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Speaker 1: It's not surprising that the blockbusting diet book of the season is 'The Fast Diet:
The Secret of Intermittent Fasting... Lose Weight, Stay Healthy and Live Longer'. And
a quick look on the web will show you, it has many, many clones.
S1: The essence of all these best-sellers is to eat very little food for two days, fast,
and then eat normally for five, The 5:2 diet. Wine writer Fiona Beckett, has been following
5:2 since last November.
Fiona Beckett: I think, you really want to keep it simple. You don't actually, on a fast
day, want to spend hours in the kitchen sort of fiddling around with something elaborate.
You just want something rather nice, rather delicious and it needn't be penal. You can
have really quite nice foods. I mean, Asian cooking is particularly good on the 5:2. There's
some Asian style broths and stir-fries are really good. And things like seafood, you
can have prawns and shrimps and all sorts of really quite delicious things. So, it's
not as if it's like a great deprivation.
[music]
S1: Pastor Grace Komolafe, has little interest in blockbusting diet books. But she has been
fasting since she was a teenager, as a member of the Pentecostal Church, the fastest growing
Christian group in the UK. Most Pentecostalists fast regularly, part of their emphasis on
the work of the spirit and their belief that they're taking the church back to it's early,
simple beginnings. She seemed the woman to teach me what fasting means now. Particularly,
as I was considering as part of preparing for this program, going on a fast myself.
Pastor%20Grace Komolafe: Fasting is so beneficial for us, every Christian, so that, that will
keep us calm. It will actually detox us because we need to be detoxed, not only from all the
toxin but from unbelief. When you fast, you discover that on your spirit is just lifted
up. You know, you understand the word of God more. You have more revelation of the word
of God. Fasting should be put back on the menu of the church because it is our inheritance.
In fact, fasting is an instrument of humbling.
S1: An instrument of humbling, perhaps. But it turns out, those early Christians and present-day
Pentecostalists are onto something more. There's a growing body of scientific evidence that
intermittent fasting is remarkably good for us physically. Mark Mattson, Professor of
Neuroscience at John's Hopkins University in the United States, is one of the leading
researchers on the benefits of fasting.
Mark Mattson: About 25 years ago, we started working on animal models to try to understand
what's going wrong in the brain in Alzheimer's disease, as well as Parkinson's disease. And
we knew that major risk factor for these disorders is advancing age, and other laboratories had
demonstrated years before that simply reducing the calorie intake in animals will result
in them living much longer, and it kind of slows down the ageing process. We found that
simply placing animals on, for example, alternate day fasting where they go 24 hours every other
day with no food would protect nerve cells in their brains and these experimental animal
models of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.
[music]
S1: Research that cast light on a story Andrew Jotischky, came across in his early history
work.
Andrew Jotischky: The most extreme example, I suppose, is the story of a hermit called
Onuphrius. He probably, he almost certainly didn't really exist as a real person. It's
a story, and he supposedly lived in the same spot in the Sinai Desert, under a palm tree
for 30 or 40 years and surviving only on the dates that fell from this date palm, that
he was sheltering under. Without wanting to say that it is actually possible to live solely
on dates for 30 or 40 years, the more I looked into it actually, the more plausible it became
that dates could form the staple of the diet of someone who is in that kind of position,
who's living a largely sedentary life. Dates are extremely rich in certain kinds of vitamins
and in fats. And in fact, we have plenty of other evidence from more contemporary literature
that Bedouin lived for a very long periods solely on dates and camel milk.
[music]
S1: Bedouins living their hard lives on dates and camel's milk, gives a hint of the evolutionary
benefit that might come with a form of partial fasting.
MM: Eating three meals a day plus snacks is abnormal. That's abnormal eating patterns
based on our evolutionary history. We think in part, interment fasting is good for the
brain, because when you go without food for an extended time period, nerve cells in your
brain actually become more active and we're finding in animals that improves their cognitive
function, their learning and memory. And it makes a lot of sense from the standpoint of
evolution, if you're an animal or one of our early ancestors in the wild, and you haven't
had food for a while, you better keep your mind active and figure out what you need to
do to find food, so that you can survive. When they're hungry, nerve cells are more
active and that, in turn, leads to the production of proteins we call 'Nerve Cell Growth Factors'
that, as the name implies, promote the growth of nerve cells, formation of new synapses
and improved function of the brain.
