Is Dietary Timing Important in Weight Loss?
The letter below is from an email I received recently from a client who trains with me at the Serenata Beach Club.
I think you will find it interesting.
Hi Kim,
Daughter Barbara from NM was visiting and left yesterday. She asked me to ask you this question.
Barbara goes to Jazzercise classes. Her young instructor makes statements like if you are going to eat a double cheeseburger best to do it at noontime so you can burn off the calories during Jazzercise. Barbara thinks it does not matter when you eat the excess calories. Is theJazzercise kid correct?
Hi Bob,
I’ll start with other research that may be of interest to you and Barbara.
The research I am familiar with in regards to exercising after a high fat meal is that, exercise aids significantly in returning your arteries back to normal. In other words, after a high fat meal those that exercise can reverse the ill affects of clogging up the arteries as in atherosclerosis. I’d hesitate to exercise vigorously after a high fat meal however as the body can be put in a stressful situation trying to do many things at once.
Example: using blood to digest the high fat food in the digestive organs while trying to get enough blood to the working muscles of the legs during an exercise program. We can get away with eating and exercising immediately when younger, but not a good idea when we are older. As a reference point, I am almost in the latter group! Ha ha! The research suggest 30 minutes of easy walking to be enough to return arteries to normal. I would not engage in more vigorous exercise such as jazzercise shortly after a high fat meal such as the burger mentioned.
More to Barbara’s point. It used to be thought that a calorie is a calorie and if there is a calorie deficit we will lose weight. Now it’s known that blood sugar stabilization is an added benefit to losing weight more efficiently and above and beyond calories. However, most people will lose weight when they have a calorie deficit totaling 3500 calories. They can also lose weight by expending 3500 calories in vigorous activity. I always suggest doing a combination unless someone is severely overweight. There are some people who have a metabolism that has been abused through various dieting techniques, and consequently it may take a while to get the body back in balance, and losing the necessary weight.
In fact I am seeing this more and more and it interests me greatly. Best plan of attack to lose weight is to spread out your calories throughout the day so that you may reap the advantage that a stabilized blood sugar gives you in weigh loss. Case in point. With all being equal with two people including activity, weight, height gender,calorie deficit and etc, the one who stabilizes the blood sugar through three meals and perhaps a snack or two will tend to lose more weight.