I was at the gym today ,,,reading a magazine,and it said,,a study was done where individual ate 1200 calories. Half of the people ate the biggest amount at night and the other half in the morning. Well, there was a difference!!! The ones who ate them mostly in the morning lost 4 times 1 to the ones who ate most of them at night. i thought this was amusing and very beneficial.

It does make sense. Unfortunately I try to save mine so that I can eat with my family for dinner. I wish I could use most for breakfast and lunch....

I tend to eat my largest meal at lunch because I will be much more active between lunch and dinner than I will be after dinner. I figure my body needs more energy earlier in the day.

that is interesting because i do fitday and i see after lunch how much calories i have to eat the rest of the day. i guess that isn't the smart way to do it!?

I divide up my calories so I try to eat evenly throughout the day. So I eat the same cals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But I may snack at brunch and between lunch and dinner (I think southerners call that supper?)

Maybe. But I doubt the study is strong enough to be anything more than food for thought.

Intriguing, but I'd like to know more.

I would want to see how the study was conducted. If the people were just told how many calories to eat, and when to eat them (and not monitored as to what, when, and how much they wereactually eating, sleeping and exercising) there are a lot of factors other than time of eating that could be responsible for the greater weight loss.


For example (not saying any of these are true, but they could be true if folks weren't closely monitored and were just given instruction).


1. The folks who were eating more in the morning, may have made better or different choices in where the 1200 calories came from. Some research suggests that people (at least in America) are more likely to choose healthier foods earlier in the day, and more likely to choose junk food in the evening.
Some folks notice that high carb foods or high glycemic foods slow their weight loss, maybe morning eaters were choosing lower glycemic foods - or were making some other food choice that helped them burn more calories than the late-eaters.



2. The folks who ate more in the morning, may have had higher energy levels during the day, and may have been naturally more active as a result (they burned more calories during the day than the late-eaters).

3. Eating most of their calories in the evening may have disrupted the late-eaters sleep and the disturbed sleep may have lowered their metabolism (there's been some very interesting research on sleep deprivation slowing metabolism). Sleep changes doesn't have to be noticeable to impact metabolism (for example some sleep stages burn more calories than others. If you spent the same amount of sleep time, but in different stages than normal, it could in theory affect your calories burned). Also if sleep disturbances result in less rest, or in more fatigue this is also going to affect the energy a person has to put into activity.

3. Early eaters may have been less prone to cheating than the later eaters (I don't know why this would happen, but it's possible).

4. Placebo effect (it may sound crazy, but it's not). I don't mean that the early-eaters "imagined themselves" thinner, rather it's a very well-known stereotype that early-eating is supposed to result in more weight loss than late-eating (some studies have differences, but some have found none - this makes me think there are multiple variables going on).

Regardless, believing themselves to be on a diet that is effective, can influence people's other weight-loss supportive behaviors. They may be more inclined to do other pro-weight loss behaviors just because they're on a "good" plan.

Likewise (the other side of the coin), the late-eaters might believe (because of the stereotype that night eating is bad) they're on a plan that isn't going to result in good weight loss - and may be less inclined to engage in other pro-weight loss behaviors, as a result. "What's the use," type of thinking.

5. Coincidence. Perhaps some people naturally (or for other reasons) do better with morning eating and some people do better with later eating, and coincidentally the early-eating group happened to have more people in it who were inclined to do well with that pattern. Or the late-eaters happened to have more folks who didn't do well with that pattern. Maybe if there are eating time-related "types" perhaps eating against your natural inclination tends to favor the early-eating pattern (eating against type may be worse for early-eaters trying to be late-eaters than vice versa).

6. Maybe a third pattern of eating is even better (spreading calories evenly throughout the day).

... and perhaps dozens of other possibilities as well.

Me too. I use my evening snack as a catch all. If I went overboard at any meal in particular, I downsize my evening snack. But when a day has gone as planned, I have the same calories at each of six meals.

I enjoy your well reasoned thoughts, Kaplods.

I eat most of my calories at night with family. I do not like eating diet type foods or "special" foods that are different from other people, so I am eating in a way that I can sustain when in maintance. Saving most of my calories for the evening allows me to do this.

Interesting. Everything I have read and watched says a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. I personally dont think it makes much difference as to when you eat if your eating good quality food and staying within the calories you are supposed to eat. Granted things like exercising can up your metabolism but your body is going to burn calories no matter when you eat them.