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The Fast 5 Diet and the Fast 5 Lifestyle 1st Edition Bert
W. Herring Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Bert W. Herring
ISBN(s): 0977253406
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 13.49 MB
Year: 2005
Language: english
The Fast-5 Diet
and the Fast-5 Lifestyle
a little book about making big changes

Bert W. Herring, M.D.

This book is published in electronic form as part of the Fast-5 Project
for the convenience of the reader and the education of the general
public. The contents are protected by copyright and may not be used
in other publications without permission of the author. This electronic
book may be freely distributed only in its complete form and is not to
be sold or repackaged. Because this is an electronic publication, it is
possible that alterations, deletions, or additions have been made that
are not the work of the author. Download of the full and original text
is available at www.fast-5.com.

The paperback version of this book is available for purchase at

www.fast-5.com
www.amazon.com
and
www.bn.com.

More information on intermittent fasting, links to other resources, and

any updates to this document can be found at www.fast-5.com.

Version 1.0, released 19 December 2006.

Except for this page, no changes have been made to the original text.
 My Eureka: “Well, duh!”

It’s been ten years since I first used this weight loss tool, back
in 1995. I had put on about twenty extra pounds after leaving
the Marines and had tried the eat less, exercise more approach.
That knocked off a couple of pounds; they came right back.
Then I tried the technique I now call Fast-5. The twenty
pounds melted away like wax under a blowtorch. I saw ridges
and valleys in my body I’d never seen before. My love handles,
present for a lifetime, disappeared. Satisfied, I returned to my
typical American diet.
Ten years passed; the pounds and the love handles gradually
came back. Once more, there were twenty pounds too much
of me. I turned to Fast-5 again. Twenty weeks later, the twenty
pounds were gone. Like magic, like clockwork. It was so
remarkably reliable, so uniquely effective, and so relatively easy
that I looked for answers to the questions “Why?” and “Could
this technique work for others, or is it just a quirk of mine?”
“Well, duh,” I said to myself as the answer assembled itself from
the pieces of my research. The answer to “Why?” was blindingly
clear, as obvious as the solution to a preschool puzzle. The
answer to the other question was equally evident. It can work
for others and it has, so I present it here for your use.
Be careful with that blowtorch.

Bert Herring, MD
Notice:
This book is written for reference purposes only and is not to be
considered a medical guide or text. It is not to be regarded as medical
advice, and it must not be substituted for a physician-prescribed
treatment plan. Information is presented here to illustrate one
approach to weight-reduction dieting and to assist you in making
choices about dieting. Do not begin, end, or alter a medically-
prescribed treatment plan, prescription, or diet based on the content
of this book. Consult a physician if you believe you may have a
medical problem or if you are unsure whether this or any diet plan
is appropriate for you.

Mention of a product, company, or institution in this book does not

imply endorsement of this book by the product’s manufacturer or
by the named company or institution. The mention of a product,
company, or institution in this book does not imply endorsement of
the product, company, or institution by the publisher.

The Fast-5 Diet and the Fast-5 Lifestyle

Copyright © 2005 by Bert Herring
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form by any means, mechanical or electronic, without written permission
from the publisher.
Published by Fast-5 LLC, Box 5671, Jacksonville, Florida 32247
First Edition
Fast-5 is a trademark of Fast-5, LLC.
Manufactured in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2005933568

ISBN 0-9772534-0-6
 The Fast-5 Diet
and the

Fast-5 Lifestyle
A little book about making big changes

Bert Herring, M.D.

Published by Fast-5 LLC

Jacksonville, Florida

www.fast-5.com
Invasions of armies may be resisted, but nothing can
stop an idea whose time has come.
—Victor Hugo
 Contents
Acknowledgements ii
Precautions 1
Introduction 3
Section I - The Plan 7
Step 1 - Learning 9
Step 2 - Goal Setting 15
Step 3 - Adjustment 19
Step 4 - Active Loss 23
Step 5 - Maintenance 27
Section II - Foundation 33
Questions & Answers 35
Problems & Solutions 37
The Physiology of Fast-5 47
Too Much of a Good Thing? 51
Conclusion 52
Healthy Weight Guide 53
Glossary 54
References 55
Weight Tracking Table 57


 Acknowledgements

I give my thanks to the early adopters (G.Y. and T.A.)

of this diet, and to my wife, whose insistence that I was
onto something real has helped make this book a reality.
My gratitude also goes to my editors and reviewers,
including Judi, Lauren, Denise C. B., and Pat M.
I also thank Tara for her suggestions and Helen for her
patience, flexibility, and support.

Without the funding from taxpayers, the efforts of

researchers, and the industry of the staff of the National
Library of Medicine who have made the research results
accessible, this book would have no foundation.

About the Author

Dr. Herring is a graduate of Southwestern University and

Texas A&M College of Medicine. After medical school,
he served four years on active duty as a medical officer
in the U.S. Navy, assigned to the Marine Corps’ Third
Marine Regiment in Kaneohe, Hawaii.

Following his Navy service, Dr. Herring joined the

Public Health Service as a researcher in the Metabolism
Branch in the National Cancer Institute of the National
Institutes of Health, after which he retired his medical
license. He resides in Jacksonville, Florida with his family.

ii
 Precautions:
First, Do No Harm

T his book is written to assist people who are overweight

and are otherwise healthy in their effort to reach a
goal weight consistent with good health and longevity.

