Authors: Michael Mosley,Mimi Spencer
The Fast Diet: The secret of intermittent fasting � lose weight, stay healthy, live longer (15 page)
Unhappyhildebrand on Mumsnet.com
‘Everyone is doing so well. You can really do anything for a day, and with a bit of planning I managed to plug most of my hunger pangs down to a manageable level. Scales were showing a good loss this morning.
Any concerns I had on my exercise performance while fasting were scuppered this morning. I ran my fastest sustained pace ever and that was following a 500-calorie fast day with no breakfast, only a coffee – I smell fat burning!!!! I feel great and will break the fast properly with lunch today. Next fast day is on Thursday. Good luck to everyone fasting today.’
SpringGoddess on Mumsnet.com
‘Just wanted to add that exercising whilst fasting was fine for me, too. I spent an hour at the gym last night and felt good. Did 35 minutes on the cross trainer and some weights and didn’t feel faint or dizzy. It’s amazing how good I feel when fasting actually.’
dontcallmehon on Mumsnet.com
‘I did Day One yesterday and am feeling brilliant this
morning and full of energy. In the end, I just decided to go as long as I could without food. I drank tea with milk and black coffee and water throughout the day. I had some melon and strawberries at 4pm, then a full dinner of two Quorn sausages, one boiled egg, one slice of toast, rocket salad with a bit of balsamic. It tasted so good! But, the fasting was easier than expected. Wasn’t too hungry and just tried to keep busy during the day.’
Mondayschild78 on Mumsnet.com
‘My Day One yesterday also went brilliantly! I wasn’t even ravenous when I woke up this morning, I was able to wait an hour before having some Burgen bread toast and peanut butter – and I struggled to finish it! I loved the feeling of emptiness in my tummy, and the hunger pangs were also enjoyable at times – is this weird? My whole life I had eaten when I wasn’t hungry because I was so scared of having a single tummy rumble. I am weirdly looking forward to my next fast day…’
ILoveStripeySocks on Mumsnet.com
‘For me, fasting - 600 calories twice a week - has changed my attitude to food and drink. It has broken a cycle of over indulgence which caused my weight to rise steadily for 30 years. We are creatures of habit, and without realizing it slip into patterns of behavior which are difficult to change. But now something profound has happened: I
perceive things more clearly and there is something about this new state of mind which reminds me of how I felt in my 20s when I had a BMI of around 22. I no longer feel comfortable if I have eaten too much, and I feel more in control. The habit is being broken. I suspect I will be on this diet more or less for the rest of my life.
David Cleevely
‘I am now two weeks into my 5:2 diet and I am already seeing a positive effect on my weight. At my second weigh-in, I had lost a total of five pounds. Feel noticeably slimmer and happy that I can maintain this for a long time to come.
| | Stats | 5’ 10” male | |
| | Start weight | 13st 9lb | |
| | Week 1 | 13st 6lb | |
| | Week 2 | 13st 4lb | |
Really enjoyed the programme!’
Nick Wilson
‘OK, fast two of week 13 was completed yesterday and as promised, here’s an update for a whole quarter of Intermittent Fasting.
The programme involves eating only 600 calories on two selected, non-consecutive days of the week. Apart from the two days a week, that’s it. The rest of the time,
I eat and drink what I want. You don’t need to exercise or count calories on a daily basis, you don’t feel hungry 24/7 and, best of all, you don’t die of starvation.
Tonight is Indian night, tomorrow is steak night and Sunday is probably Italian. Every night is booze night. That doesn’t sound like too onerous a regime to me. It’s fair to say that my overall weekly calorie consumption (excluding fast days) has reduced, not because I’m avoiding eating on the feed days, but purely because I’m just not as hungry.
Over the past 13 weeks, I’ve been developing the regime to suit myself and have got into a fairly settled Monday and Thursday routine. I consume nothing at all during the day apart from three or four teas/coffees (just marginally whitened) and about one to one and a half litres of tap water. I come home and I do a ten-mile thrash on a cycle turbo trainer. Last night, I did it in 30 minutes and 25 seconds, an average of 20mph for 30 minutes. Using that assumption, my ten-miler burns around 550 calories. By doing it before you eat on a fast day, the theory (I guess) is that you’re forcing your body to burn body fat, rather than the carbs it would normally turn to for a short burst of energy.
