5 Reasons Time-Restricted Eating Can Boost Your Health
When you eat is as important as what you eat
Time-restricted eating (or intermittent fasting) is no fad diet.
Studies with 1000s of data points have shown its benefits. And we now know the protocols we should follow to get the most advantages.
If you’re interested in the detailed science behind time-restricted eating, check out this podcast by Dr. Andrew Huberman.
But, here’s a summary of Dr. Huberman’s podcast with 5 proven health benefits. Plus some advice for implementing fasting into your daily routine.
Time-restricted eating means consuming 0 calories for part of the day.
It’s that simple.
Some people do this for 16 hours with an 8-hour feeding window. Others fast for 24 hours once or twice a week. Some people stick to one meal a day.
There are many ways to do this. For example, I’ve been eating 2 meals a day (within a 7 to 8-hour window) for most of the past 6 years.
Many of these patterns share the same health benefits. For example, research has shown time-restricted eating:
- Can increase lean body mass
- Can lead to fat loss
- Can regulate your circadian rhythm
- Can increase insulin sensitivity (this means the body is more efficient at using glucose, lowering blood sugar levels)
- Can decrease blood pressure
You see, the reason it has these health benefits is because the body can access a fasted state. This happens 5 to 6 hours after last consuming calories. Or in other words, after 5 to 6 hours of only consuming water, tea, or black coffee, your body is in a fasted state.
Many processes happen when we’re in this fasted state. If we’re never in a fasted state, the body can’t finish these essential tasks.
1. One of the most popular benefits of time-restricted eating is losing weight.
Research showed that you can lose weight if you eat within an 8-hour window even if you don’t reduce calories. So you can eat what you usually do but in a shorter time frame.
Combine the shorter eating window with fewer calories (2 meals a day for example) and it’s an effective way to lose weight.
There’s also evidence that suggests it may target body fat. But there are some conditions. If you haven’t eaten outside of your eating window for a couple of months, and if you’re in a caloric deficit, the body can get its energy from your fat stores.
2. Eating has a huge effect on our circadian rhythms.
80% of genes in the body are on a 24hr schedule. By eating throughout the day, we knock these clock genes off that schedule.
But they have important processes to complete. Such as repairing cells, or clearing waste from the brain.
When genes are active at the wrong time of day we get negative health effects.
So a regular feeding window in the daytime keeps clock genes synced to their schedule. And working hard to keep us healthy.
3. Time-restricted eating is good for your liver health.
Of all the organs in the body, the liver suffers the most when we eat around the clock. Always working to process food can damage it.
Liver disease is becoming a big issue. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is on the rise. In obese and non-obese people.
But some evidence shows time-restricted eating can reverse this.
In our bodies, we have 2 kinds of fat. Brown fat. And white fat.
White fat increases when we eat too much. But brown fat heats the body when it’s cold. Brown fat by the way is the fat that newborns have. It produces heat to keep them safe from hypothermia.
The more brown fat we have in our bodies, the less likely we are to get liver disease. Time-restricted eating has been linked to an increase in brown fat (as well as the decrease in white fat mentioned).
So it could prevent or even reverse liver damage.
4. Time-restricted eating is good for your gut.
Remember the clock genes? They have a big impact on the gut. When they’re out of sync, your gut suffers.
Also, fasting increases the microbiota in the gut. Microbiota control digestion. And can help your immune system. In other words, they’re vital for our health.
Time-restricted eating can keep your gut working.
5. You’ll have more mental focus when you’re doing time-restricted eating.
Finally is mental focus.
This one isn’t as complicated as the others on this list. But it’s important.
When you follow a time-restricted eating schedule. You have fewer decisions to make. You have fewer things to think about.
For example, if you never eat breakfast, you never need to worry about buying breakfast foods. Or you never need to think about preparing food in the morning. Or what time to eat. It’s one less thing you need to worry about before work.
This might not seem much. But you can use that 10 minutes each day you think about breakfast for something else.
But what fasting pattern is best for you?
First, there’s a basic pattern that everyone should follow. If you wanted an introduction to time-restricted eating without getting too far into it, follow this. This is the minimum you would need.
- Consume 0 calories in the first 60 minutes after waking up
- Consume 0 calories in the 2 to 3 hours before going to sleep
That’s it. If you do that, you’ll get some of the health benefits.
When thinking of a protocol to follow, it’s best to think of accessing a fasted state rather than not eating.
And the most important fasted state for the benefits listed is a sleep-related one.
Many processes only happen when the body is in a sleep-related fasted state. For example, the brain clearing out waste. This improves cognitive performance. And might prevent dementia.
So extending the fast around sleep makes sense.
But remember, it takes 5 to 6 hours to become fasted. So if you eat right before going to bed and sleep for 8 hours, you might only get 2 hours of sleep-related fasting. That’s not much time for those vital processes to happen.
If you follow the minimum protocol above and sleep for 8 hours each night, you’d be fasting for 12 hours each day. And you’d be in a sleep-related fast for 5 to 6 hours every night.
If you want to do more than the minimum, an 8-hour feeding window might be the best.
An 8-hour feeding window, provided it is in the daytime, gets all the health benefits. And an 8-hour window is easier to fit into our social schedules than a 4-hour window or a 24 hour fast.
You could eat from 10 am to 6 pm.
For example, if you do intense exercise in the morning, it might be difficult to wait until noon for food. You could still have a family dinner with this schedule too.
Or you could eat between 12 pm and 8 pm.
On this schedule, you can have lunch with your workmates. And dinner with your family. Or a glass of wine in the evening.
Find a schedule that fits with your social commitments. Because it’ll be easier to stick to.
But don’t think it has to be the same time each day. 30 mins earlier or later are no big issue. But try and keep it as regular as possible. If you switch it around, those amazing clock genes will reset to the new schedule.
