Delay breakfast to lose weight, says expert

Eating first meal at 11am is best way to achieve 14 hours of fasting and boost metabolism, says professor

BREAKFAST should be eaten after 11 o’clock in the morning, an expert in nutrition has said.

Waiting a few hours before eating is better for individuals’ health and helps shed unwanted weight, according to Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London.

People mostly eat dinner later than previous generations, often finishing it at around 9pm. An 11am breakfast is, therefore, the best way to achieve a 14 -hour overnight fast, which growing evidence suggests is best for humans’ metabolism, he added.

Prof Spector told an audience at Cheltenham Science Festival: “If you have a later breakfast, that will give you some benefits. I think we have to rethink all the things we have been told are unhealthy, because there’s just so much new science coming out.”

Speaking after the talk, he said: “There are still people, particularly in the north of England, who eat earlier, but generally we have moved towards continental eating habits, having dinner much later, like people in Spain and Italy. Even those who don’t do that may end up snacking up until 9pm, making it difficult to achieve a 14-hour fast.

“There is a simple change people can make, by shifting their breakfast from 8am to 11am. [That is] actually more effective than more fashionable fasting diets like 5:2.” Intermittent fasting is a popular dieting technique that allows people to eat whatever they want within a specific time period every day. However, there has been much debate over its effectiveness and the precise timings of the eating and fasting periods.

A recent study found calling a halt to eating at 3pm was more effective for weight loss than eating into the evening and people who did so lost three pounds more over a five-week period.

But modern lifestyles can make this difficult, as long work hours and hefty commutes push dinner later into the evening, so Prof Spector has suggested converting breakfast into a brunch.

“Fasting for 14 hours a day, [having] a later breakfast, but overall eating the same amount, is easier to achieve longterm,” he said. “It works because the microbes in our gut have a circadian rhythm, like us, and need a rest period.

“A later breakfast to achieve 14 hours of fasting could help people to lose four to 11 pounds of weight over several months.

“Their microbes essentially become more efficient at burning food.” Prof Spector said people who feel ravenous in the mornings, or fear becoming lightheaded without an earlier breakfast, were likely to adapt quickly to the new routine.

Prof Spector co-created the ZOE app that was used to track Covid in the community, but also works on projects to find out what foods and diets work best.

His book Spoon-fed: Why Almost Everything We’ve Been Told About Food Is Wrong