop a tailored plan that fits your unique needs so you can lose weight in a healthy and sustainable way.
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to send us a message or join our Facebook and Instagram community where you can share your inquiries and interact with like-minded people.
Sources:
Sujana Reddy; Vamsi Reddy; Sandeep Sharma – Physiology, Circadian Rhythm
Marta Garaulet, Purificación Gómez-Abellán – Timing of food intake and obesity: a novel association
Atilla Engin – Circadian Rhythms in Diet-Induced Obesity
Health – Why Your Random Eating Schedule Is Risky for Your Health