Safety is most important. If you do not feel you are able to

undertake this diet safely, do not do so. If, while beginning
or maintaining this diet, you experience light-headedness,
dizziness, changes in vision, headache, or nausea, it is
probably an indication that your body has not adapted
to the fasting period. Eat something, then decrease the
amount by which you’re advancing your fasting duration.
If symptoms persist, seek medical attention immediately.

Do not attempt to follow this guide if you are not a fully-

grown adult. As an adult, you decide for yourself whether
to undertake this diet and accept the full risk of choosing
to do so.

Do not apply this eating regimen to a child or children.

Do not attempt to follow this guide if you are or may be

pregnant or if you are nursing.

Do not attempt to follow this diet without a physician’s

supervision if you are taking any long-term medication or
have a medical condition that is permanent or long-term
in nature such as diabetes, epilepsy, heart disease, high
blood pressure, or strokes. Obesity (greater than 20 percent
overweight) is a long-term medical condition distinct
from being overweight that involves substantial changes in

physiologic status and may cause unpredictable responses
to a change in diet. The obese individual should consult
with, and be monitored by, a physician while pursuing the
Fast-5 plan.

The material presented in this book is for your

consideration and personal evaluation. It is not to be
considered or acted on as medical advice.


 Introduction
T he Fast-5 Diet is the temporary use of the Fast‑5 plan
to lose excess fat and reach a goal weight. The Fast‑5
Lifestyle is the permanent adoption of the Fast‑5 plan to
maintain a lean weight and sustain a reduction of calorie
intake that may have substantial health and longevity
benefits. The practice of the diet and lifestyle is the same.

If you are over your desired weight now, that means that
your eating pattern (diet) of recent years is not a good one
for you to maintain for the rest of your life. If it added
excess fat in the past, it will do so again. You cannot start
any weight-reduction diet and expect to go back to your
former eating habits without the weight coming right
back. To avoid regaining the weight, you have to make a
permanent change.

The guide to successful adoption of the Fast-5 diet and

lifestyle is presented first (Section I) followed by the
explanation and resources supporting the Fast-5 approach
(Section II). If, after reading this introduction, you feel the
Fast-5 plan is intimidating or believe it is too austere or too
radical to adopt, please skip to Section II. Understanding
why the diet works and why it is not as radical as it sounds
can help you successfully adopt it. If you read only the
introduction, start on the Fast-5 plan, then find yourself
failing, please read the remainder of the guide. If you’re
successful after reading only this introduction, your result
is worth far more than you paid for this book even if you
never read past page six. The framework of the Fast‑5 plan
is so simple it is fully described in the next three pages.


The Fast-5 Steps:

1. Learning—What to do and why it’s worth the trouble.

2. Goal Setting—Determine your ideal weight.

3. Adjustment—Extend your present nighttime fast to 19

hours, so you eat only between 5 pm and 10 pm daily.

4. Active Loss—Lose a pound per week on a diet you can

manage.

5. Maintenance—Keep the weight off.

Four things you must know to be successful:

1. Fasting has been associated with harsh self-denial and

brings to mind images of arcane monks and granola-fueled
waifs. Nothing about the Fast-5 diet is harsh, and it’s not
about self-denial. It is based on science and results and has
no connection to spiritual or religious traditions. The Fast-5
plan has the potential to liberate you from the excess weight
you carry and the stigma that goes with it. The Fast‑5 steps
help your body adapt to a routine that allows you to turn
away from food without superhuman willpower, building
a sense of achievement and self-confidence, not self-denial.
The Fast-5 approach is easier than it sounds because of
an amazing and surprising characteristic of hunger: given
adequate adjustment, eating nothing during the daily
19-hour fasting period can be far easier than eating little.
Hunger becomes a milder, more distant sensation instead
of a behavior-controlling drive. Fast-5 is not a starvation
diet; when you eat, you eat until you are full.


2. Adjustment to the plan (Step 3) is a big step—such a
big step that you should think of it as you would think of
climbing a sandy hill. It takes a lot of little steps and you
should not approach it expecting to not slip at all. In the
Adjustment phase, you are changing from a lifetime pattern
of constant glucose availability to a daily fill-up. Your body
adapts by using fat and ketones (KEE-tones) as fuel instead
of glucose. Fat released from fat cells is modified by the
liver to form ketones. Every body part except the liver,
which can make its own glucose, will happily use ketones
for fuel. The brain, which doesn’t run on ketones alone,
gets a bit of glucose from the liver via the bloodstream.
Because the adjustment is a huge change, you are likely to
experience days when you can’t quite make your goal and
you succumb to your eating drive. That is not failure to
stick with the diet—it is a predictable slip. If you slip, then
just keep taking the little steps that get you to the top of
the hill. Some people can make the switch in a day; others
may take weeks. Pace yourself and do not expect instant
results from the diet or immediate adjustment from your
body.

3. The Fast-5 plan is a five-step adaptation to a new

lifestyle, not a crash diet. You should not expect weight
loss until Step 4 (Active Loss), and then a pound per week
is a reasonable goal.

4. The word “breakfast” is a combination of the old words

“breken” and “faste,” meaning “break the fast.” The fast
is the longest part of the day when no food is consumed.
In American culture, this fasting period typically extends
from after dinner through sleep until morning, but it may
be shortened by late‑night snacks or drinks. In this book,

the term break~fast (pronounced brake-fast) indicates the
first meal eaten in the day no matter what time of day it
occurs. As you adjust to a longer fasting period, break~fast
comes later in the day, passing from morning to lunchtime,
then later still, until break~fast is at or after five o’clock.


