Weight loss can be tied to when, not just

what, you eat

By Lisa Drayer, CNN
Updated 0802 GMT (1602 HKT) May 19, 2017
Apples

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/19/health/weight-loss-circadian-rhythms-
drayer/index.html

Apples are one of the few fruits that contain pectin, which naturally slows digestion
and promotes a feeling of fullness, according to a study in Gastroenterology. In fact,
people who ate an apple as part of a meal felt more satiated and ate less than those
who consumed a calorically equivalent amount of juice and applesauce.

"Whole apples take a long time to eat for very few calories," says Susan Roberts,
professor of nutrition at Tufts University. Your body has more time to tell your brain
that you're no longer hungry. That means you can eat lots of this low-energy-density,
high-satiety fruit and avoid feeling deprived while losing weight, adds Roberts.

Feel even fuller: Add apple chunks to oatmeal or salad, or slices to a turkey-on-
whole-wheat sandwich.

Health.com: 25 amazing apple recipes

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Photos: The 10 most filling foods for weight loss

Popcorn

This movie-night fave is a low-energy-density food -- for 90 calories, you could eat 3
cups of air-popped corn but just a quarter cup of potato chips. "Popcorn takes up
more room in your stomach, and seeing a big bowl of it in front of you tricks you into
thinking that you're eating more calories and that you'll feel full when you're
finished," Rolls says.

Feel even fuller: Sprinkle on some red pepper. In a recent Purdue University study,
people who added a half teaspoon of the spice to a meal felt less hungry.

Photos: The 10 most filling foods for weight loss

Figs
A great natural cure for a sweet tooth, fresh figs have a dense consistency and
sweet flesh that's high in fiber (each 37-calorie fig packs about a gram), which slows
the release of sugar into the blood, preventing the erratic high caused by cookies or
cake.

Feel even fuller: Halve and add protein, like a teaspoon of goat cheese and a
walnut.

Photos: The 10 most filling foods for weight loss

Oatmeal

Oatmeal's filling force comes from its high fiber content and its uncanny ability to
soak up liquid like a sponge. When cooked with water or skim milk, the oats thicken
and take more time to pass through your digestive system, meaning you'll go longer
between hunger pangs.

Feel even fuller: Sprinkle almonds on top of your bowl. "The nuts pack protein and
fiber and contain unsaturated fats that can help stabilize insulin levels," regulating
blood sugar, Katz says.

Photos: The 10 most filling foods for weight loss

Wheat berries

Move over, quinoa. Wheat berries, which are whole-wheat kernels, contain one of
the highest amounts of protein and fiber per serving of any grain -- 6 grams of
protein and 6 grams of fiber. "Protein triggers the hormone ghrelin to tell our brain
that we are satisfied," Roberts explains, "and fiber activates appetite-suppressing
gut hormones."

Feel even fuller: Do what celeb chef Ellie Krieger does: Toss wheat berries with
apples, nuts and other diet-friendly foods to make a super tasty salad.

Photos: The 10 most filling foods for weight loss

Smoothies

While most beverages don't satisfy hunger very well, drinks blended full of air are an
exception: They cause people to feel satiated and eat less at their next meal,
according to a Penn State University study. Just be sure you're not whipping your
smoothie full of sugary, caloric ingredients like fruit juices or flavored syrups, which
will negate the health benefits.

Feel even fuller: Put ice and fat-free milk or yogurt in a blender, add in fruit and give
it a whirl. Try strawberries, which are extremely low in energy density -- they're 92%
water! -- and bananas, which are loaded with resistant starch.

This article originally appeared on Health.com.

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Photos: The 10 most filling foods for weight loss

If you were to describe The Perfect Food, it might go something like this: healthful,
delicious, bigger than a morsel and filling enough to fight hunger for hours. "Foods
that promote satiety" -- a feeling of lasting fullness -- "do exist," insists Dr. David
Katz, founder of the Yale University Prevention Research Center.

What makes some grub extra satisfying? "Fiber and protein can help," says Barbara
Rolls, author of "The Ultimate Volumetrics Diet." Getting more bang for your bite
matters, too: Low-energy-density foods, which yield big portions for few calories,
"allow you to eat more without gaining weight," Rolls says. Want some of that? Make
room for these secret-weapon picks.
(CNN)If you are trying to lose weight and otherwise improve your health, you may
already be mindful about what you eat during the day.

You might skip breakfast. At lunch, you may opt for a salad with lots of veggies, no croutons and
low-fat dressing -- on the side, of course.

Then, three o'clock hits.

You're incredibly hungry and craving candy, sweets or chips. You finally cave, eating a candy
bar or other treat.

By 6 p.m., you're tearing the kitchen apart, snacking on anything you see.

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Despite your best efforts at cutting carbs at meals, you give in to a large helping of
pasta or pizza. And then another. But you're still not satisfied. Dessert is calling, and
you want something sweet, again. A scoop or two of ice cream satisfies you for the
moment, but you continue to graze into the night until finally, you're so tired, you
crash into bed.
So what is the cause of all of this diet drama that keeps occurring, almost according
to schedule?

