While losing weight and dieting can be a challenge for many people, there’s one technique Dr Michael Mosley swears by to promote safe weight loss. Intermittent fasting is a popular weight loss strategy, with many studies finding that it can have “powerful effects” on people’s bodies when it comes to their weight.
As the founder of various fasting diet plans himself, Dr Mosley revealed that timed eating works well because it “gives the body a rest” and “works better”.
Chatting to Studio 10 in 2019, he explained that the method helps people consume fewer calories during the eight-hour window they’re allowed to eat.
“The reason intermittent fasting works is that you’re giving your body a rest from food,” he explained.
“And it turns out, that’s a good idea!”
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He added that unless people are eating much more during that period, they should “see results”.
Famed for his Fast 800 and 5:2 diets, the weight loss guru advises followers to cut their calories down to around 600 on fasting days.
“Now we say 800, because 800 works better,” he said, having renamed the diet the New 5:2.
The Fast 800 diet programme has been created to help the body burn fat.
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“Your body runs on two different fuel systems – sugar and fat,” Dr Mosley explained.
“As your body prefers sugar, it chooses to burn the 500mg of sugar you have stored (as glycogen) before anything else.
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“Cutting your food intake to 800-1,000 calories a day, based on a relatively low-carb, Mediterranean-style diet, means you will swiftly burn through the glycogen and start fat burning.”
A study published in the BMJ found that participants who ate 800 calories a day lost more than three times the weight of another control group on a different plan.
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Dr Mosley recommends people introduce time-restricted eating because it can extend their overnight fast by several hours.
He suggested doing this by either having an earlier dinner or a later breakfast, or by doing both.
“Start by having a go at 12 hours for your overnight fast, then try 14 hours,” he recommended.
But Dr Christie Williams, a registered dietician and nutritionist at Johns Hopkins Medicine, revealed fasting in this day and age can be more difficult.
She said: “There were no computers, and TV shows turned off at 11pm, people stopped eating because they went to bed.
“Portions were much smaller and more people worked and played outside and, in general, got more exercise.”
And with the internet and other entertainment options available 24/7, it’s easier for people to keep eating during both the day and night.
Extra calories and less activity can mean a higher risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and other illnesses.
But by sticking to a rigid intermittent fasting schedule, more studies are showing that the technique may help reverse these trends.
“Portions were much smaller and more people worked and played outside and, in general, got more exercise.”
Source: Daily Express | Diet
