The 8-Hour Diet (3 page)

LOSING WEIGHT THE HEALTHY WAY

The 8-Hour Diet didn’t restrict Morgan’s calories, so she was able to get the energy and nutrients she needed as a breastfeeding mom while still losing weight. And because she never felt constrained, it was easier to eat well. “Knowing that I could have a candy bar if I wanted helped me make healthier decisions because I didn’t feel that deprivation,” she says. “It really fit right in with me.”

SETTING ASIDE HER SELF-DOUBTS

Morgan has dropped 15 pounds so far, and she’s feeling the ripples across all areas of her life. “I’ve lost weight, I feel better, and making healthier choices has made me feel better about myself,” she says. “That confidence carries over into everything you do—work, your social life, your personal life.” She has more energy to play with her son, and her outlook has changed radically, she says, as a result of the 8-Hour Diet. “It makes me feel pretty. Beautiful. I used to wonder, am I not good enough, or pretty enough, or something like that? And losing the weight has really helped me. Just that boost of confidence makes me feel better about my life in general.” Morgan has recommended the plan to friends and family and says she’ll stick with it for the long term. “It was the ideal diet for me!”

The 8-Hour Diet Success Story

“I THINK IT’S THE PERFECT PLAN!”

Congressman Billy Long lost 20 pounds and regained control of his health—in just 6 weeks!

BILLY LONG, 57,
SPRINGFIELD, MISSOURI

OCCUPATION:
US REPRESENTATIVE, MISSOURI’S 7TH DISTRICT

HEIGHT:
6'1"
   STARTING WEIGHT:
315
   WEIGHT AFTER 6 WEEKS:
295

Missouri’s 7th District Representative Billy Long always had a hearty appetite, but playing basketball and football as a teenager helped him keep his weight in check. Over the years, though, his love of food caught up with him—and when he was elected to Congress, his crazy schedule and a heap of after-hours events made exercising and eating healthfully an even bigger challenge. “Evening snacking was always my problem. I’d eat Oreos, I’d eat cheese—you’d be appalled!” says Long. With the 8-Hour Diet, Rep. Long was able to drop the extra weight without resorting to prepackaged food or a tangle of rules to follow—it’s exactly what he was looking for. “I think it’s the perfect plan,” he says.

LOSING POUNDS: “IT’S EASY!”

Representative Long has to travel and socialize for his job, so a rigid diet wasn’t an option. “A lot [of diets] want you to eat four or five or six small meals throughout the day, and you’re trying to stop what you’re doing and eat a power bar or mix up a shake—but there’s none of that with this. You go out to dinner with your family and you order the same stuff they do. It’s easy!” Long could make small tweaks to his usual routine—cutting down from six pieces of bacon to two, or swapping in cottage cheese for his usual fries alongside a burger—without missing out entirely. “I’ve cut down my portion sizes, and I’ve quit eating after 8 o’clock at night—it’s just a matter of retraining myself,” says Long.

“IT’LL CHANGE YOUR LIFE”

A mere 6 weeks in, Long has already shed 20 pounds and seen his health and life change dramatically. “It’s easier to get up out of a chair. Easier to get on and off airplanes,” he says. “I’m more motivated. It’s just easier to do things; you have more energy.” It’s an eating plan he can stick to. He’s hoping to get down to 200 pounds with the help of the 8-Hour Diet and next summer to be batting in the annual Congressional Baseball Game. His success has been so motivating that he’s eager to recommend the plan to others. “I see people walking through the airport all the time who are obviously, like me, carrying too much weight. And I look at ’em and I think, man, if you knew about the 8-Hour Diet, it’d change your life!”

DURATION:
8 hours a day, during which you can, and should, eat whenever you want

DAYS/WEEK:
The magic of the 8-Hour Diet is that you don’t have to follow it every day. Seven days a week? Terrific! Only five? You’re still good! Just three? You’ll still see benefits!

