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The 5:2 diet – not all it’s made out to be

The 5:2 diet – not all it’s made out to be

Is intermittent fasting good for weigh loss?

The concept of intermittent fasting as a weight loss tool was made popular by the 5:2 diet. But it has been shown to be no more effective for weight loss than regular dieting.

The 5:2 diet preaches that if you fast for two days, you can eat what you wish for the next five days. The fast phase of the diet is not a zero calorie water-fast; it is only a modified fast,. That means that it allows women to eat up to 500 calories per day, and men 600 calories per day.

However, researchers at the University of Sydney, when they reviewed 52 studies that used intermittent fasting for weight loss, found that…

it is no better than a standard diet that uses continuous energy restriction.

According to the researchers, the results suggest that intermittent fasting has no physiological benefits over continuous dieting for weight loss.

Both dieting strategies produced equivalent outcomes in terms of loss of body weight and total body fat. There were also no significant differences in glucose metabolism.

Furthermore, both diets showed similar dropout rates.

This work found no evidence that intermittent fasting … reduced adaptive responses to energy restriction relative to the effect of continuous energy restriction,” write the researchers.

Access the full study here.