Eat Whatever You Want - But Only Between 9am and 5pm

New eight-hour diet promises weight loss of 10lbs in just one week

As millions of America's resolve to trim down for 2017, a new book has claimed that people can lose weight by eating anything they want, but only during a set eight-hour period.

The 8-Hour Diet: Watch the Pounds Disappear Without Watching What You Eat! authors David Zinczenko and Peter Moore argue that staying up late, and eating around the clock in our 24-hour culture is responsible for the country's high rates of diabetes and obesity. 

According to an excerpt from the book 'Our bodies can’t process the food we eat [after hours], and those calories end up where they shouldn’t - around our bellies and butts.'

The book claims we can lose ten pounds in a week and up to 20lbs in six weeks, and asks that we choose any eight-hour window for eating, such as 9am to 5pm, or 11am to 7pm.

It explains: 'The advent of artificial light has also led to an artificial extension of our feeding times. Our circadian rhythms have a natural stop sign built into them, and we run into that sign almost every day.

'Our extended eating interval throws our digestive system off-kilter and messes with the many hormones and enzymes that manage it.'

Dr Satchidananda Panda, from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, says in the book: 'My hypothesis is that staying up and eating late may be the cause [of diabetes]. 

'For the past 50 years or so we’ve been staying awake late into the night. That’s when we see the rise of weight problems.'

 

To prove his theory, Dr Panda’s laboratory tested his ideas on mice.

The mice were divided into two groups and put on the same high-calorie, high-fat diet: One group was given the freedom to eat anything at any time of day.

The other mice could eat as much as they wanted but only within an 8-hour time frame. The study went on for 100 days, and it was only the all-day eaters that plumped up.

Dr Panda explains: 'Simply limiting food intake to 8 hours gives you all the benefits - without having to worry about food intake

 

The book explains: 'In the simplest terms, the 8-Hour Diet is a way of extending the period between your last snack and your “breakfast,” giving your body the chance to burn away your fat stores for the energy it needs. And burn them it does.'

This idea isn't new however. A 2007 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition study had researchers divide study participants into two groups, where each group ate the same number of calories.

 

While one group ate all their calories in three meals spread throughout the day, the other practiced intermittent fasting, eating the same number of calories but in a restricted time frame. 

Results showed that participants who ate in a smaller window of time had a 'significant modification of body composition, including reductions in fat mass.'

According to Dr Panda’s research, restricting the time period during which you eat makes your body burn more calories throughout the day - so the longer you eat, the lazier your metabolism becomes. 

However, if you fit you food intake into an eight-hour window, your body burns more calories day and night, as well as preventing disease such as diabetes, as well as heart and kidney disease.

 

In a study at the University of Copenhagen, researchers found that when men fasted every other day for two weeks, the insulin in their bodies grew more efficient at managing blood sugar.