Forget dieting – experts say it’s the time of day you eat that matters!

If you're looking for a healthy eating resolution that's easy to stick with for 2015, we may have found just the thing.

A new study has shown that eating within the same eight or nine hour time frame each day could help you to lose weight and get leaner – even if your diet falls by the wayside.

Experts at the Salk Institute in California believe that by allowing your body to predict when it will be getting fuel from food, it will become better prepared to burn calories. Not only that, but "time-restricted eating" could also benefit your digestive system and could decrease your cholesterol levels, too. Win!

The research was carried out on mice, who were each fed the same diet – some eating at any time of the day and others eating only during the eight-hour time window. The mice with the restricted time frame were both healthier and leaner by the end of the study, despite the fact that they were still being fed fatty and unhealthy foods.

Even when the mice ate freely for two days out of seven, the results were the same – so a cheat weekend or two won't do much harm, the researchers believe.

But could the results apply to us humans, too? The experts behind the study believe they do – and they plan to test the same theory on humans next. Watch this space!

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