Fasting isn’t any better for losing weight than calorie counting new study finds

Intermittent fasting has become all the rage among health coaches and weight loss experts but the diet fad may not be any more effective than simply counting calories according to a new study investigating the usefulness of time-restricted eating. 

Time-restricted eating, more commonly called intermittent fasting, is a way of dieting focused on restricting calorie consumption to a specific set of hours during the day in order to foster weight loss according to Medical News Today. 

Healthline noted the most common form of time-restricted eating is 16/8 intermittent fasting, meaning people who follow the diet regime restrict their consumption of calories for 16 hours and plan all their daily meals within an 8-hour window of time. 

The 16/8 intermittent fasting regime can increase weight loss, improve blood sugar, and even extend longevity but it was the bit about being an effective weight loss tool researchers from the University of Illinois Chicago wanted to investigate in a new study on the diet. 

"We really wanted to see if people can lose weight with this over a year,” explained the study’s lead author Krista Varady according to NPR. “Can they maintain the weight loss?" the professor of nutrition questioned—and her results were rather interesting. 

The study found intermittent fasting does certainly help people lose weight but it also discovered the form of time-restricted eating isn’t any more effective at helping people cut pounds than if they just kept an eye on their calories throughout the day.

Ninety adults who were defined as clinically obese with body mass indexes above 30 were recruited to take part in the 12-month study, and they were divided into three groups. 

The first group was only allowed to eat between noon and 8:00 pm while the second group was asked to cut their daily caloric intake by 25%. The third group acted as the control for the study and didn’t have to make any changes to their dietary habits. 

Salon noted participants lost roughly 5% of their starting body weight after six months and the diets were then adjusted so that the weight loss could be maintained, theorizing that the time-restricted eating group would lose more weight than the calorie counters. 

However, that wasn’t the case since at the end of the study both groups lost 4% of their starting body weight after 12 months. Participants in the first two groups also had similar waist circumferences at the end of the study as well as similar cuts to their caloric intake. 

"The key take-away is that you can basically achieve the same amount of energy restriction by counting time instead of counting calories," Varady explained to NPR. 

Interestingly, Varady’s study didn’t find that either time-restricted eating or a reduction via counting calories provided any health benefits to their participants and Salon reported cholesterol levels, glucose, and insulin all remained the same. 

Regardless of the study’s rather lackluster results. University of Alabama Birmingham’s Courtney Preston—a professor of nutrition who was not involved in the study—told NPR that Varady’s research was still “pretty exciting.”

"This study has the most compelling results suggesting that people can stick with it, that it's not a fad diet in the sense that people can do it for three months and they fall off the wagon for a year," Preston said, and there’s a lot of utility in that kind of optimism. 

Obesity is a growing global problem and the World Health Organization found in 2016 that more than 1.9 million adults 18 years or older were overweight with 650 million of them being obese. If we’re going to tackle the growing problem we’ll need solutions. 

Giving people another option that can help them naturally cut down on the number of calories they’re eating could be an accessible and cost-effective way of solving the global obesity crisis without needing to resort to pharmaceuticals or restrictive laws.