OH! Magazine - Australian Version December 2013 (Australian Version) | Page 14

( Nutrition )

FASTING FOR
HEALTH AND
WEIGHT LOSS?
Dr Joanna McMillan examines the
health benefits of fasting.
here’s a new dieting approach getting a
lot of attention here in Australia, called
the 5&2 Diet. The idea is that for two nonconsecutive days of the week you dramatically
reduce your kilojoule intake to only ~2,000kJ
(500 calories) and then eat pretty much what
you like on the other days. Intermittent fasting
like this means you only have to ‘diet’ for want
of a better word, on two days and that appeals
to many people. Most of us can call on willpower
to see us through one day, while slightly
reducing kilojoules everyday consistently might
be more difficult. So does it work and is it
worthy of trying?
The practice of fasting for health or spiritual
reasons is as old as the hills. Pretty much every
religion and many Eastern teachings, have forms
of fasting. In religious teachings fasting is often
referred to as a means of discipline and reducing
gluttony. Until relatively recently humans had
forced periods of fasting due to the availability of
food. Cycles of feast and famine would have been

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ISSUE 5 ( OH! MAGAZINE )