"I started noticing a common pattern where my patients were so good with restricting
their calories during the day, but in the late afternoon and evening, they fell apart,"
said Tamara Duker Freuman, a nutritionist who has helped hundreds of people lose
weight over the past decade on a meal-timing based plan she describes as the
"circadian-synced diet."

"It was the ongoing grazing into the night. ... That's what kept undermining them.
They often thought they were binge eaters ... but in reality, they were just really
hungry.

"If they just ate a little more at breakfast and lunch, if they just added a few hundred
extra calories in the morning, they would get their eating under control and lose
weight," she said.

The research on front-loading food

It's true that over-consuming calories at any time of day will result in weight gain. But
skipping meals or eating too few calories earlier in the day appears to stack the odds
against us. The result: Weight loss is hard to come by. In fact, more and more
research points to the fact that when you front-load your calories instead, you have a
much better chance of shedding pounds.

"What we have seen is that people on diets with the same number of calories who
front-load calories to the earlier part of the day fare better in terms of subjective and
objective measures of satiety," Freuman said. "They feel more satiated in evening,
and there are actually differences in their hunger and satiety hormones ... and this
seems to contribute to weight loss success."

One study involving 420 overweight and obese participants divided individuals into
two groups: early eaters and late eaters, based on the timing of their lunch (i.e.
before or after 3 p.m.). The late lunch eaters also ate lower-calorie breakfasts or
skipped breakfast more often than early eaters.

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At the end of the 20-week study period, the late eaters lost less weight compared
with the earlier eaters (17 vs. 22 pounds on average, respectively) and lost their
weight more slowly, despite the fact that both groups ate approximately 1,400
calories per day and consumed similar amounts of fat, protein and carbohydrates.

Another study followed two groups of overweight women with metabolic syndrome
on identical 1,400-calorie weight loss diets for 12 weeks. The only difference
between the groups was that their calories were distributed differently throughout the
day: Both groups consumed 500 calories at lunch, but one group consumed 700
calories for breakfast and a 200-calorie dinner (the "big breakfast" group), while the
other group ate 200 calories at breakfast and 700 calories at dinner (the "big dinner"
group).

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The nutrient content of the meals was exactly the same for both groups, the only
difference being that the breakfast and dinner meals were swapped. After 12 weeks,
the big breakfast group lost about 2½ times more weight than big dinner group (8.7
pounds for big breakfast group vs. 3.6 pounds for big dinner group) and lost over 4
more inches around their waist.

The big breakfast group experienced a 33% drop in triglyceride levels -- a marker
associated with heart disease risk -- while the group that ate the higher-calorie
dinner experienced a 14.6% increase. The bigger breakfast group also experienced
greater reductions in fasting glucose, insulin and insulin resistance scores, all of
which indicate decreased risk for type 2 diabetes, according to the study's authors.

So front-loading calories and carbohydrates is not only favorable in terms of weight

loss, it had beneficial effects on other indicators of overall health, including
decreased risk for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

That second study "opened my eyes," Freuman said. "It wasn't just that people were
less hungry and eating less at night, but it pointed to the fact that there might be
some sort of underlying metabolic magic going on, where the timing of calories and
carbs mattered more than the total amount of calories and carbs eaten in a day. It
helped me understand what I was intuitively seeing in my patients."

Circadian rhythms: the 'metabolic magic'

More and more research is suggesting that when you eat may be just as important
as what you eat. And it is very closely tied to the complex science of circadian
rhythms.
According to the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, circadian
rhythms are physical, mental and behavioral changes that follow a roughly 24-hour
cycle, responding primarily to light and darkness in an organism's environment.

Circadian rhythms are driven by biological clocks inside our bodies. The brain has a
master biological clock, influenced mainly by light, which tells "peripheral" clocks in
the muscles and organs what time of day it is. Because of these clocks, many of the
metabolic processes that take place inside us operate at different rates over the
course of a 24-hour period.

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"Because of circadian rhythms, there are variations in certain hormone levels,

enzyme levels and glucose transporters at different parts of the day, which
differentially affect how calories, carbohydrates and fat are metabolized," said
Freuman, who presented case studies of patients who improved their weight and
health by eating in sync with circadian rhythms at the New York State Academy of
Nutrition and Dietetics annual meeting in May 2016.

Circadian rhythms can help explain why eating late at night increases the likelihood
of weight gain and decreases the rate at which we lose weight, compared with
eating earlier in the day.

For example, research suggests that the calories we burn from digesting, absorbing
and metabolizing the nutrients in the food we eat -- known as diet-induced
thermogenesis -- is influenced by our circadian system and is lower at 8 p.m. than 8
a.m., according to Frank A.J.L. Scheer, director of the Medical Chronobiology
Program in the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at Brigham and Women's
Hospital in Boston.

