The FastDay Forum

To be honest, I wouldn't trust ANY government to give me advice on what to eat. Have you seen what they feed the kids in schools? I wouldn't give that to my kids, no way!!!

Oh yes, it was soooooooooooooooo boring!!!

I frankly could not get past the first couple of paragraphs. I found her very annoying!

It's interesting how she glosses over Krista Varady's studies, saying Varady lacks credibility because she uses the terms "good and bad cholesterol" Perhaps this is a pond difference? The terms are commonly used in the U.S to discuss HDL and LDL.

And Varady "allows" MM to have a hamburger! Which makes her a bad role model. For Pete's sake, why not engage with the science? So she dismisses the Chicago IF studies, the results, and all the implications and new questions they might engender.

Later, when mentioning the Chicago IF studies, she remarks, "That sounds like bulimia to me". Again, she doesn't seem to care what actually happened. It sounds like bulimia, so no sense reading the studies and actually thinking about them.

Count me among the unimpressed.

We say bad and good cholesterol in Greece, it sounds perfectly natural to me.

And I'm sorry to say that whoever thinks that we can go on with our lives without having hamburgers, are bad role models because they don't know what they're talking about!!!

I'm not a fan of Zoe Harcombe... I don't have any trust in her, as this article puts it:

http://www.badscience.net/2011/01/how-to-read-a-paper/

I gave up half way through her critique on fasting too.

[carorees]

I love Ben Goldacre and his bad science stuff!

Ooh can I just say that I must have the mental age of a 5 year old... I got my first thank and I'm stupidly chuffed

To clarify, it was Harcombe who stated that Varady was a bad role model for allowing MM to have a burger. I think that's utter nonsense, and irrelevant. Let her work speak for itself.

Apparently I was one of the few people on a CR and excercise regime for 8 years and maintained my healthy weight, BP, lipid profile and glucose. I wasn't hungry and was happy most of the time but did feel at times socially deprived. In the last 5 weeks I have been doing the 5:2 diet, lost 1.8 Kg ( for the last two weeks searching for the best way to maintain). I hope I won't regret this. It seems that there are studies associating delay in aging with CR but there is not so much research on the long term effects of IF on humans. Are there any people here that are doing this for a while and had positive/negative effects on Cholesterol levels, insulin resistance, inflammatory markers, blood pressure or other?

Thank you, YorkshirePudding for the Bad Science post. I don't think you can really accept her on face value with all those ads for her books flashing on the right hand side of the link.

If anyone is interested, I watched this lecture last night and it's been on the Virtual Professors' Page prior to the August Horizon screening.

http://www.virtualprofessors.com/calori ... althy-life

I bought the Harcombe books and tried the diet along with many other diets. It was hard to do being vegetarian. I have just about every diet book written in the last ten years and have tried them all. I am five stone lighter now but now I enjoy life. I think I eat a healthy diet, no processed food and have never had a ready meal. 5:2 works, does not cost anything and causes no stress trying to source ingredients and provide the right meals. Throughout history people have fasted for various reasons so it is not new. I am on the verge of getting rid of the GI, GL, cooking without, Harcombe, weightwatchers, Holford, Food Doctor,(think that is it) ooh no, mustn't forget Gillian Mc Keith. I will keep Hairy dieters as that is real food and will enjoy River cottage veg again without guilt. Each to their own but this is right for me.

As a yo yo dieter that has in the past lost stones of weight but not managed to find a manageable maintenance of my weight, I am also hoping that when I reach my correct weight that changing to 6:1 will enable me for the first time to manage & maintain the lighter me. Surely a potential benefit of 5:2 to also take into account?

I'm not a fan of Zoe Harcombe... I don't have any trust in her, as this article puts it:

http://www.badscience.net/2011/01/how-to-read-a-paper/

I gave up half way through her critique on fasting too.

The article says

Trusting an authority is one. Zoe boasts in the Mail that she is “studying for a PhD in nutrition” but she admitted to me, tediously, inevitably, that she’s not registered for a PhD anywhere (although she is thinking about doing one in the future).

It is ironic that because of her criticism I decided to do the 5:2 Fast. I was well prepared for failure.
As for Zoe Harcombe: She is always harping on about doing the PhD. Stating that she has no competing interests - except that her book/diet club would be a big competing interest. She also basks in the reflected glory of experts like Dr. Malcolm Kendrick and Gary Taubes.
Thank you everyone for destroying my delusions.

The article continues

We read a precis of research as a shortcut, but once you lose trust, to double check whether someone has fairly represented an entire field, you’d have to read that field’s entire canon, and after many years of work, whatever your other conclusions were, the strongest would be that any timesaving benefit from reading a precis has plainly been annihilated. Given that this is the case, I know it’s harsh, and you may disagree, but in a busy world, I’m not sure I see the point of a Zoe Harcombe.

Glad I made the post, thanks everyone...