Section I
The Plan



 Step 1—Learning
S tep one is learning what to do and what to expect.
There’s not much to learn, so you’ll be at Step 2 after
a few minutes of reading. There’s nothing to count and
nothing to measure. There are no tables to remember, no
special recipes, and there is no food to avoid. You don’t
even have to weigh yourself, but doing so can provide
encouraging feedback.

The Fast-5 diet calls for a single, dramatic change: extending

your daily fast from whatever it is now (it may be only the
time you’re asleep) to 19 hours, so you eat only between 5 pm
and 10 pm. For a couple of weeks after pushing break~fast
to 5 pm, you may experience compensatory overeating
during the 5 pm–10 pm window, but that’s no problem.
As you stick with the plan, your ability to turn away from
food during the day increases, your appetite during the
eating window decreases, and your calorie intake falls by
around 500 calories a day—enough to lose about a pound
per week. One pound per week may not seem like much,
but it’s 52 pounds per year—almost tenfold better than
the typical weight loss seen in a study of the most popular
diets. A pound per week is a tolerable pace when you get
to eat your choice of food.

That’s all there is to it. From 10 pm one day to 5 pm the

next day, you eat nothing and drink only unsweetened or
artificially-sweetened beverages having negligible calorie
content such as water, flavored water, regular or herbal tea,
coffee, or diet sodas. No juice, milk, or alcohol-containing
drink should be consumed until after 5 pm.

How big is this change? On a typical schedule, the fast
that breakfast breaks is about 12 hours, from the end of
dinner at 7 pm to the start of breakfast at 7 am, assuming
no after-dinner snacks. The Fast-5 plan extends that fast
to 19 hours. It is a significant increase, but it is not in
the same league as the multi-day fasting associated with
emaciated monks and skeletal waifs.

You’re invited to climb the hill. No one can climb it for

you. If you slip, the hill doesn’t get higher. It remains,
awaiting your next effort. No matter how many times you
slip, as long as you make a tiny bit of progress each time,
you will get to the top. In order to keep trying, it is best to
know what justifies your effort to reach the summit.

Once you have adjusted to the Fast-5 routine, you can

expect:

• To lose about a pound per week, yielding a 52-pound

weight loss in a year, if you have that much to lose;

• To be no more hungry, and probably less hungry, than

what you experience before mealtimes now;

• To be able to pass up food and decline offers of food

throughout the day, no matter how tempting they are;

• To realize, face, and resist the substantial social pressures

built into our culture and customs that push you to eat
based on a schedule rather than on hunger or appetite.

10
When you think of extending your nightly fast from
whatever it is now to 19 hours, you may think:
1) I can’t do it—I don’t have that much willpower.
2) It can’t be healthy.
3) I’ll just binge after the fast and make up for all I
didn’t eat during the day.
If one has trouble going four hours without eating, how
can 19 hours be easier? The answer is the reason this book
is in your hands; it’s the “magic” of the Fast-5 plan.
The Fast-5 routine changes how the body responds to food
and it changes the rhythm of hunger. This makes the 19-
hour fast easier to keep than a conventional reduced-calorie
diet. A peek behind the magic reveals some sound reasons
why the Fast-5 diet works:
Reason 1: Sleeping prepares our bodies for a prolonged
absence of food. How often does hunger awaken you from
sleep? For most people, it rarely if ever happens, even
though the duration of sleep is a longer stretch without
food than any other interval between meals.
Reason 2: Once your body is using energy from storage
(fat) rather than from fresh glucose absorbed from digesting
food, it’s easier to keep this steady state than to flip back
and forth from fat to glucose and back again. Changing
back and forth causes fluctuations in the levels of hunger-
related hormones (insulin, ghrelin, leptin, and more). The
sensation of hunger may be caused more by the changing
levels of these hormones than from lack of food in the
stomach or gut.

11
Reason 3: If you have committed yourself to the 19-hour
fast, there is no question about how much food you should
be eating during the fasting period. You don’t have to make
a moment-by-moment decision on a limit or decide how
closely you’ll stick to your diet. When your limit is zero,
you don’t have to decide when to stop eating because you
don’t get started. There is no judging between a little, a
little more, and too much. Zero makes it easy to measure
how much you should eat, and it keeps limbic hunger from
wedging its way into your decision-making and taking
control.

Limbic (LIM-bik) hunger is a name for what happens

when your eating behavior conflicts with your long-term
preference to eat less. The name “limbic” comes from the
limbic system, the part of the brain that connects primitive
drives, emotion, and memory. For primitive humans,
eating a lot when there was food available was a great idea.
The “sweet tooth” many people have may be nature’s way
of encouraging us to seek out and eat fruit, because we
need the vitamins the fruit contains.

You can’t eat just one potato chip because of limbic hunger.
Eating one chip triggers more appetite because primitive
limbic signals tell our brains we should eat as much as we
can while the food is available. This leads to more eating,
connecting in a vicious circle that doesn’t stop until the
bag of chips is empty. The ancient instinct takes control
of behavior, ignoring higher thinking and preferences.
Limbic hunger in a land of plenty causes one to eat too
often and eat too much.

