Intermittent Fasting Benefits May Last Long After the Diet Ends

An eight-hour eating window helped adults maintain weight loss one year after a 12-week intervention. For many people trying to lose weight, the hardest part begins after the diet ends. The scale may move during a structured program, but keeping that weight off months later is often the real test. Research from the University of [...]

An eight-hour eating window helped adults maintain weight loss one year after a 12-week intervention. For many people trying to lose weight, the hardest part begins after the diet ends. The scale may move during a structured program, but keeping that weight off months later is often the real test.

Research from the University of Granada (UGR), the Granada Institute for Biomedical Research (ibs.GRANADA), the Public University of Navarra, and the Biomedical Research Networking Center (CIBER) suggests that limiting eating to an eight-hour daily window may help overweight or obese adults maintain weight loss one year after the intervention ends. The approach is a form of intermittent fasting known as 16:8. Participants fast for 16 hours and eat during the remaining eight hours.

The study found that weight maintenance benefits were still visible 12 months later, whether people ate earlier in the day (between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., known as early fasting) or later in the day (between 1 p.m. and 9 p.m., known as late fasting), compared with people who kept their usual eating schedule of 12 hours or more. Both the early fasting and late fasting groups maintained significantly greater weight loss after one year. The early fasting group also kept off more fat mass, suggesting that when the eating window occurs may matter for body composition, even though both schedules helped with weight control.

Body Composition Assessment One Year Later The study, published in Clinical Nutrition, the official