Hunger wise – well, it’s OK. I eat late prior to a fast day and that definitely helps. I find having even a small breakfast actually triggers hunger for the rest of the day, so I avoid everything until late on, when I have some flavoured rice (240 cals) and the rest as vegetables. It’s
easily managed – you actually don’t get hungrier throughout the day and it’s easy to take your mind off it by doing something. You DO have to approach a fast day in the right mindset though. If you don’t, you’ll have a pretty hellish time. Do it right and it’s really quite a doddle.
So when I started the regime in mid-August, I was a fraction of a pound off 14 stone and on the last notch of my belt (I know that’s not very scientific and I wish I’d taken more measurements when I started, but hey-ho).
This morning, I tipped the scales at 12st 9lbs and the fourth notch on my belt is quite comfortable (the third is a wee bit loose). One notch = just over one inch. The goal without exercise would be to lose a pound a week (given that a 4000 weekly calorie restriction = roughly 1 pound of body fat). With the one hour of exercise a week, I accelerated it by almost 50% to 19lbs in the same period.
I’m keeping going until Christmas where I hope to go to a 5:1+1 (the +1 being an 800 or 900 calorie day). If that works, then I’ll stay on that for the rest of my time.
I went for a cycle last Sunday after having a full breakfast and it was incredibly easy. Loads of speed, the hills were actually fun and, apart from the chilliness, it was extremely enjoyable. The benefit of being fitter and having a fuelled-up body I guess. LOADS of energy.
Other benefits:
I have suffered from asthma since I was a child. It’s
nowhere near as bad as it was when I was a bairn, but now it’s practically disappeared. My “peak flow” reading has gone up by over 30 per cent in the 13 weeks – probably as a result of the weight loss allowing me to exercise harder.
A wee bit girly here, but I’d say my skin complexion has improved dramatically. No plooks or blackheads – even the touch of dry skin on my elbows has gone.’
David Norvell
‘Both my partner and I watched your programme and thought it was very interesting, so we decided to start 5:2 fasting on the following Monday. (Always good to start news things on a Monday, I find!) I have done liquid fasting in the past, for weeks, and really liked it. But then I put the weight back on again, I found. This seems to work better.
| | Height | 1.60m | |
| | Weight | 83kg | |
I’m not very FAT as such, but I do need to lose weight, especially around my tummy/waist – the exact place where it’s not good for you to be fat… I know! My aim is to get to 65–70kg, but at my age, it’s not as easy to lose weight as it used to be when I was younger (according to my GP).
| | 6 Aug | 83kg (started fasting) | |
| | 8 Aug | 82kg | |
| | 9 Aug | 81kg | |
| | 14 Aug | 81kg | |
| | 18 Aug | 80kg | |
| | 23 Aug | 80kg | |
| | 27 Aug | 79.5kg | |
| | 6 Sept | 79.5kg | |
| | 13 Sept | 78.5kg | |
| | 21 Sept | 79kg | |
We both love the Intermittent Fasting. As you can see, I have lost some weight and the only reason it has not gone quicker is the fact I have not done as much exercise as I set out to do originally. We will certainly continue and I will keep weighing myself to check the progress.
We also find it makes us want to eat less the adjacent days, too. We do our two days on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Come Thursday morning, I feel so “light” and full of energy, I don’t want to “spoil” it by eating too much even if it’s my feeding day.
We have our main “fasting meal” in the evening, as it’s the time we see each other at home after work, to settle down and talk over dinner. It’s probably not ideal from a calorie-burning aspect, but it’s more practical for us and suits us best.
A typical fasting day main meal:
• Corn on the cobs as starter.
• Salmon fillet with garlic, lemon, herbs, salt and
pepper and a minimum amount of olive oil OR a two-egg omelette with onion, garlic, parsley, sliced mushrooms.• Salad: various green salad leaves, tomatoes, red onion, herbs, maybe beetroot.
• Drink: water
During the day, we eat a banana and an apple.
