A study suggests eating later in the day can directly impact our biological weight regulation in three key ways: through the number of calories that we burn; our hunger levels; and the way our bodies store fat.
With obesity now affecting hundreds of millions of people worldwide, this is a valuable insight into how the risk of becoming obese could be lowered in a relatively simple way – just by eating our meals a few hours earlier.
Earlier studies had already identified a link between the timing of meals and weight gain, but here the researchers wanted to look at that link more closely, as well as teasing out the biological reasons behind it.
“We wanted to test the mechanisms that may explain why late eating increases obesity risk,” said neuroscientist Frank Scheer, from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston in 2022 when the study was published.
What’s that supposed to mean exactly?
Your body loves fat.
It wants as much as possible.
To burn fat, you have to first use everything in your stomach, and then push through “the wall” where you keep exercising after your body says you need to quit.
Then your body will start the process to burn and use fat for energy.
So if you eat a lot at night and convert it to fat as you sleep. It’s going to be harder to work off that fat than if you had ate earlier in the day.