Highlights
- Time Restricted Eating (TRE) is a new diet trend.
- It involves fasting for 12-14 hours per day.
- There are no diet or caloric restrictions in TRE.
The concept of intermittent fasting has been around for a while. But a new diet trend, similar to intermittent fasting has been making waves, because it promises to be every food lover's dream diet. A new diet called the Time Restricted Eating or Time Restricted Feeding allows you to lose weight, without starving. What's more? You can eat anything you like and want to. This diet doesn't require one to eat sugar-free, gluten-free or low-carb food, at all. But, obviously, there's a catch.
What is Time Restricted Eating?
Fasting is nothing new to humans. In fact, our ancestors were used to fasting every day, as the hunting gathering humans who didn't have access to food 24/7. Followers of every religion have been following some or the other form of ritualistic fasting, and science has proven benefits of fasting too. There are many diets that draw upon the very same benefits of fasting. However, the TRE variant stands apart from all of these other diets, as it doesn't have any specific caloric restrictions.
The concept is simple, but seems too good to be true. The dieting approach involves eating only during a fixed number of hours in a day, and fasting during the rest of the day and night. This essentially means squeezing a day's worth of food into a few hours every day. This in effect means that time restricted eating will leave you feeling stuffed rather than make you starve! Now a diet that makes you feel stuffed is obviously a foodie's dream. But one needs to meet the daily caloric requirement by the meals that one squeezes in the given time window.
How To Practice Time Restricted Eating?
Once you start on a TRE, there can't be any cheat days. Since there are no restrictions on food in the TRE, you need to follow it every single day of the week, for a period of several weeks, to see the results. The length and duration of the fast can be decided by you. However, ideally, the fasting should last for at least 12-14 hours every day. The earlier that the fast starts in the evening, the better for you, as you will be able to notice the weight loss quicker.
In Time Restricted Eating, all meals of the day have to be squeezed within one particular time period.
Benefits of Time Restricted Eating
Weight loss is just one of the proven benefits of Time restricted fasting. Those who practiced the diet for several weeks found other health benefits including reduced feelings of lethargy and reduced stress. The diet is also touted to reduce risks of heart ailments, improved control over blood sugar levels, improved brain function and lower risk of dementia, better post-workout body recovery and even reduced risk of cancer!
Time restricted fasting has been given a thumbs up by most nutrition experts. However, saying that there's no need to restrict what you eat, still doesn't mean that you should be bingeing on unhealthy fats and loading on sugary foods. The harmful effects of junk, fried and high-sugar foods remain the same. The time restricted eating diet just ensures that you aren't miserable on diet, by keeping those hunger pangs at bay. Moreover, any fasting diet is not recommended for people suffering from low blood sugar levels. Always consult a physician before starting on any diet, including this one.