Recently, the circle of friends is boiling, saying that Chinese scientists have found that there is really a benefit to not eating after noon! Don't eat dinner! Some people also say: Concubines can't do it, what should they do?
This article is to tell you that not eating dinner is not healthy, and what people are not suitable. Also tell you what ways to make up for your regrets if you can't do it without dinner.
Strictly speaking, what is discussed in the relevant scientific news is a "limited time eating" lifestyle that focuses on the first half of the day.
The so-called time restricted feeding (TRF) is to limit the time of day to eat in a certain range, not when you want to eat.
There are 24 hours a day, and most people will not eat for 10 to 12 hours, such as 10 hours from 8 pm to 6 am, and 12 hours from 7 pm to 7 am. This period of time is called "fasting," or "fasting."
For example, if you have a blood test to draw blood, you will usually be asked not to eat after 8 pm on the first day. This is overnight fasting. The data measured at this time is called the fasting value. For example, fasting blood glucose, fasting blood lipids, etc.
If you can limit the time window for eating to 12 hours, it is considered "limited time eating". If the restrictions are more stringent, such as only 6 to 8 hours, or even only 4 hours, it is also called "intraday fasting"; That is to say, the time of not eating is stretched as long as possible, so that the human body is in an fasting state for a long time, which plays a similar role to the "5 plus 2 light fasting" and other practices. They all fall into the "intermittent fasting" approach.
There have been many studies that have found that compared with eating when you want to eat, doing "intraday fasting" and controlling the time window of eating more strictly may be more beneficial to weight loss and lipid reduction.
On the one hand, after shortening the eating time window, it is difficult for people to eat too much. Everyone has this experience: when it comes to the meal, they have not eaten, they feel hungry, and the next meal will usually eat faster and more. The emptying time of the stomach is 4 to 6 hours, if you concentrate on eating three meals within 6 to 8 hours, the stomach has not been emptied before the next meal, the vast majority of people can not have such a strong appetite. What if I only eat two meals? The total amount is also unlikely to be more than the normal three meals.
On the other hand, fasting for a long time, eating all kinds of snacks will basically not happen. If you eat three meals within 8 hours, where will you still have the appetite to snack within 8 hours? At other times, even if you want to eat snacks, you are not allowed to eat anything, so you have to give up the idea of eating snacks?
In addition, if you are hungry and cannot eat during fasting, you need to consume fat and protein in the body, so people will become thinner. For people who were originally too fat, people are thin, and blood lipids, blood pressure, and blood sugar are easy to drop.
However, in addition to sleeping 8 hours, there are 16 hours of time. If you only have 8 hours to eat, what time is it? This brings us to the time window for the meal.
Researchers have previously explored this issue. They divide the time-limited feeding time into two types: "early eating" (eTRF) and "mid-to-late eating" (mTRF).
"Early eating" is usually in the morning and first half of the afternoon, such as 6 to 14, 7 to 15, and 8 to 16.
"Mid-to-late eating" starts from noon until night, such as 11:00 to 19:00, 12:00 to 20:00, and 13:00 to 21:00.
Many people think that eating three meals in 6-8 hours is too troublesome. Normally, it's just two meals. Therefore, the early eating method needs to save dinner, and the middle and late eating mode needs to eliminate breakfast. Which of these two methods is more conducive to metabolic health?
The current preliminary study concludes that eating early is more conducive to weight loss and disease prevention. (Friends who are not interested in research can just look at the accented font and then pull to the end of the article to see a few suggestions.) ）
One study found that a three-day period of time-limited eating (8 a.m. to 14 p.m.) reduced appetite and promoted fat oxidation, which was beneficial in preventing and reducing obesity [1]. The researchers found that the time to eat was shorter, but the average ghrelin level was reduced, and the average satiety level increased. The assay found that non-protein respirators were lowered, which meant that the fat was oxidized more.
Another study found that the 8 a.m. to 14 p.m. eating interval improved blood glucose fluctuations in obese people, increased autophagy, increased ketone levels on an early morning fasting, increased levels of cerebrogenic neurokines at night, and so on, compared with the 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. eating range, and adjusted for circadian rhythm-related gene expression [2]. These changes may help in the fight against aging.
There have been many studies that have found that adjusting the focus of a day's diet to daytime and eating less or not eating at night may be conducive to the prevention of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, which may be determined by the law of circadian rhythm.
