will i lose weight if I only eat in the first half of the day?

 

Have breakfast like a king, have lunch like a prince, and leave dinner to the enemy. So almost everyone has heard this lesson in their lifetime. Is eating a guarantee of success in weight reduction, especially in the first half of the day, or is it just an experienced myth?

Does a rich breakfast lead to a higher feeling of satiety during the day?

It was this question that scientists led by Ravussin (2019) from the Louisiana, Biomedical Research Center tried to address. They, therefore, divided the people into two groups:

.The first group ate their entire daily intake (3 servings) in the first half of the day from 8:00 to 14:00.

.The second group had the same energy intake (3 servings) spread over the day from 8:00 to 20:00. 

The key for the scientific team was to find that people on the "morning diet" had a subjectively less feeling of hunger after four days of this diet, which was also objectively confirmed by lower levels of the hormone ghrelin, which signals hunger in the body. Thanks to this, it was much easier for this group to keep the tastes in check and not slip into the evening "luxation" of the refrigerator.

Will breakfast lovers lose weight due to faster metabolism?  

Eat more food in the early hours and start metabolism? Not so fast! Although the speed of metabolism can be accelerated and great tips on how to achieve this, Ondra Klein wrote to us in his recent article, but unfortunately, this case is not one of them. When the researchers measured the energy expenditure of all the people included in the study from both groups, they found that the energy expenditure did not differ between the groups of people involved.

For clarity once again. Breakfast (or eating only in the first half of the day) will not start your metabolism and will not increase your energy expenditure. But it will help you lose weight by having less hunger and less appetite for junk food. In addition, this eating style will reduce your time to eat by about half. Naturally, then you eat fewer calories ...

This can also benefit all adherents of intermittent starvation alias IF, who actually follow something similar on a daily basis. Eating only in the first half of the day can lead to slightly increased thermogenesis. At the same time, this practice is in line with natural circadian rhythms. No miracle, but a good weight loss tool for some.

Fitness from gyms - ATTENTION

In the mentioned study, they came to another interesting finding. People who ate only in the first half of the day (8: 00–14: 00) had a higher proportion of degraded proteins than all-day eaters (8: 00–20: 00), which is a common manifestation of muscle loss. 

This is probably due to the fact that we cannot store proteins in the body "for worse times" as easily as carbohydrates or fats. The 16-hour fast then took its toll…
Whether these degraded proteins came from skeletal muscle and whether this degradation limits muscle mass build-up is not being answered by the researchers in the study. 

.But we can read more about intermittent starvation in sports nutrition and muscle building in an article called  Intermittent starvation:

What to take from it?

.When losing weight, it doesn't matter if you eat all day or just the first half of the day - the most important thing is how much you eat during the whole day. The timing of meals itself can have a much smaller effect, 

.The royal breakfast, together with a higher energy intake in the first half of the day will help keep the hunger hormones in check, so you won't be so hungry in the evenings.

.A typical example of a similar scenario is one of the intermittent fasting protocols, during which we eat for 6 hours and then fast for 18 hours. This can be a good tool for weight loss, but not the only (or perhaps the ideal) option.

.You will not speed up your metabolic rate with a large breakfast (and by analogy you will not slow it down by skipping breakfast). You can achieve this, for example, with the right exercise in the gym.

.When losing weight, try to arrange the meals during the day in the way that suits you best. Some eat the last meal during the afternoon, others two hours before going to bed. There is no universal template - we are all different and we each live differently.

.If you are trying to build muscle mass, keep in mind that this process takes place 24 hours a day, and not just an hour after training. It seems ideal to have a regular supply of protein at least 4 times a day at intervals of 3-5 hours. Such a portion of protein should contain a dose of about 20-40 g, with a daily intake of 1.4-2.0 g of protein per kilogram of body weight.

.When gaining muscle mass, the uneven distribution of foods during the day (for example, only up to 6 hours during the day) can be counterproductive in the effort to build muscle mass. If we want to try intermittent starvation in practice, let's keep it in our diet.