Eating Late Breakfast, Early Dinner May Help Reduce Body Fat

Eating a late breakfast and having an early dinner may help you lose weight, reports a new pilot study. The findings of the study are published in the Journal of Nutritional Sciences.

The findings showed that people who delayed //their breakfast by 90 minutes and had their dinner 90 minutes earlier than usual lost more than twice as much body fat on average.

Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Eat Breakfast
Side effects of skipping breakfast are inefficient brain and body functioning. This unhealthy habit is linked to fatigue, low work output, metabolic syndrome.

‘Later breakfast and earlier dinner may help you lose weight. Changes in breakfast and dinner timings can surprisingly reduce your body fat.’

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Further, those who changed their meal times ate less food overall, than those who did not, the researchers said.

"Although this study is small, it has provided us with invaluable insight into how slight alterations to our meal times can have benefits to our bodies," said Jonathan Johnston, from the UK's University of Surrey.

"Reduction in body fat lessens our chances of developing obesity and related diseases, so is vital in improving our overall health," he added.

Drinking Milk at Breakfast can Lower Diabetes, Obesity Risk
Consuming high-protein milk in the morning along with your breakfast cereal can slow digestion, lower blood sugar levels and improves satiety (feeling of fullness) at lunchtime. This dietary strategy can help reduce diabetes and obesity burden.

For the study, the team conducted a 10-week experiment on 'time-restricted feeding' -- a form of intermittent fasting.

Participants were split into two groups - those who were required to delay their breakfast by 90 minutes and have their dinner 90 minutes earlier, and those who ate meals as they would normally (the controls).

Skipping Breakfast or Eating Less Damages Heart Health
Missing out on breakfast or just sipping a cup of coffee can injure the vessels in the heart and can disrupt blood flow.

Although there was no restriction on what the participants could eat, the team found that 57 percent of participants showed a reduction in food intake either due to reduced appetite, decreased eating opportunities or a cutback in snacking, particularly in the evenings.

However, 57 percent of participants felt they could not have maintained the new meal times beyond the prescribed 10 weeks because of their incompatibility with family and social life.

Why Should You Have Dinner Before 9pm?
Eating earlier in the day may be worth the effort to help prevent weight gain, hormonal markers implicated in heart disease, diabetes.

"Fasting diets are difficult to follow and may not always be compatible with family and social life. We, therefore, need to make sure they are flexible and conducive to real life, as the potential benefits of such diets are clear to see," Johnston noted.

Source-IANS