Can You Lose Weight By Not Eating At Night?

Can you lose weight by not eating at night? Now I don’t mean eat healthy during the day and then soon as night falls, start fasting… No I mean can you eat whatever you want during the day, be it fattening junk food and the likes, and eat as much as you want until 5pm, then take a break and start again a 9am… Can you lose weight by doing this? Mmmm, I wonder…. Oh wait, some scientists have already tested this on some rats (poor rats) and apparently you can lose weight by eating this way.

Cynthia Sass over at Shape.com reported on the findings of these test and gave her professional opinion too (Cynthia is a registered dietician with master’s degrees in both nutrition science and public health).

Can You Lose Weight By Not Eating At Night? – The Study & Professional Opinion

Clock image courtesy of Wikipedia by Petar Milošević

If you couldn’t let anything cross your lips from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 a.m., but you were allowed to eat anything you wanted for eight hours a day and still lose weight, would you try it? That’s the apparent bottom line of a rat study published in the journal Cell Metabolism, which recently stirred up the weight loss pot.

Scientists put groups of mice on different diet regimens for 100 days. One group of rodents ate healthy food while animals in two of the groups chowed down on high-fat, high-calorie feed. Half of the junk food eaters were allowed to munch whenever they wanted to while the others only had access to feed for the eight hours they were most active. The conclusion: even though they ate a fatty diet, the mice who were forced to fast for 16 hours were almost as lean as those who ate the healthy fare. Interestingly, the round the clock junk food eaters became obese and developed health problems, even though they consumed about the same amount of fat and calories as the time-restricted junk food fed mice.

The researchers who conducted the study say that this single strategy: simply extending the nighttime fast is a cheap and easy weight loss approach free from side effects, but I’m not sure I agree. As a health professional my primary goal is always optimal health, so when I hear about studies that essentially send the message that you can eat poor quality food and still lose weight, I feel like it does a real disservice to consumers. Any time you lose weight, no matter how you do it, even the most unhealthy way possible, you’ll see some positive health indicators, perhaps a reduction in cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure, etc. But long-term, to optimize energy, wellness, and even looks (hair, skin, etc.), the nutrients found in healthy foods need to show up for work day after day.

Over the years I’ve met numerous clients who have lost weight eating restricted amounts of unhealthy food, but they struggled with side effects from dry skin and dull hair to bad breath, constipation, fatigue, crankiness, and a run down immune system. And if it was an approach they couldn’t maintain, they gained all the weight back. Original article posted here.

Well it’s quite clear from this study that you can lose weight by eating at night, but as Cynthia pointed out it’s not a long term solution and your body and health will suffer due to lack of nutrients.

Well if you’re honest with yourself, you already know that you cannot live a healthy life by eating only junk food, even if you’re fasting for 16 hours each day, your body needs nutrients.

Let me know what you think of this article, do you think this type of dieting should be encouraged amongst people trying to lose weight i.e. you and I. Would you give this way of eating a try in order to lose weight or do you think it’s just another fad diet that is not worth your time.

Leave us your thoughts in the comments section below, and if you found the article interesting, even if not favourable, why not give it a like.