Keeping food diary could be key to staying slim and fit

Adopting a fixed timetablefor meals could be a more effective method
of dieting than trying to cut out fatty foods, say researchers. People
who snack on healthy food can put on weight if their eating patterns
are not maintained properly, according to new study.
In contrast, the researcherssaid, sticking to strict mealtimes is good
for the metabolism and helps the body burn off fat, allowinga more
liberal choice of food, The Telegraph reported.
Previous studies have shown that both a high-fat diet and eating
patterns that disrupt the natural body clock can interfere with our
metabolism and raise the risk of obesity.
Scientists from the HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem tested the effects
of timingand fat intake on four groups of mice over an 18-week period
to determine whether carefulscheduling of meals could lower the
effects of a high-fat diet.
Half were given a high-fat diet that would normally be expected to
make themobese. Of these, a quarter were fed at the same time each day
and another quarter could eat as much as they liked, whenever they
liked.
The other half was fed a diet that was lower in fat. Again, one
quarter had a fixed feeding time, the other had not.
All four of the groups gained weight over the course of the trial,
with the group that ate a high-fat diet at irregular intervals
unsurprisingly gaining the most weight, while those on a low-fat,
scheduled diet gained the least.
But more surprisingly, the mice that had been fed a high-fat diet at
regular intervals finished the trial in a better condition than those
that ate low-fat foods whenever they wanted, despite both groups
consuming the same number of calories overall.
The mice in the scheduled, high-fat group had 12 per cent lower body
weight, 21 per cent lower cholesterol and 1.4 times higher sensitivity
to insulin than the unscheduled, low-fat group.
The diet also changed their metabolism so that they burnt off the fats
they ingested to produce energy in between meal times, rather than
storing the fat in their bodies.
"Our research shows that the timing of food consumption takes
precedence over the amount of fat in the diet, leading to improved
metabolism and helping to prevent obesity," the paper quoted Prof Oren
Froy, who led the experiment, as saying.
"Improving metabolism through the careful scheduling of meals, without
limiting the content of the daily menu, could be used as a therapeutic
tool to prevent obesity in humans," he suggested.
The study was published in the Journal of the Federation of American
Societies for Experimental Biology.