MEALS:
As many as you want, whenever you want—as long as they fall within your 8-hour eating plan

FOODS:
At each meal or snack, try to get two of the eight Powerfoods, one Fat Buster, and one Health Booster. Every day you want to make sure you can say, “I ate my 8!”

PERFECT SNACK EXAMPLES:
Hummus with carrots; yogurt with blueberries; green salad with walnuts; roast beef and tomato sandwich

FOODS TO EMPHASIZE:
Lean protein; fiber; healthy (mono- and polyunsaturated) fats; brightly colored fruits and vegetables

FOODS TO LIMIT:
Refined carbohydrates such as baked goods; sugar; white bread, rice, and pasta; saturated and trans fats; high-fructose corn syrup

THE CARB RULE:
Always include two Powerfoods in any carb-heavy snack or meal (e.g., pasta with cheese and tomato sauce; sandwich with turkey and lettuce; cereal with milk and berries; chips with bean dip and salsa).

BEVERAGES:
Dramatically reduce your calorie intake by drinking more water and skipping sugary drinks. Limit alcohol to two or three drinks per week to maximize your results.

EXERCISE:
Optional. But 8 minutes each morning (Yes, just 8 minutes!) is enough to start turbocharging your weight loss.

SKIPPING DAYS, CHEATING, AND GENERALLY MESSING UP:
Totally allowed.

W
alk into my office at
Men’s Health
on any given workday (and plenty of nights and weekends), and you won’t see an inch of open space on my desk. What you’ll see instead are stacks of research papers, charts, and graphs, all reporting the latest findings on fitness and weight loss. The chairs will be piled high with books and DVDs sent to me by this doctor or that exercise guru, each with a new plan to strip off pounds, fight disease, and improve readers’ lives. Frankly, it’s a mess in here. Occasionally, when the office gets too cold, I realize I’ve allowed the files and folders to spill over on top of the heating vents, and I know it’s time to do a little housecleaning.

In other words, my office isn’t built for comfort. It’s built for research. And most of the facts, figures, and findings that come my way have been variations on the same thing, year after year after year.

Until I discovered the science behind the 8-Hour Diet.

It’s hard to overstate how important, how revolutionary, and how life-altering this research is. And it’s hard to overstate how quickly and easily you’ll begin to see results. By carving out an 8-hour window in which to eat to your heart’s content, you’ll burn your body’s fat stores effortlessly. You’ll dramatically decrease your risk of disease. And, most amazingly of all, you’ll significantly slow the aging process. Add in just a bit of exercise before your first meal—an 8-minute walk around the block will do—and you turbocharge the results.

The science behind the weight-loss and antiaging benefits is simple—yet groundbreaking. And it actually operates in two ways. First, the 8-Hour Diet powers up your mitochondria—the “battery packs” in your cells that form the basis of your metabolism. Second, the 8-Hour Diet actually resets your body’s calorie-burning mechanism, allowing it to burn body fat for energy. No other plan has ever fully turned the key on
these two weight-loss secrets, because the science behind how they operate simply hadn’t been brought to light.

Until now.

Within every cell in your body is a posse of organelles (or miniature organs) called mitochondria.

If you were a clerk at Home Depot, you’d have trouble figuring out exactly where in the store to shelve the mitochondria. You might, for example, stock them in the electrical supply aisle because one of their main functions is sending electrical signals through the cells; as such, they operate like millions of dimmer switches, increasing and decreasing the flow of energy through your body as needed.

Or, you might store them in the gardening section because another role of these microscopic organelles is to both promote and prune back the growth of cells. Mitochondria control cell regeneration, triggering the birth of fresh new cells even as they order older cells to self-destruct once they outgrow their preprogrammed life span. In that way, properly functioning mitochondria are critical to our staying young by keeping new cells always at the ready; but they’re also critical to reducing the incidence of cancer—which is essentially caused by out-of-control cell growth.

