SEVERAL months ago, I watched a BBC program do a thorough expose on the diet industry.
It exposed charlatans around the world, especially the US, raking in millions by selling books, potions and foods. It also gave numerous examples of dieting failures — people who had taken off weight very quickly only to find that mung beans and grapefruit lose their charm after a while, or that after a time the longing for plate of pasta puts an end to the “no-carb” diet.
The program pointed out that the diet industry’s very failures made it sustainable because as dieting people gave up and put on more weight they returned after a time as repeat customers to the dieting industry. The triumph of hope over experience.
The program pointed out also the sheer immorality of people in the West stuffing themselves with food and paying money in an attempt to unstuff themselves, while people in poor countries were going hungry or even starving.
The fast- and processed-food industries also came in for a bollocking, especially for resisting decent labeling and for targeting children.
As you can see, I am deeply sceptical of dieting and that scepticism has been reinforced by watching family members and friends fall in a heap.
Meanwhile, my own weight was gradually and inexorably rising.
Shortly after that program, there was another BBC program on dieting. I enjoyed the first bollocking, so why not look at another?
Incidentally, if you are uninterested in much of the fare on Australian TV, for $10 a month you can get the BBC app and play it on your TV any time after the shows air in Britain.
Anyway, this program was by Michael Mosely, a medical doctor and journalist.
He quickly summarized all that was wrong with the diet industry and then went in search of the best medical advice to see what was the best way to loose weight.
I continued to watch getting ever more self-conscious of my gradual weight increase over the years. For a long time I was 92kg, but it had crept up to 97.5kg. That is overweight for someone my height, but at least not obese.
Initially, Mosely did a seven-day fast and shed a lot a weight. That was out of the question for me. Preposterous idea. Then he sought further expert and medical advice.
The result of that was you could get gradual weight loss and other benefits like improved cardio-vascular performance by fasting for just two days a week. Initially, Mosely did consecutive days. Add sleeping either side at night and you get a 56-hour fast.
More advice suggested that the days need not be consecutive.
His self-experimentation and experience with some human guinea pigs suggested you could lose about 1kg a week this way. On fast days you would obviously feel hungry, but you would do no damage and you could still exercise and do normal activity on those days.
More importantly, on the other five days you could eat as you always did. You do not have to give up fish and chips, full-cream milk in your coffee, beer or wine.
Many, or nearly all, other diets are doomed to failure because human beings will not voluntarily accept the loss of some things for the rest of their lives. Also, people find it exceptionally difficult to calculate precise amounts of calories and to embrace idiotic combinations of food. They obsess at first and lose a bit of weight and then collapse.
Like Mosely, my father died of a heart attack at a relatively young age – 67.
This program was getting uncomfortably unnerving.
My ideal body-mass-index weight is to be less than 87kg. I was 10.5kg overweight.
So 10 weeks ago a couple of days after seeing the Mosely program, for the first time in my life, I went on a diet – the 5-2 diet. A bit extreme, but the idea of eating what you like on the other days was the saving grace and much better than mung beans and grapefruit or no carbs the whole time.
Better still, there are no expensive, glossy books and no expensive exotic powders or potions. It is dead simple.
I started with a two-day full fast – just water and black tea. Every week since I have done two fast days, usually Sunday and Tuesday.
This week I reached 87kg. Nearly all the loss seems to have come from the mid-drift. An unfortunate side effect has been I now have to wear a belt to keep trousers and shorts bought in the 97kg era from falling down.
The diet has been refined a little. You can eat up 500 calories a day. But I think that is asking for trouble. It is back to the self-defeating measuring of other diets.
I found no desire to binge the day after the fast. Maybe your stomach or appetite shrinks.
The thing is, the day after a fast the first cup of coffee with full-cream milk in it and a bowl of muesli feels so good you have no desire to get into any eggs and bacon.
I don’t think you have to continue with two days of fasting a week for the rest of your life. The aim here is not the diet, but the weight loss and to keep it off. So I figure on doing two days a week until I am 85kg (the middle of the ideal body-mass-index range and then do one or two days according to my weight.
I envy people who seem to stay quite thin without such seemingly extreme action, but that is apparently not me.
Another worthwhile side effect is that the grocery bill goes down. After all, this program cuts out two-sevenths of your food. Perhaps more importantly, you get to feel how some people in the world must feel nearly all the time.
CRISPIN HULL
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times on 6 December 2014.
Hi Karen, eating better doesn’t mean you have to go without treats. The treats just might have to change. Instead of buying chocolate – make it (use cacao instead of cocoa and honey instead of processed sugar. Make your own ice cream with altered ingredients). People who continue to eat the pre-packaged food, and those that don’t, have little idea just how bad it is. Stop it as much as possible and replace it with home made recipes that only last a week before they go bad. Long shelf life usually means suspicious processing. I know someone who is completely allergic to nuts, yet can eat Nutella. What does that tell you? Coconut can be great, or it can be terrible – depending on how it is processed. These are the secrets that seldom leave the factory. A muesli bar should be good right? Good basic raw ingredients, yet somehow they manage to chemically destroy much of it through processing and now you have something poor.
There are, of course, degrees. But generally speaking – if you’re maintaining weight and eating chocolate – then you’re probably malnourished. Kilojoules are not all equal.
At 120kg I had to do something (I had assoicated severe health problems like sleep apnea) and my brother-in-law, a GP, suggested that the 5/2 worked for some of his patients so why not try. I’ve lost over 35 kg since the beginning of 2014! What a diet – a couple of days of reduced food and then back to normal! Plenty of people here at work do it just to maintain their wight and it has just become a way of life for them. While I still have a little way to go to reach my optimum weight (another 5 to 8kg), this will be something I’ll continue with after I’ve reached my optiimum weight – and you’re right, it saves an so much in food bills as well as petrol as I now ride to and from work (which helps avoid the new parking charges in parliamentary triangle).