I’m really grateful for you making this programme and have passed it on to friends and family who have taken it on, too.’
Britt Warg
‘I’m a neurophysiology and pharmacology student, researching Parkinson’s. Inspired by the
Horizon
programme, I decided to “self-experiment”. This has now blossomed into a project that will be run at my university. I’m interested in data, neurodegenerative disorders and what steps I can take in my own lifestyle that will decrease my occurrence of breast cancer. I am a two-time (and counting) breast cancer patient, so I’m rather interested in what impact (if any) Intermittent Fasting could have on recurrence.
From my blog, www.schrokit.wordpress.com:
It’s Not a Diet
So seven weeks into 5:2 (or 2:5 as I like to call it since I think of my weeks starting with fasting and then five
days of EATING) and still going strong. I’m a little over a stone down, with Mr Schrokit not too far behind (he keeps calling his jeans “fat man trousers” since he needs to do up his belt a few extra notches inwards…)Because the overall difference in my appearance and ‘result’ is so easy to see (though people keep asking me if I changed my hair, got new glasses etc., they can’t seem to pin down the weight loss, but I’m getting compliments galore), when I talk to people about fasting, they seem VERY keen to give it a go. In fact, many of Mr Schrokit’s colleagues are on this so-called “diet” and finding it very eye-opening about their own eating habits.
But it’s not a diet. The best description I’ve heard so far is from blog commenter Gordon. It’s a strategy, to quote him, and I can’t think of a better word.
Aside from eating a healthy balanced diet, whatever all the trendy diet books tell you, weight control is really about the aggregate number of calories you consume in the long run. The thing that fasting does seem to do is to help one get back in touch with actual appetite. For example, hungry versus bored, or hungry v tired, hungry v craving and most of all, hungry versus thirsty all seem a bit more obvious after fasting a couple of days.’
Nicole Slavin
‘I’ve been doing the Intermittent Fasting diet for about
three months now and wrote a blog post about it.
As you see, my experiences have been positive. What I didn’t mention on my blog is that my husband has high cholesterol, which is an inherited condition, and the main reason we went on this diet. He didn’t need to lose more than a couple of kilos in weight (he’s always been a racing snake), so now he makes sure he increases his calorie intake (healthily with homemade smoothies) during the five days.’
From my blog, www.helenahalme.blogspot.co.uk:
When I was younger and living in Helsinki I did a few complete fasting sessions with my father. This fast would last five days and we were only allowed to drink fruit juices on the first and last days. So I thought I knew what I was getting into.
But this diet, which basically means you eat less on two days per week, is much easier. You’re allowed 500 calories (600 for men – so unfair!), which when you think about it isn’t that bad. And unlike the fasts of my youth, on this one you’re allowed to drink coffee. (Coffee is the one thing I cannot give up these days…)
I’ve been doing the fasting for about three months now, and have lost 5kgs. I feel so much better on it, not only because of the weight loss, but because I seem to have more energy and control over my eating… After the initial shock to the system, your stomach actually
contracts and you feel less hungry, more aware of how much you eat on any given day, whether it is one of the two or one of the five days of the week.So here are my five tips to successfully do this diet:
• Do not fast on consecutive days – it’s too hard and I find the second day in a row gruelling. And don’t do weekends – we tried a Friday and nearly killed each other.
• Get busy – the more you have to think about something else other than food, the easier it is. I work from home half of the week, so I try to fast when I’m in the office. And don’t watch Nigella on TV while fasting. She’s like a Domestic Devil to me on one of my two days.
• Get yourself an app. I use MyFitnessPal which is a simple tool to count calories. A notepad is equally good, but for those of you, like me, who love apps, this one also records the foods you’ve consumed, the exercise you take and the weight you are losing (and predicts what you would lose in five weeks if each day was like the one you’ve just recorded).
• Don’t be too hard on yourself. I have missed a couple of fasting days during the past three months. Just because you do that, there’s no need to throw in the towel. There’s always tomorrow, or next week!
• Don’t go alone. Doing this with someone is so much easier. Some weeks, because of schedules, my
husband and I have had to do different days, and it just doesn’t work.’Helena Halme