12
Limbic hunger can be impulsive and stealthy. You decide
to eat just one doughnut. A few minutes or a few hours
later, in the middle of the second or the third doughnut,
you remember your decision to eat only one. You chose
to stop at one, but something let you reach out for that
second or third doughnut. That something is limbic hunger
overriding your willpower and your conscious preference
to eat less.

Somatic (so-MA-tik) hunger is the sensation of discomfort in

the stomach area that is commonly called hunger or hunger
pangs. Somatic hunger is the result of the interaction of
many hormonal and nerve signals and incorporates more
information than just whether the stomach is empty. By
itself, this sensation can be unpleasant. As long as it stays
out of the mind, it’s tolerable, like a sore ankle or a bruise.
You may consider this sensation to be far beyond unpleasant
and totally intolerable. Be assured, that can change.

Nature is not stupid. If hunger alone were to incapacitate a

hunter by being excessively distracting or intolerable, then
the hunter would be unable to hunt and the species would
have died off long ago. We’re built with more resilience
than that. As time goes by on the Fast-5 plan, the sensation
of hunger becomes less frequent, less intense, and much
less distracting.

Humans evolved in an environment in which meals were

likely a once-a-day event because it took hours, sometimes
days, to hunt the wild game, then hours more to prepare
it. The kill was consumed in a single sitting because there
were no refrigerators to hold leftovers for a midnight snack
or a later day. Several hours after the end of the meal,

13
bacterial growth on the uneaten portion of meat could
make the food sickening or inedible, sometimes even lethal.
It’s no wonder dogs became man’s best friend—they ate
all the leftovers in the prehistoric days. If dogs didn’t get
the uneaten food, then ants, flies, mice, rats, and bacteria
would.

In summary, a once-a-day eating pattern makes sense for

weight loss because it creates a long, steady, fat-consuming
period. Before going to Step 2, remember the following
points:

1) Fast-5 is not radical, it’s not a crash diet, and it is not

unhealthy. Better health is quite clearly the point of the
Fast-5 diet.

2) The “fast” in the Fast-5 plan is a gradual extension of the

existing fasting period people already have as they sleep.

3) You can do it, and it’s neither as extreme nor as difficult

as it sounds.

14
 Step 2—Goal Setting
S et a goal. It doesn’t have to be a goal weight, but that
is most common. Your goal may be fitting into an old
pair of jeans, having a certain fat bulge gone, or something
similar. Your goal should reflect a lean body status, not a
weight lighter than you are now, but still with excess fat.

It is very important that you be truthful with yourself or

you will never be satisfied with your result. You will think
the diet has failed you and you’ll go back to your old eating
pattern and keep gaining weight. Even if you think it will
take years to reach your goal, set it where it should be.

Write your goal in the blank on page 57 and post it

somewhere you’ll see it every day. If you want a “before”
picture to compare to an “after” picture later, now is the
time to have it taken. Most people have a good idea of
what they’d like to weigh. If you’re not sure what a lean
weight is for you, look for your height in the graph on
page 53 and determine a weight in the “healthy weight”
range to set as your goal.

Here’s another way to find your goal weight. For women,

start at 100 pounds for five feet, then add five pounds for
every inch over five feet. For men, start at 106 pounds for
five feet and add six pounds for every inch over five feet.
Add 10 percent for a large frame, or deduct 10 percent for
a small frame. Measure around your wrist with a cloth tape
measure. If you don’t have a cloth tape measure, cut a strip
of paper at least eight inches long. Wrap the paper around
your wrist, mark the circumference, then measure from
the end to the mark with a ruler or metal measuring tape.
15
Find your wrist measurement in the row containing your
gender and height in the table, then look at the top of the
column to find your frame size.
Feet-Inches Small Frame Medium Frame Large Frame
Female under 5-2 Less than 5 ½” 5 ½ – 5 ¾” Over 5 ¾”
Female 5-2 to 5-5 Less than 6” 6 – 6 ¼” Over 6 ¼”
Female over 5-5 Less than 6 ¼” 6 ¼ – 6 ½” Over 6 ½“
Male over 5-5 Less than 6 ½” 6 ½ – 7 ½” Over 7 ½”

You may want to write your goal weight on a calendar,

in your personal blog (web log), or in a progress blog at
www.fast-5.com. Now that you have your goal weight in
mind, it may be refreshing to imagine life without carrying
the extra weight around. To calculate your percentage of
excess weight, subtract your ideal weight from your current
weight, multiply the result by 100, then divide by your
ideal weight.
To better appreciate the burden you’re putting on your
body by carrying your extra weight, the next time you’re in
a sporting goods store or a gym, stack up your excess weight
in barbell weights. Even for someone mildly overweight,
the excess amount can be a formidable load to be carrying
all the time.
How much extra are you carrying? Here’s a cumulative list
of what you have to gain from losing, based on a person
whose lean weight is 140 pounds.
20 percent overweight (28 extra pounds, weight 168):
At this point, there’s a mild increase in the load on your
ankles and knees. The burden is comparable to carrying a
backpack with four textbooks in it at all times.

16
40 percent overweight (56 extra pounds, weight 196):

There’s a substantial increase in the load on your ankles

and knees, comparable to carrying a fully-loaded military
backpack at all times. Cumulative load: backpack with
four textbooks plus 3½ gallons of milk.

