Breakfast with Michael Mosley
When it comes to maintaining a healthy weight, do you get confused about what to do - from low fat to low carb to fasting - there’s a plethora of advice. And with the rates of obesity and diet-related diabetics rapidly rising it’s more important than ever to find ways to beat these lifestyle diseases and take care of our physical wellbeing. So just how can you distinguish fact from fad?
One of the best ways is to tap into the latest science in the field. Recently I attended a workshop with Dr. Michael Mosley, one of the leading researchers in this field who shared some of the latest findings and busted some myths along the way.
The first myth to be busted was not to skip breakfast as a recent systematic study on the effects of eating breakfast on weight control suggests that starting the day off with breakfast might not be a good strategy. So, if you don’t enjoy breakfast don’t worry, after all there’s no scientific evidence of its benefits.
Some days it feels we can’t go for more than a few hours without reaching for a snack. Many of our meetings or workshops provide calorie laden morning and afternoon teas. And if you’re a parent chances are you’ll be all too familiar with your child telling you they haven’t eaten for a while and are starving. However, it turns out that grazing throughout the day is a relatively new trent, and may not be such a good idea. One study found that eating two large meals a day can lead to more weight loss than eating six meals a day – both groups had the same daily calorie intake. Other studies have found that when you eat lots of small meals, you’re more likely to also eat lots of big meals, so you just eat a lot more. Michael suggests that unfortunately, our snacking culture could be one of the drivers of obesity.
So how can you maintain a healthy weight?
Michael suggests one way to do this is by adopting time-restricted eating. Research by Satchin Panda is indicating that eating within a ten hour block in your day – and fasting the other hours – can help you get to and then maintain a healthy weight and lead to better overall health. A key part of this approach is to stop eating about three hours before you go to bed, and then don’t start eating again until at least mid-morning the next day. Good news for those who like to skip breakfast, but bad news for those who’ll need to ditch the late-night snack. Giving your body this daily respite from digesting food allows it to get on with some important repair work that can help protect you against illness and the effects of ageing, help you feel more energetic, and boost your mood.
How does this work?
It seems that on a time-restricted diet your body switches from burning sugar to burning fat. Michael explained that our bodies are like a hybrid car, designed to run on two different fuel systems, one sugar and the other fat. Our default is to run on sugar, and it’s only when this supply starts to run low, that your body goes into ketosis and taps into your energy-rich stores of fat. Not only is that good for our waists, this process also can reduce our appetite and increase our concentration levels.
And fasting for about twelve hours has also been found to trigger autophagy – the process of recycle and renewal in the cells of our bodies that includes destroying viruses and bad bacteria and repairing damage. That’s perhaps why fasting has been linked with living longer and healthier lives.
So, does that mean you can eat anything in your restricted time?
The short answer is no. It’s still important to be selective about what you eat. And while the low-fat diet was once the stock standard advice, it seems that a Mediterranean diet can be more beneficial for you. And the good news for many of us means that we can eat lots of eggs, nuts, and oily fish as well as enjoy a wine with our evening meal. One study of 7000 Spanish people allocated half to a low fat diet – bread, pasta, potatoes, low fat diary and lean fish, and the other half to a Mediterranean diet. Although the study was supposed to run for five years, it was cut short as those in the Mediterranean group were doing much better than those in the other group. They were 30% less likely to have a heart attack or stroke, their risk of developing diabetes was cut by 52%, and the women in this group has nearly 70% lower risk of getting breast cancer. And studies are finding that this diet is not only good for your physical health, it can also boost your mental health. It can reduce your risk for depression and has even been used as an alternative treatment by some people.
You can further enhance your Mediterranean diet by including the addition of fermented foods from the Nordic diet. Fermented foods provide your gut with the probiotics, or good bacteria, that you need to protect against health problems such as digestive issues, obesity and diabetes.
That’s why Michael is a strong advocate for the Mediterranean diet plus a little bit of fermented foods.
What can you do incorporate these suggestions into your eating plan to maintain your wellbeing and avoid or manage life-style related diseases?