Eating only within an 8-Hour Daily Timeframe Results in Weight Loss

[Baron]

Eat whatever you want but only eat during a limited part of the day. Using this principle, obese individuals can lose weight with relatively little effort. Nutritional scientists at the University of Illinois at Chicago report this in Nutrition and Healthy Aging.

Study
The researchers experimented for 12 weeks with 2 groups of two dozen obese adults. The control group did not change its dietary pattern, but the experimental group was only allowed to eat between 10 o'clock in the morning and 6 o'clock in the evening.

The control group ate from half past nine in the morning until half past eight in the evening.

Results
Although the subjects in the experimental group were allowed to eat as much as they wanted in the 8 hours they could eat, nevertheless reduced their energy intake by 20 percent. That amounted to 341 kilocalories per day.

The effect of the reduced energy intake due to the intermittent fasting dietary pattern was - of course - weight loss. The subjects lost about 2 kilos on average.

The lean body mass of the subjects did not change.

Conclusion
"In summary, these findings suggest that an 8-hour time-restricted feeding produces mild caloric restriction and weight loss in obese adults, without intentional calorie counting", the researchers summarize.

"These preliminary data offer promise for the use of time restricted feeding as a weight loss technique in obese adults, but longer-term, larger-scale randomized controlled trials will be required before solid conclusions can be reached."

Source:
Nutrition and Healthy Aging 4 (2018) 345-53.

 

[CaptainObvious]

In your opening sentence it says they can eat "whatever" they want and further down the study says they can eat "as much as they want". Two very different things. As much of a good thing I can see working. Whatever means whatever, and that I can't see being successful.

 

[Baron]

Generally speaking, the restricted time window is the main constraint with intermittent fasting, so you can eat whatever you want and in whatever quantity in that 8-hour window. It sounds easy in theory, but trust me, when you wake up at 7AM and you realize that you can't eat for another 5 hours, your stomach will be gnawing a hole in itself all morning.

 

[HobbyTrading]

It sounds easy in theory, but trust me, when you wake up at 7AM and you realize that you can't eat for another 5 hours, your stomach will be gnawing a hole in itself all morning.

Yep, been there, done that.
Intermittent fasting was a successful approach for me as I lost 10 kg (22 lbs).

 

[Louis Winthorpe]

Fasting between 12 hours and even days is extremely beneficial to the body. Tim Ferriss discusses ketosis fasting a lot in his books and on his podcasts.

 

[El OchoCinco]

Loadding up Keto wise in the eating window will make the fasting portions much easier to handle.

 

[rocketman987]

If weightloss is the ONLY goal but is it?

 

[Frederick Foresight]

For the last couple of weeks or so, I have diligently followed a 10-hour feeding window and have lost a few pounds without really trying all that hard. It's really not that difficult: I have my last meal of the day by about 6 pm and I don't eat until after 8 am the next morning. However, I do drink water after 6 pm and have unsweetened green tea before 8 am the following morning. A 10-hour feeding window may not be as effective as an 8-hour window, but it is not at all a hardship. And I don't even have a heavy last meal of the day to carry me over. Further, I'm already quite lean, so this was not low-hanging fruit. I was generally attentive to my approximate caloric intake and made sure that I had an adequate and balanced macronutrient intake.

However, I should also point out that I was even more circumspect than usual about what I ate. So I don't know about, and can't comment on, the "eat whatever you want and however much you want" part; that just seems like a bad idea on the face of it.

 

[Baron]

The "eat whatever you want and however much you want" is misleading because people think they will be able to just stuff themselves during that 8-hour window and be fine for the next 16 hours. But it doesn't work like that.

If a person does decide to have a really big first meal, what ends up happening is that he's not even hungry 4 or 5 hours later because of that. So he ends up having maybe a few snacks or perhaps a small meal before the eating window of time closes, which will likely still leave him in a calorie deficit over the next 16 hours for weight loss.

 

[LS1Z28]

So a group of people eating at a calorie deficit for 12 weeks lost more weight than a group of people eating normally? I'm shocked.

I've always wondered about IF. I've heard that it can do wonders for boosting HGH levels. It's hard to tell too much from this study though. They should've had the control group eating at a calorie deficit as well.