60 percent overweight (84 extra pounds, weight 224):

This is equivalent to carrying an 11-year-old child or a

fully-grown Labrador retriever around at all times. Hips,
knees, ankles, and feet may have accelerated arthritis due
to overloading. Cumulative load: backpack with textbooks,
3½ gallons of milk, and a 20-inch chain saw.

80 percent overweight (112 extra pounds, weight 252):

This burden is like carrying a smaller adult or a full-size

recliner around at all times. If your feet, knees, and back
hurt, it’s no wonder. Cumulative load: backpack with
textbooks, 3½ gallons of milk, a 20-inch chain saw, and a
folding wheelchair.

100 percent overweight (140 extra pounds, weight 280):

At this weight, you are carrying your lean self, a washing

machine, or a 15-cubic foot chest freezer around at all
times. Cumulative load: backpack with textbooks, 3½
gallons of milk, a 20-inch chain saw, a folding wheelchair,
and a bushel of okra.

The extra weight you carry is distributed all over you, so you
may not realize how much it is weighing you down. Every
move you make requires moving that extra weight, which

17
often means you move less and less as you get heavier. If
you move less, you use less energy, so your body has more
excess fuel to store. With more excess fuel to store, you
get fatter. To escape from this constricting spiral, you have
to make a big change. The next chapter is about how to
succeed in making that change.

Doc, my knees are killing me!

Let‛s get an MRI and
see what the trouble is.

18
 Step 3—Adjustment
Y ou must consider and accept your current eating
habits to form an adjustment plan that will work for
you. Pretending or minimizing will set you up for failure.
If your current daily eating pattern includes multiple
snacks—even the smallest bit of food like a piece of candy,
chewing gum, or mints counts as a snack—you should
expect a longer adjustment period than if you usually skip
breakfast, eat lunch, then have dinner with no in-between
snacks.

To take a proper accounting of snacks, you should include

any calorie-containing drinks. Do you drink coffee with
cream and/or sugar? Sugar-sweetened sodas, lemonade, or
tea? Alcohol-containing drinks? Count each as a snack. To
your body, every packet of fuel that comes into the stomach
looks like a snack, whether it’s liquid before it enters your
mouth or not. As you’ll see in the Calorie Creeps table
(page 30), some liquid snacks pack a meal-sized calorie
content.

Part A: Push break~fast to lunchtime.

If you already skip breakfast routinely and have no

midmorning calorie intake, skip ahead to Part B. If you do
eat breakfast, it is also your break~fast. Start your adjustment
by delaying break~fast, whatever and whenever it is, until
noon. Many people will be able to skip breakfast and have
lunch at their usual time without any significant change
in their pre-lunch hunger. If you cannot skip breakfast,
gradually delay it. Substitute something you can eat quickly,
such as a breakfast bar or breakfast drink, for your usual
19
breakfast so you can have it at the appropriate time. Delay
consuming it by 30 minutes every two days until you’ve
reached the noon mark, and then continue with Part B.
What about breakfast being the most important meal of
the day? This slogan is brought to you by the same system
that has helped make 65 percent of Americans overweight;
it has helped to sell a lot of breakfast cereal and toaster
pastries. You can see for yourself whether you’re better off
with breakfast or without it. Put it to the test.

Part B: Push break~fast to 5 PM.

When you are consistently going without a morning meal,

lunch is now your break~fast. If your lunchtime is not
fixed by a rigid schedule, choose a start time for lunch,
such as noon. Mark a calendar with your break~fast time,
delaying it by 30 minutes every couple of days, so you
know exactly when you can let yourself eat. Keep this up
until break~fast time is 5 pm. If your fasting tolerance is
developing well, you can advance the time increment to
an hour a day. With no setbacks (or jumps ahead), the
adjustment from a noon break~fast to a 5 pm break~fast
will take 18 days. If you are unable to maintain your fast to
the scheduled break~fast time, don’t stop trying. Use the
same break~fast time for the following day. Keep trying
until you make it a couple of days in a row, then push
break~fast back by another 30 minutes.

While fasting, drink lots of water, diet drinks, or

unsweetened tea. Coffee’s fine too. Without cream or
sugar, it has a negligible calorie content. This phase is a
good time to try different kinds of herbal, green, or regular
tea and see if you find one you like. Artificial sweeteners
20
are acceptable; aspartame may be better than sucralose
because sucralose may have unpleasant side effects on your
gut when it is the only thing you’re consuming. Explore
new tastes such as flavored seltzer/soda products to add
variety, or make your own with club soda and a dash of
lemon or lime juice concentrate.

Prior to your break~fast time, identify something nutritious

and filling that you will eat first as your break~fast food
(a banana, granola bar, high-protein drink—whatever is
the best of what’s available). Keep something like carrots,
grapes, apples, peaches, peanuts, or a box of high-fiber
breakfast cereal around so you can avoid sugary alternatives.
If you’re hungry at your scheduled break~fast time, eat the
designated break~fast food first, before you eat any of the
less nutritious snacks you’ve been eyeing all day. If you’re
not hungry, wait a while. As you eat or drink, focus on
your hunger. How much food does it take to make the
somatic hunger go away? Try to stop there and get busy
with something else. What if you can’t stop? No problem
as long as you stop sometime and stick with your schedule.
If you have binges, don’t worry. Keep taking little steps
toward your goal. The binge-eating should subside as your
body and brain adapt to the new eating rhythm. While
your gut is adapting to the change, you may notice some
changes in your bowel activity that resolve as your body
adjusts to the new eating pattern.

