Mory, you are doing time restricted eating, not fasting. It can certainly work and I incorporate it in my WOL as well as fasting.

First off I’m going to assume you you are not a night shift worker. Eating all your calories right before bed is not a good idea. Your body clock wants to shut down digestion and your insulin sensitivity is at its lowest at night. It’s much better t eat earlier in the day.

Also the amount of calories you eat still matters. If you eat over your TDEE you will gain weight.

5:2 cycles calories, 5 days at TDEE 2 days at <600 calories.

If you eat at 7:00 will you be hungry at 9:30? Research shows that if you eat the same number of calories in a compressed time frame (<10 hours) as you would grazing for a longer period you will lose more fat. It assumes that you are eating less than TDEE. Calories still count.

My results have been good with TRE. I eat between 8:00AM and finish by 6:00 PM latest.

Hi Mory and welcome:

What you are doing is not a weight loss diet, and by just eating in an ‘eating window’ you cannot expect to lose weight. The only way you can lose weight using an eating window is by making sure you are eating less than your TDEE in that window. The name of the eating window you are using comes under the popular name of the ‘Warrior Diet’, which has been around for at least 15 years or so. It has a slightly smaller window than the more popular 16:8 ‘8 Hour Diet’, which boldly claims “In The 8-Hour Diet, bestselling authors David Zinczenko and Peter Moore present a paradigm-shifting plan that allows readers to eat anything they want, as much as they want―and still strip away 20, 40, 60 pounds, or more.” Of course this is hogwash, but it sells books!

Almost everyone eats in an eating window. Most people have a window that starts when they get up in the morning and closes when they go to bed at night (leaving a ‘fasting period’ of roughly 12-14 hours depending on the timing of their last and first meals of the day). Some shorten that window for various personal reasons. Some believe that by not eating outside of whatever shorter window they set they will eat less than they would have otherwise (no snacks, for instance). Some believe they will burn more fat, although it has never been proven that materially more fat is burned just by eating in a shortened window. The only human research I have seen on an eating window (and it is like the one you are using) concludes that “The present findings suggest that, without a reduction in calorie intake, a reduced-meal-frequency diet does not afford major health benefits in humans.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2645638/

Here are some more thoughts on eating windows: https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/52-calorie-restriction-v-fasting-for-newbies/ In the Eat, Fast and Live Longer video that ‘started it all’, the human that had by far the best results followed an every day reduced calorie diet (around 1900 calories a day) and did not fast at all (no ketones anywhere). Basically, current research finds it is the reduction in calories eaten that yields the weight loss and other health benefits, not when the calories are eaten.

Don’t worry about when you are eating and try doing 5:2 properly for a couple of months. I think you will be glad you did!

Good Luck!

Don’t let the naysayers take this excellent tool away from you. It works 🙂 But you do still need to eat well during the window. My advice would be to stop eating processed carbs and sugar and make sure you meet all your nutritional needs by eating a colourful variety of vegetables with healthy fats from olive oil and nuts and seeds or cheese or full fat plain yoghurt. An eating window is enormously useful as your appetite is less when you eat this way. You develop a rhythm and the gut benefits from the rest and your body benefits from not trying to do two jobs at once. Digesting food is hard work and diverts energy from daily living and from healing. I lost over 100 lbs in the last year by combining this with alternate day fasting at 800 calories. I am still losing weight despite having met target and dropping the ADF as my gut and my metabolism have healed. Had I not used the eating window I would have been hungry all day and compliance would have been much more difficult. It is a tool that makes it easier which I think the naysayers fail to understand. It sounds super strict but it actually removes the need to be focused on food all the time. So it benefits your head and your body. I have made mine a bit longer now that I have lost all the weight, I aim to only eat between 2 and 8pm but for me it is something I intend to keep to forever.

I think there is much more to IF than losing weight. Weight loss will be primarily driven by calorie intake although there is possibly an argument that macronutrient make-up will also be a factor (fewer carbs and sugars is best). But there are other important health factors in play i.e. the benefits of fasting with respect to longevity and maintained health (fewer cancers and better retention of cognitive capacities). A smaller eating window maintains a person in fasting for longer and by extension could improve the non-weight-loss benefits of fasting, especially if combined with IF (meaning the fasting window >36 hrs). Also, there is the circadian rhythm angle – everything in our body follows this rhythm which unfortunately modern life messes up (with resultant disturbances to sleep and long-term health deterioration). There is some good evidence from mice that shortening the eating window to 8hrs or less improves synchronization and restores the circadian rhythm.

I am a women in her mid 50th. I have always been a slim women but due to bad knees I am unable to run like I use to. this has lead me to gain a tire around my waist. no leg or arm gain just my waist. started the 5 hour window diet for 2 days now.

However, I get really jittery at night around 9pm. I have both high blood, diabetes, and cholesterol. (ALL CONTROLLED with medication). is this unhealthy for me?

@ba. Are you type 1 or type 2? Im assuming you have a blood glucose monitor? What is your BG when you get jittery? Hypo or hyper? Discuss your diet with a dietician.