間歇性禁食法I.F.(intermittent fasting) 《節食法》風靡英倫

最新節食法風靡英倫

JENNIFER CONLIN 報道 2013年03月13日

倫敦——現在到英國來的遊客們，請注意。從計程車司機到企業高管，人們心中最重大的話題並不是凱特·米德爾頓(Kate Middleton)日漸隆起的腹部。不過令他們狂熱的話題確實與腰圍尺寸相關，是一本讓英國陷入禁食狂潮的暢銷節食書。
《節食法》(The Fast Diet) 於1月中旬在英國出版後，引發了轟動。這場轟動背後的獨立出版公司Short Books的創始人麗貝卡·尼科爾森(Rebecca Nicolson)說，該書自1月出版以來，幾乎每天都位居亞馬遜(Amazon)英國網站的暢銷榜首。“賣得很好，”她說，“就像薄煎餅一樣”，而薄煎 餅剛好是人們在實行這種革命性的節食計劃時可以吃的東西。

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Jonathan Player for The New York Times

邁克爾·莫斯利是《快速節食》的作者之一。他上周在家中做了一個蘑菇青蔥煎蛋餅。他通過親身經歷，對這種節食法的科學原理和健康益處進行了研究。他強迫自己嘗試間歇性禁食，並將整個過程拍攝了下來作為紀錄片素材。

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邁克爾·莫斯利和米米·斯潘塞所著的《快速節食》，自從1月份出版以來，幾乎每天都位居亞馬遜英國網站的暢銷榜首。

書的封面上印着一句頗有誘惑力的話，“減輕體重、保持健康、延年益壽”，這種最新減重法的前提是間歇性禁食（英國人通常把“節食減肥” [dieting]稱作“纖體”[slimming]），也就是這裡所謂的5:2節食方案，即在五天時間裡，你可以隨意吃喝，然後用兩天的禁食來消耗這些 能量。
禁食的時候，每天只能吃兩餐，每餐熱量大概為250到300卡路里，這取決於節食者的性別（女性為每日500卡路里，男性為每日600卡路里）。早餐時，你可以吃兩顆雞蛋和一片火腿；晚餐時，吃一碟蒸魚和蔬菜。
這些食物不多，但是據此書所言，減肥的訣竅在於，即便只是禁食幾個小時，之後人體也會開始關閉脂肪儲存機制，並開啟脂肪燃燒系統。
本書的兩名作者之一、BBC著名的醫學記者邁克爾·莫斯利(Michael Mosley)說，“我一直非常熱衷於自我實驗。”
他通過親身經歷，對這種節食法的科學原理和健康益處進行了研究。他強迫自己嘗試間歇性禁食，並將整個過程拍攝下來作為BBC去年8月的紀錄片《飲食、禁食，更長壽》(Eat, Fast and Live Longer)的素材。

最近的一天，莫斯利喝着茶，享用着半塊曲奇（那天他不用禁食），一邊說，“我之所以開始這項實驗，是因為去年覺得身體欠佳。結果檢查出我有高血糖和高膽固醇，而且腸道內還有某種內臟脂肪。”

