The 8-Hour Diet
Authors: David Zinczenko
To future generations of Americans. May the obesity crisis be something they read about only in history books.
The Groundbreaking Science Behind the 8-Hour Diet
How the 8-Hour Diet Will Change Your Body
Turn Any Diet into an 8-Hour Diet
The 8 Foods You Should Eat Every Day
Change Your Mind to Change Your Body
The 8-Minute Maximum Fitness Plan
I want to tell you about
a moment that changed my life. Because it’s going to change your life, too.
Several years ago, shortly after I was appointed editor in chief of
Men’s Health
, I reached a personal crisis point. From the outside, my life seemed packed to perfection: I was taking high-powered breakfast meetings almost every day and wooing writers and photographers over dinners late at night. I was eating and working from sunup until long after sundown, but I was eating “healthy.” And I was training like a maniac—running marathons on weekends and lifting weights at lunch several times a week. I needed all that food and all that exercise and all those early mornings and late nights to maintain the fitness and the workload that allowed me to be that “
Men’s Health
guy.”
I was the embodiment of “healthy and active.” I was doing it all. And I was exhausted.
In 1999, my father died at age 52 of a stroke. It taught me two lessons. First, that life was short and I needed to cram everything I could into it. Second, that I needed to work out constantly and follow a strict diet to avoid the same fate. But after years of trying to do it all, I was just plain tired of being tired all the time. My doctor noted that I was also developing high blood pressure, just like my dad. Something inside me said that it was time to slow down. Maybe working so hard to be healthy wasn’t so healthy, after all.
About the same time, I started reading some preliminary research
about a new trend in weight-loss science that was yielding eye-opening results. One that didn’t involve hard workouts, watching calories like a hawk, or pushing yourself and your body to the limit. It was a simple technique by which you cut down on the hours you spend eating, cut down on the intensity of exercise, and spend more time resting and enjoying the foods you love. Somewhere in the back of my mind, this new science started to take hold.
It wasn’t a sudden decision, but over time I started skipping those power breakfast meetings. Instead, I took leisurely walks to work and just focused on getting things out of the way before tucking into a long, delicious lunch. I stopped working so hard in the gym, quit the marathons, fired the personal trainer. I started going to bed earlier instead of working so hard and “fueling” my body late into the night. And you know what happened?
No, I didn’t gain weight. Just the opposite. Seven pounds in the first 10 days. I started losing weight and keeping it off, effortlessly, even as my blood pressure came under control. I was stunned.
I just thought this new plan would help me relax and enjoy life a little more.
I had no idea it would prove to be a weight-loss miracle.
I’ve been so inspired by how simple, easy, and enjoyable life has become that I’ve spent the last several years digging deeper into this research and boiling it down into an easy, accessible, life-altering plan. And the result is the book you hold in your hands. The 8-Hour Diet is the simplest, most sustainable weight-loss plan in the world. It will change your life. It will make you slimmer, healthier, and happier. It’s worked for me.
I know it will work for you.
David Zinczenko
The ideas expressed in this book are, quite frankly, startling.
When we began researching the 8-Hour Diet, everything we thought we knew about eating to manage one’s weight and improve one’s health was turned on its head. As a result, we needed more than ever to do our homework, digging deeply into the science and relying on a network of reporters, researchers, fact checkers, and scientific advisors to see us safely, and wisely, through to the groundbreaking book you have in your hands.
In particular, we’d like to extend our thanks to Satchin Panda, PhD, associate professor of the regulatory biology laboratory at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, and Mark Mattson, PhD, chief of the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging, as well as their respective teams, for their revolutionary investigations into the health benefits of intermittent fasting. The leading theories and science in this field are theirs; the plan to implement it is ours.
To Maria Rodale and the Rodale family, whose dedication to pushing envelopes has left us anything but stationary! We thank them for empowering us to help people improve their lives and the world around them.
To George Karabatsos and his design crew, especially Mike Smith and Elizabeth Neal, who wrapped this revolution in an alluring package.
To Laura Roberson, Jordan Sward, Grant Stoddard, Lila Battis, Cathryne Keller, Theresa Dougherty, and Stephanie Smith, who also helped us bring this book to completion, in part by ignoring the concept of the 8-hour workday.
