‘A year from now, you will wish you started today’

 

There are many good reasons to start the Fast Diet. You may be inspired by your sister or your best friend, your dad or your doctor. You may have decided you want to cut your risk of age-related disease. You may want to reduce your cholesterol, boost your brain, improve your mood, lower your blood pressure, lengthen your life.

Or you may just want to look good in a swimsuit.

I say ‘just’. But looking good and (more importantly) feeling good about your body is no mere vanity project. It can have a real emotional impact on a life. I’m reminded of one Fast Dieter who told me that, after years of fruitless yo-yo dieting, six months of 5:2 had given her enough body confidence to go to the local baths and swim with her young daughter for the first time ever. That’s not vanity. It’s the glorious stuff of life.

Not long ago, a magazine survey found that women think about their bodies every 15 minutes (which is, apparently, more than men think about sex). There are times of the year, of course, when we put ourselves under greater scrutiny still. On the beach, in summer, in our shorts and bikinis, we think about the shape we’re in even more often – a constant background hum, the helicopter moaning overhead. Men may not bang on about it quite as much, but they tend to be just as aware as T-shirt weather creeps up to ambush those hibernating pecs and paunches.

So now is the time to act. The beach beckons and this is your call to arms. The most challenging weeks of the year may be looming on the sun-kissed horizon, but that’s no reason to bury your head in the sand or collapse into a kaftan for cover. We have a plan. It is called the Fast Beach Diet. Think of it as ‘5:2, the Next Generation’. It promises to shake things up, with a wealth of new tips, tricks and takes to help you break the plateau, make the leap and reboot your 5:2 for summer. In the words of the late, great Janis Joplin, we’re gonna try… just a little bit harder. But first, let’s recap on the original Fast Diet – what it is and how it works.

What is the Fast Diet?

It may be radical, but the Fast Diet is also wonderfully economical with its rules. I like that The Times has called it the ‘haiku diet’ – a pithy, almost poetic agenda. All you really need to know is that:

Why 5:2?

In the beginning, Michael tried several different fasting regimes; the one he settled on as the most realistic and sustainable was five days off, two days on, which meant that the majority of the time was spent free from calorie-counting. On this regime, in 12 weeks Michael lost more than 20lb of body fat and his blood glucose fell to a healthy level. I lost 22lb and returned to my pre-motherhood body weight (and, more importantly, shape).

That was only a little over 18 months ago. We’re still learning about the true long-term benefits of Intermittent Fasting, and we don’t, as yet, have a comprehensive account of potential pitfalls, particularly why some people flourish on 5:2 and others may find it harder. It may be that there is no ‘one size fits all’. What we do know is that thousands of people have followed the Fast Diet, lost weight, gained health and found it surprisingly sustainable, effective and life-affirming. New studies are underway and we hope to bring together the latest thinking in a fully updated new edition to be published in 2015.

So where’s the catch?

Really, there isn’t one. The Fast Diet, don’t forget, is simply a modern take on an ancient idea. Fasting, in one form or another, has been practised for centuries by most of the great religions, and if done properly seems to be extremely safe. There is no evidence of significant side effects (though some people may experience headaches and constipation, particularly at first; these can generally be prevented by drinking lots of water or calorie-free fluids, such as black coffee and herbal tea, and eating foods rich in fibre).

Indeed, the Fast Diet has helped to debunk some of the myths that have developed around the way we eat in the West – for instance that:

None of these widely held beliefs is backed by science. You will discover that short bouts of hunger are manageable and soon pass. Similarly, there is no metabolic advantage to spreading your calories over the day, nor is there any evidence that short periods without food will cause your blood glucose to plunge to seriously low levels. Most nights, don’t forget, you happily go 12 hours without eating and many people feel fine with a late breakfast, especially on a Sunday when the start can be in delicious slow-mo.

Should you be sceptical?

Michael and I certainly were. After all, anyone who has ever gone on a conventional diet knows that they are hard work; they may deliver results in the short term, but then life gets in the way – we’re soon bored and the weight creeps back on. We’ve found, however, that the 5:2 Fast Diet does work – for exactly the reason that other diets don’t: there is none of the boredom, frustration or serial denial that characterises standard diet plans; eating is still a pleasure; there’s no cutting of food groups, no pathologising of eating. And indeed, even the turbo version laid out here is full of forgiveness, generosity of spirit and the crucial adaptability required to fit it into a busy life.

A word on the benefits of Intermittent Fasting

The reason behind IF – briefly but severely restricting the number of calories you consume – is that it ‘fools’ your body into thinking it is in a potential famine situation and that it needs to switch from go-go mode to maintenance mode. Fasting is the shock that resets the clock. Its many benefits include:

The Fast Diet and weight loss

While clinical studies into IF in general, and 5:2 in particular, are still in their early stages, there’s a great deal of convincing anecdotal evidence that the approach can be startlingly effective for many people. Anecdote, as Michael often says, makes poor science, but it does tell a story. Many thousands of people have adopted the plan and witnessed significant improvements in their weight, cholesterol and general health, and have gone on to post their success stories online (we have included just a fraction of these in the testimonials chapter at the back of this book). We regularly meet people in the street and see friends and family who’ve lost weight and gained health. My father, for instance, has lost four stone over the course of a year on the Fast Diet. That’s about the weight of an eight-year-old child. I can now get my arms all the way around him when we hug hello. It’s a seismic change, and a joy to behold.

