Advice

Why eating within a 10-hour window is best practice

By JamesUpdated October 8, 2024

I have an eating habit that’s hard to break.

I snack later in the evening — normally something sweet 🧁.

Confession: I’m not really that hungry. It’s a reward. Something to brighten up the evening.

Maybe it doesn’t matter, right? As long as I’m sticking to my daily allotment – surely, the ‘when’ is not that important?

Limiting food consumption to a 10-hour window improves ALMOST everything

Researchers had a group of people follow a time-restricted eating regimen [1].

  • Start eating at least an hour after waking.
  • Or stopping eating 3 hours before going to sleep.
  • They were NOT asked to consume less calories.

The outcome?

  • Decreased body weight.
  • Lower body mass index (BMI).
  • Less abdominal trunk fat.
  • And, importantly, no loss of lean muscle.

Health improvements happened as well:

Significant improvements were also observed in cardiometabolic health, including blood sugar and cholesterol and lower levels of haemoglobin A1c (related to blood sugar management).

TRE – Time-restricted eating

It’s a form of intermittent fasting (which has been a bit of a fad of late).

But the research shows there’s something about eating in sync with our natural circadian rhythms.

Our bodies actually process sugars and fats very differently depending on the time of day” – From the UCSD study.

The challenge: Can you do this?

A 10-hour window means 14 hours of fasting. This is a challenge.

If you have breakfast early-ish, it looks like this:

Up at 630am, breakfast at 645am — which means dinner finished by 4.45 pm !!

This is simply not doable for me. One option is to have breakfast later…

Here’s how I’ll implement the 10-hour window:

  • It’s okay to have dinner a little early.
  • Don’t eat anything after dinner.

I now have good reason to cut out the night snacking.

View article sources

Sources

  • Manoogian, E. N., Wilkinson, M. J., O’Neal, M., Laing, K., Nguyen, J., Van, D., ... & Taub, P. R. (2024). Time-Restricted Eating in Adults With Metabolic Syndrome: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Annals of Internal Medicine.

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