Not eating for 14 hours in a day improves hunger, mood and sleep.
- Fitting your meals into a 10-hour window and fasting for the remaining 14 hours increases energy, mood and reduces feelings of hunger.
- Participants who regularly respected this eating window received more benefits than those who changed it from one day to the next.
- Volunteers who followed this eating pattern for longer saw their health improve even more.
In recent years, intermittent fasting has been on the rise because it is said to help lose weight and boost metabolism. This mode of eating consists of alternating between periods of fasting and short phases of food intake. There are several types of fasting. Recently, researchers from King’s College London (England) revealed that eating all your meals within a ten-hour window and fasting for the remaining 14 hours had positive effects on health.
Fasting for 14 hours has positive effects on energy and mood
To reach this conclusion, they conducted a study, the results of which were presented at the European Nutrition Conference in Belgrade, Serbia. As part of the work, 37,545 people were asked to eat as they normally would for a week, then stick to a ten-hour eating window for two weeks. More than 36,231 participants decided to continue intermittent fasting and 27,371 adults were considered very involved. The highly involved volunteers were 78% women, with an average age of 60 years and a BMI of 25.6.
According to the results, eating within a ten-hour window is associated with increased energy and mood and decreased feelings of hunger. People who regularly respected this eating window received more benefits from it than those who changed it from one day to the next. Another observation: adults who followed this eating method for longer saw their health improve even more.
Intermittent fasting: “the importance of how you eat”
“This study adds to the growing body of evidence showing the importance of how you eat. The impact of diet on health is not only linked to what you eat, but also how when one chooses to eat meals, and the eating window is an important eating behavior that can benefit health. The results show that it is not necessary to eat all the time. Many people will feel satiated and will even lose weight if they limit their eating to a ten-hour window. concluded Kate Bermingham, lead author of the research, in a statement.
