Everyone's talking about intermittent fasting, but what effect does it have on your body?
A guy
called Jesus once fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, and for centuries before
and since, people have used fasting to enhance their spiritual and
physical health. Most animals instinctively go off their food when they feel
out of sorts, but for most humans the idea of giving up tucker is a hard one to
swallow.
What is a fast?
A true
fast involves abstaining from all food and drink other than water, and it lasts
up to several weeks. However, the latest “next big thing” is the intermittent
5:2 fasting diet, in which you restrict your calorie intake to 25 per cent of your RDI (recommended dietary
intake) for two days a week, and eat a normal diet for the remaining
days. The fasting days can be consecutive, or not, and you choose when and what
you eat, as long as you remain within the calorie allowance. The average Australian
adult consumes 2000 calories or 8700kJ a day, so 25 per cent of that would be
500 calories or 2175kJ.
The fat equation
Many
people find the 5:2 diet works
a treat because other than feeling peckish and possibly irritable on the
fasting days, they don’t need to concern themselves with dieting for the rest
of the week.
For
weight loss the benefit of the 5:2 diet is simply a mathematical equation: Eat
less calories than the body requires for its daily metabolic needs,
and fat will be burnt to provide the deficit. Happy days.
When it doesn’t work
For
people with blood sugar levels that oscillate between too high and too low, not
eating for several hours will cause blood sugar levels to plummet, creating hypoglycaemic
symptoms, which means that fasting days will be fraught with moodiness, headaches, dizziness, poor concentration and nausea. Also, less disciplined
people may be tempted to gorge on the non-fasting days and eat foods such as
cakes, chips and pies that are best avoided in any healthy diet.
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