Overheard: Personal Trainer says to avoid belly fat, do the bulk of your eating before 4pm.
Does the time affect your blubber production?
I think it has more to do with having more time to burn off calories before you go to sleep.
Losing weight is very, very simple. Just eat less calories. Also you can exercise more to lose weight. If you eat less calories it doesn’t matter when you eat.
Eating before bed does not cause any more weight gain than eating the same food at other hours of the day:
I think the idea was that because the body’s metabolism slows down at night, if you eat just before bed your body won’t be able to burn off enough calories while you’re asleep to stop them getting converted into fat permanently.
But as has been pointed out, the consensus nowadays seems to be that it’s a myth.
Losing weight is not very simple. There’s growing evidence that people’s bodies have a target weight, and that to be less than that weight basically means being hungry almost all of the time.
As for exercise, I’m often surprised by how little energy exercise actually burns up. e.g. an hour’s competitive basketball game (an exhausting activity) burns fewer calories than the equivalent of a single big mac.
I will agree I am sometimes surprised at how few calories exercise burns but I can burn more calories than are in a Big mac (540) in a moderate (10min/mile) 30 minute run.
This link lists the calorie burning potential for a bunch of sports.
Persons Weight…130lbs…155lbs…190lbs
Basketball…472cal/h…563cal/h…690cal/h
According to that site your best bets are fast paced bicycling, canoeing or Boxing. :eek:
That really goes to how insanely calorie-dense we’ve managed to make our convenience foods.
Back to meal timing. I suggest that IF yuo eat dinner at 4pm, AND you have the dedication to not snack at all between then and bed, THEN you probably have the discipline to stick to teh diet, and to exercise. IOW, there’s a correlation, but the cause chain is “discipline causes both no evening snacking & weight loss”, rather than “no evening snacking causes weight loss.”
To be more specific, for many people , losing weight is simple. But there are some people who have medical problems or other reasons that makes it harder to lose weight.
Think about it.
If you consume 8000kj of food a day, and burn through 8000kj of energy a day… what difference does it make when you consumed the 8000kj?
It would be like saying you should never put fuel in your car after 4pm. It makes no difference to the amount of energy you’re putting in, and then burning, as to when the energy goes in.
mrAru did that taibo boxing stuff as PT when he was stationed at the shipyards up in Maine a few years before he retired…he said he hurt in places he didnt even know he had, and he was fairly athletic and in decent condition … so I would say that shadowboxing could definitely be a great exercise, you dont need to actually get pounded by someone…
Well, to use your analogy, what happens if the car automatically starts converting the gasoline to *diesel fuel *if it hasn’t been used for awhile(i.e, sitting overnight), and storing it in a separate tank? You might find yourself periodically low on gas, which causes you to go on more trips to the gas station. Meanwhile your diesel tank is bursting. Sure, you could figure out a way to get your car to run on diesel, but it’s so much easier using gas.
It doesn’t make any difference when you eat. But for most people, not eating after 4Pm will significantly cut down their overall calorie intake, esp the dreaded “bag of chips with TV” calories.
According to this site, a Big Mac with cheese is 704 calories (how the hell is that tasteless cheese so energy dense)?
At least in the UK, big macs come with cheese as standard. You’d have to ask not to have cheese.
So…an hour’s competitive basketball won’t burn a big mac. Of course, we’re burning calories all day, no matter what we’re doing, so it’s not like you need to play basketball to burn everything you eat. But still…I’m surprised that an activity that strenuous doesn’t burn more calories.
Not eating within 2 hours of sleeping is a good idea because it helps to prevent acid reflux.
Weird. The cheese is standard on a Big Mac in the US also. I wonder if a Big Mac Cheeseburger is different than a Big Mac (which is what they are called over here). I got the 540 number from this site. Of course that’s the actual McDonald’s website so I guess you can choose not to believe it.
I wonder if they just make Big Macs differently in the UK. I seem to recall that in some markets the toppings for burgers were put on in different amounts. Of course that could just be a faulty memory.
Extrapolating the Basketball chart I would burn enough calories in an hour’s competetive basketball to burn a Big Mac. That is one of those things where YM(definitely)WV.
A calorie is a calorie is a calorie. It’s simple math.
However, everyone’s body and willpower is different. If you’re a night eater, eating earlier and restricting your evening food will help if you have the willpower.
Some people are more sensitive to carbohydrates then others and might retain water if they eat too many carbs.
It’s really not about when you eat, it’s about how. How your meals are balanced, what the portion sizes are and if you’re eating until satisfaction or until you’re stuffed.
Besides that, if you’re exercising to burn off a Big Mac, I wouldn’t be focusing on the calories in that crap, but the saturated fat.
A big new study says to lose weight you should do 3 simple things:
Eat healthy, exercise, and eat less calories than you burn
Or if you get your jaw broken and wired shut–weight loss!
Just to nit-pick… The highest calorie burning activities on that list are:
Running, 10.9 mph (5.5 min mile) : 1062
Skiing, cross-country, uphill, maximum effort : 974
Bicycling, >20mph, racing : 944
Running, 10 mph (6 min mile) : 944
(130 lb column)
I would like to see sex on that list. As I recall, that is a pretty intense exercise. heck, they have mundane things like “Sitting-playing with child(ren)-light”. Its also a good way to burn off those late-night-munchy-calories.