HOW FASTING TARGETS FAT

What people sometimes forget in their drive to ‘lose weight’ is what they really want to lose is not weight as such, but fat. Carrying excess fat is not just a bummer on the beach; it’s bad for your health. Here’s what we know about the effect IF has on fat:

• It achieves a gradual weight loss – and it’s almost all fat

• It increases fat burn. More of the calories you use for fuel during a fast come from fat stores than muscle. A study from Nottingham University1 found that the proportion of energy obtained from fat rose progressively over 12-72 hours of fasting, until almost all the energy being used was coming from stored fat

• When we eat, we use the carbohydrate and fat supplied by the food for fuel, instead of tapping into our stored fat reserves. Constant grazing may be what’s keeping fat from being burned – and fasting is one way to release it

• Interestingly, the heavier you are, the more likely it is that fasting will lead to substantial fat loss with muscle being spared

• A bonus for Intermittent Fasters is that it seems to lead not just to fat loss generally, but specifically to fat loss around the gut – this is the visceral fat and is particularly dangerous because it increases your risk of heart disease and diabetes

• One reason why it’s important to preserve as much muscle mass as possible is that muscle is metabolically active. Lean tissue burns calories, even at rest

So why the Fast Beach Diet?

The Fast Diet’s USP seems to be its high level of compliance: we do it and we stick with it because most of the time, we’re not thinking about dieting at all. But some fasters want to boost the process at certain times of year. You may be one of those for whom the 5:2 has not proved the magic bullet you hoped for. Others among you may want to nudge yourself off a plateau and budge any reluctant pounds that are hanging on in there despite your adherence to 5:2.

I’ve written this book to be used as a primer for the summer holidays; the idea is to start the six-week regime in May, June or July, in good time for take-off (that’s clothes, not planes). The longer, brighter days and fresher produce of late spring and early summer make it an ideal time to embark or improve upon a weight-loss programme. And, as we’ve already established, there’s nothing like an approaching bikini – or T-shirt – to make you think twice about that piece of pie.

That said, the principles of the turbo-driven 5:2 diet laid out here are applicable at almost any time of the year. You might like to use its additional hints and ideas if you are preparing to get married, if you have a big event coming up, if you’re starting a new phase in your life, if you’re ready to lose some baby weight, or if you’ve had a particularly sedentary and stodgy couple of months (after Christmas perhaps).

You may, of course, be coming to The Fast Beach Diet cold, without having read or acted upon the original book. This book is an adjunct. Think of it as a boot camp for the 5:2. It is a condensed, modified programme of greater intensity with the aim of helping you achieve a reasonable target weight in a six-week period. Note now that on the Fast Beach Diet, you will be encouraged to step it up – to get a tad tougher, a bit bolder, with your Fast Diet. But this extra commitment is intended to be short-lived. Just a bit more effort. For just six weeks.

Why six weeks?

In truth, the six-week figure is fairly arbitrary. I have used my own experience and a 25-year career in the fashion and body-shape business, together with what I have learned from many other dieters, to come up with a reasonable period during which I believe the average individual – someone with a little willpower and plenty of good intentions – can commit to and concentrate on a more intense 5:2 regime. It hinges on attention span and compliance; six weeks should be enough time to see measurable results without boredom setting in. It’s also, by happy coincidence, about the length of time we usually give ourselves to prepare mentally and physically for our summer holidays… the Six Week Sprint to the pool.

You may choose to extend the Fast Beach Diet, perhaps to two months. But be clear: it is only meant to be a short-term option; afterwards, you should return to the classic Fast Diet rules, without undue concern for calories on a non-Fast Day. Remember: it is this flexible and sociable foundation that lends the Fast Diet its psychological advantage.

If the Fast Beach Diet seems unnecessarily faddish to you, or if you’re not keen on a ‘fast-fix’ message, if you treasure the absolute simplicity of the original Fast Diet – well, I empathise and understand. Just stick with your original 5:2 Fast Diet. This book is aimed at people who want a short-term booster plan to get them from A (the sofa) to B (the beach) by undertaking a reasonable but more vigorous protocol. It’s not designed to be a ‘forever plan’ like the 5:2. It’s the Fast Diet, just a bit faster. So are you in? Here’s what to expect…

The Fast Beach Diet includes:

When should you start?

If you do not have an underlying medical condition, and if you are not an individual for whom fasting is proscribed (see page 4), then there really is no time like the present. But first, a bit of prep.