Recently, there has been a lot of rumors in the circle of friends, saying that Chinese scientists have discovered that it is really beneficial to not eat after noon! Don’t eat dinner! Some people also said: If the concubine can’t do it, what should I do?
This article will tell you whether skipping dinner is healthy or not, and who is not suitable for it. Also tell you what else you can do to make up for regrets if you can’t do without dinner.
Strictly speaking, the relevant science news is talking about a “time-restricted eating” lifestyle with a diet focus on the first half of the day.
The so-called time restricted feeding (TRF) is to limit the time of the day to eat within a certain range, not to eat whenever you want.
There are 24 hours in a day, most people will not eat for 10~12 hours, such as from 8:00 pm to 6:00 am, that is 10 hours; 7:00 pm to morning 7 o’clock is 12 hours. This period of time is called “fasting,” or “fasting.”
For example, if you have a blood test for a medical examination, you will usually be asked to stop eating after 8 p.m. the previous day. This is overnight fasting. The data measured at this time is called the fasting value. Such as fasting blood sugar, fasting blood lipids, etc.
If you can limit the time window for eating to 12 hours, it is considered “time-restricted eating.” If the limit is stricter, such as only 6-8 hours, or even only 4 hours, it is also called “day fasting”; That is to say, prolonging the time of not eating as long as possible, so that the human body is in an empty stomach for a long time, has a similar effect to the practice of “5 plus 2 light fasting”. They all fall into the category of “intermittent fasting”.
A lot of studies have found that Compared with eating as much as you want, doing “day fasting” and controlling the time window of eating more strictly may be more effective for weight loss and lipid reduction. There are benefits.
On the one hand, shortening the eating window makes it harder to overeat. Everyone has this experience: when it’s time to eat, you feel hungry, and the next meal usually eats faster and more. The emptying time of the stomach is 4~6 hours. If you focus on eating three meals within 6~8 hours, the next meal will come before the stomach is emptied. Most people cannot have such a strong appetite. What if you only had two meals? The total is also unlikely to be more than the normal three meals.
On the other hand, fasting for a long period of time makes all kinds of snacking almost non-existent. Where’s the appetite for snacks in 8 hours if three meals are to be eaten in 8 hours? Even if you want to eat snacks at other times, you are not allowed to eat anything, so you have to give up the idea of eating snacks?
Furthermore, If you are hungry and cannot eat during the fasting period, you will need to consume fat and protein in your body, so you will lose weight. For people who were originally overweight, blood lipids, blood pressure and blood sugar are easily lowered when they become thin.
However, there are 16 hours in addition to 8 hours of sleep. If you only have 8 hours to eat, what time is it? This involves the time window of the meal.
This question has been explored by researchers before. They divided the timing of time-restricted eating into two types: “early-time eating” (eTRF) and “mid-late eating” (mTRF).
“Eating early” is usually in the morning and first half of the afternoon, such as 6:00-14:00, 7:00-15:00, 8:00-16:00.
“Eating in the middle and late hours” is from noon to evening, such as 11:00 to 19:00, 12:00 to 20:00, 13:00 to 21:00.
Many people feel that eating three meals every 6-8 hours is too much trouble. Normally it’s just two meals. Therefore, eating in the early hours requires skipping dinner, and eating in the middle and late hours requires skipping breakfast. Which of the two methods is more beneficial to metabolic health?
Preliminary research has concluded that eating early is more beneficial for weight loss and disease prevention. (For those who are not interested in research, you can just look at the accented font, and then scroll to the end of the article to see a few suggestions.)
One study found that a 3-day period of time-restricted eating early (8am to 14pm) may reduce appetite and promote fat oxidation, which may help prevent and reduce obesity[1] . The researchers found that eating for a shorter period of time resulted in lower average ghrelin levels and an increase in average satiety levels. The assay found a decrease in the non-protein respiratory quotient, which means more fat oxidation.
Another study found that a 8 a.m. to 14 p.m. eating interval was associated with better improvements in obese people than an 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. eating interval. increase autophagy, increase the level of ketone bodies during fasting in the morning, increase the level of brain-derived neuronal factors at night, etc., and adjust the expression of circadian rhythm-related genes[2]. These changes may help fight aging.
Many previous studies have found that adjusting the focus of the day’s diet to eating less or not at night may be beneficial to the prevention of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. It may be determined by the circadian rhythm.
The novelty of this study by the Chinese researchers is to change the type of subjects. Previous studies have used overweightfat people, and this time with healthy non-obese people [3]. On the other hand, there are many indicators measured by this study. In addition to changes in body composition, changes in metabolic indicators, changes in inflammatory indicators, changes in intestinal flora, and detection of metabolic pathways and related genes. All in all, all the indicators are up.
