Delicious 'fast Day' Meal Plans That Are Just 800 Calories

If you don’t want the hassle of calorie counting, follow these plans two days a week, and stick to the basic principles of the Clever Guts diet for the rest of the week. We have given you the science behind the Clever Guts diet and why it works so well to improve your gut health and help flatten your stomach. Today, we’ll show you how combining Clever Guts with the now famous 5:2 regime will get you into that Christmas party dress by giving even better results than just following one or the other. In 2012 Michael found, through a random blood test, that he was a type 2 diabetic. Rather than start medication, he decided to see if there was a more natural way to reverse it. He spoke to scientists and learned about intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting doesn’t mean cutting out food altogether. It means reducing calories, fairly dramatically, for a couple of days a week.

Intrigued, he made a documentary called Eat, Fast And Live Longer, with himself as a guinea pig. It included seeing what would happen if he cut his calorie intake to around 600-800 calories a day for two days a week, and did this for eight weeks. He found it surprisingly easy, and on what he was now calling a 5:2 diet lost 20lb, took 4in off his waist and, most impressive of all, reversed his diabetes. That was how the internationally best-selling The Fast Diet book was born. There are various reasons why this works so well. It’s partly because you aren’t constantly on a diet, which makes a big psychological difference. If you can’t eat your favourite meal today, perhaps you can have it tomorrow. But there’s a more fundamental reason. Because the calorie restriction forces you to cut out rubbish on fasting days and eat vegetables and good quality fats and proteins, you start to change the bacteria in your gut. And with more of the healthy bacteria in your gut, you’re more likely to crave healthy food when hungry than sweet-tasting junk, even on non-fasting days. How to drop a dress size by Christmas!

There is one particularly important type of bacteria called Akkermansia that flourishes when we fast or cut down on our calories. Akkermansia thrives on fast days because, unlike most other microbes in your gut, they don’t live on the remains of the food that makes its way down into their home, the large intestine. Instead, they feast on the mucus that your gut wall secretes to protect itself against attack by the trillions of microbes that live in the gut. SECRET OF WEIGHT LOSS, Plan fasting days in advance. Make sure you increase your water intake, as you miss out on the fluids in your usual food and you lose water when you burn fat. Aim for 2-3 litres a day. Soups are satiating, cheap and practical. You can take them to work for lunch and keep portions in the freezer. Go for the non-starchy vegetable or clear broths such as miso soup.

Hot drinks suppress appetite, so teas and coffees — ideally black with no sugar — are great. Use flavour enhancers so meals are as tasty as possible. For example, lemon, pepper, chilli, garlic, gherkins, mustard and herbs all add few calories. Expect side-effects such as tiredness, lightheadedness and headaches (often related to dehydration); hunger (it comes in waves and passes so try to ‘surf the wave’); and feeling colder. All should settle over a week or so and are usually less noticeable if you raise the proportion of fat in your diet — try recipes that include avocado or oily fish. The first few weeks can be tough, but your body adapts. Your appetite settles. Most people feel better and find they have more energy and a clearer head. It helps to get support. Oddly enough, the presence of Akkermansia actually strengthens and thickens this protective mucus layer, reducing the risk of inflammation in the gut. A recent study found people with higher levels of Akkermansia in their gut, who went on a diet, lost more belly fat and had better blood-sugar control than those with lower levels.