Bikini Fast Diet: Your fast-track summer shape-up plan from the bestselling Fast Diet Recipe Book by Mimi Spencer and Dr Sarah Schenker (2024)

By Mimi Spencer And Dr Sarah Schenker

Published: 00:01, 21 July 2013 | Updated: 00:01, 21 July 2013

My fast-track to the perfect beach body

It’s the weight-loss plan that’s gone global, and now Mimi Spencer has honed the simple principles of the Fast Diet – devised with Dr Michael Mosley – exclusively for YOU. So you can drop that tricky half stone just in time for the holiday season

With the summer holidays upon us, there’s no escape: the time has come for the annual bikini face-off. The battle of the bulge. Can you do it? Dare you? Could you perhaps lose a little weight before you have to climb into what is effectively your bra and knickers to wear to the beach in front of your nearest, your dearest and dozens of complete strangers?

In truth, we probably all could. I remember year on year, trying on swimsuits and sarongs and wraps, wondering whether a tankini would cover a multitude of sins (it won’t).

But don’t despair. Even if you’ve put it off to the last moment, there’s still plenty that can be done to get a body in shape for the big reveal. Many people will have already heard about

The Fast Diet, the book I co-wrote with Dr Michael Mosley just seven months ago. Since New Year, the diet has been the talk of the town and an instant bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic. Thousands of people (including Miranda Kerr, Benedict Cumberbatch, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the cast of Corrie, the news desk at the BBC) have started to live by its simple and appealing 5:2 message; a message so easy to remember that it’s almost a mantra: slash your calories to a quarter of your usual intake (500 for a woman, 600 for a man) for two days a week, eat as normal for the remaining five.

It’s a reassuringly clear method – no faddish feeding, no elimination of food groups, no serial deprivation to make your heart sink – which means there’s good reason to believe that this is the only diet you’ll ever stick to. For many, it has proved to be a fairly swift and straightforward way to lose weight. In keeping with government guidelines, the Fast Diet should achieve a loss of between 1lb and 2lb a week.

So, if you can muster the willpower and stick to the plan, you could easily be half a stone down by the time you’re in the queue for passport control – and that’s exactly the half a stone that so many of us haul around like an overstuffed beach bag most of the time.

While the rules are simplicity itself, it does help to have a few aces up your sleeve. On a Fast Day, stay hydrated, keep busy, and do be prepared to feel hungry. It may test you, but it won’t kill you. As far as Fast Day food goes, aim to eat Mostly Plants and Protein.

That’s the best way to factor bulk and staying power into your day. Lots of leafy veg will do the trick – a salad can be impressive without tipping over the calorie quota – while lean protein (eggs are a brilliant starting point) will help to keep you satiated.

The recipes here are all riffs on this basic idea. And while the portions are necessarily limited, they’ll never feel mean. Each one has been carefully assessed for calorie count and content by nutritionist Dr Sarah Schenker, and I’ve tried to maintain maximum flavour throughout – the O’Kelly fish, for instance, feels like a substantial summer meal, easy to prep, full of taste, texture and colour.

Instead of the usual beefburger barbecues, try my turkey burgers with a spiky tomato salsa: all the interest (more, I would argue) for a fraction of the calories. Any of the recipes included here can be modified for non-fasting family members – just add crusty bread or potato salad and let them have the tiramisu for pud. You can have a bit of it tomorrow.

Plenty of people I encounter mention that summer is the ideal season to embark on the Fast Diet – not only because a body has nowhere to hide once the temperatures soar, but also because light eating suits the heat. I’d have a hard time dealing with a dumpling or a cottage pie at this time of year, so it makes sense to capitalise on the mood. Go for grilled fish with a generous herby salad, dressed with lemon and scattered with cumin seeds. Or try the Greek salad on

page 48 (feta is made from sheep’s milk and has fewer calories than other cheeses); and of course you can have a niçoise salad, just cut out the potatoes and max out the veg – it’s a perfect Fast Day supper and you’ll barely notice that you’re calorie counting. Only your bikini will tell.

