Fasting, eating earlier in the day or eating fewer meals – what works best for weight loss?
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Globally, one in eight people are living with obesity. This is an issue because excess fat increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers.
Modifying your diet is important for managing obesity and preventing weight gain. This might include reducing your calorie intake, changing your eating patterns and prioritising healthy food.
But is one formula for weight loss more likely to result in success than another? Our new research compared three weight-loss methods, to see if one delivered more weight loss than the others:
- altering calorie distribution – eating more calories earlier rather than later in the day
- eating fewer meals
- intermittent fasting.
We analysed data from 29 clinical trials involving almost 2,500 people.
We found that over 12 weeks or more, the three methods resulted in similar weight loss: 1.4–1.8kg.
So if you do want to lose weight, choose a method that works best for you and your lifestyle.
Eating earlier in the day
When our metabolism isn’t functioning properly, our body can’t respond to the hormone insulin properly. This can lead to weight gain, fatigue and can increase the risk of a number of chronic diseases such as diabetes.
Eating later in the day – with a heavy dinner and late-night snacking – seems to lead to worse metabolic function. This means the body becomes less efficient at converting food into energy, managing blood sugar and regulating fat storage.
In contrast, consuming calories earlier in the day appears to improve metabolic function.
However, this might not be the case for everyone. Some people naturally have an evening “chronotype”, meaning they wake up and stay up later.
People with this chronotype appear to have less success losing weight, no matter the method. This is due to a combination of factors including genes, an increased likelihood to have a poorer diet overall and higher levels of hunger hormones.
Eating fewer meals
Skipping breakfast is common, but does it hinder weight loss? Or is a larger breakfast and smaller dinner ideal?
While frequent meals may reduce disease risk, recent studies suggest that compared to eating one to two meals a day, eating six times a day might increase weight loss success.
However, this doesn’t reflect the broader research, which tends to show consuming fewer meals can lead to greater weight loss. Our research suggests three meals a day is better than six. The easiest way to do this is by cutting out snacks and keeping breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Most studies compare three versus six meals, with limited evidence on whether two meals is better than three.
However, front-loading your calories (consuming most of your calories between breakfast and lunch) appears to be better for weight loss and may also help reduce hunger across the day. But more studies with a longer duration are needed.
Fasting, or time-restricted eating
Many of us eat over a period of more than 14 hours a day.
Eating late at night can throw off your body’s natural rhythm and alter how your organs function. Over time, this can increase your risk of type 2 diabetes and other chronic diseases, particularly among shift workers.
Time-restricted eating, a form of intermittent fasting, means eating all your calories within a six- to ten-hour window during the day when you’re most active. It’s not about changing what or how much you eat, but when you eat it.
Animal studies suggest time-restricted eating can lead to weight loss and improved metabolism. But the evidence in humans is still limited, especially about the long-term benefits.
It’s also unclear if the benefits of time-restricted eating are due to the timing itself or because people are eating less overall. When we looked at studies where participants ate freely (with no intentional calorie limits) but followed an eight-hour daily eating window, they naturally consumed about 200 fewer calories per day.
What will work for you?
In the past, clinicians have thought about weight loss and avoiding weight gain as a simile equation of calories in and out. But factors such as how we distribute our calories across the day, how often we eat and whether we eat late at night may also impact our metabolism, weight and health.
There are no easy ways to lose weight. So choose a method, or combination of methods, that suits you best. You might consider
- aiming to eat in an eight-hour window
- consuming your calories earlier, by focusing on breakfast and lunch
- opting for three meals a day, instead of six.
The average adult gains 0.4 to 0.7 kg per year. Improving the quality of your diet is important to prevent this weight gain and the strategies above might also help.
Finally, there’s still a lot we don’t know about these eating patterns. Many existing studies are short-term, with small sample sizes and varied methods, making it hard to make direct comparisons.
More research is underway, including well-controlled trials with larger samples, diverse populations and consistent methods. So hopefully future research will help us better understand how altering our eating patterns can result in better health.
Hayley O’Neill, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University and Loai Albarqouni, Assistant Professor | NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow, Bond University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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The Forgotten Exercise That Could Save Your Health After 50
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A lot depends on this:
Your heart is also a “use it or lose it” muscle
It’s well-known that muscles in general require maintenance (by regular exertion thereof), or they will atrophy and weaken. However, this is not only true of our skeletal muscles (the ones people think about when they say “muscles”), but also muscles like the heart.
