This is a book that I had to write. When I learned to fast, and how to harness the power of fasting, it challenged everything I’d ever read about how to eat, how to preserve health and how to stay in shape.
Fasting makes things really simple. It is scientifically proven to slow ageing and boost health and is something that every human being does instinctively, only most of us have forgotten how. Another “plus” is that fasting won’t cost you anything – it’s time rather than money that’s needed. The techniques that inspired modern day fasting might well date back millennia but fasting has never been more needed than right here, right now.
In this book I will be providing persuasive arguments in favour of fasting, backed up by scientific research, and plenty of practical advice. Don’t worry, though – I’m not a finger-wagging, matron type. I know that healthy habits must be fun in order to be achievable in the long term so all the science is presented alongside a hefty dose of real life.
When you first get into fasting, it can be hard to figure out which technique will suit you best so I’ll help you to navigate your way through the fasting world. Broadly speaking, there are the intermittent fasts (what I call lifestyle fasts) and juice fasts although, increasingly, fasts are becoming known according to their duration in hours or days – 16/8, 5/2, alternate day and so on. Most are do-able even for someone with only a faint whiff of interest in healthy living, but some require caution. In this book I only feature the techniques that make the grade in terms of scientifically referenced benefits and practical application.
I will also explain why men and women should approach fasting differently, and how best to use fasting for fat loss. I‘ll tell you how to use fasting to enhance mental and physical performance, and explain how even subtle changes in eating habits can prolong your life.
But before we begin, let me share a little story with you – after all, the idea of learning not to eat, rather than advice on what to eat, might sound a bit ridiculous coming from someone who has made a career as a nutritionist!
When I first started working with fasting after learning the technique during a trip to India (more about that later), I couldn’t explain the dramatic results I was experiencing – it all seemed like a happy accident. News of my success with fasting spread by word of mouth and soon there was a steady stream of customers in my nutrition clinic. I knew I was onto something really special and that when I’d acted on “gut” feelings in the past, things had turned out well… and so I ended up following my dream by moving to Spain to set up a juice detox retreat based on fasting. I quite literally moved my entire life and worldly belongings to a one-donkey town in the mountains of Andalusia.
Indeed, most of my friends thought it was either an early mid-life crisis (I was only 27 years old) or there was a man involved. Neither was true. I simply believe that fortune favours the brave and I felt utterly compelled to follow the idea through to fruition. One year later, my fasting retreat became the subject of a reality television show that documented the incredible results. It ended up being shown in 22 countries around the world – and the rest, as they say, is history. If that isn’t incredible enough, listen to what happened next…
A decade on from this venture into the unknown (having become a wife and mother to a blended family of four children in the meantime), I decided to write a book to explain why fasting works so well. I took the opportunity of starting my formal research during some time-out at one of the spas where I run my retreats. I curled up in my chair to read about the history of fasting, and as I worked through the first chapter I realized I was in the spa founded by the medical expert, Stanley Leif, who first introduced fasting programmes to Britain between the First and Second World Wars. Not only that, I was sitting in the only room in the 80-bedroom spa that had his name on the door. Stanley Leif died in 1972 and, yes, it felt like he was there in the room.
In a nutshell, here is why learning to fast was life-changing for me and why I think you should give it a go:
•Fasting shifted my last annoying 4.5kg (10lb) in weight, without me having to obsess about counting calories or following ridiculous “fad diets”.
•Fasting is good for me on the inside and makes me look better on the outside. When something makes you feel this good, it is easy to stick with it.
•Fasting makes me feel emotionally in control (and a little virtuous).
•Fasting gets my hunger under control.
•Ever since I discovered fasting, according to the most accurate test available my biological age has remained a full decade younger than what it says on my passport, and this is in spite of having given birth to two children. I’m not showing off – it just works!
Amanda