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Eat Early. Why Meal Timing Matters for Weight Loss

Don’t Eat Late, Large, Carb-Heavy Meals. Early Fasting is better than Late Fasting

Dr. Jason Fung
7 min readJul 31, 2024

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Weight loss is about much more than calories, because for any given number of calories, there are multiple factors that affect hormones like insulin or satiety hormones like GLP1 and GIP. Ultimately those hormones determine your level of hunger and metabolic rate, which determines how much you eat, and when you stop eating. I’ve discussed many of these factors in previous articles, like vinegar, organic acids, eating carbs last, fiber, food matrix, etc. Today I’ll discuss one more factor — meal timing.

Eating late at night is associated with more weight gain, and meal timing of food intake (eating early versus late) has changed over time. The overall modern pattern of meals is to eat later. From 1982 to 1999, surveys indicate that people are eat a higher percent of their calories later in the day, even though total calories is not much changed from 1982 to 1999, despite the obesity epidemic.

The obvious question, then is to ask whether eating earlier can cause weight loss, and the scientific evidence…

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Dr. Jason Fung
Dr. Jason Fung

Written by Dr. Jason Fung

Nephrologist. New York Times best selling author. Interest in type 2 diabetes reversal and intermittent fasting. Founder www.TheFastingMethod.com.

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