Maintaining a Healthy Diet Takes Effort In Reducing Body Fat

Gaining weight as you age is almost inevitable. In fact, as you age, your metabolism slows, and the rate at which you break down food decreases by 10 percent every decade after your 20s. A slowing metabolism can lead to weight gain every year even if you don’t eat more than you normally do. Plus, if you’re not really tracking your calories, you may actually be ingesting more food than you burn. Most people are notorious for underestimating exactly how much they eat. Even 100 calories over the recommended amount every day can lead to weight gain over a period of time.

Maintaining a healthy weight takes effort, so you definitely need to be mindful of what you eat. Consuming a balanced diet of whole grains, vegetables, and fruits can go a long way in maintaining your weight. However, there are new studies available that show when you eat can be just as important as what you eat. This isn’t a new idea. In fact, it dates back to ancient China where medics believed your chi flowed around the body in parallel to the sun’s movements and that meals should be timed accordingly. While the explanation from modern science is a bit different, there’s research that suggests there is truth to this wisdom.

Body Clock

You might have heard that eating late at night can lead to weight gain because your body’s metabolism slows down and thus you have fewer opportunities to burn off calories. While this myth has been around for years, research actually shows that your body doesn’t process food differently later at night. Your weight fluctuations take days if not weeks to happen due to long-term patterns of eating and exercise. While your metabolism does slow at night, you’re still burning calories for basic bodily functions even while sleeping.

So if you aren’t prone to gaining weight if you eat later, why does it matter when you eat? The answer is tied to your body clock. Preliminary studies have found that overweight women who were put on a weight-loss diet and consumed most of their calories at breakfast lost two and a half times more weight than those who had a light breakfast and ate most of their calories at dinner. Other studies have found that adjusting the timing of your breakfast and dinner can have similar effects on the way your body processes meals as intermittent fasting without the actual fasting part. Called time-restricted feeding (TRF), scientists had individuals dealy breakfast by 90 minutes and eat dinner 90 minutes earlier than usual. Those who stuck with the schedule reduced overall body fat by about 1.9 percent.

So what does this mean? In general, your body does burns through food at a faster rate earlier in the day. In fact, previous studies found the rate was almost twice as fast at 8:00 am than 8:00 pm. With that said, changing your eating schedule isn’t necessarily easy. Participants in the study actually said they would not be able to follow the mealtime changes consistently. Most people are used to eating at specific times so it can be difficult to break that habit. Besides that, there are plenty of other roadblocks that can prevent you from following a TRF including work and family responsibilities.

If you can’t follow a TRF diet, you might want to consider instead changing up how many calories you eat during your meals. There’s an old saying: “breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper.” So essentially, make breakfast your biggest meal of the day and dinner your smallest. A filling breakfast can help decrease overeating later in the day and reduce the desire for sugary snacks.

Fat Burning Foods

Of course, you can’t just depend on one method for weight loss. While adjusting when you eat is important, you also need to be conscious of what you put in your body. Counting calories can be a great way to reduce your general intake, but there are also some foods that can help you reduce your overall body fat.

Fats, or lipids, are an important macronutrient that your body uses for energy. While many people think fats are unhealthy, they are necessary to keep your body functioning and to protect your vital organs. With that said, fat molecules contain more calories than other macronutrients like carbohydrates and proteins. That means eating large amounts of fat causes your body to convert that energy into body fat.

Luckily, there are foods that can help you burn fat that you should consider incorporating into your diet such as:

• Whole grains - these are rich in fiber, which can keep you feeling full for longer, and also contain complex carbohydrates that take more energy for your body to break down. Swap brown rice for white and whole wheat for all-purpose.

• Nuts - nuts are a great source of protein and ‘good’ fats. Peanuts are rich in monounsaturated fats, which can help reduce belly fat. Walnuts contain omega-3 fatty acid, which can help lower the risk of heart disease, depression, dementia, and arthritis

• Lean meats - sure, a nice burger tastes great, but it’s also not great for you. If you’re a meat-eater, stick with protein sources that promote fat burning like skinless chicken breasts, lean beef, and ground turkey.

• Lentils - these are an excellent vegetarian source of protein and also helps promote satiety

• Tea - there’s evidence that drinking green tea can accelerate fat burning and weight loss.

Different Types of Fats

When you think of fat, you probably think about the fat on your body. While that is made of fat molecules, there are actually four major classes of fat that your body uses: saturated, trans, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated. You’ve probably heard of trans fat before. Back in 2018, the FDA banned artificial trans fat in processed foods such as baked goods, crackers, or fried foods.

