TRE AND MUSCLE
CEC ARTICLE
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HEALTH
CAN YOU PRACTICE TIME-RESTRICTED EATING
WITHOUT LOSING MUSCLE MASS AND STRENGTH ?
Eating within a limited time frame has been shown to have a number of physiological benefits , but its defining characteristic goes against recommendations for optimal protein intake and muscle health . Strength coach Tony Boutagy looks at whether it ’ s possible to successfully combine both strategies .
W hile enjoying breakfast with some
fellow presenters at a conference in New Zealand back in 2002 , I was asked by someone who was having just a black coffee for ‘ breakfast ’ as to my thoughts on the ‘ Warrior Diet ’. To my shame , I hadn ’ t heard about this approach to eating . It was quickly explained to me that it was based on the practice of ancient warriors who would eat little to nothing during the day , and then consume one large meal at night . The creator of the diet , Ori Hofmekler , popularised what would be known a decade later as ‘ time-restricted feeding ’, and several years after that as ‘ time-restricted eating ’ ( TRE ), as the early studies were conducted on animals ( which are fed ) and the subsequent ones on humans ( who eat ).
TRE falls under the banner of dietary approaches that do not seek to change what people eat , but rather when they eat it . It is often loosely viewed as one of the several strategies known as intermittent fasting , which includes the 5:2 diet , alternate day fasting , the fasting mimicking diet , the one-meal-a-day diet and true extended water only fasting .
What does intermittent fasting achieve ?
Two decades of research on intermittent fasting has shown broad-spectrum benefits for many health conditions , such as obesity , diabetes mellitus , cardiovascular disease , cancers and neurologic disorders . One of the primary explanations for the health promoting benefits of intermittent fasting is the switching of fuel substrates , from glucose to fatty acid derived ketone bodies . This change in fuel source is referred to as ‘ flipping of the metabolic switch ’ and research has shown that it not only provides the ketones that are necessary to fuel cells during the fasting period , but also creates a highly orchestrated total body response that carries over into the fed state to increase mental and physical performance , as well as disease resistance .
In 2012 , Satchidananda Panda , from the Salk Institute in California , began the modern era of investigations into time-restricted feeding by examining compressed feeding windows in mice . Mice , of course , are nocturnal , so a lab assistant needed to be there late in the evening and early in the morning to administer the ‘ breakfast ’ and ‘ dinner ’. Due to family work-life pressures , they settled on an 8-hour feeding window and a 16-hour fasting period to use as the experimental model - and that is how the popular 16 / 8 came about .
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