The latest dieting fad to pop up on The Greenlaw Report radar is known as The Eight-Hour diet, and yes, it’s as simple as it sounds. This diet is an uninspired take on intermittent fasting, but it is watered down even more. The average eight-hour diet lasts anywhere from one week, up to a month. Naturally, the burning question we had was how do you follow this eight-hour diet? What are the secrets and amazing results hiding behind this latest trend that separates it from the herd? Regrettably, we are still searching for any news-worthy testimonials. The eight-hour diet is as ineffective as it is simple. File this one in the, “too good to be true” cabinet, along with the other 99% of fad diets.
The eight-hour diet is just the latest example of a protocol that has been mutated and simplified in the hopes of attracting the masses. Basically, this is the cliffs notes version of intermittent fasting with fewer restrictions. Before we dissect the reasons why this diet will fail, let’s actually break down how to follow the eight-hour diet. In summary, within every 24 hours, the eight-hour diet supposedly works by limiting food consumption to eight hours and then fasting for the remaining 16 hours each day. During the eight-hour period you choose as your, “eating” window, there are no restrictions on what, when or how you eat. Feel like ice cream, pasta, and bagels? Go ahead! Just make sure that the additional 16 hours your body is fasting. The simple fact that there are no caloric or dietary restrictions within the eight hours should be enough for most of us to understand why this program will never be successful. Apparently, the part of the protocol that is half right is the 16 hours of fasting. Technically, adding a 16 hour fast to an otherwise no restrictions, eat what you want for most of the day would be enough to have this protocol fall into some bizarre subgroup of intermittent fasting. Once the lines are blurred and intermittent fasting is introduced as part of the protocol, the trap has been set, and people give diet’s like this a shot.
Intermittent fasting has piqued the interest of the general population as a valid protocol to improve overall health and wellness but is it really the tool it is being advertised as? This is where the water gets murky. Yes, intermittent fasting has been around for centuries, and its reintroduction into the general health conversation is a positive step forward. Unfortunately, it is not as effective as it once was due to the toxic soup we wade through on a daily basis. Intermittent fasting combined with nutraceutical technologies is the most promising route to maximizing your health and wellness potential.
If you are interested in learning more on how to adequately supplement the body while following an intermittent fasting protocol, check out what we already have posted here. We also realize this is a broad topic and leaving it open-ended is a tease. With that being said, join us as we continue this conversation regarding how to nutritionally fuel the body while fasting in our next article.
