5:2 guru: The de-stress diet to transform YOUR body
TWO BRILLIANT SUPPLEMENTS, TWO SUPERB HEALTH EXCLUSIVES Ruby Wax: How to be happy... even with depression
FOR many people, catching sight of themselves in the mirror with an unflattering roll of flab around the middle can be worrying. And according to the inventor of the 5:2 diet, it’s that stress that could be making them fat.
Dr Michael Mosley says there i s now ‘ compelling scientific evidence’ that stress wreaks havoc with our bodies and predisposes us to putting on weight.
Writing in The Mail on Sunday’s new Life section today, he advises dieters to relax. ‘ Research has shown that chronic stress leads to i ncreased hunger, comfort eating, self-loathing and disrupted sleep,’ he says. ‘To lose weight and keep it off, it is important to reduce stress – and all the comfort eating that goes with it.’
Dr Mosley outlines practical tips on how to minimise stress and make losing weight easier. One essential factor is getting enough sleep because it cuts levels of so-called ‘hunger hormones’ the following day and of the stress hormone cortisol. Both lead to less comfort eating.
To demonstrate sleep’s vital role, Dr Mosley and diabetes expert Dr Eleanor Scott subjected 20 people to an experiment. Volunteers had to endure two nights when they went to bed three hours later than usual, and another two nights when they went to bed at their normal time and could sleep as long as they liked, with their eating monitored the following days.
Dr Mosley also took part in the study, with the full results to be revealed on BBC2’s Trust Me, I’m A Doctor on Wednesday. Besides feeling extremely tired after the two very late nights, he was also ‘unpleasantly surprised’ by how hungry he was. ‘ The same was true for my fellow volunteers – everyone complained about having had the munchies,’ he says.
One volunteer even ate ten biscuits for breakfast. ‘ Sleep and stress are closely linked: being stressed leads to problems sleeping, and that makes your stress levels soar,’ Dr Mosley says. SHE’S battled depression for most of her life but now comedian Ruby Wax has found the recipe for happiness – and she wants to share it with the rest of the world.
In an exclusive extract from her new book How To Be Human: The Manual in today’s You magazine, Wax says we are too prone to hanging on to negative thoughts at the expense of more positive ones.
Quoting neuroscientist Rick Hanson, she writes: ‘The brain is Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones.’ Explaining the origin of the problem, Wax, 64, says: ‘What started out as something helpful like, “Oh my God, I’m going to be caught in another ice age without gloves,” has become, “Oh my God, I’m going to lose my girlfriend/looks/money/life.” ’
In her book, Wax, who has received a Master’s degree in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy at Oxford University, offers solutions to cope with the speed of modern life.