Eating a proper lunch is very important to your diet. If you are hoping to lose weight – or at least to prevent gaining it – choosing the right foods on a regular basis will be integral to your success. However, it’s also a good idea to realize that a diet friendly lunch isn’t just a matter of the foods you pack for yourself each day. You also need to pay attention to the clock.
New research has shown that certain times of the day are great for weight loss friendly lunches. There are other times that can cause harm to your efforts, even if you’re eating the same meal either way.
A recent study that examined data from overweight and obese people in Spain was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. What the research found was that people who work through their lunches on a regular basis and then eat their lunch later in the afternoon may cause harm to their efforts to effectively lose weight.
The study involved an analysis of data from over 1,200 people. It determined that those who ate lunch after 3:00 PM lost a smaller average amount of weight than those who ate earlier lunches.
The researchers pointed to a protein called perilipin which is naturally found in human cells. It is central to the body’s ability to release an burn stored fat. Many of the people in the study who ate lunch after 3:00 PM and who had a certain specific genetic variation of that protein were not able to lose as much weight as people who had it and who ate earlier than that hour.
Among those who didn’t have the perilipin protein genetic variation, the time of the afternoon at which they ate lunc didn’t seem to have any impact.
The research supported the conclusions of a similar study conducted in 2013. That was published in the International Journal of Obesity.
That said, it’s important to note that the genetic variation is not a rare one. Therefore, you could very well have it and be sabotaging your weight loss by eating lunch too late in the day.
Another interesting point is that several other studies that have looked into the timing of breakfast and dinner have found that they don’t affect waistlines at all. It appears to be the timing of lunch that has the largest impact on an individual’s efforts to drop the excess weight.