In this experiment, the meal window for “early eating” was between 6 a.m. and 15 p.m., and the meal window for “midnight eating” was 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. between points. You can determine the exact time yourself, but there are only 8 hours of the day when you can eat. The duration of the experiment was 5 weeks.
Seeing this, everyone has probably understood it.This is not the classic no-no-eat meal, but the time to end the meal is advanced to before 3 pm. Dinner must be omitted, but snacks such as snacks are not limited before 3 pm.
Results were similar: Eating early was more beneficial for fat loss, better insulin sensitivity, and lower inflammation than an unrestricted eating schedule. Compared with “eat as much as you want”, eating in the middle and late period also has a certain effect, but the effect is obviously not as good as eating in the early period.
If 8 hours and 6 hours are a little short, it’s easy to keep them under 12 hours. For example, eating breakfast at 7:30 in the morning and not eating after 7:30 in the evening can be done by most people.
A study found that a weight loss program designed for obese women to reduce calories, if they only eat within 12 hours, can reduce body fat rate and waist circumference compared to eating at any time. are more. In other words, eating the same diet and physical activity was the same, but with a 12-hour eating time restriction, the effect was significantly better[4].
To sum up, if you have the need to lose fat, lose weight, and stabilize blood sugar, and the burden of work, study and exercise in the evening is relatively light, then you can eat like this: p>
1 Focus on eating within 8-10 hours, not when you want to eat.
2 Try to focus on eating before noon, eat enough breakfast, improve the quality of lunch, and eat less or no dinner.
3 If you have dinner, it is best to have it before 6:00, and at the latest by 7:00.
4 After dinner, don’t eat anything.
Although the timing of eating varies, the following three requirements must be met at the same time:
1 Food content is very healthy, and it is not just because it is time-restricted that you can eat unhealthy snacks, drinks, fried foods, etc.
2 The variety is still very rich, and a variety of foods must be taken care of, so don’t just eat a few things because of time constraints.
3 The amount of food should not be too small, and the supply of protein and various micronutrients should be met.
An easier way is to just eat dinner early. Many people worry that eating carbohydrates for dinner will cause high blood sugar at night, which is not conducive to controlling blood sugar, blood lipids, and preventing obesity. However, studies have shown that it is not necessary to cut carbohydrates at dinner. Eating dinner early can effectively reduce blood sugar fluctuations at night, even improve blood sugar fluctuations throughout the day, and promote fat metabolism [5]. Eating dinner at 6 a.m. is more healthy than eating dinner at 8 p.m. or later.
Our latest research also found that if you eat dinner before 6 o’clock and only eat white rice, your blood sugar swings are even lower after dinner than after breakfast and lunch. (to be published)
So, If you can really eat three meals a day, eat early dinner, don’t eat snacks between meals, and don’t drink sweet drinks, it is enough to achieve the goal of obesity prevention. For those who have to work overtime and study at night, and who do not meet the obesity standard, there is no need to work hard to eat for 6 or 8 hours.
In addition, people who need to gain weight, patients with gastrointestinal diseases, patients with liver and kidney diseases, malnourished people, pregnant women, nursing mothers, and developing children should use it with caution for 8 hours or more. A short time-restricted eating pattern. It is healthy enough to be able to eat for 10 to 12 hours without snacking indiscriminately.
One last word of advice: If you really want to skip dinner, must go to bed early and get up early. Don’t do strenuous exercise at night, and don’t use your brain at a high intensity. Otherwise, after being hungry at night, if you don’t eat, you will have trouble sleeping, and if you eat, you will lose your work in one day, and your gastrointestinal function will be affected, so it will not be worth the loss.
References
[1] Ravussin E, et al. Early Time-Restricted Feeding Reduces Appetite and Increases Fat Oxidation But Does Not Affect Energy Expenditure in Humans. Obesity, 2019, 27:1244-1254
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[2] Jamshed H, et al. Early Time-Restricted Feeding Improves 24-Hour Glucose Levels andAffects Markers of the Circadian Clock, Aging, and Autophagy in Humans. Nutrients, 2019, 11, 1234
[3] Xie Z, et al. Randomized controlled trial for time-restricted eating in healthy volunteers without obesity. Nature Communications, 2022, 13:1003
[4] Pureza I R O M , et al. Acute effects of time-restricted feeding in low-income women with obesity placed on hypoenergetic diets: Randomized trial. Nutrition, 2020, 77: 110796
[5] Eating Dinner Early Improves 24-h Blood Glucose Levels and Boosts Lipid Metabolism after Breakfast the Next Day: A Randomized Cross-Over Trial. Nutrients, 2020, 13:2424