Next trend in dieting
Restricted eating time is beneficial
NEW year, new crazy diet trend.
Health experts have revealed research behind the new concept dubbed “time-restricted feeding”, or TRF, which follows the rule you can eat whatever you want as long as its in a specific time window.
TRF, which is hailed as a miracle tool for weight loss and diabetes prevention, means you can pick the hours you want to eat and eat as much as you want — as long as it’s in a 12-hour window, or ideally 10 hours.
The findings, published in the journal Cell Metabolism, revealed those following TRF consumed fewer calories and lost weight, with others recording a lower blood pressure, improved glucose levels and even physiological changes linked to slowing the ageing process.
Satchidananda Panda, a professor at Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, first tracked the effects of timerestricted feeding in mice in 2012.
He expanded his studies to include humans in 2015, using a free research app he created called ‘MyCircadianClock’, which followed 156 people.
Dr Panda found when eight overweight people who normally ate for 15-plus hours a day restricted their eating to a 10-hour window for 16 weeks, they lost 4 per cent of their weight.
A year later, they reported sticking to the plan, even though they didn’t have to, and had kept the weight off.
“All of them said they slept better, and they felt more energetic throughout the day,” Dr Panda said.
“They were actually feeling less hungry.”
The TRF studies of mice — which provided the bulk of research on the strategy — found that the body has more time to produce the components for cellular repair, break down toxins and colouring agents in food, and repair damaged DNA in the skin and stomach lining.
Leonie Heilbronn, an associate professor at the University of Adelaide in Australia, is studying the effects of TRF in 16 overweight men at risk of developing type-2 diabetes.
The men followed two schedules, eating from 8am to 5pm, or from noon until 9pm for one week and then, after a two-week break, eating on the other schedule for another week.
“Both improved their glycaemia responses,” Dr Heilbronn said, referring to the effect food has on blood sugar levels.
While the men lost weight it wasn’t enough to account for the improved glucose levels.
“There’s something else going on that’s not just driven by weight change,” she said.
There are a number of other fad diets and foods which are predicted to boom as the new year gets underway, with single products like oxygenated water and activated charcoal touted to be popular, as well as whole foods.
The “apple cider vinegar diet”, the “Eddie McGuire diet” and the “CSIRO low carb diet” are all set to roll over into 2018 after gaining attention as the big diet trends last year.
McGuire, the popular TV host, lost 15 kilograms in three weeks by following a Chinese herb fasting diet, which involved eating nothing at all for two weeks.
Instead, he drank a specially formulated mix of Chinese herbs and then on the third week consumed half a cucumber and 50 grams of chicken before 1pm each day.
The apple cider vinegar plan involved several tablespoons of apple cider vinegar in daily diets. It was said to suppress appetite meaning you eat less.
But the celebrated 5:2 diet, favoured by celebrities such as Beyonce, is on the way out after it was revealed it lacked any evidence of helping with longterm weight loss.
The diet boomed in 2012 and involved dieting for two days a week and eating normally for the other five, but scientists at Glasgow University found that “intermittent energy restriction”, as The Fast Diet approach is known, offers no advantage over other diets.