I was lucky enough last night to attend the talk by Michael at the Science Festival in Newcastle. What a guy! What a communicator! From start to finish he was interesting, witty, engaging and so knowledgeable on all his topics…I can’t praise him enough. I have sat through a lot of lectures and talks and this was certainly one of the best.

He also signed copies of the 5:2 diet book, including my well thumbed copy, with encouraging messages for people to persist with the diet because it works and is so good for you (he explained this further with new science during the talk which was very interesting too).

I ‘fell off the 5:2 wagon’ last year but got back on a couple of weeks ago and if I needed any further inspiration just looking at Michael would do it! He really does look wonderful!

Did anybody else catch the talk?

The talk went through Michael’s career in front and behind the camera too, programmes, series, innovations…excellent stuff and very entertaining. He talked about experimenting on himself, others who had done it, influences on his career…riveting stuff and immensely enjoyable.

Much of the new science is having what was stated being much more reinforced by new research. It was encouraging to see how much this way of life is coming to the fore and having a huge impact though. Lots of people have had huge benefits from it – people there were saying just how it had been positive for their health!

It was interesting to see just how much we still don’t know about how our bodies work but IF is a massive research area now. Mice on the diet lived a lot longer and, although programmed to get dementia, didn’t get it until they were twice as old as other mice.

It was interesting to hear just how little exercise does for you regarding weight loss – but does give health benefits obviously but as a dieting tool – nope! Apparently a good number of people (obviously not all) go to the gym do a good work out and then have a latte or something similar – so all the calorific benefits are gone! Just like that! Studies also show that going to the gym can be balanced out by people doing less when they finish working out as they’re knackered! So again it cancels out the gym work calorie wise.

The number of studies going on into the 5:2 is huge now too and seems to be all positive as we’re all hunter gatherers at heart and probably shouldn’t eat as often as we do but we’re used to it and the ‘low blood sugar’ people claim as a reason to eat isn’t right either – the body levels out after about 4 hours (if I recall rightly)- otherwise we’d all have problems overnight!

I’m a bit stumped at the moment but will update as things come back to me – I’ve been busy at work all day and am just a bit brain dead right now 🙂