S1: Mark Mattson. For Pastor Grace it is the intention behind fasting that's the key.
PK: Fasting is for God, it's not for you. You are fasting to seek the face of God and
because of that, before you do your fasting, the spiritual preparation that is needed is
to search your heart, are you're doing it for the right motive? And also, you need to
start gradually, if you want to start to do a long fast. Gradually means that before you
start, you begin the fast, maybe two or three days before the fast, you stop eating sugar
products, you wing yourself from caffeine and you start eating smaller portion of food.
So, that will train your body and it will make the fasting easy for you.
S1: Talking to pastor Grace confirmed me, in my belief, that I ought to practice what
this program is, sort of preaching. So a few days ago, I began modestly.
S1: Well I've decided that I will fast. I can probably only do it for about 30 hours.
Spiritually, I should think of forgiveness and as pastor Grace says. So, I've tried to
that. It's three o' clock in the afternoon and I will try and fast 'til tomorrow evening
at eight o' clock. It shouldn't be very difficult. It hardly compares with the desert fathers.
S1: Meanwhile, in Bristol, Fiona Beckett continued with her less austere, but much longer-lasting
endeavour.
FB: Well, the things you can eat quite a lot of are fish, and seafood, and vegetables.
A bit of fruit, but fruit's quite calorific. It's really the things you need to steer clear
of, but the point of the diet and why it's so incredibly clever is that you only steer
clear of them for a day. There was always the thought of, if I can't have cheese, for
example, I can have it tomorrow. It's the psychology of the diet that's so incredibly
clever. So, I mean on the fast days, I don't eat carbs on the whole, bread, pasta, cheese,
not much meat really, occasionally chicken, but not red meat, and no alcohol.
S1: In the early church, fasting was often no more than a spiritual version of the 5:2
Diet, taming gluttony, Andrew Jotischky.
AJ: There's a treatise by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux from the 1120s. He's one of the
founding figures of the Cistercian order, and he's very critical of eating practices
in other Benedictine monasteries. He describes in considerable detail and with great indignation,
the numbers of courses that are brought in to feed these monks. He describes the complex
flavours, the skill of the cooks, the way in which food is dressed up to resemble something
else, and the effect that this has on monks. And he says it deflates and depresses the
spirit. It leads to a sort of lowering of spiritual awareness on the part of monks.
S1: It's 9 o' clock at night. I'm not hungry, but that's hardly surprising, six hours isn't
very long. I missed dinner. At the moment, it doesn't seem that big a deal.
PK: There is a physical benefit, as well, in fasting. Fasting keeps you young. Yeah,
it keeps you very young and it keeps your mind alert. Your skin becomes very smooth
and shining if you give yourself to fasting. So for all those benefits as well, fasting
is very good.
S1: I have to say, that if you haven't said that you were 25 and not 48, I wouldn't have
said you were in your 60s. You have very, very youthful skin.
PK: Yeah, I'm 67.
S1: You don't look 67.
PK: Thank you. [chuckle]
S1: Those side benefits, to a spiritual practice, have their roots in scientific fact. Mark
Mattson.
MM: Intermittent fasting will improve glucose regulation and therefore, protect against
diabetes. And the reason that happens is that, when you go without food for an extended time
period, say 12 to 24 hours, your muscle cells and your liver cells will undergo changes
that make them better able to remove glucose from the blood, so that when you do eat, the
glucose is rapidly removed and taken up by the cells where it's needed and used. Another
clear fact, that we've documented in our animal studies, is that intermittent fasting will
lower blood pressure and reduce resting heart rate and enhance ability of heart to respond
to stress.
S1: Another beneficial impact is the one Fiona Beckett is pursuing.
FB: Weight loss has gone really well. I've lost about 19 pounds, which is great, I needed
to. And that's over a period of just three months.
S1: That steady weight loss is what Professor Mark Mattson documented in a study of 100
women; a third eating normally, a third on a reduced calorie diet, and a third practising
intermittent fasting.