In the Adjustment step, your body is changing its primary

fuel source from glucose absorbed from food to ketones
and fatty acids released from fat cells. As your stored
glucose (glycogen) is depleted, the fat burning machinery
gears up, making fasting easier as your body adapts.
21
Caution: Don’t break your fast with alcohol. Alcohol is
acceptable in the Fast-5 plan, but it should not be the first
or only part of your break~fast consumption. Alcohol
intake immediately after your fast may inhibit your
liver’s metabolism and cause your blood sugar to drop to
unpleasant or even unsafe levels. This effect of alcohol is
debated in the medical literature, but it is best to be safe.
The absorption of alcohol by your empty stomach may be
much faster than you would usually experience, resulting
in unexpected levels of intoxication.
You do not have to eat right at 5 pm to stick with the Fast-5
plan. Your eating window opens at 5 pm. After that, what
you eat and when is up to you until the window closes at
10 pm.
Step 3 Summary: Prolong your fasting period after
awakening until you’ve reached a 5 pm break~fast.
Success? Continue to Step 4.
If you don’t succeed with this step, be sure to read or re-
read Problems & Solutions (page 37). Determine what is
interfering with your effort. Step back and try to beat that
interference just once. When you’ve done it, work at it
until you’ve beaten the problem two days in a row. When
you’ve done that, go for three days in a row, and keep going
until beating the interference is routine. Go on to Step 4
when your break~fast is routinely at or after 5 pm.

22
 Step 4—Active Loss
I f you’ve successfully completed Step 3, you’re now having
break~fast at 5 pm or later. All there is to Step 4 is doing
it again. And again. And again. The good news is that it
gets easier the longer you do it.

After about two weeks of daily fasting, your stored glycogen

will be depleted. Your fat-handling enzymes will be fully
activated, increasing your body’s ability to metabolize fat,
because that’s all there is for it to run on for 19 hours out
of the day. As your fat metabolism increases, so will your
production of ketones. Ketones are a family of naturally-
made chemicals that have a scent described as fruity or
sweet. As your fat-metabolizing machinery gears up, those
around you may notice this unusual aroma on your breath.
Consider it a badge of success, because it is evidence that
you are burning fat instead of glucose, and you are on your
way to your goal weight. As your body improves its ability
to use the ketones as fuel, the presence of ketones on your
breath should diminish. The ketone smell can be masked
using non-caloric breath fresheners.

Once you adapt to the fasting conditions, you may lose

about one pound or more per week, but the best measure of
success is relative. Every week you should weigh measurably
less than the week before. As long as your weight is going
down from one week to the next, you’ll eventually reach
your goal. Getting to your goal and staying there is far more
important than getting there quickly. Do not expect to see
loss every day. There is too much variation in water, salt
retention, and other factors to reliably compare one day to

23
the next. You can still measure daily, record your weight on
pages 57-58, then look at the numbers you’ve entered in
one column to see how the weekly trend is going. You can
then predict how long it will take to reach your goal.

To track your progress and provide encouragement, it is

very helpful to have a scale that is both accurate (it reads
your actual weight) and precise (when loaded with the
same weight at different times, it gives the same reading).
Some digital scales vary by as much as half a pound with
each measurement, making them useless for daily or weekly
measurements. To test a scale for precision, step on the scale
and get a weight reading. Step off the scale, then step back
on. A precise scale will read the same weight every time.
The Salter 905 and Soehnle’s Alpha and Gamma models,
available for around $45-$75, do a nice job of delivering
reproducible results. For consistent tracking, you should
weigh yourself each morning upon awakening, without
any clothing and after urinating.

During the Active Loss step, you eat what you want in
the five-hour period after your break~fast. Is this license to
eat candy and ice cream for dinner every night? No, but
doing that once in a while is not a problem. The unlimited
variety and flexibility of personal choices within the Fast-5
diet make it a diet you can maintain indefinitely.

You may have binges that add up to all the food or more
that you didn’t eat during the day. Stay on track with the
diet and things will stabilize. Typically, your break~fast
consumption will gradually decrease, and you will feel fine
on a fraction of the calories you would have consumed
in a day prior to starting the Fast-5 diet. If you want to
24
maximize the health benefits of your fasting, make your
break~fast and any food consumed until 10 pm a balanced
mix emphasizing fruits and vegetables.

Getting into the fasting groove gives you the willpower

you need to pass by the doughnut box left open at the
office. You can leave the candy in the candy jar or drive
by the burger joint. Limbic hunger doesn’t get the chance
to take control, and the invasive, distracting nature of
somatic hunger becomes a milder sensation that reminds
you that you’re doing something good for yourself. Not
only is the weight loss good, you also save time and money
on breakfast and lunch.

Exercise can accelerate your Active Loss and help preserve

your muscle mass (so you’re burning fat, not muscle, for
fuel), but make changes gradually. It is not a good time
to abruptly take up a highly strenuous exercise program.
If you are accustomed to some pattern of exercise, by all
means, keep it up. If you don’t exercise at all, add some
light exercise like walking a little at lunchtime instead of
eating. If, during exercise, you experience nausea, light-
headedness, dizziness, changes in vision, or feel unsteady,
make the better-safe-than sorry choice. Back off or stop your
exertion and eat something, and if you don’t start feeling
better promptly, seek medical attention. Even though it
is a common complaint and a common explanation for
these symptoms, true hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) is
extremely rare in non-diabetics.

