Given the recommendation that there be at least 12 hours between breakfast and the evening meal on a fast day, I was wondering if the following alternative would be acceptable.

I generally don’t have any problem missing breakfast and abstaining from any food intake until about noon. But at around 2 PM temptation really begins to hit hard.

So I was wondering if Fast Diet benefits could still be realised by abstaining completely between midnight and midday, then taking a snack, then abstaining again until the evening meal at around 8:30 PM.

So rather than observing the Fast Diet as described in the book for two days a week, I would be quite happy with the above approach several days a week, or even every day. I am on the Fast Diet for weight loss.

I have regular blood tests and checkups with a specialist because I have Wegener’s Granulomatosis, currently in remission. I’m a strong 70 years of age with a large, broad muscular build, but now significantly overweight, partly due to high doses of corticosteroids and other unpleasant drugs for a long period of time while I was fighting off the disease. My bloods are always good right across the board now, and BP is always well within normal range. I am unable to do much in the way of exercise due to knee and hip injuries which are permanent impediments.

So if I abstain completely for 12-14 hours between say midnight and 2 PM, at least several days a week, will I still reap the benefits of the Fast Diet?

Hmmm, I think you’ve missed something in the plan. There are specific recommendations against multiple meals in a day. What you’re suggesting is simply calorie reduction, which ignores the proposition that there is added benefit in going for fairly long periods without food at all. Eating lettuce all day is calorie reduction, and there is no doubt that weight loss will follow, but it’s not the Fast Diet.

Here are a couple of quotes from the book which reference 12 hours, and which I was able to find fairly quickly because I knew pretty much where they were. There are probably others as relevant.

Page 94: “On a Fast Day, he’ll (Michael) normally have breakfast with the family at around 7:30am and then aim to have dinner with them at 7:30pm, with nothing eaten in between. That way he gets two 12-hour fasts in the day, and a happy family at the end of it.”

Page 95: “It takes, for example, about 12 hours without food before your body switches into proper fat-burning mode.”

Page 128: “Having just one meal, as late in the day as possible, will clearly intensify the fast – allowing your body a longer period in which to enter a fasted state. Others prefer to eat breakfast and then avoid food for a ‘fasting window’ of around 12 hours until supper. Since it is the fasted state that is so beneficial to us, eating lots of small meals is likely to reduce the benefits, particularly if you graze on carbohydrates.

My take from the book in general is that a period of at least 12 hours without any food whatsoever is an important consideration in following the diet properly.