The fast track to lose weight

Need to lose a few pounds? The Fast Diet is the diet everyone is talking about, pioneered by Dr Michael Mosley. The book, co-authored by Mimi Spencer, came out of the much-talked about Horizon programme last August. It is all about calorie restriction and intermittent Ffasting.

Michael Mosley investigated these themes in the TV show, Eat, fast and live longer and it wasn’t primarily about weight-loss but about longevity – looking into whether restricting calories and fasting intermittently could help people to live longer.

When Michael lost weight he came up with the concept of the 5/2 diet, you fast on two non-consecutive days every week and eat ‘normally’ for the other five days. It’s important to note that the fast days aren’t a total fast, you restrict your calories to around 500 calories for women and 600 for men. It’s not meant to be about stuffing yourself daft for five days though, Mosley said: “Five days a week you eat reasonably”.

This is not about eating whatever you want for five days and then cutting back for two. It’s about eating “reasonably” for five days and a quarter of reasonably on two days. I wonder how many people stick to that? I’m guessing the night before a fast I would over-eat in order to store up the calories.

Zoe Harcombe author of The Harcombe Diet, talks great sense when it comes to diet and weightloss. She refers to the recent trend of fasting and says: “With all this diet madness and obsession, we seem to have forgotten why we eat. Yes eating should be sociable, celebratory, enjoyable - one of life’s great pleasures - but it is far more fundamentally the stuff of life. We eat because we need essential fats, complete proteins (amino acids), vitamins and minerals. Without any of these, our health is compromised and, in the extreme, deficiencies can be life threatening. Anything that tries to stop us getting these vital nutrients is a dangerous weapon and should be treated as such.”

Here’s the thing - isn’t fasting meant to be linked with prayer? The Bible talks of the connection, we know Jesus fasted and prayed as did his disciples, many Old Testament figures fasted and prayed and I grew up in my humble evangelical church to believe that as the early church and the Saints fasted and prayed, so should we. But I think my understanding has always been that there should be a direct intention, we should be fasting and praying is for a specific reason or outcome, to achieve a ‘breakthrough’, beat temptation, or to r each a decision, whether spiritually or emotionally.

Something seems awkward about going without food just for the sake of losing a few pounds unless there’s a spiritual angle - or am I just in denial when clearly I could do with shifting a few pounds? In truth I’m too fond of eating the pies.

Perhaps I should pray and fast on the decision as to whether I should fast regularly – just to fit into those killer skinny jeans!