My new favorite thing is The Fast Diet.
I came across the book back in March, and the title caught my attention as I have dabbled with fasting from time to time.
Written by Dr. Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer, from the UK, it presents a way of eating they call “Intermittent Fasting.”
Turns out it is not actually FASTING in the traditional sense of the word, hence the Intermittent part of it.
What you do is reduce the amount of calories you consume 2 days a week to 25% of what you would normally eat. You may hear this plan referred to as the 5:2 – five days of regular eating and two days of intermittent fasting.
That works out to 500 calories for women, 600 for men (which figures – they ALWAYS get to eat more!). On the other days you can eat what you want, although the recommendation is to not overeat on those other days.
Most women will lose about a pound a week on this plan.
There are even more exciting aspects to this way of eating than just losing weight though.
Here are a few of the benefits you may realize when following this plan:
- Enhance brain function (think less brain fog)
- Reduced risk of stroke
- Improvement in Blood Pressure
- Increased sensitivity to insulin
- Reduction of inflammatory markers – this can mean reduction in chronic pain, arthritis, etc.
- Reduction of cholesterol levels
Once you try it a few days, it is a pretty easy plan to follow. And the day after a fast day, everything tastes better than it did before – you really don’t find yourself wanting to pig out just because you can!
The book has been on the best seller list for many weeks – I encourage you to check it out, if you have not already done so.
Find out more on their website at http://thefastdiet.co.uk/