Other metabolic processes involving insulin sensitivity and fat storage also operate
according to circadian rhythms and can greatly influence the likelihood of weight
gain or weight loss at different times of the day.

"These different metabolic processes ebb and flow at different times of the day, and
they play a role in how your body metabolizes food energy, which ultimately affects
your weight, cholesterol levels and blood sugar control -- and so it has tremendous
implications for what is considered optimal times for eating," Freuman said.
Breakfast-skippers beware
Circadian rhythms may help explain why breakfast skipping is associated with
increased risk of weight gain, even among those who consume comparable
amounts of calories in a day.

"The link between breakfast skipping and obesity had once been thought to be due
to overcompensation of calories at subsequent meals due to excess hunger ... but
the research does not consistently show differences in total energy intake among
breakfast-skippers," Freuman said.

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"Something else about skipping breakfast -- aside from potentially eating more
calories later in the day -- must explain the greater risk of weight gain among
breakfast skippers," she said. A more likely answer: Eating more calories in the later
part of the day is out of sync with metabolic circadian rhythms.

"We get less metabolically robust as we age," she explained. "So even if you've
gotten away with skipping breakfast and eating out of sync in your 20s or 30s, it may
eventually catch up with you."

Night shift workers can also benefit from eating in sync with their circadian rhythms.
They may modify meal timing to sync up with metabolic circadian rhythms by eating
breakfast at the end of their workday, at 7 or 8 a.m., and then eating their heaviest
meal when they wake up, about 3 or 4 p.m.

Freuman discourages her night shift patients from eating during the night. "We don't
want them eating many calories, so we'll have them sip on tea or have a Thermos of
miso soup or, if need be, something small like an apple in order to minimize
overnight calories.

"Your metabolism is working in a certain way, whether you are awake or asleep -- so
even if you are awake during most of the night, you still want to be eating most of
your calories during daylight. Sleep has little to do with it," Freuman said.

Tips for eating in sync with circadian rhythms

So how do we eat in sync with our circadian rhythms? They key is to front-load your
calories and carbs. Freuman suggests the following, which she advises to her
patients:
1. Don't skip breakfast

Ideally, breakfast should be satiating enough to preclude the need for a midmorning
snack, and it should have a minimum of 300 calories, according to Freuman. It
should always include high-fiber carbohydrates, which are more slowly digested
than refined carbs, and it should include protein, which helps keep hunger in check.

Good breakfasts include a cup of cooked oatmeal with low-fat milk and a small
handful of nuts, two slices of Ezekiel or whole-grain bread with mashed avocado and
sliced tomato, or a two-egg omelet with veggies, fruit and a slice of whole-wheat
toast.

If you are not hungry when you wake up, you can defer breakfast for a few hours --
but it should not be skipped, according to Freuman.

2. Have the "blue plate special" for lunch

"Lunch should be like that blue plate special ... the main meal of the day," Freuman
said.

For a simple lunch strategy, Freuman suggests filling half of your plate with non-
starchy vegetables and then dividing the second half into protein (like grilled fish or
chicken) and slowly digested high-fiber carbohydrates (like beans or quinoa). "A
salad with grilled chicken is fine, but try adding a baked sweet potato, a heaping
scoop of chickpeas or even a thick, hearty lentil soup," she said.

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If you prefer a sandwich for lunch, pair it with fiber-rich vegetables. "A turkey
sandwich is part of a good lunch, but it's not a whole lunch." Try adding butternut
squash soup or carrots with hummus.

Other good lunches that Freuman recommends include baked salmon with lentils
and cooked green veggies or a Mexican quinoa bowl with quinoa, black beans,
chicken, avocado and salsa, along with a pile of greens.

The easiest way to plan for lunch may be to use last night's leftovers. "I cook dinner
at home and bring in my leftovers for lunch the next day. When I get home from
work, I'm not tearing the house apart."

3. Pack a snack

An afternoon snack may be necessary if lunch and dinner are more than five hours
apart. However, it should be no more than 200 calories, and it should be high in
protein and fiber. "This will prevent you from arriving at dinner feeling 'starving,' "
Freuman said.

Snacks that will satisfy include an apple with a tablespoon of peanut butter, grape
tomatoes with string cheese, a hard-boiled egg or plain Greek yogurt with fruit.
4. Go low-carb for dinner

Dinner should be light and low in carbohydrates. "The more you can go low-carb for
dinner, the more it will mitigate the effects of distorted calories at night," Freuman
said.

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Dinners might include fish and a cooked vegetable, lettuce-wrapped tacos or a

turkey burger (minus the bun) and a salad with light dressing.

"I'll make turkey meatballs for my kids, and I'll give them pasta too, but I'll have mine
on a bed of spinach -- and the next day, I'll bring the pasta for lunch."

And when dining out, Freuman suggests ordering two appetizers, like a salad and a
shrimp cocktail or grilled calamari.

Lisa Drayer is a nutritionist, author and health journalist.