Now, of course, we are all using our heart all the time, every day. One might be tempted to think it’ll be fine. It won’t; the body will not maintain anything beyond necessity. Thus, the prescription here is to regularly get our heart out of “zone 1”, its regular resting rate, which is usually about 50% or so of its maximum rate, and into “zone 2”, in which it beats at 60–70% of its maximum rate.
To find your maximum rate: as a general rule of thumb, 220 minus your age will usually give a fairly accurate estimate, unless you are unusually fit or unusually unfit.
Alternatively, if you have a fitness tracker, it can probably give you a number based on actual observation of your heartrate.
The benefits of doing so, as mentioned in this video:
- Improves heart health, circulation, and lowers blood pressure.
- Burns belly fat by using stored fat as energy*
- Boosts aerobic capacity, making daily activities easier.
- Enhances insulin sensitivity, mental health, and sleep.
- Helps manage arthritis, osteoporosis, and high cholesterol.
*note that this won’t happen in zone 1, and if you spend more than a little time in zone 3, it will happen but your body will do a metabolic slump afterwards to compensate, while doing its best to replenish the fat reserves. So, zone 2 is really the goal for this one, unless you want to do HIIT, which is beyond the scope of today’s article.
He recommends activities like brisk walking, cycling, or swimming. You don’t have to become a triathlon competitor if you don’t want to, but just pick what you like and do it at a fair pace. If it’s the brisk walking or cycling*, then (unless it’s very hot/humid where you are), if you break a sweat, you probably broke out of zone 2 and into zone 3. Which is fine, but wasn’t what you were aiming for, so it’s a sign you can go a little easier than that if you want.
*of course the same statement is also true of swimming, but you’ll not notice sweating in a pool 😉
As for how much and how often, averaging 20 minutes per day is good; if you want to condense that into 40 minutes 2–3 times per week, that’s fine too.
For more on all of this, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less & Move More
Take care!
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Osteoarthritis Of The Knee
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It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!
Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!
In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!
As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!
So, no question/request too big or small
❝Very informative thank you. And made me think. I am a 72 yr old whitewoman, have never used ( or even been offered) HRT since menopause ~15 yrs ago. Now I’m wondering if it would have delayed the onset of osteoarthritis ( knee) and give me more energy in general. And is it wise to start taking hrt after being without those hormones for so long?❞
(this was in response to our article about menopausal HRT)
Thanks for writing! To answer your first question, obviously we can never know for sure now, but it certainly is possible, per for example a large-ish (n=1003) study of women aged 45–64, in which:
- Those with HRT were significantly less likely to have knee arthritis than those without
- However, to enjoy this benefit depended on continued use (those who used it for a bit and then stopped did not enjoy the same results)
- While it made a big difference to knee arthritis, it made only a small (but still beneficial) difference to wrist/hand arthritis.
We could hypothesize that this is because the mechanism of action is more about strengthening the bones (proofing against osteoporosis is one of the main reasons many people take HRT) and cartilage than it is against inflammation directly.
Since the knee is load-bearing and the hand/wrist joints usually are not, this would mean the HRT strengthening the bones makes a big difference to the “wear and tear” aspect of potential osteoarthritis of the knee, but not the same level of benefit for the hand/wrist, which is less about wear and tear and more about inflammatory factors. But that latter, about it being load-bearing, is just this writer’s hypothesis as to why the big difference.
The researchers do mention:
❝In OA the mechanisms by which HRT might act are highly speculative, but could entail changes in cartilage repair or bone turnover, perhaps with cytokines such as interleukin 6, for example.❞
What is clear though, is that it does indeed appear to have a protective effect against osteoarthritis of the knee.
With regard to the timing, the researchers do note:
❝Why as little as three years of HRT should have a demonstrable effect is unclear. Given the difficulty in ascertaining when the disease starts, it is hard to be sure of the importance of the timing of HRT, and whether early or subclinical disease was present.
These results taken together suggest that HRT has a metabolic action that is only effective if given continuously, perhaps by preventing disease initiation; once HRT is stopped there might be a ‘rebound’ effect, explaining the rapid return to normal risk❞
~ Ibid.
You can read the study here:
On whether it is worth it now…
Again, do speak with an endocrinologist because your situation may vary, but:
- hormones are simply messengers, and your body categorically will respond to those messages regardless of age, or time elapsed without having received such a message. Whether it will repair all damage done is another matter entirely, but it would take a biological miracle for it to have no effect at all.
