Whew!

You made it through the holidays, surviving Uncle Joe’s bombastic storytelling and that parade of pecan pies and rum-laced eggnog. The downside? You probably gained a bit of weight. An eight-week study from Texas Tech tracked 150 adults and found the average holiday weight increase is about 2 pounds for men and 1 pound for women (although some participants gained up to 13 pounds!). And even a little holiday weight gain over 10 to 20 seasons may leave you busting your seams, not to mention damaging your heart health and risking out of control blood sugar levels.

Unfortunately, shedding accumulating pounds can be frustrating. That’s why there’s low-carb, high-carb, intermittent fasting and other trendy eating styles. They all claim to work, but leave you going from one to the other, year after year, in pursuit of results that endure.

Have we got news for you!

When you eat is more important than what you eat (that doesn’t mean what you eat doesn’t matter). There’s new science that shows your weight and your overall health benefit enormously when you time your intake of specific types of food to sync up with your natural metabolic rhythms.

31 DAYS TO A HEALTHIER YOU

We don’t expect you to totally renovate your eating habits in 31 days, but you can launch yourself on a trajectory that will make you feel younger and get healthier as you shed excess pounds. The key principals are:

>> Eat when the sun is shining. The sun is what sets your internal clock, and the latest science shows that your metabolism peaks around 9 a.m. So honor your body by feeding it sometime around then.

>> Don’t stereotype what foods should be eaten when. Have dinner for breakfast! You want to front-load your calorie intake so breakfast or lunch is your biggest meal of the day, and dinner the smallest.

THE 31-DAY PLAN, STEP BY STEP

Through each step you’ll try to maintain the previous ones as you add to them. But if you slip up, you can go back and pick them up again. This is a change for a lifetime, not a crash diet.

>> Days 1-3: Get to know your food habits by keeping a journal of everything you eat and when you eat it.

>> Days 4-8: Start to eat most of your food before 2 p.m. Don’t worry about what you’re eating.

>> Days 9-14: Try eating all your meals between sunrise and sunset.

>> Day 15: Reflect on the difference between Day One and today. Give yourself credit for all you’ve accomplished.

>> Days 16-19: Now you can think about what you’re eating. How often do you eat processed foods? Added sugars? Fried foods? Evaluate how many veggies and fruits you get in a day. Any whole grains? Fish?

>> Days 21-23: We hope you’re on your way to eradicating processed foods from your diet. But no worries if you’re still in the process of adopting the #WhenWay approach to eating!

>> Days 24-26: Try to get more whole grains into your diet: 100 percent whole wheat, corn, rice, oats, barley, quinoa, sorghum, spelt, rye, millet and teff.

>> Days 27-28: Look back to move forward. See what steps need revisiting.

>> Day 29-30: Focus on your smallest meal of the day: dinner. Make sure it’s tasty and satisfying, and remember you can always have a salad along with soup or a grain bowl.

>> Day 31: Congratulations. You’ve made significant changes in your eating habits. Now’s the time to aim for increased consistency, getting every day to reflect the wisdom of WHEN and the benefits of WHAT.

Mehmet Oz, M.D., is host of “The Dr. Oz Show,” and Mike Roizen, M.D., is Chief Wellness Officer and Chair of Wellness Institute at Cleveland Clinic. Email questions to youdocsdaily@sharecare.com.