8-Hour Diet David Zinczenko Today Show video: Does the latest diet craze work?

A new diet book claims that Americans can trim their waistlines by limiting the time of day that they consume food.

David Zinczenko is the Editor in Chief of Men's Health Magazine.  Zinczenko and his co-writer, Peter Moore, maintain that the invention of artificial light has led to extension of our natural feeding times and that by restricting our eating to just an 8-hour window during the day, you will safely lose weight.

Satchidananda Panda, Ph.D. has research that shows where there is more light at night in the U.S., there are more cases of diabetes.

Our technology has created an artificial daytime during the late night hours where we thrive and stay active, and we're filling those late-night hours with meal four, meal five and meal six, says Zinczenko.

Zinczenko and Moore claim that our bodies can't process the food we eat late at night and those calories end up settling in our butts and bellies.

Panda devised a laboratory test to study his ideas on mice.  The mice were divided into two groups and put on the same high-calorie, high-fat diet.

One group was allowed to eat anything at any time of day or night.  The other group was allowed to eat as much as they wished, but only during an 8-hour time frame.  The study lasted for 100 days.  The group with no time restrictions was the one that plumped up.

“Simply limiting food intake to 8 hours gives you all the benefits — without having to worry about food intake,” Panda explains.

Zinczenko describes his 8-Hour Diet as a way of extending the period of time between your last snack in the evening  and your breakfast, giving your body the chance to burn your fat reserves for the energy it needs.

He cites a 2007 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition study where researchers had two groups of people eat the same number of calories - enough for them to maintain their weight.

One group ate all their calories in three meals spread throughout the day.  The other group practiced "intermittent fasting", eating the same amount of calories within a specific time frame.

The participants that ate during the smaller time frame had a “significant modification of body composition, including reductions in fat mass.”

Panda's research states that restricting the time period during which you eat forces your body to burn more calories all day long.

The 8-Hour Diet: Watch the Pounds Disappear Without Watching What You Eat! by David Zinczenko with Peter Moore was published on December 24, 2012.