Sticking
to a certain timeframe could mean the difference between frustration and
results.
If you're trying to
maintain your weight or shed a few pounds, you might want to do more than swap
burgers for salads: New research suggests it's not just what you eat but
when you eat that can cause you to add inches to your waistline (or lose them,
for that matter).
Salk
Institute researchers looked at nearly 400 mice, feeding the lean and obese
animals a variety of high-fat and high-sugar diets over the course of nine-,
12- and 15-hour periods (in other words, the mice didn't eat anything except
for during that timeframe). Even though all of the mice consumed the same
number of calories, the ones that noshed over longer periods of time gained
more weight than those with time-restricted access to food.
Pretty
crazy that fasting for a larger portion of the day seemed to impact how
calories were stored or burned by their bodies. The results even indicate that
maintaining a restricted diet may help prevent diabetes and high cholesterol.
When
the researchers witnessed these results, they put obese mice to one more test:
They placed them on the nine-hour time-restricted diet—and found that the mice
shed an average of five percent of their body fat in just a few days, losing an
average of 25 percent of their weight by the end of the 38-week study.
Granted,
since this is an animal study, the results don't necessarily apply to humans.
But back in 2007, a study conducted on humans showed similar
results. In that one, a group of adults who ate within a restricted time period
shed more fat and lost more pounds than the control group that consumed the
same number of calories spread out over three meals a day.
So
if you're looking to maintain—or even lose—weight, you might want to try eating
within a nine- or 12-hour window. Even if you can't do it every day, plans like The 8-Hour Diet explain
how you can see results from following a schedule like this for just a few days
each week.
没有评论:
发表评论