Research
Energy balance
Flexible time-restricted eating leads to a spontaneous reduction in total energy intake without altering macronutrient composition.
If you use an 8-hour eating window, you will likely eat fewer calories without needing to count them or change your food choices. This spontaneous reduction in energy intake is a key driver of the fat loss seen with flexible TRE.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
The flexTRE group and combined group (flexTRE+EX) exhibited a larger reduction compared to the control group... at post-intervention... No significant group-by-time interaction effects were found in the macronutrient composition, including carbohydrates, protein, and fat percentage
Why this rating
RCT with clear statistical significance for energy intake reduction.
Source
Flexible time-restricted eating combined with exercise in a free-living setting for middle-aged women with overweight/obesity: a randomized controlled trial
Zi-Han Dai et al. · Nature Communications · 2025
DOI 10.1038/s41467-025-65678-z
rct · n=104Cited 1×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Combining flexible time-restricted eating (8-hour window) with aerobic exercise yields significantly greater fat mass reduction than either intervention alone in middle-aged women with overweight/obesity.Good
- Flexible time-restricted eating combined with aerobic exercise improves insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) and insulin levels more effectively than either intervention alone.Good
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