Some More Data on Time-Restricted Eating (TRE) as a Means to Manage Food Intake

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In May 2021, I touched upon the topic of intermittent fasting (IF), specifically because it was then and is still now, a fad among celebrities and so-called influencers…anything that becomes a fad among such people, who, like lemmings rush to endorse whatever is the fad of the moment (as with superfoods like gojiberries or kale or avocados, most of which are completely useless), should be taken with a huge fistful of salt.

One form of IF is time-restricted eating or TRE, which I then discussed in detail in Apr 2022 because of a New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) article [1] published a few days prior that had said there was no difference in weight loss between those following TRE with calorie restriction and those following the same amount of calorie restriction, but without TRE. The accompany New York Times article that said that TRE doesn’t work misinterpreted the authors whose conclusion was that TRE was a sustainable practice to achieve calorie loss, if you wanted to do so, for whatever reason.

Weight loss is a negative sum game. It doesn’t work. These days, those who are focussed on weight loss for any reason have another option…the various GLP-1 receptor agonists like semaglutide that produce about 15-20% weight loss while in many instances, also suppressing appetite and improving self-control.

However, if you are physically active, you also have to eat within a reasonable range to maintain your energy requirements. Being fit is more important than your weight and as I have consistently mentioned, those who are so-called overweight and fit, live longer and healthier than those who are so-called normal weight and unfit.

Having said that, in today’s day and age where we have alluring, hard-to-resist food options thrown at us from all sides including shiny, packaged UPFs (ultra-processed foods), often endorsed by cricketers and movie stars, some control over what we eat is always helpful. If you restrict your eating to a specific time period of 6-8 hours a day, it becomes easier not to go overboard with your food intake. I like TRE, because once you become used to eating for just 6-8 hours a day, it becomes much easier to eat well, sensibly and properly without losing control.

New data from a couple of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) strengthens this belief.