The 5-2 Diet

I stumbled across an article on this diet reading the Guardian the other day. I was thinking about my health and was fairly satisfied with the progress I had made here - losing weight, walking more, riding my bike, eating and snacking less. However, somehow, this diet made sense to me for the simple reason that it didn't really seem like a diet. It doesn't require anything I can't do. On this diet you fast two days out of seven.  Two consecutive days of fasting is not encouraged. I've fasted in the past and was able to do it as long as I kept busy. My first day fasting was busy. I worked, and followed my usual routine minus breakfast, lunch and dinner.  There were no particular urges to run to the local convenience store for a snack or raid the fridge.

I looked at the Wikipedia page on the Fast Diet and under criticism was the following:

According to the UK National Health Service there is no evidence that the diet meets its claims of benefit and that "due to the very real uncertainties about the 5:2, especially as little is known about whether it could be harmful to health in the long-term, most health professionals would recommend you stick to the tried and trusted methods for weight loss and disease prevention."

NHS goes on to label it a "fad diet" that can be "bad for your health." ^[5]

I am usually skeptical of diets, but I'm even more skeptical of government organizations that are critical of something that would have profound impacts on the way we eat, purchase and choose food. It would seem that there is a vested interest in preserving the status quo. 

For most people, tried and true methods of weight loss and disease prevention, that is, diet and exercise, don't work. We have been seduced by sweet, salty, fatty foods. Exercise is something we have to add to our life rather than it being a natural part of it. Essentially, we have to go out of our way to be healthy.

The beauty of this diet is that it does not require us to make any radical changes other than cutting down on eating for two days of the week. Why is this bad for your health? Westerners eat too much in general.  The real threat is probably the harm it might do to major supermarket chains if people go to the store less, not if  "you stick to the tried and trusted methods for weight loss and disease prevention". For most people those tried and trusted  methods involve medicines with rather severe potential side effects. They also do not allow our bodies to use their potential to heal ourselves. If the possibilities of treating cancer, heart disease, lowering cholesterol and blood pressure, and controlling insulin levels can be ameliorated with something as simple as fasting, then long term clinical studies would seem to be warranted. I hope the NHS plans to carry some out. 

In the meantime, I will take the plunge. I already live in a culture that doesn't believe in overeating. I just want to take it to the next level to prevent problems that might be lurking down the road; My mom developed diabetes and was battling with weight control in her last years. She had had bypass surgery, high cholesterol and high blood pressure. That gives me plenty of motivation to try a regimen that can help my body control those risks naturally. Given the alternatives, fasting doesn't sound so radical to me.