You may want to check your blood pressure now for

comparison later. When you’re well into the Maintenance
phase, you can check it again to see whether Fast-5 is

25
having a detectable beneficial effect on your cardiovascular
health. If you decide to measure your blood pressure,
use an automatic device rather than a person. By using
the same device when you measure again in a month
or two, you’ll have the best chance of getting consistent
measurement technique. Sit still for a few minutes before
measuring, then measure three times and take the average.
If the results are widely different, wait a few more minutes,
then take another three readings.

26
 Step 5—Maintenance
When you reach your goal weight, you will need a
maintenance plan. Returning to your old eating habits
will have you regaining the weight you lost very quickly
and waste all your work in adapting and following the
Fast‑5 diet. You’ve done the hard part, getting to your goal.
Adjusting to steady-state maintenance is something you
can fit individually to your lifestyle.
You can maintain your Fast-5 plan indefinitely, and your
break~fast and later consumption will balance your needs.
In the unlikely event that you are continuing to lose weight
beyond your desired point, increase your meal size, cut back
on your fasting days, or lengthen your eating window. You
may choose to fast only on weekdays or weekends, if that
suits your schedule, but changing back and forth between
fasting and non-fasting days is more difficult than keeping
a consistent schedule. Tailor your schedule to what works
best for you, and see the web site for more maintenance
ideas.
The human body, like all living things, is a biochemical
engine. The machinery in living cells makes the burning
of fuel a slow, multi-step sequence instead of the sudden
explosive combustion that occurs in a mechanical engine.
The summary of the biologic process yields the same
chemical result as a mechanical engine: fuel is oxidized
(burned) to produce energy, carbon dioxide, and water.
Although fuels for mechanical engines (gasoline, Diesel
fuel, kerosene) are chemical cousins of fats and edible oils,
slight differences make the petroleum-based fuels toxic. In
contrast, some mechanical engines can run on edible oils.
27
The body engine’s combustion takes place in tiny
components of cells called mitochondria. The cellular
exhaust (carbon dioxide) dissolves in the bloodstream and
is transported to the lungs and exhaled in the breath. The
next breath takes in more oxygen to support the combustion
going on in the mitochondria.
The analogy of body engine and gasoline engine gets even
more interesting. If you’ve ever started a lawn mower, you
probably put the throttle in the choke position to start
it. “Choke” means the engine’s getting a lot of fuel and
very little oxygen (from the air). The engine starts well
in this position, but for it to run smoothly, the throttle
has to be moved off choke, reducing the fuel-to-oxygen
ratio. If the mixture of air and fuel is right (conveniently
termed “lean”), the engine generates maximum power
and burns the gasoline cleanly, without producing much
soot or sludge. If the fuel-air mixture is kept too rich (too
much fuel for the oxygen available), partially burned fuel
comes out in the exhaust as soot, and sludge builds up in
the cylinders and valves, shortening the useful life of the
engine.
Mitochondria, the cylinders of the biologic engine, have
the same outcome. Excess fuel promotes the production
of damaging waste products (oxygen free radicals), which
cause cell and DNA damage. The damage results in aging
and according to a number of animal studies, shortens the
useful life of the biologic engine/animal.

Calorie restriction (CR) is the medical term for a diet

supplying only a fraction (usually half to two-thirds) of
a typical unrestricted diet. Animals living on a CR diet

28
live longer and have fewer health problems than animals
able to eat all they want. In some cases, animal models of
autoimmune diseases (in which the body’s immune system
attacks normal structures, such as rheumatoid arthritis,
multiple sclerosis, and lupus) have shown improvement
with CR. If animal models apply to humans, calorie
restriction will result in a longer, healthier life and may
reduce or prevent autoimmune diseases and even cancer.
More resources and recent studies concerning CR can be
found at www.fast-5.com.

If CR has a similar effect in humans as has been seen

in animals, maintaining the Fast-5 plan as a permanent
lifestyle may yield rewards beyond those directly associated
with being your ideal weight. The calorie restriction is a
hidden benefit of the Fast-5 diet and lifestyle. You don’t
have to make a choice to eat less, you just eat less.

After six to eight weeks of Fast-5 maintenance, you may

see a slight decrease in your blood pressure. If you don’t,
it’s not a problem, but it can be nice to see some internal
results of your effort toward better health. If you do see a
drop in your blood pressure, it can help you answer the
question “Is the Fast-5 diet healthy?”

If you have a history of high blood pressure, it is absolutely

essential that you continue regular follow-up visits with
your doctor, regardless of any change seen with Fast-5.

