Despite society’s best efforts to convince you to eat whatever you want in the name of “body positivity”, the science couldn’t be more clear:
Eating less means you will live longer and healthier.
Restricting calories works.
Not only that, but timing plays a role too.
A Howard Hughes Medical Institute study showed that calorie and time restricted diets worked the best to increase lifespan in a variety of animals. [R]
This kind of diet offsets the effects of genes that spiral out of control with age.
So, it’s safe to say that diet plans that emphasize eating at certain times are onto to something.
Here’s how lead researcher, Dr. Joseph Takahashi, puts it:
“Such [diet] plans may not speed weight loss in humans, as a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine reported, but they could prompt health benefits that add up to a longer lifespan.”
One method that promotes this behaviour is intermittent fasting.
While there are tons of overwhelming information on intermittent fasting, here’s a crash course:
Eat your optimal number of calories within a predetermined window of time every day.
Usually, this window is 8-12 hours.
And typically, it’s easier (and more convenient) to fast in the morning than late at night.
If you already have calories under control, your diet itself won’t change.
Your regular meals will be squeezed into a shorter timeframe.
For example, my intermittent fasting schedule is breakfast at 12:00PM, lunch at 4:00PM, and dinner at 8:00PM.
Once you get the hang of this, you’ll realize you don’t need to eat as often as you thought.
You may even find your “eating window” naturally shrinking.
Modern-day marketing has us convinced that every spare second is an opportunity for another snack.
Resist.
At the end of the day, the concept is simple:
Eat only what your body needs and only when it needs it.