17 Jul , 09:43
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Scientists from the University of Granada have found that with intermittent fasting, the timing of meal onset has virtually no effect on weight loss. People following the 16:8 schedule lose weight equally regardless of whether they consume food in the morning, afternoon, or evening. The results of the study were published in the journal Clinical Nutrition (CN).
A total of 99 adult volunteers suffering from overweight or obesity participated in the large-scale experiment. Over the course of 12 weeks, all of them followed a Mediterranean diet but were divided into four groups with different conditions. The first group ate exclusively during an eight-hour window starting in the morning, the second ate only after 1:00 PM, the third independently chose a convenient eight-hour eating window, and the control group had no time restrictions on eating and consumed food over more than 12 hours per day.
Upon completion of the experiment, the researchers thoroughly assessed changes in body weight and body composition, and one year later conducted a follow-up examination to check whether the achieved effects had been maintained.
The results proved quite revealing: all three groups following the 16:8 regimen lost on average three to four kilograms more than the control group participants. At the same time, no significant difference in weight loss was found between the early, late, and flexible variants of intermittent fasting.
Only among participants who started eating earlier did the scientists record slight advantages: somewhat better metabolic indicators and less subcutaneous fat. However, this had virtually no impact on overall weight loss.
Notably, after one year, approximately one-third of the participants continued to follow the 16:8 regimen on their own. According to the study authors, this suggests that intermittent fasting is much easier to maintain in the long term compared to some other weight loss methods, such as constant calorie counting.
