Eating Earlier In The Day Lowers Body Weight & Blood Pressure

Eating within an early 8-hour window is more effective than a 12-hour fast.

Eating within a 12-hour window (for example, eating breakfast at 8am and ending your last meal at 8pm) is typical for most of us. To test whether or not timing matters when practicing restrictive eating, researchers split people into two groups – a control group and an early, time-restricted eating group.

The time-restricted eating group received one-on-one counseling from a dietitian, exercised between 75 and 150 minutes per week, and consumed 500 calories less than their resting energy expenditure within a restricted time of 7am to 3pm. The control group had typical eating behavior within a 12-hr window.

At the end of the study, both groups lost significant weight, but the time-restricted eating group lost 50% more weight, had lower blood pressure, and had a substantial improvement in mood when compared to the control group.

Adherence in the time-restricted eating group was good throughout the study, suggesting that early time-restrictive eating could be a cost-effective and easy-to-adhere-to treatment for obesity.