MM: And in this study we did at two consecutive days a week, they ate only 600 calories. So,
essentially, one meal each day. And they were on the diets for six months, and what we found
is that as expected, both energy restricted groups lost weight. But we found that the
group on a diet that we're calling the 5:2 diet, the women, they lost more belly fat
and their glucose regulation was improved, so that they were able to maintain lower blood
glucose levels.
S1: Professor Mark Mattson, so far, so positive. Where's the harm in avoiding a couple of thousand
calories a week? But there haven't been any medical studies in this country of the 5:2
Diet. So, in the absence of cost on findings, the medical experts recommend getting your
doctor's advice before starting any kind of fast.
S1: It's now 2:30 on the second day, almost 24 hours as I started this. The difficult
bit today was getting on a train at mid-day to come to Oxford. And everyone, or so it
seemed, was eating lunch. The smells of station food. Cornish pasties and soup and bacon sandwiches.
S1: It's just off to seven on the second day and I've been extremely hungry for nearly
two hours but I feel bright and sharp. My head is very clear and I feel a bit messianic
kind of god-like and a feeling that I ought to do this every week. This is the answer
to humanity's problems. I feel terrific. Now, I'm going to eat dinner.
[music]
S1: After I've broken my fast and the messianic feeling had passed sadly, I went to Pastor
Grace's New Covenant Church in Woolworth, to see how fasting fitted into church life.
After the joyous musical service, I talked to senior cleric, Pastor Shayo.
Pastor Shayo: The difference between fasting and doing hunger strike is when people abstain
from food but they are not taking time to pray, that's more or less doing an hunger
st... Trying to walk on... But what we do is really that time is devoted to prayers
so that we can have a close or whatever... The body will be down and the spirit will
be up to be able to communicate with God, that's why we do it.
S1: Though the motivations are different, there are similarities between Pastor Shayo's
reaction to fasting and Fiona Beckett's. To her, not so new-fangled fasting diet.
FB: This way of eating, this quite Spartan days give you an enormous amount of energy.
You do feel more energised. You also feel much more mentally sharp. Your concentration
is better. And just generally feel healthy. And a lot of people also say you do look well.
I think it gives you a great sense of control of the fact that you can decide not to eat
and actually recognise again what it is like to be hungry. I'm not pretending that in our
western lifestyle, that we're ever genuinely hungry but to actually feel annoying sense
that you would actually like to eat, as opposed to actually feeling rather full is quite a
novel sensation and interesting and I think entirely healthy one.
S1: The body, the mind, the spirit. Fasting, even done for the worldliest reasons seems
to touch them all. I asked Simon Cohen what he thought of Pastor Grace's belief that fasting
should be put back on the menu of the church because, as she said, it's the instrument
of humbling.
Simon Cohen: One of the reasons for fasting, particularly within Christianity and we're
hearing these messages echoed by Pope Francis, of course, is around solidarity with the poor
and being without. We're so, so privileged to live in the society and all of the luxuries
that that affords. And by going without, particularly going without food or ingredients that we
have learned to love so much is a humbling process. And I think it's quite difficult
to really build empathy or compassion to really dethrone ourselves and put ourselves in a
position of the so-called 'other', unless we behave or eat or drink like the so-called
'other' as well.
S1: Do you think it's coincidental then that the hottest, most fashionable diet right now
is the 5:2 Fast Diet, which is that you eat normally for five days and you eat very few
calories for two days?
SC: I'd not heard of this before, but I think that one of the crucial points when looking
at the faith traditions and fasting, and indeed feasting, is looking at the question of motivations.
Why are we fasting? Why are we going without? Are we doing it so that others think that
we're really cool? And, "Look at the sacrifices I'm making," or, "Look how thin and alive
I'm looking today," or is it to go into a deeper understanding? And a deeper relationship
with the food that we put so plonk in our mouths so often. And I think that motivation
is really key. And that's not to say that many of the people who are reading this book
have got impure motivations. But I do think that it's important to ask ourselves, why
are we going on this? And what are we learning as we're going through this fasting or through
these diets? And how is it shifting or changing our relationship to the things and the food
that we consume?