Although you may know when you have more energy to exercise, you may not be aware that there’s are times of the day where we burn more calories.
When you burn more calories
A study published in Current Biology found that we burn 10% more calories later in the day, no matter what we’re doing.
The research was limited to only seven people because the participants were confined to a lab that had no windows, phones, clocks or the Internet. This ensured that the participants didn’t know what time of day it was.
For three weeks, each participant was given a bedtime and told when to wake up. Each day those times were adjusted by four hours.
By doing this, the researchers forced the participants’ bodies to develop their own patterns, unaware what time it was and unable to settle into a rhythm.
Throughout the day, researchers measured the participants’ metabolic rate to evaluate calorie consumption.
The scientists found that the lowest metabolic rate occurred during the participants’ biological “night” and the highest metabolic rate was about 12 hours later in what constituted the participants’ biological afternoon and evening.
“The fact that doing the same thing at one time of day burned so many more calories than doing the same thing at a different time of day surprised us,” says Kirsi-Marja Zitting, the lead author of the study.
The research was carried out by the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
How to apply the study’s findings
If you’re looking to put these results into practical use, consider making lunch your biggest meal instead of dinner. You may also want to exercise later in the day to maximize the calories you’re burning.
“It is not only what we eat, but when we eat—and rest—that impacts how much energy we burn or store as fat,” explains another of the researchers, Jeanne Duffy.
“Regularity of habits, such as eating and sleeping, is very important to overall health.”
