HOW DIET-WHISPERING WORKS
THIS 12-week plan is designed to nudge your body towards fat-burning. It’s the springboard for fast weight loss — most people lose at least a stone — and a protocol to fall back on if your weight creeps up again.
PHASE 1: Four weeks
START a ketogenic diet — that’s a high-fat, very-low-carb diet made up of 65 per cent fat, 35 per cent protein and just 5 per cent carbs (a max of 25-50g of carbs a day). That means eggs, meat or fish and salad or green veg in abundance. You can eat a few berries and cream, Greek yoghurt and nuts. No pasta, bread, cereals, diet foods, fruit or fruit juice, pulses, noodles, potatoes, puddings, sugar (in any form) or sweeteners.
EAT three low-carb meals a day, with no portion control but no snacks (except a ‘rescue apple’ in a carb-craving emergency). NO alcohol. STAY on this phase for four weeks, until you are comfortable with eating a low-carb diet and no longer bothered by hunger or cravings (which indicates you are well on the way to becoming ‘fat-adapted’).
In these first few weeks you may notice irritability, mood swings, brain fog and flu-like symptoms but these will settle once you are fully fat-adapted.
PHASE 2: Four weeks
YOUR aim now is gradually to increase your night-time fasting window in order to gain the health and fat-burning benefits of fasting.
STAY on your ketogenic diet: three meals a day, no snacks.
GRADUALLY shift your breakfast later in the day and then, one day at a time, move towards skipping breakfast completely. This increases the length of your night-time fast.
IF YOU are distracted by hunger cravings, you are not yet fat-adapted, so go back to Phase 1 for another week before restarting Phase 2.
STAY on this phase for four weeks, settling ultimately on a pattern of two ketogenic meals a day (lunch and dinner).
NO alcohol.
PHASE 3: Four weeks
BY NOW you should have lost a stone and will be sufficiently fat-adapted to introduce ‘treat’ meals and extend your fasts.
LET a ketogenic diet of two meals a day — lunch and dinner — be the basis of your eating.
GRADUALLY introduce two ‘treat meals’ a week where you eat whatever you like, including alcohol (but avoid super-refined carbs and if possible desserts, fizzy drinks, fruit juice, sweets and cakes. But pizza, burger buns, rice and pasta are allowed).
GRADUALLY introduce extended fasts (no food, just water, black tea or coffee) starting with a 24-hour fast from dinner one day to dinner the next.
MOVE on to extending one weekly fast — perhaps from after dinner on Saturday night to lunch on Monday.
At the end of the 12-week plan you should find fasting effortless and can mix and match your meals (some keto, some nonketo) and fasts to suit your life.
Long-term, aim to skip breakfast to ensure a 16-hour nighttime fast and eat one or two healthy meals each day in a ratio of 40 per cent carbs to 40 per cent fat and 20 per cent protein.
Enjoy three ‘treat meals’ with alcohol (if you like) a week, but avoid sugar and super-refined carbs, no snacking and do a 24-hour fast (or longer) when you like.