How brunch can be your main meal of the day

DR MICHAEL MOSLEY reveals how you can skip breakfast, feast on these meals... and STILL burn fat

Many people believe longterm weight loss is next to impossible; I have heard over and over again that 99 per cent of diets fail and people on them end up as fat, if not fatter, than when they started.

There are lots of crazy diets out there. But even a cursory read through recent research will show you that if you follow a decent diet (one which has some science behind it), there is a good chance you will keep some, or most, of that weight off. and, contrary to what many people believe, rapid weight loss diets — like my Fast 800 Keto plan — can be more effective in the short, medium and long term.

That’s because losing weight quickly is extremely motivating and many studies have shown that the amount of weight that you lose in the first four weeks of a diet is a powerful predictor of how you will do, long-term.

Problems will occur if you let yourself slip back into your old eating patterns — the habits that caused you to gain weight in the first place. So that’s why I’ve created my Fast 800 Keto plan, which has been serialised exclusively in the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, in three distinct phases which allow you to ease back into real-world eating without the risk of undoing all that you have achieved.

all this week I have been outlining the clever, scientifically backed principles behind this new incarnation of my popular weight-loss plan. With renewed emphasis on ensuring you eat enough protein with every meal (topping up with protein snacks like nuts, Greek yoghurt or a piece of cheese), and by cutting back on carbohydrates, you should slip effortlessly into a state called ‘ketosis’. This is where your body naturally searches out your fat reserves to burn for fuel.

One key additional factor which really helps is ‘time restricted eating’ — which encourages you to extend your night-time fast and condense your eating window.

not only has this been shown to provide the metabolic boosts offered by serious fasting, but helps increase the impact of ketosis and will help you avoid the temptations of late-night snacking.

Throughout each phase of the Fast 800 Keto plan, you get to choose whether you prefer two meals a day or three.

Many people — me included — find that skipping breakfast and having a hearty protein-packed brunch later in the morning really sets me up for the day and makes it much easier to keep my total calorie intake down.

The deliciously filling recipes on these pages here have been specially created by my wife, Dr Clare Bailey, food writer Kathryn Bruton and nutritional therapist Caroline Barton, to ensure you get the right balance of nutrients to lose weight rapidly without being tormented by hunger or cravings. This makes your 800-900 calorie ‘fast’ days much easier to handle. (Watch Clare and Michael’s cooking demonstrations on Instagram @drclarebailey.)

One clever twist to this plan is the way it gradually evolves to ease you back into real-world eating patterns without risking weight gain.

On the second stage of the plan (we recommend you stick to stage one for two to 12 weeks depending on how much weight you want or need to lose) you simply stick to 800-900 calorie ‘fast’ days during the week (or for four or five consecutive days each week), then relax the rules at the weekends.

When you do this multiple times (following a pattern of 3:4 or 5:2) you become ‘keto adapted’ and able to swiftly switch in and out of fat-burning mode.

AnD most of Clare’s recipes include clever ‘nonfast day’ additions which allow you to increase your protein intake slightly (to 60-80g per day) and introduce healthy carbohydrates on non-fast days. Ultimately (by the third maintenance stage) your healthy eating habits should be so engrained, you can happily remain at your new weight equilibrium.

Switching from three meals to two certainly helps make things easier long-term.

This is how I live my life. Unlike Clare, I am not naturally slim. I have to keep an eye on my weight and my waist, or I would balloon.

But by sticking to a healthy Mediterranean-style diet, skipping breakfast and enjoying a proteinfilled brunch, combined with doing the odd fasting day to compensate if I have overindulged or I feel my trousers pinching, I manage to keep my weight, waist, blood sugars and blood pressure down, without calorie counting.

ADAPTED by LOUISE ATKINSON from The Fast 800 Keto by Dr Michael Mosley, Short Books, £9.99. © 2022 Dr Michael Mosley. To purchase a copy for only £4.49 from WHSmith, see Page 40 for more details.