Thanks for the article, Crispin. I always enjoy your column. My husband and I have been on the 5:2 diet advocated by Michael Mosley for about four weeks now and, like numerous others we have spoken to or read about, find it is manageable enough that we can consider making it a permanent way of life. We are both finding that the kilos are dropping off, but this is not our primary motivation. Anyone who has watched the BBC program or read Mosley’s book will have noticed that the diet has emerged in response to research studies on the beneficial metabolic effects of fasting. While it may be many years before there is a sufficient body of incontestable research evidence to back up Mosley’s arguments, we are willing to follow the diet on the assumption that in time it will come. My husband, in particular, is motivated to follow this diet as he has a high risk for prostate and bowel cancer ( given his dad has had both); weight is not really a problem for him. In my case, I have developed high cholesterol several times. Mosley himself found great health benefits from being on the diet for three months, as proven by his blood test results. Agree with Crispin that experiencing hunger while fasting is not a bad thing, if we thus empathise more with those who don’t have abundant food all around; although I was amazed that he can get through a day on only liquids.
As for the previous comment, yes, all of us can become addicted to sugary foods, processed foods and so on; but we aren’t all strong enough to give them up totally and for ever. Look how many dieters fail miserably – they find self denial seven days a week just too hard. With the 5:2 approach I believe you can learn to go without a little at a time. And the rest of the week need not be totally devoid of the odd square of chocolate or glass of wine. Finally, on fasting days we are not cramming ourselves with crappy food; we are following the meal suggestions in the Mosley book, which involve few or no processed carbohydrates , some protein and plenty of fresh vegetables. Next step – acquire the recipe book for a bit of variety. I would recommend the 5:2 approach to anyone who has struggled with their weight and failed at other types of dieting. And note: before this I have never been a dieter. Now, in the age group (50+) where weight loss can be very difficult for women, this works for me.
Okay, so an entire article about weight, but nothing about health. This isn’t the first time you’ve written about food but missed the importance of exactly what is consumed (at least twice about how healthy food should be equally taxed with unhealthy food thereby making it more difficult for lower-income people to afford it. This doesn’t just apply to organics you know). I like much of your writing but on health and food i think you’re writing out of ignorance, which is fine, as long as readers don’t assume that because you know alot about law that you must know something about health.
Yep, fasting has shown some benefits but you’ll still be malnourished if you continue to eat fish and chips to get your fill. You will also tend to eat more eating any processed or damaged food (food that is chemically altered by the cooking process to the point where the body can’t properly utilise it – extreme high temperature cooking like deep frying damages food). You’ll eat more because your body still needs the nutrients it needs. But, as fat people mostly prove – they lack the discipline to eat properly and so will fast and still eat poorly. If that offends anyone i’m sorry, i am speaking generally. Why do children get fed chocolate, sweets and lollies and getting fat (or unhealthy or both) themselves? Because the parents won’t themselves forgo it. That is indiscipline, but they don’t look it that way. They say to themselves “what’s the harm” because they are in denial or are truly ignorant (which is fine, people start off that way). The sister documentary “The Men Who Made Us Fat” shows how much effort is put into perpetuating the denial/delusion/ignorance.
Seriously? You can still consume beer while trying to lose weight? OK, you CAN, but you’ll be making the job harder for yourself. Alcohol not only is LOADED with kilojoules but it also stops your body burning fat whilst it is being processed by the body. A double-whammy impact to anyone trying to lose weight. If your goal is to lose weight, how about you forgo alcohol (or drastically reduce it) and not have to fast because you’re eating properly (although you could fast, it has shown health benefits other than weight-loss). When people were fat in the middle ages it was because they drank alcohol instead of water – not because they ate too much food. When you consume such substances, your body is not nourished by them – so you either eat good food and therefor consume more kilojoules than you need or you forgo the nutrition and become malnourished. Fat people, paradoxically, are typically malnourished. I would not recommend that someone who is trying to lose weight continue to drink alcohol! It will make the task harder.
It’s really simple but most people simply won’t do it: stop eating crap. The hard part is knowing what crap is in the first place – so most cereals, processed wheat products, processed foods at all, sugar – especially sugar etc. Everyone has an opinion on this but you can get some obvious ones out of your diet with the minimal of research. After a few months of not eating bad food your cravings for it will abate or even cease. If i smell chocolate now, i am really put off.
Also, recognise there are healthier alternatives to the crap you buy. Be suspicious of anything with a shelf life. Cocao is different to Cocoa – look it up and understand it.
P.s. I don’t know how tall you are but i suspect that you were overweight at 92kg because you probably (going on averages here) have a low lean body mass (muscle) not to be confused with the only moderately useful body mass index (overall). I could be wrong, you might be buff. 🙂
Great article today. We saw Moseley’s program too. Nick found another variant on the net whereby everyday we have a sixteen hour fast. We achieve this by not eating breakfast and then eating normally at lunch and dinnertime. ( No snacking, and alcohol and bread are to be shunned as much as possible. This suits our lifestyle -( Moseley shot holes in the truism that breakfast is essential.)
A meal takes up to 5 hours to digest and so the remaining time after dinner, is effectively a fast. For a large chunk of this one is asleep.We don’t get hungry. When we have the odd breakfast we compensate with a light meal at night e.g. omelette and salad, have a Weiss,’ yummy ice-cream stick. We are both happy with the weight we have reached.
Well done. I have yoyo dieted for the last 2 years – putting on just a little bit of weight as I fail in each attempt. You have inspired me to try this one!!