B00AFYX78I EBOK (9 page)

The doll’s house portions are slightly surreal and maybe a bit
sad-looking on even the smallest plates I have in the house - but because it’s
only a couple of days a week, I don’t care. I can see how the measuring and
weighing could become an obsession, and a not altogether healthy one, which is
why I think the days when you eat what you like are important for
psychological, as well as physiological, reasons. It’s about enjoying the
pleasure of food, which is so often absent in a diet.

Feasting not feeding!

I’ve
decided to call my ‘eating’ days ‘Feast Days’ - on the TV show, they called
them ‘feed’ days which had a slightly farmyard feel about it, and also reminded
me a bit of an article I’d read about ‘feeders’ - men who like to date larger
women and watch as they eat a lot. Those two ideas aren’t really fitting in
with my hopes for this lifestyle, whereas ‘feast’ feels far better. The point
is not to indulge in a Nigella-frenzy of cakes and puddings, but to savour the
food on the days when you’re free to eat what you like.

I also find that the early tendency to overdo it slightly on my
‘feast’ days is reducing as I get used to the diet. One reason is that after
counting the calories the day before, I am more aware of what everything
contains - so a chocolate brownie from Costa is something I choose to savour
after a small lunch, rather than something I bolt down unnoticed as I run for
the train. And it tasted so good…

The other reason is that all your senses are heightened after a
day of fasting. Even a single slice of peanut butter on toast feels like a
feast after a day when I’ve managed just fine on fewer than 500 calories…

I
slowed down a little so it’s still not a dramatic weight loss, but at this
rate, I should have lost a stone or more by Christmas, and be back into the
healthy BMI zone.

It’s a steady reduction, but it feels like a huge breakthrough.
When I remember how I felt in July - that my weight and my attitude to food
were out of control, that I had no way of ‘stopping the rot’ - I feel very
lucky.

And, of course, I’m seeing the difference. My clothes are looser
and even my bra needs adjusting. Could the dreaded back fat - one of those
Daily
Mail
obsessions - be facing its nemesis?

Roll on October…

Reading
my diary a few months on, it strikes me even more forcefully how important the
right mental attitude is to increase the chances of succeeding at any lifestyle
change, particularly weight loss.

Or at least, people who are successful in losing weight are
those who have the mental strength to ignore cravings for long-term physical
benefit. It’s something I know many dieters - including myself - find
difficult. If the body showed the results of that slice of chocolate cake
overnight, it might be easier.

As we’ve established, our bodies are built to consume and
conserve energy for survival. Pretty vital for early man, but in the
industrialised 21st century, when many of us are lucky enough to have a vast
choice and availability of food, making the ‘right’ choices about what we
consume can be easier said than done. In theory, we have lots of appetising
fresh produce available, and can make the right decisions: in practice, I know
many of us feel out of control.

If you read the diary entries I’ve included in this ebook,
you’ll get a sense that my own weight issues result from a whole cocktail of
factors:

What’s your reason?

How about you? Why not take a couple of minutes to think about the reasons you
might not be making the right choices?

Do any of these ring a bell?

Remember
how it feels to be hungry?

I
had forgotten until I started this diet. I often ate because I was thirsty or
bored, and had totally lost touch with the basics of appetite or enjoying the
anticipation before sitting down to eat.

The first days of fasting were a revelation - because I
realised I could feel hungry, acknowledge it, and then carry on with my
day-to-day life. I would distract myself with sparkling water, black coffee or
herbal tea, or even exercise. The pangs came in bursts and if I could ignore
those, then they subsided.

The key to being able to ignore those nagging hunger pangs?
I knew it would be different the next day. I knew that if I couldn’t put off
eating what I fancied just for a few more hours until the next day (and knowing
all the benefits to my body), then really there was no hope for me at all.

Willpower deserts me when a diet is never-ending. But when
it’s simply a matter of anticipating and enjoying my food the next day, it’s so
much easier.

Many others agree that soon the ‘restriction’ of a Fast Day
begins to feel more like a ‘liberation’ from worrying about food – and allows
the rest of your life to feel normal.

It allows me to have my
Saturday night meal out and a few glasses of wine on a Friday without feeling
as though I have 'broken my diet'. This means my relationship with my husband
doesn't have to change, as we always eat out on Saturdays.

