Mimi Spencer - The Fast Beach Diet: the super-fast 6-week programme to get you in shape for summer

If you are in reasonable health, short fasts (which will always, dont forget, include the Fast Diets calorie allowance) should be fine. If you are on medication of any description, please see your doctor first. There are certain groups for whom fasting is not advised. Type 1 diabetics are included in this list, along with anyone suffering from an eating disorder. If you are already extremely lean, do not fast. Children should never fast, so this is a plan for over-18s only. Pregnant women should eat according to government guidelines and not limit their daily calorie intake. Similarly, if you have an underlying medical condition, visit your GP, as you would before embarking on any weight-loss regime.

First published in 2014 by
Short Books
3A Exmouth House
Pine Street
EC1R 0JH

This ebook edition published in 2014

All rights reserved
Copyright Mimi Spencer 2014

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ISBN 9781780722252

Intermittent Fasting is, without doubt, one of the hottest new approaches to weight loss on the planet. When The Fast Diet was published in January 2013, Mimi and I could never have imagined the response it would get. It quickly became an international phenomenon, and has since been embraced by celebrities like Beyonc and Benedict Cumberbatch (You have to, for Sherlock). One Foot in the Grave star Richard Wilson told a newspaper that he had lost 12lb on the diet in just five weeks. The great thing is that the fasting days are tough but you know that the next day you can eat. Even the new slim-line Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, is rumoured to be on it.

I am passionate about IF because I find the science compelling and because there is such good evidence of potential health benefits. I am also convinced by the dramatic effects it has had on my own body. By way of background, for those of you who have not read the original book, two years ago I was an overweight middle-aged man, weighing in at around 85kg (13st 3lb), with a 36-inch waist. I was mildly embarrassed about the spare tyre round my gut, but not embarrassed enough to do anything about it.

Then I went to my doctor with a minor complaint and as part of the examination she suggested I have a routine blood test. When the results came back she told me that I was a Type 2 diabetic, with a fasting glucose of around 7.2 mmol/l. This was a nasty shock as my father had passed away at a relatively early age; when he died he was suffering from a range of diseases, including Type 2 diabetes, heart failure, prostate cancer and what I suspect was early dementia.

Rather than start on medication, I began researching alternative approaches and came across Intermittent Fasting. I decided to make a documentary on the subject; in the course of making the film Eat, Fast, Live Longer, I tried various different forms of IF, ranging from doing five days of almost total calorie restriction to alternate-day fasting (where you cut your calories every other day). Eventually I settled on a pattern I found easy to stick to, which I called the 5:2 diet.

On a Monday and a Thursday I ate a quarter of my normal calorie intake, going down from around 2400 to 600 calories a day. In 12 weeks on this diet I lost 9kg (nearly 20lb) and 4 inches off my waist. My body fat went down from 28% to 21%. My blood glucose fell to healthy levels. I also began to sleep better (I lost fat around my neck and stopped snoring).

I then began combining the IF with an intermittent exercise regime (Fast Exercise) and soon began to see the beginnings of a six-pack. I can now fit into a suit I havent worn for 30 years.

As our website testifies, this is an experience that has been replicated thousands of times over. We now have feedback from countless people who have embarked on the 5:2 Fast Diet and found it to be positively life-changing.

So why has Mimi written a new book? Well, the original book laid out the science behind IF and gave useful tips on how to do it. What it didnt do was produce a structured regime, one that would ensure fat loss over a comparatively short period of time. The Fast Beach Diet is an adjunct, if you like, designed to complement the original Fast Diet a short-term, faster solution for those of you who perhaps have a fat-loss deadline to meet.

The original book also made very little reference to exercise. Although studies show that low intensity exercise, like jogging, is unlikely to lead to weight loss (people tend to compensate by eating more), there is plenty of evidence that a combination of calorie restriction and exercise will lead to more sustained weight loss than either done alone. The Fast Beach Diet includes useful sections on how to get fitter and better toned in just a few minutes a day.

Best of all, Mimi has produced a range of new and tasty recipes for your Fast Days. I have begun to work my way through them and can testify that they are full of flavour as well as hunger-killing fibre and protein.

I greatly enjoyed reading this book and learned something new from doing so. I hope you do too.

Dr Michael Mosley

A year from now, you will wish you started today

There are many good reasons to start the Fast Diet. You may be inspired by your sister or your best friend, your dad or your doctor. You may have decided you want to cut your risk of age-related disease. You may want to reduce your cholesterol, boost your brain, improve your mood, lower your blood pressure, lengthen your life.

Or you may just want to look good in a swimsuit.

I say just. But looking good and (more importantly) feeling good about your body is no mere vanity project. It can have a real emotional impact on a life. Im reminded of one Fast Dieter who told me that, after years of fruitless yo-yo dieting, six months of 5:2 had given her enough body confidence to go to the local baths and swim with her young daughter for the first time ever. Thats not vanity. Its the glorious stuff of life.

Not long ago, a magazine survey found that women think about their bodies every 15 minutes (which is, apparently, more than men think about sex). There are times of the year, of course, when we put ourselves under greater scrutiny still. On the beach, in summer, in our shorts and bikinis, we think about the shape were in even more often a constant background hum, the helicopter moaning overhead. Men may not bang on about it quite as much, but they tend to be just as aware as T-shirt weather creeps up to ambush those hibernating pecs and paunches.