Can Nutrient Timing Really Help You Lose Weight?  

As if knowing how many calories and grams of carbs you need per day wasn’t confusing enough, the buzziest new weight-loss strategy, called nutrient timing, is all about eating specific nutrients, in specific amounts, at specific times.

Run a quick search on the Googs and you’ll find that bloggers and researchers are caught up in the nutrient-timing hype. Does how you space your protein intake throughout the day matter? Should you eat more carbs around your workout?

Well, yes and yes. But, when it comes to healthy nutrient timing, it’s important not to obsess over the details or eat every meal with a calculator on hand, says registered dietitian Kathleen M. Zelman, M.P.H., R.D., director of nutrition for WebMD.

Besides fast-tracking you to an unhealthy relationship with food, a nit-picky approach to nutrient timing misses the bigger picture of what its really all about: fueling your body to make weight loss easier, not harder.

“Properly fueling your body throughout the day can help ensure that you achieve the moderate caloric deficit that is necessary for healthy weight loss,” Zelman says.

Here, we explain the five keys to nutrient timing to help you cut calories, kick cravings, and build more metabolic-revving muscle for weight loss.

1. Eat Every Three to Four Hours
There’s nothing magic about this rule, but a lot of healthy eating plans fail because they don’t include it, says Zelman. “If you go more than three or four hours without eating, your blood sugar is going to get low,” she says. “No macronutrient will sustain you for longer than that.” And when your blood sugar gets low, that’s when you run the risk of overeating at subsequent meals. What’s more, when your blood sugar levels nosedive, so do your energy levels. For weight loss, it’s important to maintain your energy levels all day long.

If you want to eat every two hours, that’s cool too, says Zelman. Some people like to eat mini-meals every couple of hours rather than waiting three to four hours to eat. However, if that’s you, your mini meals actually have to be “mini.” If you have trouble tailoring your portion sizes for all-day grazing, she suggests sticking to three square meals and one or two snacks per day.

2. Eat 20 to 30 Grams of Protein at Every Meal
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, you need protein at breakfast to boost your satiety levels, crush cravings, and prevent overeating through the rest of the day!

Unfortunately, not only do most women still miss out on protein at breakfast (if they even eat breakfast), they don’t get much protein at lunch either. Then they mow down meat at dinner. However, even if you are getting enough protein throughout the course of the day, spreading it out between each meal helps you build more lean muscle without consuming a single extra calorie—or pulling any extra workouts.

In a 2014 study published in The Journal of Nutrition, researchers had men and women follow two different approaches to their protein intake. Either they ate roughly the same amount of protein at each meal (about 30 grams), or they ate a little bit at breakfast, a moderate amount at lunch, and a ton at dinner. Both eating strategies contained the same total daily caloric intake. Still, the people who evenly spaced their protein intake throughout the day built 25 percent more muscle than did those who skewed their protein intake toward the evening.

Your move: Shoot for about 20 to 30 grams of protein at each meal, says Zelman. Again, you don’t need to whip out the calculator, but keep in mind that 20 to 30 grams equal about a cup of Greek yogurt with slivered almonds or one four-ounce serving of chicken breast. Make an effort to include one awesome protein-packed food in each meal, and you should be pretty good.

3. Time Your Carb-Rich Meals Before Your Workouts
Carbs are fuel, and apart from being necessary for your brain to work its best, they're responsible for the vast majority of energy required during high-intensity and long-duration sweat sessions. Hence why research, including a comprehensive 2013 Sports Medicine review, shows that pre-workout carbs boost performance.

RELATED: 7 Foods That Boost Weight Loss AND Improve Your Workout

Unless you’re training for a marathon or doing some balls-to-the-walls workout, you probably don’t need any additional carbs right before you hit the gym. But eating your regularly scheduled carbs before you work out can help morning exercisers trying to lose weight. “First thing in the morning, your carb stores are depleted, so you’ll perform better if you eat fruit, oatmeal, or a piece of toast before exercising,” says board-certified sports dietitian Georgie Fear, R.D., C.S.S.D., author of Lean Habits for Lifelong Weight Loss. It can also reduce your chances of overeating later, she says.

4. Get Carbs and Protein Anytime After Working Out
Post-exercise protein helps you get the most from your workouts by building lean muscle, while carbs replete your energy levels and help protein get into your muscle cells, says Fear.

To get the benefits, you should try to nosh on protein within an hour after your cooldown, according to a review published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. 

Plus, your body uses some of the protein you eat before your workout to repair muscles too, says Fear. (Kick off your body transformation with Women's Health's Look Better Naked DVD.)

Whether you drink a smoothie on your way home or wait an hour or two after your workouts to down a meal, as long as your snack or meal of choice contains both carbs and protein, you’re good to go, she says.

5. Front-Load Your Day with Energy
“Eating more in the first half of the day helps control appetite and reduces nighttime noshing,” says Fear. “So front-load your day with a satisfying breakfast and lunch.”

Seriously. It works. In one International Journal of Obesity study, researchers found that people who eat most of their food earlier in the day have lower body mass indexes than those who go heavy on dinner and midnight snacks.

RELATED: The Exact Formula for a Weight-Loss Boosting Breakfast

And, since research also suggests that many women eat nearly half of their daily calories at—or even after—dinner, dialing up your breakfast and lunch intake may be one of the biggest opportunities to lose weight with nutrient timing. Fear recommends eating at least 400 calories at breakfast and lunch—each! 

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