29
Calorie Creeps

No matter which step of the Fast-5 plan you’re in, it’s good
to know about calorie creeps. Calorie creeps are foods that
are casually consumed when location or labeling obscures
the calorie content of the food, letting a lot of calories creep
into your body, hampering your efforts to lose weight. Like
everything else, the items in the table are permitted on the
Fast-5 diet after 5 pm. The table indicates how much an
innocent-looking indulgence can impede your weight loss
effort. For comparison, keep in mind that a typical candy
bar has 230-280 calories.
Calories Sugars (g) Carb (g) Protein (g) Fat (g)
16 oz Hot Chocolate
450 41 49 14 24
(whole milk)
16 oz Latte 260 19 21 14 14
16 oz Nonfat Latte 160 20 24 16 0
12 oz Java Chip
frozen cappuccino 370 44 54 5 15
drink
Cranberry-Orange
410 31 53 5 20
Muffin
Croissant 260 3 28 5 15
11 oz coffee with 1 oz
half-and-half & 1 tsp 56 5 5 0.5 3
sugar
Cola, 500 mL bottle 208 56 56 0 0

Calories can also creep into your diet using alternative

names for sugar or substitutes that have significant calorie
content, such as dextrose, fructose, high-fructose corn
syrup, glucose, lactose, maltodextrin, maltose, sorbitol,
sucrose, invert sugar, juice concentrate, and molasses.
Check the nutrition label for calorie content if you’re not
sure.

30
Calorie Bombs

Calorie bombs are the foods everyone knows are thick

with calories. Despite such common knowledge, the
manufacturer may still try to understate the dietary impact.
The example used here for illustration is a well-known
sandwich cookie. The unrealistic portion labeling practice
is common among many snack and drink manufacturers.
Cookies, even double-filling sandwich-cookie calorie
bombs, can be a part of the Fast-5 diet.

When you indulge in a calorie bomb, indulge. Enjoy it,

savor it, and consider the sensations it brings to you. How
does it taste? How does it feel? When you have savored the
flavor, ask yourself what having another would add to the
experience. It doesn’t add much, usually. More of the same
often adds only calories and delays your progress to your
goal. Sometimes the easiest way to avoid losing ground on
your weight loss plan due to calorie bombs is to not buy
them.
Calories Sugars (g) Carb (g) Protein (g) Fat (g)
Double-filling sandwich cookie,
labeled serving size 140 13 20 1 7
(2 cookies)
Double-filling sandwich cookie,
real world serving size 420 39 60 3 21
(6 cookies)
Double-filling sandwich
cookie, real-world serving size
(ohmigod I’ve eaten the whole 2730 253 390 19.5 136.5
bag I just bought the day
before yesterday)

31
32
Section II
Foundation

33
34
 Questions and Answers
Q. Can Fast-5 really give me the willpower to pass up
snacks and sweets?
A. Yes.
Q. Is it guaranteed?
A. No. People are different, and nothing works for
everyone.
Q. How does it work?
A. See the “Physiology” section for all the details. Having
one meal a day allows the fat-burning machinery in your
body to get to work and stay at work. The steady energy
supply keeps you from feeling uncomfortably hungry.
Q. Won’t I eat just as much at break~fast as I would
have eaten during a non-fasting day?
A. Possibly, and perhaps even more, during the Adjustment
and early Active Loss steps. A typical person in the Fast‑5
Maintenance phase eats an evening meal that is slightly
larger than a pre-diet dinner and has only a modest appetite
for evening snacks. The sensation of a full belly develops
quickly and creates a stronger urge to stop eating than it
does on a customary three-meal-a-day diet.
Q. What can I eat on the Fast-5 diet?
A. Whatever you want, but only during the eating window
from 5 to 10 pm. Dietary balance is strongly recommended
to maximize the yield for your effort.

35
Q. What should I eat on the Fast-5 diet?

A. You’re only eating one meal a day, so it’s worth making

it a good one. Strive for balance. Fiber is still essential
for good health, and fiber supplements are a good idea if
you’re not getting much fiber in your diet. Making your
break~fast healthy means you reach your goal sooner. You
will likely find food more savory when it’s a once-a-day
event. Eating fish and other foods rich in omega-3 fatty
acids may increase the health benefit of your fasting by
reducing your cancer risk. Dare to try tofu and other soy
products if they are not already a part of your diet. You can
follow the food choice recommendations of the American
Heart Association and still be on the Fast-5 plan. See
www.americanheart.org for more information.

Q. I get irritable or cranky when I’m hungry. What can

I do?

A. Irritability may be a part of the Adjustment step. It

passes. Hang in there and ask your family/coworkers to
hang in there with you, because the result is worth it for
you and for them.

Q. Can this little book make such a big difference?

A. The book is as long as it needs to be to tell you how to

make a big difference. No filler, stabilizer, preservatives,
“results not typical” case reports or unnecessary recipes have
been added to fluff the book up to the size the marketing
gurus say sells best.

36
 Problems and Solutions
Problem 1.

I keep caving into the social pressure from my friends and

schedule to eat.

Discussion:

Our eating customs are the Achilles heel of the Fast-5 plan,
and bear a lot of responsibility for the obesity problem
in this country. Embarking on the Fast-5 plan reveals just
how much social pressure there is to eat. What do you do
when you’re at a luncheon and everybody’s eating? How do
you socialize at lunchtime and not eat? That is the biggest
problem you’re likely to face with the Fast-5 plan. Our
society’s intolerance of not eating at the expected times is
a cultural weakness. When you become keenly aware of
how much pressure there is to eat on a customary schedule
regardless of hunger, it’s no wonder so many people are
overweight.

Solutions:

1. There are likely associates in your workplace who

have tried hard to lose weight and have not succeeded.
If you can get one person to join your effort, the social
taboo of not eating lunch is broken. The two of you can
invite others to join you in sharing non-eating activities
for your lunch break. If two or more people are involved,
you turn social pressure in favor of keeping the fast rather
than breaking it.

37
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