Highlights
- Timing and frequency of meals play a role in predicting weight loss or gain.
- Making breakfast the largest meal yielded a more significant decrease in BMI.
- Skipping dinner and fasting for 18 hours associated with decreased BMI.
What Makes You Lose Weight?
Researchers from Loma Linda University School of Public Health and the Czech Republic discovered four factors associated with a decrease in body mass index.
- Eating only one or two meals per day
- Maintaining an overnight fast of up to 18 hours
- Eating breakfast instead of skipping it
- Making breakfast or lunch the largest meal of the day
What Makes You Gain Weight
Two main factors were found to be the reason behind a higher BMI - eating more than 3 meals per day and making supper the largest meal of the day. Though various observational studies and randomized trials have shown that smaller meals facilitate weight loss over a period of time, sticking on to healthy choices is challenging.
"Before age 60 years, those eating calories earlier in the day had less weight gain," Fraser said, adding that after age 60, the same behavior tended to produce a larger rate of weight loss than average. "Over decades, the total effect would be very important."
For the maximum weight loss, eat two main meals during the day. Compared to those who ate 3 meals a day, those who had less than 3 meals, including snacks had a lower BMI.
Eating >3 meals/d (snacking) was associated with a relative increase in BMI. If you are more keen in snacking throughout the day, it might a probable reason for the adding on pounds in your body.
The longer you fast, the lesser the BMI: Those who fasted for 18 hours or more had a lower BMI than those who had a medium overnight fast (12–17 h).
Breakfast is the Key Meal as far as weight loss is concerned. : Breakfast eaters experienced a decreased BMI compared with breakfast skippers.Those who consumed breakfast as the largest meal experienced a significant decrease in BMI.
Reference
- Hana Kahleova et al., Meal Frequency and Timing Are Associated with Changes in Body Mass Index in Adventist Health Study, The Journal of Nutrition (2017) http://jn.nutrition.org/content/early/2017/07/12/jn.116.244749.abstract.
Source-Medindia