Time-Restricted Eating and HIIT
Time-restricted eating and high-intensity interval training are a good team.
Meal timing is getting more attention from popular press, and personal trainers are likely to be asked questions about how to apply it to programs. A recent study finds that combining time-restricted eating with HIIT is more effective at improving cardiometabolic health than either approach on its own. Cardiometabolic diseases include heart attack, stroke, type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
For study purposes, time-restricted eating (TRE) required participants to consume all daily calories within a 10-hour time window; for example, from 8 a.m.–6 p.m. HIIT included supervised treadmill sessions of short repeated bouts of high-intensity exercise reaching at least 85% maximum heart rate combined with low-intensity breaks. Sessions were 35 minutes, three times per week. The trial had four arms: HIIT-only, TRE-only, TRE-HIIT combination and control group. The study lasted 7 weeks.
Combined training resulted in the most significant improvements in long-term glycemic control, total body fat and visceral fat reduction, and improvements in aerobic fitness. And it had a high adherence rate. Combined training also reduced visceral fat more than either time-restricted eating or HIIT alone. “TRE is a less tedious and time-efficient method to lose weight compared with calorie counting,” said senior study author, Trine Moholdt, PhD, researcher scientist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Norway. “HIIT is tolerable and safe for previously sedentary individuals and can be completed within 30–40 minutes.”
The study is published in Cell Metabolism (2022; 34 [10], 1457–71).
Shirley Eichenberger-Archer, JD, MA
Shirley Eichenberger-Archer, JD, MA, is an internationally acknowledged integrative health and mindfulness specialist, best-selling author of 16 fitness and wellness books translated into multiple languages and sold worldwide, award-winning health journalist, contributing editor to Fitness Journal, media spokesperson, and IDEA's 2008 Fitness Instructor of the Year. She's a 25-year industry veteran and former health and fitness educator at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, who has served on multiple industry committees and co-authored trade books and manuals for ACE, ACSM and YMCA of the USA. She has appeared on TV worldwide and was a featured trainer on America's Next Top Model.
