HOW SIRTFOODS WORK ... BY SWITCHING ON YOUR SKINNY GENES

All the recipes in our healthy eating plan, featured over the following pages, contain sirtfoods, ingredients that have the powerful ability to switch on genes called sirtuins that exist inside all of us. So this really is a regime that is about building foods INTO your diet, rather than cutting them out.

Sirtuins trigger processes deep within our cells that influence our ability to burn fat, our susceptibility – or not – to disease, and ultimately even our lifespan.

In fact, scientists now refer to them as ‘master metabolic regulators’. Allow us to explain… When we drastically reduce our calories and energy supplies drop, there is an increase in stress on our cells. Sirtuins then leap into action, broadcasting powerful signals around the body which radically alter the way cells behave.

They ramp up our metabolism, increase the efficiency of our muscles, switch on fat burning, reduce inflammation and repair damage in our cells, making us fitter, leaner and healthier.

Sirtuins also have the power to prevent heart disease, diabetes, dementia, osteoporosis and very probably cancer. The downside to fasting is that it’s gruelling, hard to stick to – and often people over-eat afterwards to compensate. A similar effect can be achieved with exercise, but only very intense, gruelling regimes. While regular moderate exercise has a multitude of benefits, it is generally accepted that it is not a means to lose weight.

And this is where sirtfoods come in. The amazing thing about these ingredients is that, when eaten in substantial amounts, they have a potent ability to switch on sirtuins in the same way that fasting does.

There is no catch to the Sirtfood Diet. This is how nature intended us to eat, rather than the extreme calorie counting or restriction of modern dieting.

Most people simply don’t eat enough sirtfoods to reap their benefits.

Although in the first phases, you’ll be asked to limit the amount you eat, once this is over, maintenance is just about making sure you consume as wide a range of these foods each day as you can, as part of a normal, balanced diet.