莫斯利現年55歲，雖然當時他算不上肥胖，但是身高5英尺11英寸（約1.8米）、體重187磅（約84.9公斤）的莫斯利的身體質量指數和體脂率 要比男性標準高出一些。他還說，“我父親73歲時死於糖尿病併發症，我現在也出現了一些瀕臨糖尿病的癥狀，我知道必須做出改變。”
結果便誕生了一部紀錄片，這個紀錄片幾乎與《超大號的我》(Super Size Me)截然相反。莫斯利在片中不僅禁食，而且還就各種間歇性禁食的積極效果，對幾名科研人員進行了採訪（大部分在美國）。這些間歇性禁食方式的試驗對象主 要是老鼠，有些研究中也有人類志願者接受試驗。他發現，其主要好處包括減輕體重、降低患癌症和心臟病的風險，以及增加體能。
他說，“一旦人體不需要儲存吃進去的食物，它就會進入一種修補與恢復的模式。”
莫斯利在第一次試驗中，連續四天每24小時只食用一杯多一點低卡路里的湯汁。但他很快就放棄了最極端的禁食方案，最終決定採用5:2的模式，因為這種做法更容易堅持而又不那麼痛苦，能夠切實付諸實踐，而又不破壞他的社會生活和工作。
“我們最早的祖先，”莫斯利辯稱，“就生活在大快朵頤和忍飢挨餓的反差間。如果獵物豐盛，他們就會飽餐一頓，然後在下一次收穫獵物之前都吃不到東 西。”他解釋道，同樣地，在伊斯蘭教和猶太教等宗教中，暫時性的禁食是一種儀式，例如齋月和贖罪日。他說，“如果飢餓只是暫時性的，我們就不必害怕它。”
然而，莫斯利認為最令人震驚的是他自己的變化。九周之內，他不僅減了20磅（他目前的體重是168磅），而且血糖和膽固醇都降低了，體脂也減少了。他說，“此外，我的體能也上了一個新台階。”
這部紀錄片迅速走紅，並促使美食及時尚作家米米·斯潘塞(Mimi Spencer)提議兩人合作出書。45歲的斯潘塞表示，“我能看出這不是那種只會風行一時的節食方法，而是一種能持續下去的方法，除了產生明顯的減肥效 果外，它還能持久改善健康狀況。”斯潘塞通過這種節食方法，在四個月內減掉了20磅，身體質量指數下降兩個點。
結果兩人出版了一本200頁的平裝書：莫斯利在前半部分概述了有關間歇性禁食的科學發現，斯潘塞在後半部分以鼓舞的筆調，介紹了人們該如何熬過禁食的最初幾天。她提出了各種建議，比如保持忙碌就不會聽到肚子咕咕作響，等待15分鐘再進餐或吃點心。
她還提供了一些禁食食譜，並附上一些誘人的圖片，比如尼斯羊奶酪沙拉和墨西哥披薩，還在書後附贈卡路里計量表。
在休·費恩利-惠廷斯托爾(Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall)，及其他英國明星大廚和知名美食作家的推廣下，這種節食方法在倫敦大受歡迎。惠廷斯托爾禁食六天後，在 《衛報》(The Guardian)上發表文章稱讚該方法，當時他已經減掉八磅。（“我感覺自己變瘦，變敏捷了，”他寫道，“而且感覺整個過程相當愉快。”）
莫斯利透露，這種節食方法在男性中尤為流行，有很多聽從莫斯利建議使用該方法的人，給他發了電子郵件或在Twitter與他交流。莫斯利在Twitter上大約有2.4萬個粉絲。他說，“他們發現很容易安排節食時間，因為時不時地節食一天並不會感到痛苦。”
但並非所有人都對這種方法表達了讚賞。在該書出版後不久，英國公立醫療機構國家醫療服務體系(National Health Service)就在其網站上發表了一份聲明，稱“儘管間歇式禁食越來越普及，但這種方法仍然存在很多不確定性，證據方面也存在極大的不足。”

該機構還列出了口臭、焦慮、脫水和易怒等副作用。但在倫敦，人們似乎不太在乎。

本文最初發表於2013年3月3日。
翻譯：陳柳、許欣

England Develops a Voracious Appetite for a New Diet

By JENNIFER CONLIN March 13, 2013 

 

LONDON — Visitors to England right now, be warned. The big topic on people’s minds — from cabdrivers to corporate executives — is not Kate Middleton’s increasingly visible baby bump (though the craze does involve the size of one’s waistline), but rather a best-selling diet book that has sent the British into a fasting frenzy.
“The Fast Diet,” published in mid-January in Britain, has held the No. 1 slot on Amazon’s British site nearly every day since its publication in January, according to Rebecca Nicolson, a founder of Short Books, the independent publishing company behind the sensation. “It is selling,” she said, “like hot cakes,” which coincidentally are something one can actually eat on this revolutionary diet.
 
