Sticking to a healthy diet can be difficult at the best of times, but particularly so when life gets busy and stressful. Dr Michael Mosley – the man behind the globally recognised 5:2 diet – has recently launched a new app, the Fast 800, which creates a balanced weight management programme that aims to help you feel energised, healthy and fit as go about your day. It promises to make eating and living healthily that much easier.
“There are at least 700 low-carbohydrate recipes on the app (which is great because it’s portable), and you can choose from different cuisines, vegetarian, lots of meat or less of it – there’s so much choice,” Dr Mosley tells me over the phone. “It’s designed to maximise the chances that you will successfully stick to a healthy programme, so we also included some behavioural components too.” As well as a 12-week resistance-based exercise regime, stress reduction tools and tips to help with your sleep, you can also request support from a psychologist or exercise physiologist to help you along, or tap into the wider community of users via the app.
Here, Dr Mosley shares his top tips on how to quickly improve your diet now.
Follow a Mediterranean diet (and lifestyle)
“There was a huge 5,000-person randomised control trial done a few years ago in Spain, and participants either went on a Mediterranean or low-fat diet – they had to stop the trial early because those on the Mediterranean diet were doing so much better,” Dr Mosley says. “They were 30 per cent less likely to have a heart attack and half as likely to develop type two diabetes, plus they also had a much lower risk of cognitive decline.”
The basic components of the diet include oily fish, which contains three fatty acids that are good for your brain and heart; olive oil, which tastes good and contains oleic acid, which is anti-inflammatory; and oily nuts, like almonds and pecans, which are full of fibre and good fats. “They’re a great snack, but also really good for the heart,” says Dr Mosley. “Then obviously there’s fruit and vegetables, but the combination of nuts and olive oil is particularly beneficial.”
Eat around the kitchen table
Dr Mosley laments the fact that a relatively large portion of the population doesn’t have a kitchen table – which can often mean that the social aspect of eating gets lost. “Socialising is a good thing – enjoy your food, sit around the table and natter. These are huge parts of a healthy diet and help you to savour your food and eat slower, increasing satiety.” Big, communal meals around the table are also typical of the Mediterranean lifestyle.
Count calories – but only if you need to lose weight
There has been a move towards shunning calorie counting or restriction in favour of simply eating a healthy, balanced diet, but Dr Mosley’s app does the calorie count of each meal. Why? “If you’re already pretty healthy, or a child, then I would thoroughly recommend ignoring calorie count [and instead concentrate on eating whole foods] and that’s exactly the direction I think people should go in,” he says. “However, if you have type two diabetes or hypertension, for example, then simply switching to a healthier diet isn’t going to make much difference.”
