Fasting

In this case, fasting not as a religious discipline, but fasting to lose weight. At "Five Books" the author of The Diet Myth is interviewed about the five books he would recommend on dieting. First of all he says "all diet books are fatally flawed because they suggest there’s only one way to do things. In general, the genre is outdated. And it preys on human weakness: peddling that there’s a quick fix for everything." One of the most serious errors that persists is the "low fat" diet. He drinks whole milk when he drinks milk. Meat itself isn't a problem (although he does have a problem with cows because farting causing climate change), but sugar is. Salt doesn't seem to be an issue. Exercise, on its own, doesn't work. About breakfast: "Try a high fat breakfast such as yoghurt, eggs or cheese, or skipping it altogether." And so on. The final book he discusses is The FastDiet, and that is the only diet he recommends.

.... This means that either every other day, or for two days a week, you will either fast completely or consume only 25% of your normal calories. The rest of the time you just eat normally. The idea was that you reset your metabolism and allow your body to rest. You’re able to lose weight on this diet, because you don’t overeat as much as you might think on the other days. ....

It turns out that the longer you fast overnight or during the day, the longer your body is not dealing with food and the better and healthier your metabolism. A lot of that’s coming from gut microbes. Your gut health is better when they have time to recover, heal, tidy up your gut lining, help your immune system. Or that’s the current theory, and increasing data is supporting that.

Our ancestors didn’t eat six times a day and feel faint if they didn’t have a McVitie’s biscuit at 11 o’clock. ....

I think if people start to experiment, they can find what suits them. You mentioned breakfast; studies show that if you randomise people to breakfast or no breakfast, but the same amount of food in a day, people overeat a bit if they miss breakfast, but not so much that they over-compensate. .... (more)

Interesting. Although this approach to dieting seems to have been around for a while, I don't recall ever having heard of it.

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