aarno16 1s fing good for you? What we Know so far | Aeon Essays Is less more? Photo by Thom Atkinson/Gallery Stock It all began in March last year when I read an article by Steve Hendricks in Harper’s magazine titled ‘Starving Your Way to Vigour’. Hendricks examined the health benefits of fasting, including long- term reduced seizure activity in epileptics, lowered blood pressure in hypertensives, better toleration of chemotherapy in cancer patients, and, of course, weight loss. He also mentioned significantly increased a Hak ween ee dn be Cane RE aeon : oe ” Ipedacon.coessyaifastng-good-or-you-what-we-know-so-far umn vouree=Acon+Newaletrttn_campaiga-#2e4337 lua Saturday newsletter 28 July 20167_22 18aarno16 1s sing good for you? What we Know so far | Asan Estays 20 pounds and kept it off for the two years since. I was fascinated, and I started reading more about fasting afterwards, although at the time I had no intention of doing it myself. The benefits of fasting have been much in the news again lately, in part due to a best-selling book from the UK that is also making waves in the US: The Fast Diet: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, Live Longer (2013) by Dr Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer. Mosley is a BBC health and science journalist who extols the benefits of ‘intermittent fasting’. There are many versions of this type of fasting that are currently the subject of various research programmes, but Mosley settled on the 5:2 ratio — in every week, two days of fasting, and five days of normal eating. Even on the fasting days, one may eat small amounts: 600 calories maximum for men, 500 for women, so about a quarter of a normal day’s intake. Mosley’s claim is that such a ‘feast or famine’ regime closely matches the food consumption patterns of pre- modern societies, and our bodies are designed to optimise such eating. Drawing on various research projects studying intermittent fasting and weight loss, cholesterol levels and so on, he argues that even after quite short periods of fasting, our bodies turn off fat- storing mechanisms and switch to a fat-burning ‘repair-and-recover’ mode. Mosley says that he himself lost 20lbs in nine weeks on the diet, bringing his percentage of body fat from 28 to 20 per cent. He says his blood glucose went from ‘diabetic to normal’, and that his cholesterol levels also declined from levels that needed medication to normal. He also says that he feels much more energetic since. Inspired by Mosley and Hendricks, I delved into research on fasting online, but much of what I found was pseudoscientific drivel about getting rid of mysterious and unnamed toxins in the body. Recommendations for fasting were often coupled with such staples nf altawnativa madinina inl: anianan an anlania iesination and wives wen Q aeon ren IN Ipedacon.colessyaifastng-good-or-you-what-we-know-so-far umn souree=Acon+Newaletrttn_campaiga-#2e4337Iua Saturday newsletter 28 July 20167_22 218asininois Ws fain good for you? What we know so fir reasons have been off my blood p pressure medication for a couple of months. I thought I might try fasting as an experiment, to see if it made any difference to my blood pressure, but also out of sheer curiosity about what the experience would be like. My wife, who had also read Hendricks’s article in Harper’s, said she would try it, too We decided on a seven-day fast — somewhere between Hendrick’s experience and Mosley’s recommendation. The plan was to go a full week without eating or drinking anything except water. Lest our bodies react to this insult by trying to slow down our metabolisms, and we end up just lying around and not getting anything useful done all week, we also planned to stay energetic by engaging in vigorous physical exercise for at least a couple of hours daily during the fast. Neither one of us had ever done anything of the sort before. Since my wife had a week’s break in February from her work as a schoolteacher, we decided to try our fast then. Our preparation was pretty minimal. I would keep a journal in which I would record my weight, blood pressure, activities and, several times a day, just note how I was feeling. We bought some emergency supplies in case one or both of us ended up feeling ill or fainting: some energy drinks, a couple of bars of Swiss milk chocolate, some fruit, and some bread and cheese, and put them in the refrigerator. My wife also told me to stop locking the bathroom door from the inside, just in case she needed to rescue me. If my wife asked me a question, it took about five seconds for it to register and another five before I could formulate and deliver a reply weny Q aeon ren IN ealter 23 July 2016722 38