Meal Timing, How I lost 5lbs in 1 week!

The timing of your meals actually makes a difference to your weight loss (or gain) efforts. Our bodies can process food more efficiently and be less susceptible to store body-fat if you plan to eat your meals in a certain way! Even if you don't change the foods that you eat, just by changing the time that you eat these foods, your body can be more likely to burn off calories and potentially lose weight.

Your burning ability!
When we wake up in the morning, we are actually at our highest potential for burning calories. Our daily burn rate starts off at a peak and then tapers off in mid-afternoon and is at it's lowest in the evening time. You can actually increase this rate by doing more exercise, but our normal daily rate peaks in morning and then declines. Understanding this concept can allow you to plan your meals accordingly and see the results on the scales!

For example, knowing that your body uses up more energy in the morning, if you plan to have a big breakfast and then a mid-sized lunch and a light dinner, then you would be far more inclined to lose weight.

Unfortunately however, most people follow the opposite program! They have a very light breakfast (or skip it altogether), have a moderate lunch and then go hog wild when they come home from work because they are starving! Then they wonder why their waistline is growing! Your body is primed to work in the opposite direction.

Meal Frequency
In addition to following the appropriate meal timing, eating smaller meals more often can also help your body burn the calories you are consuming. When you don't bog down your body with a huge load of calories in one sitting, you allow your body to efficiently use what you consumed and you can get back to work. Doing this actually increases the amount of calories you burn.

If for example, you ate a huge lunch (1000+ calories for example), you would probably feel highly sluggish afterwards because your body is spending so much time digesting what you just ate, plus you have to deal with a huge insulin surge that brings blood sugar down and makes you feel tired. Smaller meals on the other hand wouldn't cause the huge spike and crash in energy, which allows for greater calorie burning capabilities!

My recommendations
Eating 3 main meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) is pretty standard in most people's lives. I would suggest adding 2-3 snacks (or smaller meals) to your day. This will help to keep energy levels up and allow you to feel like you don't have to wait so long between meals. I would also try to keep the majority of the calories skewed in the direction of morning and tapered off into the evening.

Consuming starchier foods (carbohydrate based) earlier in the day and then less in the evening will actually give your body the energy it needs to face the day, but not lots of energy in the evening when you aren't going to use it. Doing this will allow your body to burn up the energy consumed, but be less susceptible to store the energy as fat (especially with regular exercise).

Late night snacking
Many people I meet find that they eat a lot at night. The main reason for this is not having a big enough breakfast. Eating more earlier in the day can help calm the midnight cravings because you are telling your body that it will actually be fed and there is no reason to panic! If however, you tend to skip breakfast and eat lightly throughout your workday, your body has no other opportunity to get those calories except when you are home in the evening time, so of course you will be craving lots of food (and probably junk food too)!

Try to calm the midnight munchie beast by front-end loading your meals for the day. Also, making sure you give yourself a few hours to digest the last meal (or snack) before you go to bed can help make sure the majority of that food doesn't end up around your mid-section.

What I have found
Just this past week, I have personally put these principles to the test. I made sure that I didn't eat any later than 2 hours before I went to bed. I also made sure that the majority of the food that I ate was protein-based with vegetables for my last meal and I consumed a good quantity of starches in the morning so that I could have some good energy for my workouts.

Up until I made these changes, my weight had been stable at 205lbs for the past few months. After doing this, I have dropped to 200lbs in one week! Now, that being said, I don't expect everyone to see results like this. I am also doing 30-60mins of cardiovascular exercise 6 days each week and strength training on top of that. However, before I made that last change, even with doing all that exercise, my weight was stable.

Using your metabolism in its proper timing can really help you see the results that you want faster!

"Jesus replied, 'Now the time has come for the Son of Man to enter into his glory.'" John 12:23 (New Living Translation)