Fast your way to a Poldark six-pack
As Aidan Turner says intermittent fasting gave him abs and energy, Eleanor Steafel checks if there is any weight to the claims
Striding out of the sea on Sunday night, wearing nothing but a pair of breeches, Ross Poldark looked every inch Cornwall’s answer to James Bond. Aidan Turner’s chiselled chest has been the subject of frenzied debate among fans and commentators since it first graced our screens in 2015 – only fanned by that photo of a make-up artist painting his pecs while he readied himself for a spot of scything, stripped to the waist.
After insisting to The Daily Telegraph’s own Bryony Gordon that he barely had time to hit the gym for the third series, the 34-year-old star has revealed a slightly more extreme approach to honing his physique for the fourth: not eating until 7pm and exercising twice a day on an empty stomach.
“My energy levels soared,” he said, admitting he became “hooked” on fasting. “I quite liked the hunger pangs. It’s good for the job. It keeps you in it, you know?” Not really, Aidan, no. Having foregone food for the day, most of us couldn’t find the energy to do anything other than sit, staring into space, questioning our life choices.
But then most of us don’t have to strip to our breeches in front of the nation of a Sunday evening. And on and off screen, it seems, not eating has never been so popular: the diet of choice for everyone from Beyoncé to Benedict Cumberbatch; while beginner’s guides to various fasting iterations abound online.
The science suggesting that fasting is a sensible, manageable approach to shedding pounds is gathering weight, with research suggesting it can cut cholesterol and blood pressure levels, reduce the likelihood of cardiovascular disease, and help stave off the ageing process. It has even been known to reverse cases of type-2 diabetes in a matter of months.
The problem? How to genuinely make it work for you, especially if you’re someone for whom the idea of regularly starving yourself sounds faintly horrifying. If you’ve watched friends and colleagues attempt to tackle the 5:2 (where two days a week are restricted to 500-600 calories) and become irritable wrecks on “fast days”, the prospect won’t seem hugely attractive. There are, however, a number of different approaches to fasting.
Turner’s approach comes under the umbrella of “intermittent fasting” or IF – a sustained fast, practised every day for a certain number of hours. Dr Rangan Chatterjee, GP and author of
The Four Pillar Plan, advocates a similar approach, which he calls “time-restricted feeding”. His theory is that if we decrease the number of hours in a day in which we are allowed to eat, we give ourselves a manageable daily fast that can have many of the benefits of a more extreme fast.
“The recommendation I feel very comfortable making to the general public is to eat all of your food within a 12-hour window,” he says. “That is pretty simple and achievable for most of us. That could mean starting your breakfast at 7am and finishing your dinner at 7pm.”
Dr Chatterjee describes his approach as a “daily micro-fast”, which allows a process called autophagy (from the ancient Greek, meaning “self-devouring”) to kick in, much like a daily spring clean: “If you imagine your kitchen – every day, mugs and plates are being used. If we don’t clean that at the end of the day or the following morning, by the end of the week the kitchen isn’t very nice to go into. It’s smelly, it’s messy – all these things are building up.
“When we go about our lives, junk builds up in the body. The term for this is oxidative damage – it’s a bit like rusting on a car. It’s not a
‘I quite liked the hunger pangs. It’s good for the job. It keeps you in it’
problem as long as the clean-up crew turns up at night. We know that one of the ways we can activate that clean-up crew is by having about 12 hours with no food.”
The benefits of restricting the window in which you eat aren’t restricted to weight loss, either. Dr Chatterjee explains that fasting can also lower your rate of inflammation in the body: “Chronic unresolved inflammation is at the root cause of heart disease, strokes, Alzheimer’s and type-2 diabetes. And when you lower your rate of inflammation, your weight will get better, too.”
If a 12-hour break is a good start, should we really be trying to push it further if we can? Personal trainer Max Lowery is the creator of the two-meal day, a regime that advocates a 16-hour eating break in order to break down more fat. He says while the Turner approach seems extreme, it will be an effective way for him to stay trim during filming.
“You’re not going to be retaining as much water because you’re not going to be taking on as many electrolytes or salts, and you won’t be getting bloated,” he says. “The mental clarity you get when you’re not constantly digesting food is also amazing. It will allow him to stay incredibly lean because he will be in a calorie deficit by the end of the week.”
His two-meal approach helps to teach you to eat when you’re hungry. “Very rarely are people eating because of real hunger,” he says. “The way that we eat now – which is breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner – is very new. It used to be three meals a day, and before that it was even less. We’ve only been eating like this for the past few years and people have become afraid of having an empty stomach – actually, having an empty stomach is incredibly beneficial.”
One approach that merely “mimics” fasting, known as “the fasting mimicking diet”, is said to add years to your life, boost your immune system and can even cut the risk of heart disease and cancer. Developed by academics at the University of Southern California, led by Prof Valter Longo, the FMD restricts daily calories to between one third and a half of normal intake – a “state of outrageous hunger” according to The Daily Telegraph guinea pig who tried it – but only requires followers to stick to the regime five days out of every month.
Scientists say the diet tricks the body into a “slower ageing mode”, showing that people who tested the regimen found that within three months they had reduced biomarkers linked to ageing, diabetes, cancer and heart disease, as well as cutting overall body fat.
Then there’s the more famous 5:2 diet, developed by Dr Michael Mosley, which instructs followers to severely restrict their calorie intake (500 for women; 600 for men) for two days a week. It’s gained endorsements from a whole host of celebrities, with everyone from George Osborne to Phillip Schofield citing it as an effective weight-loss plan. The 5:2 has been proven to aid weight loss, with one recent study finding that people on the 5:2 also had healthier hearts, as the diet
‘The mental clarity when you’re not constantly digesting food is amazing’
lowered their blood pressure and saw them have a better ability to clear fat out of their system.
Whether it’s 5:2, 16:8, or 12:12, Dr Chatterjee says fasting of any kind is “kicking into play the same kind of processes in your body. It’s just a case of personalising it to what suits you. Fasting can have so many incredible benefits, but if you are chronically overworked and underslept, these prolonged fasts can have negative side effects”.
If your daily life doesn’t require you to look suitably sculpted while scything, then eschewing food until 7pm every day may seem a bit extreme. But whether it’s a monthly fast, or simply trying not to eat after 8pm every night, most of us could probably benefit from a little more moderation.