What To Eat?

According to the research I've read, it's OK to eat whatever you like on non-fasting days.

Mainly thanks to my lovely wife, I eat pretty healthily. We tend to eat home-cooked meals prepared using organic vegetables and grains, and eat only sustainably sourced seafood. My wife and son don't eat other kinds of meat, so I don't eat it at home either. We all tend to avoid sugary snacks and drinks, preferring instead to drink filtered water. I love my coffee, and take it with a single spoon of brown sugar. I enjoy drinking beer and wine, but tend not to over-indulge very often (at least, not these days).

I consider my diet to be generally pretty healthy really. I don't really exercise though, and this is the biggest lifestyle change in the last few years. The lack of exercise has probably been my undoing, to be honest. 

Deciding to begin intermittent fasting is a big deal to me: it's a major change, but with a relatively minor impact on my general diet. All I need to do is to continue eating and drinking as I do now, for five (or maybe six) days a week; on the other two (or one), I need to restrict my eating to a maximum of just 600 calories.

According to various online calculators, a man of my age living the sort of lifestyle I lead (sedentary...) needs to take in just under 2000 calories a day to maintain his weight. Reducing it to 600 calories a day for two days a week is obviously a big change. But what is happening to your body when you starve it like this?

According to Dr Mosley's Horizon documentary, an insulin-like growth hormone called IGF-1 is responsible for making our bodies grow, by producing new cells. When the body is ingesting plenty of calories all the time (which is what the modern Western lifestyle encourages), levels of IGF-1 are high, and new cells are constantly being produced. Starve it however, and IGF-1 levels fall to a level where, instead of producing new cells, the body begins to repair its existing ones. Do this twice a week, or on alternate days, or three days a month, or whatever, and the net effect is that you lose weight. Importantly, you're doing this by reducing the amount of abdominal fat you have; excess abdominal fat in the shape of those love handles and beer bellies is a risk indicator for cancers and coronary heart disease.

Sounds good doesn't it? But what can I eat on a fasting day?

I found a few online resources to help me work out what I could get away with eating, whilst staying under the 600 calorie limit (the limit is 600 calories for men, but its 500 for women).

These are the websites I'm starting off with:

http://www.caloriecounting.co.uk

http://commonsensehealth.com/Diet-and-Nutrition/food_calorie_chart.shtml

I like the sound of scrambled eggs with butter, and grilled fish and steamed vegetables!

More updates soon.
"Eat, Fast and Live Long".
Alex.