When you eat important?

sugarlips1980
sugarlips1980 Posts: 361 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
A new study has suggested eating your main meal before 3pm is best for weight loss. (Lol at the bit that says late night kebab eaters lost less weight, well duh!)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2269994/Want-lose-weight-Its-just-eat-WHEN-eat-thats-important.html

Personally, I wouldn't want my main meal in work, would make me sleepy! I've found myself eating four quite equal sized meals of about 300-400 cals each, or three meals where dinner in the evening is larger with a snack.

Discuss!

Replies

  • haroon_awan
    haroon_awan Posts: 1,208 Member
    I think you should stop reading the Daily Mail. It will only confuse you and make you depressed with fad diets and pictures of skinny women in bikinis.

    And that claim is absolutely preposterous. Ignore it.
  • pkw58
    pkw58 Posts: 2,038 Member
    I try to eat my large meal at lunch. I sleep better that way for some reason. From a weight loss standpoint, i honestly dont think it matters
  • AntWrig
    AntWrig Posts: 2,273 Member
    A new study has suggested eating your main meal before 3pm is best for weight loss. (Lol at the bit that says late night kebab eaters lost less weight, well duh!)

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2269994/Want-lose-weight-Its-just-eat-WHEN-eat-thats-important.html

    Personally, I wouldn't want my main meal in work, would make me sleepy! I've found myself eating four quite equal sized meals of about 300-400 cals each, or three meals where dinner in the evening is larger with a snack.

    Discuss!
    Hitting your macros is what matters for most people. The people that should be concerned about meal timing are endurance based athletes. Meal timing as in pre and post workout meals.
  • witchy_wife
    witchy_wife Posts: 792 Member
    I don't really take anything I read in the Daily Mail seriously.
  • misssmarita
    misssmarita Posts: 130
    I think this kinda talk is taking it to a level that is unneccesarily complicated for most people. Maybe you will get a slightly higher burn if you eat your main meal earlier, but who cares? It's about finding a healthy lifestyle that works for YOU. If dinner at 3pm fits your schedule, that's fabolous! But if it doesn't, and you generally have a healthy and balanced diet and get plenty of exercise, then I think don't sweat the small stuff.
  • Retrograde_Orbit
    Retrograde_Orbit Posts: 16 Member
    I always eat my main meal at lunchtime now. Yes, it is a bit of a pain, but what I try to do is prepare it at home (enough for several days) split it into single portion bags and put what I don't need for the next day into the freezer.

    This way you know exactly what you are eating with the convenience of fast food.

    The other thing I try is to never eat anything after 8pm, at the very least I stay away from anything with high carbohydrate content after said time.

    Might treat myself to a couple of squares of 85% dark chocolate in the evening.
  • kirstyfairhead
    kirstyfairhead Posts: 220 Member
    I'd want to see the 'science' behind this before making a judgement. Are they saying that if you eat most of your calories earlier in the day your body is active and therefore burns them off and if you eat last thing at night you just go to sleep and your body therefore stores that energy. Surely however the opposite applies and if you are active during the day without eating much you will be burning more stored energy up!!

    Is this to do with the storing/access to energy or maybe its just that those people who ate a big meal later in the day had actually already had their calories but were still hungry and therefore more likely to cheat on the survey!!???

    Don't make no sense to me!!!
  • omanitshann
    omanitshann Posts: 179
    my biggest meal is usually lunch, but i also eat all my meals really early. Breakfast-6, Lunch 10:30, Dinner-4. The downside to this is i get hungry again at around 9pm,and I'm always ravenous when i wake up. I do think it makes sense though that the biggest meal is in the afternoon, since most people are more active during that time, and after dinner is usually when people start winding down, which=less calories being burned.
  • Bronx_Montgomery
    Bronx_Montgomery Posts: 2,284 Member
    In other countries thats how its done. When I was little and went to visit my family in the Dominican Republic I was thrown off as they have their dinners during our Lunch time and their Lunch during our dinner times. It wasn't bad at all
  • Retrograde_Orbit
    Retrograde_Orbit Posts: 16 Member
    The way I look at it is, if I eat the bulk of my nutrition during the day when I am more active, then those nutrients will get put to better use. For instance helping to build new muscle fibre after my early morning gym sessions.

    I also think that one is less likely to lay down less useful things like adding extra to ones fat cells. Which I believe is more likely if you are digesting a full meal overnight.
  • newfette81
    newfette81 Posts: 185
    Strange I was just reading a very similar story on the CBC website... must be a slow news day!

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2013/01/28/food-meals-timing-weight-loss.html
  • gsbanks1
    gsbanks1 Posts: 69 Member
    I think I will just keep doing what works best for me!!
  • sunlover89
    sunlover89 Posts: 436 Member
    Daily Mail??! Ha!!!

    I START eating at 3pm and I've lost over a stone this month...
  • Athena53
    Athena53 Posts: 717 Member
    My heaviest meal is in the evening and it doesn't seem to have hurt me at all.

    Honestly- it's good to hear what the latest thinking is and think about whether it makes sense, but I used to see Dr. Oz during my regular workouts in the company gym. I love his enthusiasm for healthy eating and living but if I did everything he pushed I'd be living on flax seeds, bluberries, garlic, and so many supplements I wouldn't have room for real food!

    OTOH, I once went to a late-evening business dinner in Zurich at a fondue place- all of it was chunks of stuff dipped in a lovely, beer-infused cheese. Neither my colleagues nor I slept decently that night- I guess your body can either sleep, or digest a heavy meal that's sitting in a lump in your stomach, but not both. Glad I don't do that very often.

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