The Best Time to Eat to Lose Weight

When you have your meals is just as important as what you eat if you’re trying to whittle your waist

Chances are your schedule is already so loaded that you cringe at the thought of trying to add another item. Having a set meal plan, however, can make it easier to lose or maintain weight. There’s no need to set an alarm, though: Check out these easy-to-follow eating menus to find the one that works best for your goals, lifestyle, and food preferences.

EATING 3 SQUARE MEALS

The classic breakfast, lunch, and dinner routine can be effective for weight loss when each meal is big enough to leave you satiated, but your daily total calorie intake is lower than what you’d eat chowing down five times a day. It’s also important to consume at least 30 grams of protein at each meal to maximize protein synthesis, a key strategy for protecting your hard-earned muscle while dieting. This meal structure can effortlessly translate into weight maintenance, as it follows social norms and is thus easily adoptable.

Works best for: Those who have a rigid work schedule that only allows for breaks at traditional set times, leaving no chance of escaping their desks for a mid-morning protein shake.

EATING 4 TO 5 SMALL MEALS

Very popular with people trying to drop pounds, this dining arrangement calls for reducing the size of the meals that you would normally eat and adding one or two small snacks throughout the day. If you’re looking to maintain the reading on the scale, the multiple meals will help manage satiety and provide a balance of calories throughout the day.

Works best for: This one's for you, snackers, as it transforms your freestyle eating into a plan, helping you better account for calories without drastically changing your way of eating. These “mini meals” are also smart for people with reactive hypoglycemia, a condition where your blood sugar levels drop too low shortly after eating. Munching more frequently helps prevent these dips and the subsequent feelings of shakiness, dizziness, or general brain fog.

EATING AROUND YOUR WORKOUT

Exercise increases insulin sensitivity, enhancing your muscles’ desire and ability to take up carbohydrates. If you want to ensure that your carbs are shuttled to your muscles to fuel recovery, try this agenda, which is one of the more biochemically sound approaches to eating: Consume all your carbs for the day during and after your workout, whenever that is. The rest of the day focus on protein-rich foods, green vegetables, and fat.

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Works best for: Anyone looking to lose weight or stay lean while still being able to eat larger amounts of healthy starchy and grain-based carbs.

VEGAN BEFORE 6 P.M.

New York Times writer Mark Bittman made this approach popular when he used it to lose 35 pounds. According to Bittman, from the time he woke up until dinner he ate fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes. Then he had whatever he wanted, which, he’s said, was normally “quite indulgent.” Going sans animal products most of the day restricts your food choices to relatively low-calorie options so you can eat fairly freely come dinner and still wind up with a low calorie count overall at the end of the day.

Works best for: People who don’t mind a more-limited food selection during the day and have enough self-control not to overindulge with excessive calories after 6.

FASTING TWICE A WEEK

A straightforward strategy popularized by Brad Pilon’s book Eat, Stop, Eat, all you have to do here is not eat for 24 hours two days a week—then you can eat freely (in moderation, of course) the other five days. Not only for weight loss, this method of fasting can also help you maintain your figure if you adjust the total time you are fasting each week (less fasting for weight maintenance and more for weight loss).

 

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Works best for: While the idea of having anything you want when you can eat is appealing, be sure you’re also okay not eating for long periods of time.

NO EATING AFTER 8 P.M.

Let’s get one thing straight: Putting the kibosh on noshing past a certain time has nothing to do with some magic fat-burning hour. Establishing a no-food time frame can simply help cut down on late-night mindless calorie consumption. The trick is to be sure your evening meal isn’t the smallest of the day and that it includes adequate protein and fiber to help outwit potential hunger pangs that may arise before bed.

Works best for: Nibblers who can’t stop snacking after dinner has been cleaned up.

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How to Time Your Meals for Optimal Weight Loss

You've probably heard that eating before bed isn't wise, especially if you're trying to lose weight. But are there other times of the day when eating may derail your weight loss goals? Could it be that when you eat may be just as important as what you eat?

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Science Shows When We Eat May Be Important

Research is gradually learning more about the connection between the body's natural biorhythms and weight gain. When we don't get enough sleep, for example, we trigger reactions in the brain that confuse the signals of tiredeness and hunger and may increase our cravings for sugar and starchy foods. A recent study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, for example, found that sleep loss can boost hunger and slow the rate of calorie burn, promoting weight gain, while getting plenty of sleep can prevent it.