To our extraordinary
Eat This, Not That!
coauthor and friend Matt Goulding for whipping up more great recipes for this effort, and to BJ Gaddour for the heavy lifting that went into the cutting-edge exercise plan.
To Yelena Nesbit, Aly Mostel, Allison Keane, and Kateri Benjamin, who helped spread the word about this revolutionary plan.
To the Rodale Books team, especially Debbie McHugh, Steve Perrine, Chris Krogermeier, Jeff Csatari, Mike Zimmerman, Nancy Bailey, Beth Lamb, Bob Niegowski, Beth Bischoff, Ayla Christman, Adam Campbell, Michael Easter, and the Rodale production team. We appreciate your heroic efforts to bring this book to all who need it.
And now that you know all the people who worked so hard to bring this book to you, forget about them. We worked hard because we wanted weight loss to be easy for you—the person who really matters from this point forward.
Get ready to be amazed.
8 Hours to the Body You Want!
The simplest, most effective weight-loss plan ever invented
I
magine passing by a shop window, catching your reflection, and wondering—just for a moment—who that lean, attractive person is.
Then imagine discovering it’s you.
Imagine the freedom that would come from being able to do whatever you want, eat whatever you want, and know—not think, not hope, but know for certain—that you’ll never gain another pound.
Imagine never having to worry about your weight or its impact on your health, ever again.
If that sounds impossible, it’s not. I know, because like tens of millions of Americans, I too have struggled with my weight. I know what it’s like to be unhappy with my body, concerned about my heart health, stressed about
my blood pressure and blood sugar, worried when the weather turned warmer that yet another embarassing swimsuit season was just around the corner. I know what it’s like to shop for clothes, to pull some sizes that I hoped would fit, and yet find myself slinking home with a new pair of pants two, even three, sizes bigger than I’d expected.
Now I know that I’ll never have to worry about gaining weight—even more important, all the health concerns that come with it—again. I know I have the secret to fast, permanent weight loss.
And that confidence is what I want for you.
When you think about the word “diet,” you probably think of something that’s confusing and hard to follow—and quite frankly, kind of depressing. You might think that seeing even the tiniest changes reflected in the mirror and on the bathroom scale will require sacrifice, deprivation, and a distinct absence of chocolate cake and barbecued ribs. Of course that’s what you think because that’s what you and I have been told a diet is. Weight loss is hard, right?
Wrong. You are about to read a weight-loss secret that is so simple, and yet so dramatically different from standard “diet” plans, that you’ll swear it can’t be true.
Losing weight just can’t be this easy.
But it is. Indeed, over the next 250 pages, you’re going to read eye-opening studies, life-altering expert insights, and remarkable personal tales of rapid, sustainable weight loss. Forget all the standard advice about cutting calories. Forget all the fad diets that limit your intake of this food or that food. Forget willpower, forget diet aids, forget counting calories, forget the glycemic index. Forget everything you have ever heard about weight loss, and instead, just do this:
Eat whatever you want, as much as you want.
But only eat during an 8-hour period each day (with a few cheats thrown in here and there!).
I know what you’re thinking: If you’re the skeptical, seen-it-all type like me, your b.s. meter is redlining like a college sophomore on a Monster bender. If it sounds too good to be true, it’s probably not true. Right?
But the research is undeniable. Studies and experts from the most respected scientific organizations in the world—from the Salk Institute to the USDA to the University of California at Berkeley—keep coming to the same stunning, irrefutable finding: There
is
a magic bullet for weight loss.
Eat whatever you want, as much as you want.
But eat most of your food during an 8-hour period each day.
And the most remarkable thing of all: You only have to follow the diet 3 days a week. Three days a week!
Adhere to that advice, and you’ll lose weight rapidly. (People who have tried this program report losing up to 20 pounds in just 6 weeks.) You’ll dramatically slash your risk of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. You’ll improve your brain function and think more clearly and efficiently. You’ll protect your body and mind against the effects of aging and stress. And you’ll significantly extend your life expectancy.