But most likely, the store manager would tell you to shelve your mitochondria with the home generators because mitochondria are most often referred to as the power plants of the cells. They produce most of the body’s supply of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the chemical energy source that is, in its most basic role, the very stuff of life. ATP is the final end product of your salami sandwich—the energy that fuels everything from the wiggle in your fingertips to the growth of your toenails.

Now, here’s the key thing you need to know about mitochondria: Like
any other sort of engine, they generate energy, but they also generate waste. However, unlike your car engine, which turns gasoline into energy while creating smog, the mitochondria turn food into energy while creating something called
free radicals.

And these free radicals aren’t peaceful hippies who want to give you a bouquet of organic kale and turn you on to Phish. Free radicals are the source of almost all the ills in your body. The prime movers of the aging process, free radicals impede the function of mitochondria, killing off cells and, eventually, causing your downfall—from cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, or some other age-related illness. Free radicals are oxygen molecules; fighting them is the role of those antioxidants that every juice carton and vitamin bottle in the supermarket is boasting about. But dietary antioxidants like vitamins A, C, and E, while vital for good health, can have only a limited effect on free radicals produced by our mitochondria; otherwise, given all the vitamins we pop, we’d all be living to 200 and putting those plastic surgeons on
Extreme Makeover
out of work.

So the mitochondria are the good cop
and
the bad cop. They make the ATP that keeps you alive, but in the process, they create the free radicals that lead to your demise. What’s a well-meaning microscopic organelle to do?

Like any engine, the mitochondria in your cells will burn fuel more efficiently, produce more energy, and throw off less waste if they are properly maintained. But our current morning-to-midnight eating schedule does the exact opposite. Humans actually evolved to eat only a few hours a day (you’ll read more about this in the next chapter). When we spend too many of our hours eating, the mitochondria don’t get a break from processing calories. The engines run hot, generating a lot of free radicals—which then damage the very mitochondria that produced them. It’s like running your car day and night and never stopping to change the oil. As the mitochondria become damaged, they also lose their ability to regulate cell growth and to process food efficiently. The result: You start to age, and you start to gain weight, as the energy in your food is stored as fat instead of being turned into ATP.

The 8-Hour Diet is designed to allow the mitochondria to function at their most efficient, keeping you slimmer, younger, healthier. According to a 2009 study from Texas Tech University, when food is broken down faster than it is replaced—either by exercise or by taking a break from eating—ATP levels increase. There’s also an increase in the breakdown of fatty acids and in glucose (energy) uptake, along with a decrease in the creation of fatty acids and glucose in the liver. In other words, you get more energy, more fat burn, and less fat storage. In another study, Italian researchers found that limiting the time in which you’re eating protected against inflammation and oxidative damage to the heart. More efficient mitochondria equals greater fat burn, a slowing of the aging process, and protection against disease.

In fact, on the 8-Hour Diet, your body can actually increase the number of mitochondria in your cells (a process known as
mitochondrial biogenesis
); the more mitochondria you have, the less each individual organelle has to work, and the fewer free radicals are produced. “This type of eating plan not only protects the mitochondria from damage, it increases their proliferation,” says Mark Mattson, PhD, chief of the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging. In a 2009 study from the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana, subjects who followed a meal-limitation program for 6 months saw their mitochondrial DNA content increase by 35 percent! (A control group who ate whenever they wanted saw no such change.)

Imagine the effects on your health: You lose weight rapidly, and you slow the aging process. “What we’re learning is that [mitochondria] play a significant role in neurodegenerative diseases and metabolic syndrome, which is a more amorphous designation that reflects an epidemic of obesity,” says Michael Holsapple, PhD, vice president of the Society of Toxicology. “We see this as cutting-edge science.” And, according to a
paper published by the University of California-San Diego, heart cells have more mitochondria than any other body cells. So protecting your mitochondria disproportionately lowers your risk of heart disease.