Here ’s When Your Body Burns the Most Calories, According to a New Study

Everything from your workouts to your sleep schedule can influence how many calories you burn throughout the day. And according to a small new study, there may be a time of day during which your body naturally burns the most calories. That’s likely thanks to circadian rhythms, which control the body’s internal clock and sleep and wake cycles. These rhythms can also influence calorie burning, according to the research, which was published Thursday in Current Biology. At rest, humans burn about 10% more calories in the late afternoon than they do late at night, laboratory experiments found. That equals about 130 extra calories burned during the late afternoon and evening versus the middle of the night, without any extra work on your part, says study co-author Dr. Jeanne Duffy, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a neuroscientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Even a small increase like this could impact health. “If it’s happening every day,” Duffy says, “you can imagine that over time it could add up.” Since the research focused on calorie burn at rest — that is, the energy required to power bodily functions such as breathing and blood circulation — Duffy says it’s not clear whether people should reschedule their workouts and mealtimes around this late-afternoon energy surge. What may be more relevant to day-to-day behavior, she says, is avoiding the body’s calorie-burning di...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized healthytime Research Source Type: news