Animal studies have also shown that messing with sleep and the body's internal clock causes mice to eat at the wrong times and gain weight. A more recent study in humans published in Obesity found similar results. Late sleepers went to bed at 3:45 a.m., woke up at 10:45 a.m., ate breakfast at noon, lunch at 2:30 p.m., dinner at 8:15 p.m., and their final meal at 10:00 p.m. Normal sleepers went to bed by 12:30 a.m., woke up about 8:00 a.m., had breakfast by 9:00 a.m., lunch at 1:00 p.m., dinner at 7:00 p.m., and their last snack about 8:30 p.m.

The "night owls" got less sleep overall, ate more fast food, drank more soda, and ate fewer fruits and vegetables. Overall, they ate about the same calories per day as the normal sleepers, but they ate a larger proportion of those later in the day--at dinner or after 8:00 p.m. Researchers found that calories consumed after 8:00 p.m. were most strongly associated with weight gain, and concluded that it's not only the quality of your diet that matters, but the time of day you're eating.

"The study suggests regulating the timing of eating and sleep could improve the effectiveness of weight management programs," said lead study author Dr. Phyllis Lee.

Bright Lights May Mean Big Pounds

An earlier study found something else that may be interrupting the body's internal clock and leading to late-night eating--light. In animal studies, mice exposed to light at night gained a whopping 50 percent more weight than mice whose nights were truly dark. That nighttime light encouraged the mice to eat at times when they would normally be sleeping. When researchers restricted meals to the times when the mice normally ate, regardless of light exposure, the mice didn't gain weight.

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Researchers concluded again that the timing of meals could make a difference in weight gain, as well as reduced light exposure at night.

Re-Set Your Eating Clock

So how do you maximize the timing of your meals to lose weight? Below are several tips to try.

• 'Have your dinner before 8:00 p.m.: Study results show that eating after 8:00 p.m. is associated with weight gain. If you need a late-night snack, try a small glass of milk or a cup of decaffeinated or herbal tea.

• Eat a healthy breakfast: Though eating more calories at breakfast might encourage eating more calories throughout the day, avoiding breakfast completely also encourages weight gain. According to data from the National Weight Control Registry, eating a balanced, healthy breakfast is a daily habit that leads to successful long-term weight loss.

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• Consider a larger lunch and smaller dinner: Depending on your daily schedule, you may want to consider eating more at lunch, and a little less at dinner. The body's ability to digest meals is best at peak energy times, which occur around noon to 3:00 p.m. In fact, many people experience nighttime indigestion and heartburn because they eat their biggest meal around 6:30 or 7:00 p.m. Move your dinner time up an hour, cut down on nighttime calories, and if a big lunch leaves you sleepy for afternoon meetings, consider splitting your lunch into two servings--noon, and mid-afternoon.

• Eat about 45 minutes after exercise: Eating before your workout may make you uncomfortable. Eating about 45 minutes afterwards, however, reduces the amount of energy that will be stored as fat, as the body uses the food to replenish low glycogen stores caused by exercising.

• Avoid starchy carbs three hours before bedtime: Foods like breads, pastas, rice, potatoes, cakes and cookies will boost your insulin levels before bed, which can encourage weight gain. Instead, eat lean proteins, veggies and fruits at your last meal.

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Nutrient Timing for Optimizing Fat Loss

Nutrient timing is a valuable eating technique to assist you in your fat loss goals. The theory is that by eating certain foods or macronutrients in various quantities at particular times, you can maximize your fat loss. By putting your body in a better hormonal and metabolic state, you give yourself the best chance of being able to release fatty acids.

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How to Time Your Meals

Everyone’s diet is unique to their own body. The principles stay the same, but the quantities will change based on size and activity levels. I am going to outline a typical 5 meal/day approach to nutrient timing. So let’s look at our mealtimes:

9am

12pm

3pm

6pm

9pm

Five evenly spaced meals, eating every 3 hours. I prefer to work out first thing in the morning for many reasons, but the most important thing when it comes to picking a time, is that you make sure you work out, and do it consistently.

Let’s start with the first meal right after our workout. This is by far the most important meal of the day. Your muscles are exhausted and depleted of fuel, and need the necessary food to start rebuilding. Your insulin sensitivity is at its highest after a workout, so our first meal of the day is an opportune time to ingest our largest portion of carbohydrates for the day.

Protein is the 2nd macronutrient that your muscles are starving for after your workout. Your muscles need protein to start the rebuilding process.

I like to try to get in .8- 1 times my lean body weight in protein a day, split evenly between my meals. A 170lb person with 150lbs of lean body weight would then get (1 x 150 = 150 grams of protein). Divide that by the number of meals (150 / 5 meals = about 30 grams of protein per meal).

I like to have a homemade protein shake immediately after my workout. It usually consists of protein (milk, greek yogurt, etc), a frozen banana,  some oatmeal, a handful of spinach, some ground flaxseed, and lemon-flavored fish oil.

