After watching the BBC Horizon documentary on fasting and the media attention that followed, I decided to try out the 5/2 diet. For those of you who do not know what this is, it is basically when you choose 2 days in each week where you eat 500 calories (if you're a woman, 600 if you're a man) and for the other 5 days you eat normally. Not only are you supposed to lose weight, but fasting is supposedly very beneficial to your long term health and reduces the risk of a catalogue of age-related diseases.
The science behind it goes: when you eat normally, you give your cells fuel so that they have energy to fill out normal processes and replication driven by a chemical known as 'Insulin Growth Factor 1' or IGF-1. The more your cells replicate, the more chance of mutations occurring, a probability which increases as we age due to harmful molecules known as free radicals. This is basically what aging is and happens to us all. Mutations during replication are also the cause behind many common diseases which normally appear in later life, including cancer (excessive and uncontrollable replication) and Alzheimers (over-replication of harmful proteins which form plaques in the brain). Recent evidence, however, has shown that we can reduce our levels of IGF-1 simply by eating significantly less for 2 days. This in turn deprives cells of fuel so that they stop replicating as well as switching on genes which allow them to repair DNA damage caused by, for example, free radicals.
My dad started this diet after Christmas and has lost over ten pounds since then. I have been doing it for a couple of weeks and have had slightly less drastic results. Although I never really started the diet as a weight loss regime I though I would have lost more than I have (about 3 pounds I think). Having been on this diet now for a few weeks there are a few things I thought I would share.
First of all, in many newspapers and magazines it says you can eat 'whatever you want' on the 5 days when you're not fasting and still lose weight. Definitely not true, you still have to eat well on the in-between days (3 meals a day, avoid snacking, portion control and healthy options are my 4 simple rules which I stick to most of the time) if you want to lose weight. Otherwise you will just put on what you lost on your fast days.
Secondly, I would recommend fasting on days when you are busy but don't really have to concentrate, or at least not in the afternoons. I don't find the hunger such an issue, it's more a weird feeling of being slightly bored of not eating. It's hard to explain, if you try it out you will see what I mean. That's why it's good to keep yourself distracted. I have never experienced any dizziness and you shouldn't since it's only one day of fasting at a time (and you keep yourself hydrated) although I do feel a sort of mild discomfort in my head. I have also had some days when I have found it hard to sleep.
So what does 500 calories look like?
Here is a photo of everything I ate in my last fast day:
Apple + Coffee with soy milk = ~100 cals
Pea & Ham soup = ~200 cals
Half slice of rye bread with slice of ham and tomatoes = ~100 cals
Yogurt = 100 cals
0 calorie foods include herbal teas, black coffee, diet drinks, and water.
I am going to try to keep doing it purely for the long term health benefits, Mondays and Thursdays being my fast days. Hope you have found this interesting, I would love to hear if anyone else has tried this and what their thoughts were.