Even if you remove processed food from your diet completely, you can consume trans fat as it exists naturally in dairy and other animal products. Trans fat combined with saturated fats (found in beef, dairy, and skin-on chicken) in conjunction have both been associated with a higher chance of developing heart disease.

The other two types of fat are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats and considered ‘healthy’ fats. These are the fats that you can find in plant products and can help lower levels of LDL cholesterol and increase levels of HDL cholesterol. As such, they can reduce your chances of developing cardiovascular issues.

How The Body Burns Fat

Regardless of what kind of fat you consume, they all cannot dissolve in water or blood. Instead, they are broken down by enzymes in your stomach and small intestine. The fatty acid is then absorbed by the small intestine, repackaged, and then transported through the blood via a structure called lipoproteins. Fat itself exists to store energy that your body will need later on. However, as you eat more high-calorie foods, your body will continue to expand the number of fat cells to accommodate the excess energy.

This system worked well when we were hunter-gatherers and weren’t sure when our next meal would be. When the body was in need of energy, it would release the fatty acids into the bloodstream for use as fuel when no food was available. Nowadays, it’s not such a great system as we have an overabundance of food and safe living conditions. It’s no surprise that more than a third of the adult population in the United States is obese.

The biggest issue is that fat cells themselves don’t function like normal cells. They store energy at a high rate and release energy at a very slow rate. They also produce abnormal amounts of different hormones which can increase inflammation, slow metabolism, and contribute to various diseases. That makes it a lot harder to lose weight once you’ve put it on. It’s not impossible, of course. When you maintain a healthy lifestyle of exercise and diet, the body will do two things to ‘burn fat.’ First it uses the energy stored in fat cells to fuel new activity. Second, it will stop putting away so much energy for storage. When the brain signals fat cells to release energy, the muscles, lungs, and heart pick up the fatty acid, breaks them apart, and uses the stored energy to execute activities. Any leftovers are discarded during respiration or in the urine. Over time, the body will extract energy from food to the organs instead of storing them.

It takes dedication, but so long as you follow a consistent regimen, you will lose fat. The trick is to stick with it. It can take months for your body to get used to not storing energy as fat, but eventually it will readjust by decreasing the number and size of fat cells. This will ultimately help improve your baseline metabolism and remove any excess empty fat cells, which will leave you leaner and healthier.

Nutrients That Promote Fat Metabolism

Burning fat sounds easier than it actually is. As noted above, it requires dedication and consistency. Part of the equation comes down to calories. Your body requires a certain amount of calories for baseline functions, also known as your resting metabolic rate. If you burn more calories than you use, you’ll lose weight. If you don’t, then you gain weight. If you’re already overweight, shedding one pound means reducing your caloric intake by 500 a day for a week.

In general, the body prioritizes carbohydrates as an energy source when they’re available. If those are unavailable, the body will begin burning fat. With that in mind, in can be helpful to follow the guidelines below:

• Eat more protein as it can improve your feeling of satiety. This means you are less likely to indulge in carbohydrate-rich food.

• Consume healthy fats as it can reduce your belly fat

• Avoid refined carbs as they are very easy for your body to break down. Instead, opt for simple carbohydrates so that you can force your body to burn fat molecules for energy instead.

• Eat a fiber-rich diet as it can help keep you fuller for longer and studies have shown that adding 10 grams of soluble fiber a day can reduce visceral fat by 3.7 percent.

Changing your diet will have the most dramatic effect on your weight and fat content, but you should also add exercise to the mix. While exercise isn’t actually great for losing weight, it is good for maintaining a healthy weight and has plenty of other health benefits. For best fat-burning results, you should focus on high intensity interval training at least two days a week.

Losing Weight and Dropping Overall Body Fat Requires Hard Work

If you’re really serious about losing weight and dropping your overall body fat, you’ll need to combine a few methods for best results. While there are some studies that suggest eating at different times of day or restricting when you eat can help you with your weight loss, your best bet is to change your eating habits. It’s not easy, but it’s the most effective option. 

When changing your diet, make sure you don’t avoid fats completely. Instead opt for healthy fats found in nuts, fish, seeds, and more. You should also increase your intake of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains to burn fat even more effectively. Of course, even if you don’t lose a ton of weight, switching over to a balanced diet will ultimately benefit your overall health.

Shana Thompson is a full time professional writer and editor. Shana has worked extensively in the fields of content marketing, on-page and off-page SEO (guest posts, backlink acquisition), and creative writing. As an experienced pro content writer, Shana has worked on several magazines, publishing companies and marketing agencies. Many recent projects have included everything from nutrition and health services, where a lot of research and citations were needed, to writing about health, sustainable, eco-friendly products.

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