Julie, 45

Fat
Crimes and Punishments

The
problem I’ve had with previous diets has been the feeling of deprivation - even
punishment that constant calorie counting can provoke. You might well recognise
this: you start with the best of intentions but soon feel as though your newly
restricted food intake is the penalty for being greedy. Then, in a difficult
moment, you think ‘sod it, if I’m greedy then so be it’ and console yourself
with your comfort food of choice - chocolate, cheese, bread, wine - which
triggers a whole new cycle of guilt…

Or you can gain a reputation as the picky one at friends’
dinner parties or celebrations, which highlights the fact you’re on a diet
‘again’ and also highlights any failures.

This diet changes how you view your eating habits – and the
change is likely to be permanent. In fact, many people prefer not to call 5:2 a
‘diet’ at all, because of the negative associations with unworkable or
abandoned weight loss regimes. I use diet here because it’s brief and can also
simply mean what you eat: but you may prefer to call this a plan, an approach,
a way of eating or a lifestyle, to maximise the chances of making this change a
permanent one.

The psychological benefits are one thing – but there also
seem to be benefits at cellular level, in terms of brain function.

Effects
on the brain: sharper, for longer?

The
‘Horizon’ TV programme introduced us to a rather special breed of mouse. One
that had been bred to develop Alzheimer’s disease. Different groups of these
mice were then fed different diets – some the equivalent of junk food, others
as much normal food as they wanted, and then another group were subject to
‘intermittent energy restriction’ – a day on/day off regime similar to ADF.

The last group were much slower to develop Alzheimer’s even
though they were destined to do so – and tests showed that the mice benefited
from a range of changes, including an increase in levels of BDNF,
a protein that helps to protect existing neurons (brain cells) and encourage
the growth of new ones. BDNF has been proven to have an anti-depressant effect,
plus the mice on the ADF style regime also had better memories.

Why
would fasting help the brain?

But
why would this be happening? Again, common sense suggests that on reduced
calories, the brain would be slowing down its activity, as the cells of the
body do, rather than ‘wasting’ energy.

Neuroscientist Mark Mattson, from the American National
Institute on Aging, believes there’s a biological reason why fasting would make
the brain function better: if early man couldn’t find or catch food, he’d go
hungry and, ultimately, die. Therefore it makes absolute sense that his brain
should work harder to either think up or discover new sources of food or
remember where he found it the last time.

So, fasting stresses the nerve cells but - as we’ve seen
with the other medical research - this stress may be good stress, improving
mental fitness, just as exercise stresses the muscles to improve physical
fitness.

The
research has implications not only for Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of
dementia, but also strokes. Professor Mattson is now planning more research in
humans to see whether fasting can stave off age-related cognitive decline.
There are indications that the greatest benefits start at middle-age, so it
may be that beginning this way of eating before that stage of life has less
significant results.

 The
practical difficulties of research into the brain – not least that changes can
often only be detected in patients when an autopsy is carried out after death –
mean conclusive evidence on some of these areas will take time. But Mattson
himself reportedly switched from a calorie restriction diet to intermittent
fasting… like many of the experts in this field who are adopting the lifestyle
with the same enthusiasm they show in their research.

Mood
and Energy Boosts– the biggest surprise of all

I
hate it when the clocks go back. I don’t suffer from Seasonal Affective
Disorder – the depressive symptoms many people experience during the winter
months – but my mood and energy levels are definitely affected by the dark and
cold. I can be a bit of an Eeyore, to put it mildly.

As
I write, it’s every bit as dark and cold this January as it normally is, yet I
feel more energetic than I did in the summer, and almost irritatingly positive.
And when I look back at my diary entries, I notice that’s been an upward trend
since I started the diet.

I’d
assumed this was because I was feeling good about my weight loss, but even so
it seemed particularly noticeable. And then I read Dr Mosley’s new book,
The
Fast Diet
, which offers advice based on his excellent programme, and also
expands on some of the science. In it, he mentions that Mark Mattson believes
this may be due to increasing levels of the BDNF protein caused by fasting.

I was fascinated and since following this up, I’ve read
plenty more evidence, including studies that show stress can decrease BDNF
levels in the brains of rats, with adverse effects on parts of the brain that
are also affected in humans suffering from chronic depression. Anti-depressant
medications and even electroconvulsive therapy have been shown to reverse this
decrease – so if fasting is doing the same, this could be incredibly exciting
for those with a history of depressive illness. It may also be one of the
reasons experience of fasting can be so uplifting even for those who don’t
suffer. Interestingly, exercise can also reverse age-related declines in BDNF
levels – and many of us fasting have seen our energy and inclination to
exercise increase, too.

The more I read, the more the links between so many varied
diseases become clear – and the more excited I am by the work scientists like
Mattson, Varady and Longo are doing.

To
sum up:

So
– 5:2 and other intermittent fasting or restriction diets can:

And
they may: