Weekday Eating Is Key To Weight Loss

Bag Lunch — (Photo : Flickr: Jeffrey Beall) A daily bag lunch is just what you might need to lose weight according to a recent study that says a regimented weekly meal is more important to weight maintenance than cutting down on weekend splurges.

Weight loss is all about the weekdays according to a new study published in the European journal Obesity Facts.

The study analyzed the weight gain and loss patterns of 80 adults ranging in age from 25 to 62 years old. The study participants were required to weigh themselves after waking up and before breakfast each morning. These measurements were recorded over course of at least a week.

After analyzing the data collected, researchers categorized the participants into three groups. The groups were "weight losers" (losing at least %3 of weight), "weight gainers" (gaining at least 1% of weight) and "weight maintainers" (ranging in-between -3% and +1%).

The resulting study shows that most people tend to reach their highest weight during the weekends and lowest weight during the weekday. Study co-author Brian Wansik of Cornell University and author of the book Slim by Design wrote that this is likely because people are better at maintaining a consistent amount of eating during the regimented weekdays, but over the weekend they are free to splurge.

What makes weight losers different from weight gainers, the study explains, is how they lose the weekend weight over the course of the weekdays. Weight losers are seen to gradually lose the weight over the course of the week, until weight loss marginally meets or exceeds the weekend gain. This is how healthy eaters slim down or stay slim.

Weight gainers, on the other hand, showed no such pattern. In most cases, gainers still reached maximum weight over the weekend, but inconsistent eating habits over the weekday lead to sporadic results of peak gain and loss over the five days.

These results would imply that regimented eating habits over the weekday is extremely important to successful weight control. The study concludes that weight loss is less-so about cutting down those weekend splurges and more-so about controlling eating habits over the course of the week.

The study was published in Obesity Facts. You can read more about it at Cornell University's Food Psychology.