When it comes to losing weight, we are all on the hunt for anything that’ll make the process easier.

But what if it was merely down to what time of day you eat?

While science has earlier revealed the time of day you should generally eat each meal, a new study has found the specific time you should be eating dinner.

     

Scientists looked at data from 110 participants between the ages of 18 & 22. They analyzed sleep & circadian behaviors along with food intake over one week.

To log their food, participants used an app while their body composition & the timing of melatonin release – the chemical which helps with sleep – was assessed in a lab.

The study discovered that the participants with the highest body fat percentages ate the bulk of their daily calories shortly before bed.

One of the surest ways to lose weight is to eat your evening meal a few hours before you go to sleep – so you have time to appropriately digest.

If you go to sleep at 11pm on a regular evening, you should make sure you have had your dinner by 8pm.

You should also try to keep away from dessert or sweet snacks too close to bed time.

That is because sugar-packed foods might not look like much, but they pack a lot of calories into a small portion.

The research authors concluded that those with lower body fat percentages often stayed awake for some hours after eating their last meal of the day.

Lead author, Andrew McHill said: "We found that the timing of food intake relative to melatonin onset, a marker of a person's biological night, is associated with higher percent body fat & BMI, & not associated with the time of day, amount or composition of food intake.

"These findings suggest that the timing of when you consume calories, relative to your own biological timing may be more important for health than the actual time of day."