Alternate Day Fasting
Everyone’s talking about alternate day fasting
As Nutritional Therapist`s we don’t recommend `fad` diets, but it is always interesting to hear about the latest ones. Cabbage soup diet, apple cider vinegar diet, Atkins diet, Dukan diet, to name but a few, and they all continuously fall in and out of favour, many don’t work and some may even be detrimental to health. The alternate day fasting diet has been mentioned a great deal in the media, and recently Horizon aired a programme presented by Dr Michael Mossley on the subject.
If you haven’t heard the idea behind the alternate day fasting (ADF) which is also known as intermittent fasting (IF) is you eat normally one day, and the following day you restrict your calorie intake to 500 for a woman and 600 for a man. Not only has this been shown to cause a gradual and sustained weight -loss but there are other health benefits too. Research suggests that restricting calories is one of the few things that has been shown to increase life expectancy, it also has anti-ageing benefits, and may reduce the risk of heart disease, which is still the UKs biggest killer. The research into this subject is still ongoing, but its all looking very promising.
So it seems ADF is not another `fad` diet, and there is a slightly easier version for those who are not tempted by fasting every other day. The 5:2 version allows you to eat normally for 5 days and fast on 2 non-consecutive days.
Watch this space, as some of the Therapists on the Nutrition Mission team are going to be testing the 5:2 version over the coming weeks and we will be updating you with the results. If you are planning on testing out fasting too, keep an eye out for our delicious specially designed recipes that you will be able to follow on your fasting days too
No comments:
Post a Comment