How it all started…

In 2012 Dr Michael Mosley, an overweight, medically trained journalist, discovered that he was a borderline diabetic with high levels of ‘bad’ cholesterol. He was told by his doctor that he needed to start medication. But keen to find a non-pharmaceutical way to change his fate, he interviewed scientists engaged in research into intermittent fasting. ‘Fasting’, in this context, simply means cutting back for relatively short periods of time on some foods.

We tend to eat all the time – and that constant overeating doesn’t just make us fat, it also keeps our bodies in permanent ‘go’ mode. This leads to elevated levels of hormones such as insulin which can cause metabolic changes in the body. The problem arises when they dominate all the time – this can bring an increased risk of developing a range of diseases including diabetes, heart disease and some cancers.

Cutting back on calories, by contrast, reduces insulin levels and gives your system a chance to rid itself of old and worn-out cells – a bit like taking your car into the garage for an occasional repair; doing so will almost certainly ensure that it goes on running in peak condition for longer.

The importance of fat loss versus weight loss

What people sometimes forget in their obsession with ‘losing weight’ is that what they really want to lose is fat. Not all fat, however, is bad. Fat on the thighs and buttocks appears to be less of a health risk than excess belly fat, known as visceral fat. Visceral fat significantly increases the risk of heart disease and diabetes, which is why you should aim to have a waist that is less than half your height.

While losing fat, you want to preserve as much muscle as possible. Muscle is metabolically active; in other words, if you take two people who are the same weight, but one is muscular and the other fat, then the muscular one is not only likely to be healthier but will also burn more calories. People with more muscle have a better chance of keeping weight off. You can help preserve muscle by maintaining, or better still increasing, the amount you exercise. This could simply mean walking more and always taking the stairs, or more vigorous activities such as weight training.

One of the great problems with crash diets is that although some of the weight loss will be fat, much of it will be muscle (on a conventional diet you lose around 75 per cent of weight as fat and 25 per cent as muscle). When you regain the weight, as most people inevitably do, it is almost all fat.

The human trials that have been done so far suggest that intermittent fasting is unusual in that the weight loss appears to be almost all visceral fat from around the gut.

Studies involving overweight volunteers doing alternate-day fasting found that when individuals were asked to eat a quarter of their normal calories one day, then eat whatever they liked the next, they lost significant amounts of weight and saw substantial improvements in their cholesterol and blood sugars. A surprising finding was that people, when allowed to feast, did not do so.

This is borne out by anecdotal evidence too: many people on the Fast Diet don’t feel ravenous the following day. Their appetite and attitude to food change, and healthier eating seems to become part of their everyday life.

On this regime Michael lost 19lb and his blood markers improved beyond recognition. I followed Michael’s lead and in four months lost 20lb, returning to my ‘wedding weight’ at the age of 45. Intermittent fasting really is, as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall says, starting to look like a ‘health revolution’.

We believe that the Fast Diet’s success has to do with its flexibility, its simple basic tenets, and the fact that it is backed by solid science.

From a psychological point of view, its indisputable attraction is that calorie restriction is limited to two days a week, leaving the rest of the time blissfully free of worry.

Ten snacks slim people keep in the fridge or store cupboard

• Air-popped popcorn
• Hard-boiled eggs
• Half-fat hummus
• Non-starchy veggies (cauliflower, broccoli, peppers, radishes, cherry tomatoes, celery, cucumber, mushrooms, sugar snaps, mangetouts)
• Feta, cottage cheese and low-fat mozzarella
• Harley’s sugar-free jelly pots
• Pickled cucumber or sliced jalapeños
• Strawberries
• Liquorice root to chew
• Low-fat natural yoghurt

