The 5 2 Diet – The Latest Diet Sensation by M. Kuehn

Food is an emotional issue for most of us. I don’t know many that use it purely for fuel.

We have a national crisis on our hands with obesity and all the misery that it brings and we aren’t any closer to slowing it down. Why? Because it’s a complicated subject. People eat because they are bored, lonely, depressed, unable to cope with life. Poorer people tend to eat the garbage spewed out by frozen food brands that have zero nutrition and are full of saturated fat. We don’t have the European culture of sitting together as a family to eat. We don’t have a culture of teaching our children to cook, something that breaks my heart.

Sociological factors aside, what is this latest diet that everyone’s buzzing about? Well, simply put, it’s about fasting for two days and eating ‘normally’ for five. Before you run for the hills, fasting for the two days on this diet means you still eat, but you ingest either five hundred calories daily for a woman or six hundred for a man. You can also choose when you consume your calories – in one go, two meals of 250 calories each or spread throughout the day grazing.

 

The fasting is intermittent on this diet, by the way, so you never do it for two days in a row.
Michael Mosley, a doctor and TV presenter tried this diet for 6 weeks and the results were impressive. He lost a stone, his blood glucose levels which were sky high were back to normal and his cholesterol levels were within a normal range, where previously had been on the point of needing to be medicated.

Small scale studies have shown that people do not pig out on non fasting days. They just eat normally, and as long as it’s within a healthy range of calorie intake and food is nutritious, results have been very encouraging. And don’t think that 500 calories is that hard to sustain. When I get hunger pains, I drink miso soup or chicken broth, both of which I love. That’s another key. Never eat something that you don’t enjoy. You will never feel satisfied, just wanting.