Now 5:2 dieters can eat three meals on fast days
Fast Diet’s inventor says you’re allowed 200 more calories
IT’S one of the most successful and widely used diets of recent years – but there has always been one big catch with the so-called 5:2 regime.
For two ‘fasting’ days every week, dieters must limit themselves to just 600 calories – a demand that even the most ardent can find extremely challenging.
But now the diet’s creator, Dr Michael Mosley, is about to make things significantly easier – by unveiling a new version of his ‘Fast Diet’ that allows followers to eat 800 calories on their fasting days, spread over three meals.
And, crucially, Dr Mosley promises that with the new diet, which will feature in an exclusive 16-page pull-out in next week’s You magazine, you’ll shift the pounds at almost the same rate.
He told the The Mail on Sunday : ‘You don’t need to stick to 600 calories. Cutting down to 800 calories a day seems to be almost as effective and for some people much more “doable”.’ He added: ‘It’s lowcalorie, without being superlow-calorie. And if you want to have lunch, you can slip those extra 200 calories in there.’
But those imagining tucking into a sticky bun or chocolate bar in the new version must think again.
Dr Mosley said ‘empty calories’ should remain strictly off-limits on fasting days. He advised: ‘If you are going to have lunch, have something like a nice bowl of hearty soup, or grilled fish and a decent pile of vegetables or salad.’
Dr Mosley’s original version of the 5:2 – which The Mail on Sunday first revealed five years ago – advocated fasting for about 12 hours from breakfast to dinner.
But Dr Mosley admitted some people ended up getting ‘a bit irritable’ going without food for so long during the day. Consequently, in his alternative version, people can switch so that they have their long fast overnight – so they sleep during half of it – starting their low-calorie day the evening before. He explained: ‘What I’d recommend is that you have a slightly earlier supper on the evening before, and then a slighter later breakfast on the fasting day. That way, you’ll be fasting for 13 hours or more overnight.’
A growing number of studies suggests periodically going without food for 12 hours or more can help control blood sugar levels – so defending the body against the threat of type 2 diabetes.
Dr Mosley, presenter of a number of BBC programmes including Trust Me, I’m a Doctor, stumbled across what has been termed ‘intermittent fasting’ while researching the subject for a documentary on the BBC’s Horizon series in 2012. When he tried it, adapting it into the 5:2 diet, he managed to lose 20lb and reverse his newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes.
Adherents of the 5:2 include singer Beyoncé and Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch, while the book The Fast Diet, which Dr Mosley penned with journalist Mimi Spencer, is an international bestseller.