CosBeauty Magazine #79

Feature
fasting is one of the most ancient
healing traditions but it has only
recently been accepted by the
scientific community. words by david hickie
FAQs
Medical News Today assessed the
most common FAQs for beginners
to fasting routines.
In recent years, various
intermittent fasting plans have
become popular with people
seeking to lose weight or improve
their health.
The most popular regimens
generally involve very low or no
calorie intake on certain days per
week, then eating normally on nonfasting
days.
Alternate Day
Fasting
Professor Krista Varady created the
Every-Other-Day Diet, based on
her groundbreaking research into
‘alternate-day modified fasting’ at the
University of Illinois in Chicago.
Proponents describe it as ‘the diet
that lets you eat all you want (half
the time) and keep the weight off!’
The plan involves alternate
‘fast’ and ‘feast’ days. Fasting days
consist of a single 500 calorie meal
at lunchtime. But then there is no
restriction on what, when or how
much is eaten on feasting days.
The two key attractions are:
• The promise that ‘you’ll lose
weight and improve your health
– while eating anything you want
and all you want, every other day’;
• Where most diets include a
daunting set of rules to be obeyed
– what you can eat and can’t eat,
how much you can and can’t eat,
when you can and can’t eat – here
there is only one rule: eat no more
than 500 calories on Diet Day,
eat anything you want and as
much as you want on Feast Day.
That’s it. No counting calories,
carbs, fat or protein. No avoiding
any particular food; all foods
are allowed. No complex meal
preparations and plans.
Two Days Per
Week Fasting
Developed by popular UK TV
medico Dr Michael Mosley, the Fast
Diet involves fasting for two days
per week. People maintain their
usual eating routines for the other
five days. Dr Mosley sums up: ‘If we
were to distil the Fast Diet into a
single soundbite, it would all come
down to 5:2. That’s five days of
normal eating, with little thought
to calorie control and a slice of pie
for pudding if that’s what you want.
Then, on the other two days, you
reduce your calorie intake to 500
calories for women and 600 calories
for men.’
Proponents claim that since you
are only fasting for two days of your
choice each week – and eating
normally on the other five days –
there is always something new and
tasty on the horizon. In short, it’s
easy to comply with a regime that
only asks you to restrict your calorie
intake occasionally. It ‘recalibrates
the diet equation, and stacks the
odds in your favour’.
Importantly, the plan is designed
as a ‘well-signposted path towards a
longer, healthier life’; weight
loss is ‘simply a happy adjunct to
all of that’.
Hence, according to Dr Mosley,
this eating plan can not only help
people lose weight, but offers an
array of other health benefits:
‘Studies of intermittent fasting
show that not only do people see
improvements in blood pressure and
their cholesterol levels, but also in
their insulin sensitivity.’
And how did he come up with
the recommendation that women
have 500 calories and men have 600
Can I still exercise?
In an interview with US magazine
The Atlantic, Professor Krista
Varady (creator of the Every-Other-
Day Diet) noted that for people
beginning her regimen, after the
first 10 days ‘their activity levels
were similar to people following a
traditional diet or an unrestricted
eating plan’.
It may also be most beneficial for
exercise sessions to end one hour
before mealtime.
Won’t I eat too much
on feast days?
According to Professor Varady,
people do eat more than their
estimated calorie needs on ‘feast’
days. However they do not eat
enough to make up the deficit from
fast days.
And other UK researchers (at
University Hospital in Manchester)
have reported that people
unintentionally eat less on nonfasting
days as well.
Will I be hungry on
fasting days?
Professor Varady reports that the
first 10 days on the Every-Other-Day
Diet are the most challenging.
Calorie-free beverages, such
as unsweetened tea, may help
offset hunger.
Do I still fast once I’m ready
to maintain my weight?
Some plans, such as the Every-
Other-Day Diet, also include a
weight maintenance phase, which
involves increasing the number of
calories consumed on fasting days
from 500 to 1,000.
Other plans recommend
decreasing the number of fasting
days each week.
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