The latest book by Michael Mosley
There is another new book by Michael Mosley, the British doctor who became famous six years ago with his book on the fasting diet. In ‘The Fast 800’, Mosley presents a new program to lose weight, maintain weight and improve health. It is a combination of a weight loss diet, combined with intermittent fasting and time-limited eating. Dietitian and journalist Karine Hoenderdos read his book and spoke to him on behalf of Gezondheidsnet.
When it comes to health and diet, Dr. Michael Mosley never stops learning. He constantly follows the scientific literature and speaks with researchers. In his latest book ‘The fast 800’ all the knowledge of recent years comes together. The new program consists of three parts: a (short) period in which you follow a diet with only 800 kilocalories. The second is a schedule of 2 fast days per week. Those are not days when you eat nothing at all: even then you eat those 800 kilocalories again. The third is the maintenance phase, in which you maintain your weight and possibly also do ‘time-limited fasting’.
800 kilocalories
Why those 800 kilocalories, that is very little? Mosley: “800 kilocalories is the magic number for successful dieting. It’s tough enough to lose weight quickly, yet high enough to keep it going.” Rapid weight loss and fasting have a beneficial effect on your metabolism and your health, especially if you suffer from, for example, type 2 diabetes or cardiovascular disease. For example, your body switches more easily to burning fat. According to Mosley, there is no evidence that rapid weight loss leads to a metabolic disruption, nor does it increase the chances of gaining weight again quickly. Other experts, such as Liesbeth van Rossum, do not completely agree with him. Furthermore, it is very difficult to get enough vitamins and minerals within those 800 lean calories. You have to eat very healthy for the rest of the week, or supplement your diet with a supplement.
Intermittent fasting
After the diet period, Mosley recommends that you maintain your new weight through intermittent fasting and reduce it further if necessary. That means for him: 5 days of normal food and 2 ‘fasting days’ on which you only eat 800 kilocalories. This is, incidentally, less strict than Mosley advised in his earlier book on fasting: he assumed only 500 to 600 kilocalories per fasting day. If you only want to lose a few kilos, then according to Mosley you can skip the first strict phase and do 2 fasting days a week.
Timed Fasting
Also new in the book is the emphasis on ‘time-bound eating’, in other words limiting the hours you eat. Here you try to consume the majority of your calories within a small time frame, for example 12 hours. You then stop eating at 8 o’clock in the evening and then take breakfast at 8 o’clock the next morning. The longer your periods of not eating, the better, because your body then learns to address the fat burning process. A schedule of 16 hours of fasting and 8 hours of eating is probably the most optimal. But Mosley warns: “Build this up slowly by making the periods of no food longer and longer, just like you would train for a marathon.” According to Mosley, time-limited fasting is suitable during the period in which you have reached your goals and target weight, and would like to keep it that way.
flexible
Mosley’s program sounds pretty strict. But he does say that you can apply it flexibly. You can decide for yourself how intensively you follow it. Do you want to lose weight quickly or a lot? Then start with the 800 calorie diet for a few weeks. Then you switch to 2 days of fasting per week. Do you not want to diet and do not follow fasting days? Then definitely try time-limited fasting. And you can also follow the strict diet for a short period of time when you gain weight again. It is important that you monitor and maintain the balance. Incidentally, fasting is not only good for your body weight, says Mosley: “The scientific research into fasting has increased enormously in the last 6 years. In the near future I expect a lot of results into the effect of fasting on the brain.’
Tried it myself
The secret to Mosley’s success is that he writes catchy and tries everything on himself. For this book, he consciously ate more than he was used to for a period of time, especially more carbohydrates such as bread and pasta. Mosley has a predisposition to type 2 diabetes and he saw his weight and his blood sugars creep up again during this period. He also slept poorly and his blood pressure went up. He then applied the ‘Fast 800’ program for himself. With the result: rapid weight loss and improvement of his health. But this is of course only Mosley’s experience, although he also cites many scientific studies of other strict calorie-restricted diets.
Low-carb and Mediterranean
And what do you eat on fasting days, or during the strict diet? Mosley is convinced of the health aspects of the Mediterranean diet and of the usefulness of limiting carbohydrates. In practice, this means that on fasting days you mainly eat a lot of vegetables, together with a protein source (chicken, legumes, fish, meat and eggs). The book contains numerous recipes (with the calories listed) and at the back are a few examples of daily menus. A fasting day consists, for example, of a breakfast of 2 boiled eggs with half an avocado, for lunch some slices of ham with red cabbage salad and for dinner shrimp korma with coconut cauliflower rice. All fresh and unprocessed but quite labor intensive.
Counting calories is so 1980
But… what about counting calories, isn’t that a very old-fashioned way of looking at your food? Mosley: “My ultimate goal is that people eventually stop worrying about calories and simply choose healthy products ‘naturally’. But for people who are overweight or have health problems, calorie restriction is still the best way to lose weight and improve health. scientific research shows, so counting calories is necessary in the short term, but in the end my program really becomes a ‘way of life’ without constantly counting calories.”
Is this book recommended or not?
I do not know. In any case, it reads well and is interesting. I give the subject of fasting the benefit of the doubt, because many scientists and doctors work intensively on it. But the calorie counting and the strict diet are much less pleasing to me. If you want to follow Mosley’s book, it is advisable to do this under the guidance of a dietician or doctor to prevent deficiencies and problems with the metabolism.
