Researchers have found that your diet plan can withstand some temporary interruptions.

During the study nearly 400 mice, ranging from normal to obese, were subjected to various types of diets and lengths of time restrictions. Researchers found that regardless of whether their diets were high in fat, fat and sucrose or just fructose, the mice that were given time restrictions of 9 to 12 hours-and consumed the same amount of daily calories as their unrestricted counterparts-gained less weight than the controls. The benefits of time-restricted feeding showed up regardless of the weight of the mouse, type of diet and length of the time restriction, to some degree. Variations in the time window in which the mice were allowed to eat a high-fat diet-including 9, 10 and 12 hour periods, all resulted in similarly lean mice. However, for a 15-hour group, the benefits conferred by time restriction became less.

Researchers gave some of the time-restricted mice a respite on weekends, allowing them free access to high-fat meals for the two days. These mice had less fat mass and gained less weight than the mice given a freely available, high-fat diet in the whole week. In fact, the mice that were freely fed just on weekends looked almost the same as mice given access to food with time restriction of 9 or 12 hours a day for seven days a week, thus suggesting that the diet can withstand some temporary interruptions.