There is nothing better than when science is on our side and provides us with tools to improve our eating habits and burn fat, so finding out about a new study that analyzes how dining earlier is better for fat burning is great news.

What is this all about? Well, although a calorie is a calorie, regardless of when you consume it, it seems that it is not that simple, and that is what this new research reveals, where the timing of meals plays an important role in weight gain.

The study, published on June 11, 2020, in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism by the Endocrine Society, establishes that a late dinner is associated with weight gain and high blood sugar levels, regardless of whether the foods were the same as those from lunchtime.

According to Dr. Jonathan C. Jun, associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University and author of the study, which was conducted with 20 healthy participants of both sexes, the goal was to understand if dining later changed metabolism in a way that promoted obesity.

“That’s why we set out to conduct this randomized clinical controlled trial, with healthy individuals, and made them eat at two different times, controlling their food, diet, and also their sleep times,” he said in an interview with Healthline.

Dr. Jun and his team studied 20 healthy volunteers (10 men and 10 women) to discover how their bodies metabolized dinner at 10 p.m. instead of 6 p.m., and all study participants had the same bedtime: 11 p.m.

The results showed that blood sugar levels were higher and the amount of fat burned was lower when dining late, even when people ate the same food. Specifically, those who dined late had blood sugar peak levels nearly 20 percent higher, and fat burning was reduced by 10 percent compared to those who dined earlier.

But not all bodies reacted the same way, as people who were used to going to bed early fared worse when given a late-night meal, while those accustomed to staying up late and eating until 2 or 3 a.m. did not seem to be affected by the change.

However, the study's author stated that these tests do demonstrate that the timing of meals does relate to weight gain, as according to Jun, “this at least shows that there are plausible biological explanations of how food timing can affect the way the body handles those calories.”

Finally, the most important conclusion leads us directly to eating habits, as many people tend to have heavier meals during dinner, so to avoid it, experts recommend eating afternoon snacks rich in protein, such as Greek yogurt mixed with nuts.

Avoid heavy dinners with these protein snack recipes for the afternoon:

Grilled peaches with yogurt, honey, and granola

Granola toast with yogurt