Compressing your eating day is as effective as counting calories, study finds

If you’re trying to lose weight and you’re sick of watching what you eat, researchers have some good news: You can watch the clock instead. In a yearlong study, people who didn’t change what they ate — but ate it all between noon and 8 p.m. — achieved significant, sustained weight loss that was comparable to people who paid close attention to their food choices in order to cut their daily calories by 25%. Lifestyle Intermittent fasting for weight loss: What you need to know Proponents of intermittent fasting say it’s a simple hack for curbing the endless snacking and nibbling and nighttime eating that can pack on calories. After a year, the people in the TRE group were still 7.7 pounds lighter than when they started out, and those tracking their calories maintained 9.5 pounds of their weight loss. It’s not clear whether people who are overweight but not obese would see the same results with TRE, though Varady said she suspects it would still work, though perhaps to a lesser extent.