- anecdotally, many women do enjoy life-changing benefits upon starting HRT at your age and older!
(We don’t like to rely on “anecdotally”, but we couldn’t find studies isolating according to “length of time since menopause”—we’ll keep an eye out and if we find something in the future, we’ll mention it!)
Meanwhile, take care!
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How Internal Organs Can Be Affected By Spicy Foods (Doctor Explains)
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Capsaicin has an array of health-giving properties in moderation, but consumed in immoderation and/or without building up tolerance first, can cause problems—serious health issues such as heart attacks, brain spasms, torn esophagus, and even death can occur.
Heating up
Capsaicin, the compound that gives peppers their “heat”, is a chemical irritant and neurotoxin that activates pain receptors (TRPV1) tricking the brain into sensing heat, leading to a burning sensation, sweating, and flushing. The pain signal can also trigger the fight-or-flight response, causing a surge of adrenaline. Endorphins are eventually released, creating a pain-relief effect similar to a runner’s high, and ultimately it reduces systemic inflammation, boosts the metabolism, and increases healthy longevity.
However, in cases of extreme consumption and/or lack of preparation, woe can befall, for example:
- A man ruptured his esophagus after vomiting from eating a ghost pepper.
- A participant experienced severe brain blood vessel constriction (reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome) after eating a Carolina reaper.
- A 25-year-old suffered permanent heart damage from cayenne pepper pills due to restricted blood flow.
- A teenager died after the “one chip challenge,” although the cause of death was undetermined.
So, what does moderation and preparation look like?
Moderation can be different to different people, since genetics do play a part—some people have more TRPV1 receptors than other people. However, for all people (unless in case of having an allergy or similar), acclimatization is important, and a much bigger factor than genetics.
Writer’s anecdote: on the other hand, when my son was a toddler I once left the room and came back to find him cheerfully drinking hot sauce straight from the bottle, so it can be suspected that genetics are definitely relevant too, as while I did season his food and he did already enjoy curries and such, he didn’t exactly have a background of entering chili-eating competitions.
Still, regardless of genes (unless you actually have a medical condition that disallows this), a person who regularly eats spicy food will develop an increasing tolerance for spicy food, and will get to enjoy the benefits without the risks, provided they don’t suddenly jump way past their point of tolerance.
On which note, in this video you can also see what happens when Dr. Deshauer goes from biting a jalapeño (relatively low on the Scoville heat scale) to biting a Scotch bonnet pepper (about 10x higher on the Scoville heat scale):
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Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Capsaicin For Weight Loss And Against Inflammation
Take care!
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Taurine’s Benefits For Heart Health And More
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Taurine: Research Review
First, what is taurine, beyond being an ingredient in many energy drinks?
It’s an amino acid that many animals, including humans, can synthesize in our bodies. Some other animals—including obligate carnivores such as cats (but not dogs, who are omnivorous by nature) cannot synthesize taurine and must get it from food.
So, as humans are very versatile omnivorous frugivores by nature, we have choices:
- Synthesize it—no need for any conscious action; it’ll just happen
- Eat it—by eating meat, which contains taurine
- Supplement it—by taking supplements, including energy drinks, which generally (but not always) use a bioidentical lab-made taurine. Basically, lab-made taurine is chemically identical to the kind found in meat, it’s just cheaper and doesn’t involve animals as a middleman.
What does it do?
Taurine does a bunch of essential things, including:
- Maintaining hydration/electrolyte balance in cells
- Regulating calcium/magnesium balance in cells
- Forming bile salts, which are needed for digestion
- Supporting the integrity of the central nervous system
- Regulating the immune system and antioxidative processes
Thus, a shortage of taurine can lead to such issues as kidney problems, eye tissue damage (since the eyes are a particularly delicate part of the CNS), and cardiomyopathy.
If you want to read more, here’s an academic literature review:
Taurine: A “very essential” amino acid
On the topic of eye health, a 2014 study found that taurine is the most plentiful amino acid in the eye, and helps protect against retinal degeneration, in which they say:
❝We here review the evidence for a role of taurine in retinal ganglion cell survival and studies suggesting that this compound may be involved in the pathophysiology of glaucoma or diabetic retinopathy. Along with other antioxidant molecules, taurine should therefore be seriously reconsidered as a potential treatment for such retinal diseases❞
Read more: Taurine: the comeback of a neutraceutical in the prevention of retinal degenerations
Taurine for muscles… In more than sports!
