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Jun 13

The surprisingly spiritual benefits of Mosley’s 5:2 diet | Opinion | Premier Christianity – Premier Christianity

Diet Comments Off on The surprisingly spiritual benefits of Mosley’s 5:2 diet | Opinion | Premier Christianity – Premier Christianity

I have the late Dr Michael Mosley to thank for making me less of the man I am today. A decade ago, after 20 years of what we were pleased to call business lunches, I had ballooned into a self-satisfied whale.

I was persuaded to go on Mosleys 5:2 Diet, which consists of consuming a maximum of 500 calories on two separate days of the week and largely eating what you like (within reason) for the other five. I gradually lost four stone, which overdid things a bit and people said I looked ill, or like a geography teacher on a field day. So I regained a stone and stabilised with a 6:1 maintenance diet.

Im aware that last paragraph makes me a contender for worlds most boring dinner-party guest, so let me get, I hope, to a more engaging point. Mosley called it the Fast Diet. In some of my old jobs, which were basically talking nonsense for large sums of money (and lunches), I would have called that terrible branding.

It sounds like fast as in quick, like one of those useless crash diets. It actually means fast as in intermittent fasting, which religious communities would know as abstinence and self-denial. Historically, in monkish communities and the like, weight loss wasnt a priority. Fasting was about penitence, separation from the worldly to feel closer to God as well as mental and physical preparation for a great religious festival.

It has always been a spiritual exercise. And Im here to tell you it works with Mosleys diet too. Yes, theres the body-and-mind nexus. At a routine medical, a nurse took my blood sample twice because she couldnt see how I could have had the cholesterol levels of a vegan extreme marathon runner (well, sort of), given my confessed flaneur lifestyle. So you feel better, not just lighter.

For many, of faith or not, the spirituality of fasting can sound a bit woo-woo, a bit hermit-like, or a bit too ascetic. But it can be put a bit more bluntly. It is, simply, good for one to feel hungry for a couple of days a week.

This is not remotely about solidarity with the hungry of the world. On a fast day, I can look forward to a full English breakfast in the morning if I so wish. Its also not about false piety. I have heard someone intone solemnly: I live simply, so that others may simply live. Thats enough to make you feel sick even on an empty stomach.

But it does enhance the pleasure and appreciation of food (and wine) on the other five days of the week, whether you believe its a gift of Gods harvest or not. It also concentrates the mind theres a mental acuity attached to fasting. The chronology of the Nazarenes 40-day fast in the wilderness between his baptism and the start of his ministry is no accident.

Mosleys Fast Diet should make no apology for drawing on such ancient heritage. Fasting was rigorously practised in Judaism, as prescribed in the Hebrew Bible. Its been known to be good for us for a very long time.

Fasting was a regular practice for the apostles as recorded in the Book of Acts. And theres a very sweet resonance with Mosleys 5:2 in theDidache, the short early Christian rulebook from (probably) the first century AD. Itmentions two regular weekly fast days of Wednesday and Friday. Anyone choosing those days for their 5:2 may like to know theyre in that tradition.

The spiritual danger is in fasting practices becoming false idols. Fasting laws are honoured more in the breach throughout the gospels, with the Jesus movement unlawfully plucking grain to eat on the Jewish Sabbath, and the parable of the Pharisee who is condemned for his hypocrisy for swanning it over a miserable publican because he fasts twice a week. I most certainly dont do my 5:2 when Im on holiday, which is ironic given the etymology of that word.

The enemy of fasting is evidently smugness. Its relatively easy to fast if you work predominantly from home. Less easy if youre flat out, burning energy at work (though I managed it in a high pressure job in Canary Wharf in fact it was vital).

Ultimately its an aid to prayer. As it happens, Mosley came from a long line of missionaries, but he admitted: The closest I get to religion is incorporating fasting in my diet.

Id just like to say that I think thats very close indeed. God rest him.

See the original post here:
The surprisingly spiritual benefits of Mosley's 5:2 diet | Opinion | Premier Christianity - Premier Christianity

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