Ten fast tips and shortcuts

• Whichever cooking oil you choose, a spray will reduce your use. Fry Light Olive Oil spray, for example, has less than one calorie per spray. Alternatively, use a silicone brush to apply oil to the pan and dab away excess with kitchen paper.
• To stop ingredients sticking, add a little water rather than a slug of oil.
• Boiling or poaching eggs means you are not adding any Fast Day calories.
• Cooking meat and poultry with its skin on will maximise flavour and prevent drying out, but don’t eat the skin. Much of the fat lies there.
• Roast meat on a rack over a baking pan to allow excess fat to drip away. Similarly, a griddle pan channels fat into the grooves and away from your plate.
• Whenever possible, cook meat and fish on a barbecue – it’s your fat-free summer stand-by.
• Scrub vegetables rather than peeling them, as many nutrients are found close to the skin. Eating the skins will add fibre to your diet. Steam vegetables instead of boiling them; that way their nutrients are more likely to remain intact.
• Gravitate towards clear vegetable broths, which are lower in calories than chowders, bisques and cream soups.
• Veg stock generally has a lower fat content than chicken stock.
• If you’re not adding fat, you do need to add flavour, such as chilli flakes, cumin, star anise, cloves, a squeeze of lemon, handfuls of fresh herbs.

Before you start

If you are on medication, see your doctor before embarking on any fast. There are certain groups for whom fasting is not advised. Type 1 diabetics are included in this list, along with anyone suffering from an eating disorder. If you are already extremely lean, do not fast. Children should never fast, so this is a plan for over–18s only. Pregnant women should eat according to government guidelines and not limit their daily calorie intake.

Some people on the Fast Diet experience headaches or constipation, particularly at first; these can generally be alleviated by drinking calorie-free fluids and eating fibre-rich foods.

The question of carbs

If you constantly consume sugary, carbohydrate-rich food (and drinks), your body copes by producing increasing amounts of insulin. In some cases this could lead to health problems. There is good evidence that restricting your calorie intake, and in particular your carbohydrate intake, for a couple of days a week cuts levels of circulating insulin.

On the days when you are fasting you still eat, but you should aim to eat foods with a low GI – the GI rating measures the effect of a food on blood sugar relative to pure glucose – in other words, foods that do not cause spikes in blood sugar. Most vegetables are a Fast Dieter’s friend because they have a low GI, but also because they provide a lot of bulk for very few calories, keeping hunger at bay.

Avoid white carbs on a Fast Day. If you need a bread substitute, have a thin rye crispbread. For an alternative to pasta or wheat noodles, try shirataki Miracle noodles. Made from a plant-based fibre, they have no fat, sugar, gluten or starch.

Wholegrains have more fibre, B vits and other nutrients than refined ones, and take longer to digest. Quinoa is a great source of fibre and protein, as is bulgur wheat and legumes such as lentils and chickpeas. Jumbo oats outrank the rest – less processed, more bulky – while the best rice is brown basmati.

Protein

Proteins in meat, fish, milk, nuts, seeds, pulses and legumes are essential nutrients and a major fuel source. We recommend that you boost the protein content of your diet on Fast Days. That way, you benefit from its satiating effects (protein really does make you feel fuller for longer than carbs) and you will have adequate levels of protein at all times. On non-fasting days, of course, we recommend that you eat as normal and don’t concern yourself with dieting.

Plants

The pigments that plants produce represent some of the thousands of bioactive compounds, known as phytochemicals, which keep plants healthy. By eating a range of different-coloured plants we also get the benefits, and on a Fast Day, they are the central event.

When people are told they need to eat more fruit and vegetables they frequently respond by eating more fruit. Unfortunately, many fruits are also packed with calories and fructose (sugar). Vegetables, by contrast, provide bulk, fibre and have limited impact on your blood sugar and therefore on your insulin.

Some fruits, such as strawberries and blueberries, have surprisingly few calories and do not adversely affect your blood sugar. Others, however, such as pineapple, are high in sugar. A large banana, for example, has around 120 calories, while a large carrot has about 30 calories. So, while we certainly encourage people to eat fruit, we recommend that sweet-tasting fruit should be rationed on a Fast Day.

