How to lose and maintain weight and does eating at night actually cause weight gain?

Unfortunately, a great deal of people think that they will be able to defeat obesity without visiting endocrinologist. On internet you will encounter quite a few diets with flashy titles that are dangerous for health.

For some people the word diet is associated with hunger or eating one meal a day, which causes extra stress for the body and puts health in harm’s way.

The diet is called individual’s nutrition that is consumed daily. The word diet is not defined as a term for the nutrition composed for weight loss. Weight loss diets must be based on the individual’s health data, because otherwise it will have a short-term effect or weight will be frozen after a drastic weight loss.

Since in Georgia and rest of the world obesity is a pressing problem, we decided to address National Center of Surgery’s “New Life” clinic. If you are struggling to lose weight or want to maintain desired weight achieved by healthy nutrition, take into account these recommendations.  

National Center of Surgery’s “New Life” clinic’s endocrinologist Nino Abesadze discusses it with us.

– Ms. Abesadze what does healthy nutrition mean, how many times a day should we eat and how long should time intervals be?

–Basic principle of healthy nutrition is to allocate food rich in nutrients (proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, microelements) throughout the whole day. For food to transition from stomach to small intestine takes about 3-4 hours. After that time, we experience genuine hunger and subsequently, physiological interval between food consumption is determined as 4 hours. Depending on person’s daily regime, one should be able to allocate food in 3 or 4 portions.

– There’s a widespread notion in society that meals after 18:00 cause weight gain, how true is this information?

– This assumption and myth of "Meals after 6 PM cause weight gain” has no evidence. The main question isn’t when we eat, it’s what we eat and how much. Also, how physically active are we.

Late night eating and sleeping soon after isn’t good for digestive system’s functioning. For example, if you eat lightly at 20:00, afterwards you take a walk or don’t sleep min. 4 hours after the food is consumed, of course, you will not gain weight. Moreover, based on this principle, it’s recommended to eat in the evening.  However, late-evening or night eating is often not associated with genuine hunger, but with ways to relax yourself after a tiring day.

Studies have shown that those who love to eat at night often choose unhealthy food, preferring snacks (sweets, chips, hamburgers, pastry and etc.). Subsequently, they go over the limits of daily calories intake and as a result they gain weight.

Few years ago, an interesting experiment was conducted at the Northwestern University of Chicago, where some mice were fed at night and others during the daytime. Overall, both groups were taking the same amount of calories, but despite this, obesity problem was detected in mice that were fed at night.  

Such research was never conducted on humans, but it is considered that if we don’t go over the limits of our daily calories intake, which is determined according to our body mass, physical activity, gender and individual characteristics, we will not gain weight. For health purposes, it is desirable to eat 3-4 times a day, whereas at the end of the day, consume food up to 4 hours before bedtime.

– For many people diet is associated with hunger.

– People often have a desire to sharply and quickly lose weight and therefore, seek self-destructive diets. They starve, eat once in 24 hours, consume only one type of product, search for various ketogenic, protein and other types of diets and are on those diets longer that it asks for, which is absolutely inadmissible. Remember that such nutrition is not physiological for human body, and that the body experiences stress. It [body] thinks that the food supply is and will be limited in the future and starts to save each calorie in fat as a reserve. Despite this, these types of diets might produce noticeable results quickly and for short period of time, but simultaneous to losing weight, health is put in harm’s way, organism weakens and many diseases are provoked.

–  Another problem is that after a diet cessation or completion, going back to normal nutrition causes weight gain, why so?

– When weight stops after the sharp decline, diet should become stricter, which is impossible for above mentioned unhealthy ones. The approach of slowly reducing daily calorific value is less stressful for human body and it protects us from “plateau” i.e. weight freezing phenomena. After the start of healthy diet, patient will not have to go back to old regime, since the diet will be as physiological and diverse as it should be for any person.

For better clarification, let’s discuss an example: If the patient has been consuming dough products, sweats or other high calorie products for a few years and one day started eating only salad leaves, patient actually reduced daily calorific value in half. In this way person will sharply lose weight in few weeks, but such limited nutrition, obviously, will not last long. When returning to the usual regime, human body will greedily consume and save all extra calories. Therefore, it is necessary to gradually restrict nutrition and in the end move to physiological and daily needs.

–What’s more important healthy nutrition or exercises when fighting obesity?

–  The fight against obesity is good if it’s with combined forces. It is necessary to spend energy absorbed from food. Physical activities should also be selected step by step. At the initial stage light exercise are recommended. For example, fast pace walking, swimming, aerobics 5 times a day for half an hour. Do not attack your body from every side. First start with adjusting your nutrition and afterwards start working on your physical activities. 

– Why do we gain weight?

–The main reason for obesity is intake of excessive amount of calories. Certain hormonal disorders affect body weight and metabolism, for example, functional thyroid disorder, treatments with glucocorticoids and insulin resistance prevent weight loss, but air does not cause weight gain, and ultimately the reason for accumulation of excessive amount of fat is misbalance between absorbed and burnt off calories.

Reasons for absorbing excessive calories are following:

• Stress
• Having no time for planning and preparing daily healthy nutrition.
• Frequent consumption of Fast-food and carbohydrates and saturated fat enriched food.

Diverse and good-for-health foods such as seafood, meat, dairy products, vegetables, fruits (daily) are not obtainable for majority of population due to social conditions. However, you can always make right choice. Important reason for obesity is also sedentary lifestyle and the lack of physical activity, which is a big problem for the 21st century.

– What methods are used for obesity cause diagnostics and treatment in “New Life” clinic?

–In "New Life" life overweight patients who face the obesity problem will be consulted by nutritionist-endocrinologists. Level and type of patient’s adiposity is assessed and reasons for weight gain are determined. The approach includes individual nutrition planning, as well as detection and treatment of hormonal disorders that prevent weight loss. It is important for a patient to be self-aware regarding nutrition and life style. In case of heavy morbid obesity, sleeve-gastrectomy or non-surgical endoscopic intragastric balloon procedures are performed

“New Life” clinic address: Tbilisi, Dighomi, Lubliana str. N21a.

You may contact “New Life” clinic’s call center at 577 059 900.

In case of any issues, you may contact “New Life” clinic’s endocrinologist Nino Abesadze for consultation at 599 44 08 03.

Wish you health!