Combining HIIT with 10-hour diet helps you lose TWICE as much weight

A time-restricted fad diet, combined with high-intensity exercise, could help women lose twice as much weight.

Time-restricted eating (TRE), in which people have a short “window” for meals, eat breakfast late and eat dinner early, is popular with celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston.

Equally trendy is high-intensity interval training (HIIT), where busy people work out in short bursts.

Now a study has found that both together can help women lose about twice as much weight as TRE or HIIT alone.

Researchers recruited 131 overweight women, ages 19 to 45, and asked a quarter to do time-restricted eating, a quarter to do HIIT, and a quarter to do both, for seven days. weeks in all.

The rest of the women, a control group of 33, continued with their usual diet and physical activity for seven weeks.

Compared to the control group, people on the time-restricted eating regimen lost 4.6 pounds (2.1 kg) of body weight.

Those who did high-intensity walking or running (HIIT) lost almost four pounds (1.7 kg).

But those who did both together lost about twice as much, losing almost eight pounds (3.6 kg) on ​​average compared to the control group.

The researchers say that eating for a shorter period each day means people cut back on the calories they consume, but exercise is also important, as it helps the body burn fat more efficiently.

Dr Trine Moholdt, lead author of the study from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said: “High-intensity exercise can be done quickly over a short period, so it fits more easily into the day.”

“Time-restricted eating is simple, as people just have to remember not to eat after a certain time, rather than having to refuse certain foods, count calories, or check food labels.

“Our findings suggest that both strategies together are a good way to lose weight and fat.”

The study, published in the journal Cell Metabolism, asked time-restricted eaters to consume all meals and snacks within a daily 10-hour window.

The volunteers ate breakfast more than an hour later than usual, on average, and generally followed the study’s recommendation to eat their last meal of the day before 8 p.m.

Experts say that the human body clock means we process sugary foods better earlier in the day.

In fact, people who did the time-restricted diet and high-intensity exercise had better long-term blood sugar control compared to the control group, which may help prevent type 2 diabetes.

But more importantly, women who can’t eat or snack until late at night also reduced their average food intake by the equivalent of 1,400 calories per week.

The women who followed the restricted diet over time lost 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg) of fat from their body, compared to the control group.

However, those who followed the diet and exercise program lost almost twice as much fat, losing almost seven pounds (3.1 kg) compared to the control group.

The women who did HIIT burned an average of 800 calories a week, the researchers found.

The high-intensity exercise in the study consisted of three sessions of approximately 35 minutes a week.

The women were running or walking on a treadmill, or up a hill, at a speed and incline that made their hearts beat faster and took their breath away.

Those who did this HIIT along with the time-restricted diet had a significant reduction in the dangerous fat that wrapped around their organs, which is linked to an increased risk of heart disease and stroke, compared to the control group.

This reduction was half in those who did the diet alone.

No differences were found in cholesterol levels or blood pressure between those who did HIIT and TRE, but the researchers say there could be stronger effects if people did the diet and exercise for more than seven weeks, or were unhealthy at first.

Dr Moholdt said: “This was easy to accomplish, as the women controlled diet on six of the seven days and controlled exercise.”

“They also got fitter with HIIT, which made daily physical activity easier, so we recommend this type of program for people who want a relatively easy way to change their diet and exercise habits and improve their health.” .