Empty stomach= more efficiently burn fat?

claritea1

I stumbled across this article and while it makes a little sense to me, it certainly goes against anything I’ve ever read here. It basically says to keep your stomach near empty with two light meals during the day, no snacks, while you are most active and a heavier meal in the evening before bed. This supposedly helps train your body to burn fat for energy, not food. Thoughts?

http://fitnessblackbook.com/dieting_for_fat_loss/train-your-body-to-burn-fat-on-demand-by-getting-hungry/

TavistockToad

Eat in a calorie deficit, you'll lose weight.

Meal timing is irrelevant

aeloine

Meal timing is not important for the average Joe. It *maybe* becomes important if you're a performance athlete, imo.

JeromeBarry1

Thought: It isn't that the body is being trained to burn fat for energy. Rather, it is that the body is forced to burn fat for energy during those times of the day when the mouth has been delivering an inadequate supply of energy to the stomach. It's part of the amazing mind-blowing way that every primate's body works. Every mammal's body. Every chordates body.

PAV8888

Eat in whichever blessed way gets you to meet your caloric targets most effectively.

That's where most of your results will come from.

RoxieDawn

Just stick with calorie deficit and eat when you want to. 1000's of success stories here in MFP that did not have to revert to things like this to lose weight.

middlehaitch

What a load of kitten poop.

My natural eating is small breakfast and lunch with a larger dinner. Just about 50% split between pre and post 7 pm.

I lost weight at a reasonably slow rate- ~30lbs over a year through a calorie deficit. Just like everyone else.

If it is your eating preference for timing fine, if not, ignore it. It will make no difference long term.

Cheers, h.

DebLaBounty

LOL @JeromeBarry1 ! I had to look up what a chordate is. Apparently they develop the exit in their rear ends before their mouths. Don’t know how that relates to how energy is burned, butt it’s very interesting.

AnnPT77

Sounds like another variation on the common idea that we got fat because we were bad/sinful, so the only way to lose weight is to suffer in penance.

I say all kinds of nope to needless suffering. Also to bad science.

melissalatzel25

i used to be very in tune with what i put in my body and would always think id gain weight if i ate during the night.
now im a flight attendant, so meal times mean nothing , i started my first meal yesterday at 2.30 am hehe.

still weight the same eating at all times of day and night

BitofaState

So how long does food take to convert to available energy in your system? Oh that depends on the type of food along with a whole bunch of stuff about how the stomach is regulated?. How does the body restore glycogen supplies in the muscles? How long is the liver able to supply glucose through glycogen synthases based on the stored energy?

The truth is that if you are in a calorie deficit your body will turn to the available sources of energy. When you feed matters not a damn. Your system will turn to those fat stores when it has little available glycogen. This is regulated by epinephrine and glucagon levels in the blood stream, so if you're in a deficit this process will kick in at some point.

Now if the author could explain how his system prevents the inhibition of the Krebs cycle which is how the body synthesis fatty acids into available energy, or as he terms it "trains your body to burn fat for energy" then we might have a starting point to see that this could have an impact.

"Stuff I read on the internet" isn't a great starting point when trying to understand metabolic pathways.

Heather4448

Complete rubbish