We’d be remiss not to mention that taurine is enjoyed by athletes to enhance athletic performance; indeed, it’s one of its main selling-points:
See: Taurine in sports and exercise
But! It’s also useful for simply maintaining skeleto-muscular health in general, and especially in the context of age-related decline and chronic disease:
Taurine: the appeal of a safe amino acid for skeletal muscle disorders
On the topic of safety… How safe is it?
There’s an interesting answer to that question. Within safe dose ranges (we’ll get to that), taurine is not only relatively safe, but also, studies that looked to explore its risks found new benefits in the process. Specifically of interest to us were that it appears to promote better long-term memory, especially as we get older (as taurine levels in the brain decline with age):
Taurine, Caffeine, and Energy Drinks: Reviewing the Risks to the Adolescent Brain
^Notwithstanding the title, we assure you, the research got there; they said:
❝Interestingly, the levels of taurine in the brain decreased significantly with age, which led to numerous studies investigating the potential neuroprotective effects of supplemental taurine in several different experimental models❞
What experimental models were those? These ones:
- Taurine protects cerebellar neurons of the external granular layer
- Effects of taurine on alterations of neurobehavior and neurodevelopment key proteins expression
- Neuroprotective role of taurine in developing offspring affected by maternal alcohol consumption
…which were all animal studies, however.
The same systematic review also noted that not only was more research needed on humans, but also, existing studies have had a strong bias to male physiology (in both human and assorted other animal studies), so more diverse study is needed too.
What are the safe dose ranges?
Before we get to toxicity, let’s look at some therapeutic doses. In particular, some studies that found that 500mg 3x daily, i.e. 1.5g total daily, had benefits for heart health:
- Taurine and atherosclerosis
- The Anti-Inflammatory Effect of Taurine on Cardiovascular Disease
- Taurine supplementation has anti-atherogenic and anti-inflammatory effects before and after incremental exercise in heart failure
- Taurine Supplementation Lowers Blood Pressure and Improves Vascular Function in Prehypertension
- Taurine improves the vascular tone through the inhibition of TRPC3 function in the vasculature
Bottom line on safety: 3g/day has been found to be safe:
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Leek vs Scallions – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing leek to scallions, we picked the leek.
Why?
In terms of macros, scallions might have a point: scallions have the lower glycemic index, thanks to leek having more carbs for the same amount of fiber. That said, leek already has a low glycemic index, so this is not a big deal.
When it comes to vitamins, leek has more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, E, and choline, while scallions have more of vitamins A, C, and K. Noteworthily, a cup of chopped leek already provides the daily dose of vitamins A and K, and the difference in levels of vitamin C is minimal. All in all, an easy 8:3 win for leeks here, even without taking that into account.
In the category of minerals, leek has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and selenium, while scallions have a little more zinc.
Both of these allium-family plants (i.e., related to garlic) have an abundance of polyphenols, especially kaempferol.
Of course, enjoy whatever goes best with your meal, but if you’re looking for nutritional density, then leek is where it’s at.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
The Many Health Benefits Of Garlic
Take care!
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“Slugging” Skin Care Routine (Tips From A Dermatologist)
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Dermatologist Dr. Jenny Liu weighs in with advice!
Sometimes simplest is best
Slugging is a skincare trend involving applying petrolatum (e.g. Vaseline) as the final step to lock in hydration and repair the skin barrier. It’s particularly useful for dry, sensitive, or eczema-prone skin, and/or damaged skin barriers from overuse of actives or harsh conditions.
How it works: the waterproof layer reduces water loss (up to 99%) and facilitates repair the skin barrier. Thus, it indirectly hydrates the skin, supports natural exfoliation, and reduces fine lines. Best of all, it’s non-irritating, non-comedogenic, and safe for all skin types.
How to do it:
- Cleanse thoroughly to remove makeup and impurities.
- Apply a moisturizer or serum with humectants (e.g. glycerin, hyaluronic acid).
- Seal with petrolatum (e.g. Vaseline or similar).
- Skip areas with stronger active ingredients (e.g. retinoids) and active acne areas.
- Apply 30–60 minutes before bed to reduce product transfer.
- Use a gentle cleanser in the morning to remove residue.
For more on all of this, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
Castor Oil: All-Purpose Life-Changer, Or Snake Oil? ← skincare is one of the things it definitely does work well for, and can be used for slugging also.
Take care!
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