When it comes to weight gain, the timing of your meals may be just as important as what or how much you eat. According to a study of lab animals published online by the journal Obesity, eating during the hours that the body would naturally be sleeping may lead to excess weight gain.
In the first study to associate meal timing with degree of weight gain, sleep scientists at Northwestern University compared two groups of mice, each placed on opposite feeding schedules for a six-week period. Both groups were fed the same high-fat food, and both had the same amount of daily physical activity. The only difference: one group was fed during its normal 12-hour waking period, while the other rodents where fed while they should have been asleep.
By the end of the study period, the latter group had gained more than twice as much weight as the mice that ate during active hours: 10.4 g, a 48% increase in body weight, versus 4.4 g, or a 20% gain in baseline weight.
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