Ask Dr Miriam

Q I’ve heard that by changing the time that I eat my meals I could lose fat. Is this true and how do I do it?

A Well, experiments with rodents have shown that by moving their feeding times closer together during the day they lost weight even though they were eating the same food and same number of calories.

This is because they’d had a longer period of not eating overnight.

In a small experiment with people, a group of volunteers was divided into two. The first group ate as usual but the second group moved breakfast later by 90 minutes and their evening meal forward 90 minutes.

That meant they had three hours of extra fasting overnight.

That second group lost fat and saw blood sugar and cholesterol levels fall.

It seems that the body reacts well to a nightly period of fasting.

So any time you can eat a later breakfast or an earlier dinner.