Squeezing Most of Your Calories in Early Doesn't Impact Weight Loss: Study

Restricting meals too early in the day did not impact weight among overweight adults with prediabetes or diabetes, reports a new study. The findings of the study are presented at the AHA Scientific Sessions 2020.// "We have questioned for a long time if when one eats during the day influences the way the body uses and stores energy," stated study author Nisa M. Maruthur, M.D., M.H.S., associate professor of medicine. "Most previous studies have not controlled the number of calories, so it wasn't clear if people who consumed earlier just ate fewer calories. In this study, the only thing we modified was the time of day of eating."

Maruthur and colleagues tracked 41 overweight adults in a 12-week study. Most participants were Black women with prediabetes or diabetes and an average age of 59 years.

Twenty-one of the participants followed a time-restricted eating pattern, limiting eating to particular hours of the day, and ate 80 percent of their calories before 1 p.m. The remaining 20 participants ate at normal times during a 12-hour window, eating half of their daily calories after 5 p.m. for the entire 12 weeks. All participants ate the same pre-prepared, healthy meals provided for the study. Weight and blood pressure were measured at the start of the study, then at four weeks, eight weeks, and 12 weeks.

The study found that people in both groups lost weight and had decreased blood pressure despite when they ate.

"We assumed that the time-restricted group would lose more weight," Maruthur stated. "Yet that didn't happen. We did not see any difference in weight loss for those who consumed most of their calories earlier verses later in the day. We did not see any effects on blood pressure either."

The researchers are now collecting more detailed data on blood pressure recorded over 24 hours, and they will be collecting this information with the results of a study on the effects of time-restricted feeding on blood sugar, insulin, and other hormones.

"Together, these findings will assist us to more fully understand the impacts of time-restricted eating on cardiometabolic health," Maruthur stated.

Source-Medindia