If you do choose to eat fruit, make it fresh, not dried, as the drying process concentrates calories. A 100g serving of fresh apricots, for instance, typically has around 31 calories while the same quantity of dried apricots clocks up four times the calorie cost.

Good fats and why you need them

There is such a thing as too little fat in the diet. This is because certain vitamins (A, D, E and K) are fat-soluble, which means that they require fat in order to be absorbed by the body. But not all fats are equal. On a Fast Day, reduce saturated fats (animal fats), avoid trans fats (found in some processed foods such as biscuits and cakes), and instead choose plant fats from nuts, seeds, olives or avocados. You only need a little, added to a vitamin-rich meal.

• Butter must take a back seat, too. Instead, use:
• Olive oil: a monounsaturated oil that is more resistant to the damaging effects of heat than polyunsaturated oils such as corn oil.
• Unrefined flaxseed oil: flaxseeds are rich in alpha linolenic acid (an omega-3 fat) and are a condensed source of antiviral, antioxidant lignans.
• Coconut oil: a good source of heart-healthy fatty acids, it shouldn’t raise your cholesterol.
• Rapeseed oil: only seven per cent saturated fat (butter is 51 per cent) and, unlike olive oil, it doesn’t degrade at high heat, so one for the wok.

Really Lazy Fast-Day Food

If cooking is sometimes too much of a commitment on a day when you don’t want to think about food, these options are so simple that you barely need to be conscious to get them into your mouth.

• No-sugar Alpen with skimmed milk.
• Weight Watchers baked beans.
• A cup of Bovril, a bowl of miso soup or Ainsley Harriott Szechuan Hot & Sour Cup Soup.
• Salad leaves, defrosted prawns from the freezer, a squeeze of lemon, salt, pepper and chilli flakes.
• Smoked mackerel fillet with a sliced beef tomato.
• Soup from a shop. New Covent Garden Pea & Mint, for example, has 147 calories in half a carton; for Minestrone, the count is 102.
• Supermarket low-calorie meal ranges, such as M&S Simply Fuller Longer and Count On Us; Asda Good for You!; Tesco Eat Live Enjoy; Sainsbury’s Be Good to Yourself, and Morrison’s Eat Smart.
  

The Fast Diet rules

• The basis of the Fast Diet is 5:2: you eat normally for five days a week and then for two days a week you eat a quarter of your normal calorie intake: around 600 calories for men, 500 for women.
• Each of the recipes here has a calorie count per portion. The idea is that you can choose a breakfast or supper in whatever combination you please to arrive at your calorie budget for the day.
• I split my Fast Day allowance into breakfast and an evening meal. But you can eat when it suits you, your family, your lifestyle, your day. Many of these recipes work well as anytime meals, to suit the pattern that you have developed. You may wish to skip breakfast, or dodge dinner. That is up to you. The Fast Diet has been called the ultimate flexible diet with good reason.
• You can do your Fast Days back to back or split them. Michael tried both ways and found he preferred to split them. He did his Fast Days on Mondays and Thursdays.
• Aim for as long a fasting window between bouts of eating as possible — this is where many of the health benefits of intermittent fasting lie. On a Fast Day,
• have breakfast at 7am and supper at 7pm, giving me a 12-hour window. You may opt for something different. We are not dispensing rules, simply suggestions.
• Most recipes serve one, but some will serve two or more — simply because the cooking method works better that way — but the calorie count is always for a single portion. Most of the recipes also clearly show their Nutritional Bonus (NB).

Click below for our brilliant Bikini Body Fast Diet recipes

This is an edited extract from The Fast Diet Recipe Book by Mimi Spencer and Dr Sarah Schenker, price £14.99. The Fast Diet by Mimi Spencer and Dr Michael Mosley costs £7.99. Both are published by Short Books. To order copies for £11.99 and £7.49 with free p&p, click here. For more information about the Fast Diet, visit thefastdiet.co.uk