Whether you put on or lose weight depends on weekdays

A new study has revealed that just as there are natural sleep cycles, so are there natural weight loss cycles which have a lot to do with whether a person is slim or chubby.

Dr. Brian Wansink from Cornell University, in collaboration with researchers from the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Tampere University of Technology, looks into the impact that the seven-days-a-week human cycle has on weight.

He said that almost everyone loses weight on weekdays and gains weight on weekends. What separates the slim from the heavy isn't how much more they gain on weekends, it's how much they lose during the weekdays.

Eighty adults participated in the study, ranging in age from 25 to 62 years old. These individuals were categorized according to relative weight changes: weight losers, weight gainers, and weight maintainers.

The results revealed a clear pattern in weekly weight fluctuation with higher weight after weekends (Sunday and Monday) and decreasing weight during the weekdays reaching the lowest point on Friday.

The researchers found a difference between weight losers and weight gainers in these fluctuation patterns.

Weight losers had stronger compensation pattern (i.e. after weekend the decrease started immediately and continued downward until Friday) whereas weight gainers had more variability between days and no clear decrease during weekdays.