Nutritionist Detlef Papper often prescribes the following to overweight patients: eat a little more at each meal. “They are often shocked when they hear that they have to eat even more every day,” says Papper, “but despite this, there are now more than 2,000 overweight patients who follow my advice and can lose an average of more than a kilogram a month.”
Papper’s remedy is certainly not that simple. In addition to getting overweight patients to eat more, he puts more emphasis on getting patients to step on the rhythm of their biological clocks to lose weight.
Eat more in the morning and midday to save energy for daytime activities; don’t snack between breakfast and lunch, and avoid carbohydrates in the evening – so people can achieve the goal of losing weight while they sleep, while not having to starve and spoil their good appetite. “The body is able to burn off 70 to 100 grams of fat each night,” affirms Papper. This year he published a book with some other nutrition and exercise experts: “Slim in your sleep”.
Recent studies have confirmed that sleep can prevent fat gain, while lack of sleep can cause weight gain. A U.S. study involving 18,000 people showed that sleeping less than four hours a night makes you 73 percent more likely to gain weight than sleeping seven to nine hours a night. If you sleep 5 hours a night, the likelihood of gaining weight will also increase by 50%; if you sleep 6 hours, it will still be 23% higher.
Eating more breakfast makes you feel fuller
In addition, the timing of meals can also significantly affect how full we feel. After analyzing the eating habits of 867 people, psychologist John de Castro of the University of Texas reported that experiment participants consumed fewer calories in a day if they ate more breakfast and less dinner.
“Eating in the morning makes people feel fuller for a little longer,” Castro said. This translates into a lower caloric intake during the day; people get hungry faster when they eat a late night snack, which disguisedly leads to overeating.