Many hardcore dieters will argue against fruit post workout due to its fructose content, and while their arguments might have some validity to them when you’re trying to get to ultra low body fats, in the end, the most important thing is to get in your nutrients and eat good whole foods. You want a good nutrient dense diet, and loading up your shake with high GI processed sugars works against that goal.

I also add a tablespoon of cod liver oil to get in my daily intake of essential fatty acids (EFAs). This meal/shake is packed with vitamins, nutrients, minerals, protein, fiber, and EFAs. It will give your body everything it needs to start the rebuilding process.

If you do your workout first thing in the morning, I recommend that you start to taper your carbohydrate intake down during the next few meals. Remember, eat those carbs while your insulin sensitivity is at its highest. So, let’s look at those meals again and see what our macronutrient breakdown will look like.

TIME      FAT    CARB    PROTEIN        CALORIES

9am        13       60               30                 447

12pm       5        40               30                 325

3pm         9        30               30                 321

6pm         13       20               30                317

9pm        15        10                30                295

TOTAL     54      160           150               1705

Nutrient Timing Principles

As you can see, as the carbohydrates taper off into the evening, I start replacing the calories with fat – healthy fats. Your diet may need more carbohydrates or less depending on your workout intensity, but the idea of tapering off your carbohydrates throughout the day remains the same.

The numbers don’t have to be exact. Just be mindful that you’re tapering off throughout the day. To summarize the principles:

• Time your carbohydrate intake around your workout. This is when your insulin sensitivity is at its highest.
• Taper off your carbohydrates as the day progresses. Your insulin sensitivity is lowered as each meal containing carbohydrates is eaten.
• Little to no carbohydrates in your final meal of the day. Your liver glycogen stores should be full enough from the prior carbohydrate meals to fuel brain and nervous system function without having to break down protein through gluconeogenesis.
• As your carbohydrate intake is tapered off through the day, start replacing calories with healthy fats. Sources include nuts, seeds, avocado, natural fats from meat, eggs, dairy, flax oil, fish oil, etc.
• Taper off your calories throughout the day also. The majority of your calories should be eaten around your workout.

Give nutrient timing a try if you find your progress has stalled. You may just find that putting your body into an optimal fat burning environment is just what you need to get your fat loss going again.

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5 Tips For Timing Your Meals to Maximize Fat Loss

Your mother always told you that breakfast was the most important meal of the day -- but does it matter when you eat it? And what if your dinner time fluctuates wildly from day to day? Does meal timing actually matter? Yes! Eating at the appropriate times throughout the day will help maximize fat burning, avoid hormonal interference and keep hunger at bay. Here are five tips so you can time your meals to maximize your results.

Start Off on the Right Bite: There's a good reason why I tell patients to eat within one hour of rising. A study from 2005 found evidence that people who skip breakfast compensate later in the day with more refined carbohydrates and fats and fewer fruits and vegetables. Skipping breakfast was also associated with significantly higher fasting cholesterol and impaired insulin sensitivity post-meal.

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Eat Less But More Often: By eating smaller meals more frequently (i.e. approximately every three hours), you will help maintain a steady level of blood sugar throughout the day, which is important. Meal frequency may also have a positive impact on your body composition. One older study found that an increase in meal frequency lowered overall body mass in men and had a positive impact on energy levels through the day in both genders. Another study found that spreading out your food intake into many small meals keeps you fuller, longer during the day and also sustains fat oxidation (a.k.a the use of fat as fuel) at night.

Lunch Early: A study published in the International Journal of Obesity found that consuming meals earlier in the day was associated with faster and greater weight loss. Research scientists monitored the eating habits and weight loss success of 420 overweight Spanish participants on a 20-week diet program. Participants consumed about 40 per cent of their daily calories (roughly 550 to 570) at lunch. In the end, the group that ate lunch after 3 p.m. lost an average of 17 pounds compared with a 22 pounds in the early-lunch group. The late lunch eaters consumed fewer calories during breakfast and were more likely to skip breakfast than early eaters, which can cause it's own problems. The late lunch group also had lower insulin sensitivity, a risk factor for diabetes and weight gain in general.

Aim for the Same Dinner Time Daily: An older study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology manipulated "dinner time" for 22 obese and 24 healthy-weight individuals to determine whether eating behavior changed when standard mealtimes were altered. They found that the obese group ate more when they thought they were eating after their regular dinner hour than they did when they thought that they were eating earlier.

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Skip the Sugar, Not the Meal: Skipping a meal entirely causes a blood sugar imbalance and raises levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which in turn has a host of negative consequences (from increasing belly fat to disrupting insulin receptors). So despite a busy schedule preparation truly is key when it comes to fat loss.

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