England’s ‘Fast Diet’ Comes To US Shores After Sweeping Brit Bestseller Lists

Have you heard of England’s “Fast Diet,” a hugely popular weight loss trend that boasts a far more permissive and workable weight loss solution than the normally hugely restrictive diet plans most folk turn to (and fail) when weight loss or health becomes an issue?

If you haven’t, England’s Fast Diet may be about to compel Americans in a big way — and across the pond, where creeping population-wide obesity issues is a growing problem as well — the book The Fast Diet has topped Amazon UK’s charts since its January release.

The Fast Diet’s premise is simple, and the name is not necessarily a reference to the eating plan’s results, it would seem. Over on Amazon UK, where the book has already garnered a 4.5 star rating with nearly 600 reviews, a product page describes the Fast Diet thusly:

“This revolutionary new approach to weight loss really is as simple as it sounds: you eat normally five days a week, then for just two days you cut your calories (500 for women, 600 for men.)”

The premise is not new — and if you are a weight loss buff, you’ve probably already heard of Intermittent Fasting. Dr. Michael Mosley — who is essentially to the BBC what Sanjay Gupta is to CNN, The New York Times notes, is one of the book’s two authors.

The paper quotes Mosley as explaining that the Fast Diet is really a simple modern reworking of human eating patterns as old as humanity itself — ones that pre-date the abundant availability of food 24/7, since our ancestors did not have access to Costco or Whole Foods:

” ‘Our earliest antecedents lived a feast-or-famine existence, gorging themselves after a big hunt and then not eating until they scored the next one.’ Similarly, he explained, temporary fasting is a ritual of religions like Islam and Judaism — as demonstrated by Ramadan and Yom Kippur. ‘We shouldn’t have a fear of hunger if it is just temporary,’ he said.”

The Fast Diet’s backing logic seems to be enough for most of Britain — except for the country’s NHS, which said soon after the book’s release on its website:

“Despite its increasing popularity, there is a great deal of uncertainty about I.F. (intermittent fasting) with significant gaps in the evidence.”

As with much related to weight loss, diet and health, it seems that we have to weigh the benefits of reduction in weight with the risks of dietary extremity … as well as some of the risks of obesity for those who have been negatively affected health-wise by putting on weight.

Would you give Dr. Mosley’s Fast Diet a shot? Have you tried intermittent fasting as a weight loss or health strategy?