In general, people believe that if they do not eat, they do not gain weight, and this is not entirely true. A study carried out by the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, in the United States, has discovered that the best way to avoid weight gain is to eat all the meals of the day within a 12-hour window.
This means that if breakfast is at 8:00 a.m., dinner should be at 8:00 p.m. The problem is that these types of schedules are not very compatible with the Mediterranean culture and adaptation can be somewhat complicated, especially after the pandemic and if people tend to eat with others, according to the magazine Clara Spain in their health and beauty section.
But, there is another unknown that echoes in the heads of people looking to lose weight. Does exercise predispose you to gain more weight? A question that has already been addressed in other studies such as the one carried out by scientists at Arizona State University and published in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.
It concluded that almost 70% of sedentary overweight women who began to carry out the training program proposed for this investigation (30-minute sessions on a treadmill, three times a week for 12 weeks) gained weight.
However, with respect to the remaining 30% of women who participated in the research, some remained at the same weight and others lost weight, with those who managed to lose fat at the beginning of the training being the same ones who lost more weight during the rest of the program.
Thanks to the fact that this questioning is still on the rise, the magazine Vogue Mexico consulted Gabriela Gotloib, a nutritionist at Genomic Genetics International and an expert in sports nutrition, who argued that experiencing weight gain when starting to exercise is quite common.
“It is only a reflection of a better metabolic response at the muscular level. With exercise, muscle energy resources are optimized (increases glycogen) to have enough energy to allow greater tolerance to effort. Glycogen takes up water and this helps with weight gain. However, this weight only reflects a positive trend change: less fat and more muscle”, explains the expert.
Gotloib also refers to another factor proven by several studies: physical exercise in android women (with a tendency to accumulate fat in the abdomen and the central area of the trunk), decreases weight and increases muscle mass, while gynoid women (who tend to accumulate fat in the thighs, lower abdomen and buttocks) training can cause an increase in body fat.
Habits to lose weight without gaining weight again
meal times
- One of the factors that has been found to be very relevant in weight gain or loss is the time at which each meal is prepared.
- For example, it is usually recommended not to have dinner just before going to sleep because during rest the body assimilates what it eats much more slowly.
Avoid late night cravings
- Other research done by the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and conducted both with people diagnosed with eating disorders and people with obesity, but without diagnosis, suggests that binge eating, both at night and at any time, are a important trigger of overweight.
- People who had participated in the experiment in the afternoon reported feeling more hungry than those who participated in the morning. Similarly, participants who consumed a liquid meal in the afternoon reported a reduction in peptide-Y, a hormone linked to hunger.
- People who had an eating disorder diagnosis had high levels of ghrelin at night.
- Research suggests that late-night binge eating is related to stress and also to the secretion of hormones that are released when you feel hungry, especially ghrelin.
- This means that an important factor in the secretion of these hormones is the level of stress. For this reason, controlling nervous tensions and avoiding binge eating has important consequences.
Make all meals in 12 hours
- Studies carried out with mice at the Salk Institute in San Diego have suggested that eating at all hours, without restriction and without order, is a precursor to obesity and symptoms of diabetes mellitus.
- In addition, these studies suggest that changing eating habits is an effective remedy not only to prevent, but also to reverse obesity.
- The researcher in charge recommends that it is best to eat within an approximate time frame of 12 hours from the start of the day; for example, have breakfast at 8:00 am, and the last meal at 8:00 pm