WHY IT WORKS

herpes virus, acne, eczema and psoriasis, and better sleep, which in turn helps dial down anxiety.

As well as the above-mentioned process of autophagy, which is a type of bodily housekeeping where damaged cells are repaired and old cells are slung out – something thought to protect us against heart attack, dementia, digestive issues and cancers – there are various theories about why this way of eating is so beneficial.

While you can, to some extent, choose your eating window, the consensus is that 8pm is a healthy cut-off for consuming food, which automatically means that you tend to shave off a few calories because you’re not snacking on the sofa, or drinking as much alcohol. (You can drink alcohol during your 10-hour window but during your fast period, you shouldn’t really drink anything apart from water, and coffee or tea without milk or sugar.)

But it’s not just about calories. Fasting seems to reset the body’s hunger and satiety hormones, so the ones that register that we’re full go up, and the ones that make us peckish go down, meaning we’re better at judging when we’ve eaten enough. But this method of eating also seems to burn more fat as, after 12 hours without food, the body has used up stored sugar from the liver and starts to burn fat for energy in the morning until we start eating. Levels of insulin also fall when you fast for 12 hours or more, so your body isn’t being encouraged to store fat.

HOW TO DO IT

You wouldn’t run a marathon without any training – it would be destined to fail – so don’t plunge headlong into a new regime without some preparation. If you want to try the 10-Hour Diet, I would really recommend committing to it for three months so you can see the best results, but in order to embark upon it in a way that works for you, start by keeping track of everything you eat or drink – and when – for two weeks. When you’ve got that information, you can start to think about which 10 hours of the day are going to work best for you, bearing in mind that you probably want the latest that you’re eating to be 8pm.

So, for example, did you need both the latte on the way to work at 8am and the glass of wine on the sofa at 9pm? Which one could you cut out to fit into the 10-hour window? Could you swap any of these drinks to sparkling water or tea without milk? Say two of your social events in a normal week were drinks/dinners out. Could either of these have been moved to lunch on the weekend? Or, on days when you knew you’d be eating late, could you make adjustments to the time