The novelty of the research done by the Chinese researchers this time is to change the type of subjects. Previous studies have been done with overweight and obese people, but this time it was done with healthy people who are not obese [3]. On the other hand, this institute also measures a lot of indicators. In addition to changes in body composition, changes in metabolic indicators, changes in inflammatory indicators, changes in intestinal flora, there are also detection of metabolic pathways and related genes. In short, the indicators that can be on the can be on.
In this experiment, the "early eating" eating window was between 6 a.m. and 15 p.m., and the "mid-to-late eating" dining window was between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. You can determine the exact time, but you only have 8 hours of your day to eat. The duration of the experiment is 5 weeks.
Seeing here, everyone probably understands that this is not the classic noon meal, but the time of the end of the meal is brought forward to before three o'clock in the afternoon. Dinner is definitely omitted, but there is no restriction on snacks and other snacks before 3 p.m.
The results were similar to before: compared with no time limit, the pattern of early eating was more conducive to fat loss, increased insulin sensitivity, and reduced inflammatory response. Compared with "eating if you want", eating in the middle and late stages also has a certain effect, but the effect is obviously not as good as eating in the early stage.
If the 8-hour, 6-hour meal time is a bit short, it is easy to control it within 12 hours. For example, eating breakfast at 7:30 a.m. and not eating after 7:30 p.m. is something that most people can do.
Studies have found that if you design a weight loss program for obese women to reduce calories, if you only eat within 12 hours, compared with the time you can eat at any time without limits, the reduction in body fat rate and waist circumference is more. In other words, eating a weight loss meal is the same, and physical activity is the same, but if you add a 12-hour eating time limit, the effect is significantly better [4].
To sum up, if you have the need to lose fat, lose weight, stabilize blood sugar, and the burden of work-study exercise at night is relatively light, then you can eat like this:
1 Concentrate your eating time on 8 to 10 hours, and don't eat when you want to eat.
2 Put the focus of eating as much as possible before noon, eat enough for breakfast, improve the quality of lunch, and eat less or no dinner.
3 If you're eating dinner, it's best to eat before 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. at the latest.
4 After dinner, don't eat anything.
Although the time to eat varies, the following three requirements must be met at the same time:
1 The food content is very healthy, and because it is a limited time to eat, you can eat unhealthy snacks and drinks fried food.
2 The variety is still very rich, and all kinds of food must be taken care of, and only a few things are eaten because of the time limit.
3 The amount of food should not be too small, and the supply of protein and various micronutrients should be up to standard.
The easier way is to eat dinner directly early. Many people are worried that eating carbohydrates for dinner will cause high blood sugar at night, which is not conducive to controlling blood sugar, blood lipids, and is not conducive to preventing obesity. However, studies have shown that there is no need to quit carbohydrates at dinner, as long as you eat dinner early, you can effectively reduce blood sugar fluctuations at night, and even improve blood sugar fluctuations throughout the day, and promote fat metabolism [5]. Compared to eating dinner at 8 o'clock or even later, eating dinner at 6 o'clock can achieve a healthy effect.
Our latest study also found that if you can eat dinner before 6 o'clock and only eat white rice, the blood sugar fluctuations after dinner will even be lower than after breakfast and lunch. (To be published)
Therefore, if you can really eat three meals, eat dinner early, do not eat snacks between meals, and do not drink sweet drinks, it is enough to achieve the goal of preventing obesity. For those who have to work overtime at night, to study, and people have not reached the obesity standard, there is no need to work very hard to eat for 6 hours and 8 hours.
In addition, people who need to gain weight, people with gastrointestinal disease, liver and kidney disease, malnutrition, pregnant nursing mothers, and developing children should be cautious about using a time-limited eating pattern of 8 hours or less. Being able to eat for 10 to 12 hours and not eating snacks is healthy enough.
Finally, a word of advice: if you really want to give up dinner, be sure to go to bed early and get up early. Do not do strenuous exercise at night, and do not use your brain at high intensity. Otherwise, after hunger at night, if you don't eat, you will be unable to sleep, and if you eat, you will break the work for a day, and your gastrointestinal function will be affected, and it will be more than worth the loss.
bibliography
[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
[2] Jamshed H, et al. Early Time-Restricted Feeding Improves 24-Hour Glucose Levels and Affects 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