With an alluring cover line that reads, “Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, Live Longer,” the premise of this latest weight-loss regimen — or “slimming” as the British call “dieting” — is intermittent fasting, or what has become known here as the 5:2 diet: five days of eating and drinking whatever you want, dispersed with two days of fasting.
A typical fasting day consists of two meals of roughly 250 to 300 calories each, depending on the person’s sex (500 calories for women, 600 for men). Think two eggs and a slice of ham for breakfast, and a plate of steamed fish and vegetables for dinner.
It is not much sustenance, but the secret to weight loss, according to the book, is that even after just a few hours of fasting, the body begins to turn off the fat-storing mechanisms and turn on the fat-burning systems.
“I’ve always been into self-experimentation,” said Dr. Michael Mosley, one of the book’s two authors and a well-known medical journalist on the BBC.
He researched the science of the diet and its health benefits by putting himself through intermittent fasting and filming it for a BBC documentary last August called “Eat, Fast and Live Longer.”
“This started because I was not feeling well last year,” Dr. Mosley said recently over a cup of tea and half a cookie (it was not one of his fasting days). “It turns out I was suffering from high blood sugar, high cholesterol and had a kind of visceral fat inside my gut.”
Though hardly obese at the time, at 5 feet 11 inches and 187 pounds, Dr. Mosley, 55, had a body mass index and body fat percentage that were a few points higher than the recommended amount for men. “Given that my father had died at age 73 of complications from diabetes, and I was now looking prediabetic, I knew something had to change,” he added.
The result was a documentary, almost the opposite of “Super Size Me,” in which Dr. Mosley not only fasted, but also interviewed scientific researchers, mostly in the United States, about the positive results of various forms of intermittent fasting, tested primarily on rats but in some cases human volunteers. The prominent benefits, he discovered, were weight loss, a lower risk of cancer and heart disease, and increased energy.
“The body goes into a repair-and-recover mode when it no longer has the work of storing the food being consumed,” he said.
Though Dr. Mosley quickly gave up on the most extreme forms of fasting (he ate little more than one cup of low-calorie soup every 24 hours for four consecutive days in his first trial), he finally settled on the 5:2 ratio as a more sustainable, less painful option that could realistically be followed without annihilating his social life or work.
“Our earliest antecedents,” Dr. Mosley argued, “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.
What Dr. Mosley found most astounding, however, were his personal results. Not only did he lose 20 pounds (he currently weighs 168 pounds) in nine weeks, but his glucose and cholesterol levels went down, as did his body fat. “What’s more, I have a whole new level of energy,” he said.
The documentary became an instant hit, which in turn led Mimi Spencer, a food and fashion writer, to propose that they collaborate on a book. “I could see this was not a faddish diet but one that was sustainable with long-term health results, beyond the obvious weight-loss benefit,” said Ms. Spencer, 45, who has lost 20 pounds on the diet within four months and lowered her B.M.I. by 2 points.
The result is a 200-page paperback: the first half written by Dr. Mosley outlining the scientific findings of intermittent fasting; the second by Ms. Spencer, with encouraging text on how to get through the first days of fasting, from keeping busy so you don’t hear your rumbling belly, to waiting 15 minutes for your meal or snack.
She also provides fasting recipes with tantalizing photos like feta niçoise salad and Mexican pizza, and a calorie counter at the back.
In London, the diet has taken off with the help of well-known British celebrity chefs and food writers like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who raved about it in The Guardian after his sixth day of fasting, having already lost eight pounds. (“I feel lean and sharper,” he wrote, “and find the whole thing rather exhilarating.”)
The diet is also particularly popular among men, according to Dr. Mosley, who has heard from many of his converts via e-mail and Twitter, where he has around 24,000 followers. “They find it easy to work into their schedules because dieting for a day here and there doesn’t feel torturous,” he said.
But not everyone is singing the diet’s praises. The National Health Service, Britain’s publicly funded medical establishment, put out a statement on its Web site shortly after the book came out: “Despite its increasing popularity, there is a great deal of uncertainty about I.F. (intermittent fasting) with significant gaps in the evidence.”

The health agency also listed some side effects, including bad breath, anxiety, dehydration and irritability. Yet people in London do not seem too concerned.