The Fast Diet: The secret of intermittent fasting � lose weight, stay healthy, live longer Read Online Free PDF

dietary interventions. Being obese and having high levels of insulin resistance are both risk factors. On the Genesis website (www.genesisuk.org), she points out that they have been studying Intermittent Fasting at the Genesis Breast Cancer Prevention Centre, University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust, for over six years and that their research has shown that cutting down on your calories for two days a week gives the same benefits, possibly more, than by going on a normal calorie-reduced diet. ‘To date, our research has concluded that intermittent diets appear to be a safe, viable, alternative approach to weight loss and maintaining a lower weight, in comparison to daily dieting.’
Is it just calories?
     
    If you eat 500 or 600 calories two days a week and don’t significantly overcompensate during the rest of the week, then you will lose weight in a steady fashion.
    But is there any evidence that Intermittent Fasting does more than that? I recently came across one particularly fascinating study suggesting that when you eat can be almost as important as what you eat.
    In this study, scientists from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies took two groups of mice and fed them a high-fat diet. 7 The mice got exactly the same amount of food to eat, the only difference being that one group of mice was allowed to eat whenever they wanted, nibbling away when they were in the mood, rather like we do, while the other group of mice had to eat their food in an eight-hour time period. This meant that there were 16 hours of the day in which they were, involuntarily, fasting.
    After 100 days, there were some truly dramatic differences between the two groups of mice. The mice who nibbled away at their fatty food had developed high cholesterol, high blood glucose and had liver damage. The mice that had been forced to fast for 16 hours a day put on far less weight (28% less) and suffered much less liver damage, despite having eaten exactly the same amount and quality of food. They also had lower levels of chronic inflammation, which suggests they had reduced risk of a number of diseases, including heart disease, cancer, stroke and Alzheimer’s.
    The Salk researchers’ explanation for this is that all the time you are eating your insulin levels are elevated and your body is stuck in fat-storing mode (see the discussionof insulin on page 54). Only after a few hours of fasting is your body able to turn off the ‘fat storing’ and turn on the ‘fat burning’ mechanisms. So if you are a mouse and you are continually nibbling, your body will just continue making and storing fat, resulting in obesity and liver damage.
    By now, I hope you are as convinced as I am that fasting offers multiple health benefits, as well as helping to achieve weight loss. I had been aware of some of these claims before I got really interested in fasting and, though initially sceptical, I was converted by the sheer weight of evidence.
    But there was one area of study that was a complete surprise: research showing how fasting can improve mood and protect the brain from dementia and cognitive decline. This, for me, was something completely new, unexpected, and hugely exciting.

Fasting and the brain
     
    The brain, as Woody Allen once said, is my second favourite organ. I might even put it first, as without it nothing else would function. The human brain, around three pounds of pinkish greyish gunk with the consistency of tapioca, has been described as the most complex object in the known universe. It allows us to build, write poetry, dominate the planet and even understand ourselves,something no other creature has succeeded in doing.
    It is also an extremely efficient energy-saving machine, doing all that complicated thinking and making sure our bodies are functioning properly while using the same amount of energy as a 25-watt light bulb. The fact that our brains are normally so flexible and adaptable makes it even more tragic when they go