Harness the power of your circadian rhythms for weight loss by making breakfast or lunch your main meal of the day.
In my last chronobiology video, we learned that the calories eaten at breakfast is significantly less fattening than the same number of calories consumed at dinner, as you can see at 0:14 in my video Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauperbut who only eats one meal a day?
What about simply shifting our daily calorie allotment to the beginning of the day? Israeli researchers randomized overweight and obese women into one of two isocaloric groups, meaning each group was given the same number of total calories. One group had a 700-calorie breakfast, a 500-calorie lunch, and a 200-calorie dinner, and the other group had the opposite—200 calories for breakfast, 500 for lunch, and 700 for dinner. Since all study participants ate the same number of calories in total, the king-prince-pauper group should have lost the same weight as the pauper-prince-king group, right? But no. As you can see in the chart below and at 1:01 in mine videothe biggest breakfast group lost more than double the weight, in addition to losing about two extra inches from their waists. By the end of the 12-week study, the king-prince-poor group lost 11 more pounds than the larger dinner group, losing 19 pounds compared to only 8 pounds lost by the poor-prince-king group—despite eating the same number of calories. This is the power of chronobiology, the power of our circadian rhythm.
What was the caloric distribution of the king-prince-pauper group that had 700 calories at breakfast, 500 at lunch, and 200 at dinner? They got 50 percent of their calories at breakfast, 36 percent at lunch, and only 14 percent of their calories at dinner, which is pretty skewed. How about 20 percent for dinner instead? A spread of 50% – 30% – 20% compared to 20% – 30% – 50%?
Again, the biggest breakfast group experienced “dramatically increased” weight loss, a difference of about nine pounds in eight weeks with no significant difference in total caloric intake or physical activity between groups, as shown in the chart below and at 1:57 in my video.
Instead of 80 percent of calories consumed at breakfast and lunch, how about 70 percent versus 55 percent? Researchers randomized Overweight “homemakers” should eat 70 percent of their calories at breakfast, a morning snack and lunch, leaving 30 percent for an afternoon snack and dinner, or a more balanced 55 percent from the time they wake up until lunch. In both cases, only a minority of calories were consumed for dinner, as you can see below, and at 2:25 in my video. There was a difference between he eats 70 percent of calories through lunch versus only 55 percent? Yes, those who ate more calories earlier in the day had significantly greater weight loss and leanness.
The researchers concluded: “Stories about food and nutrition are in the news almost daily, but the information can sometimes be confusing and contradictory. Clear messages should be proposed to reach the largest number of people. A clear communication from doctors could be “If you want to lose weight, eat more in the morning than in the evening”.
Even simply effective People eating their main meal at lunch instead of dinner can help. Despite comparable caloric intakes, participants in a weight loss program randomized to receive advice to make lunch their main meal outperformed those told to make dinner their main meal.
The saying “I eat Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper’ obviously has another variation: ‘Eat breakfast alone, share lunch with a friend and give dinner to your enemy’. I wouldn’t go that far, but there seems to be a metabolic benefit to pre-loading the bulk of your calories earlier in the day.
However, the evidence is not entirely consistent. Review of dietary pattern studies respondent whether reducing evening intake would facilitate weight loss, citing a study that shown the evening weight group did better than the heavy morning meal group. Perhaps this was because the breakfast group was given “chocolate, cookies, cake, ice cream, chocolate mousse or donuts” for breakfast. Thus, chronobiology can be overcome by a junk food methodology. Overall, the what is even more important than never. Caloric timing can be used to accelerate weight loss, but is not a substitute for a healthy diet. When he said there was an hour for every purpose under heaven, Ecclesiastes probably wasn’t talking about donuts.
When I heard about it, what I wanted to know was how. Why does our body store less food as fat in the morning? I explore the mechanism in my next video, Eat more calories in the morning than in the evening.
This is the fifth video in an 11-part series on chronobiology. If you missed the first four, check out the related posts below.
