PHOTOGRAPH: ISTOCK
THE SANE VIEW
Fasting for religious or spiritual reasons dates back thousands of years, but skipping meals to shift pounds ies in the face of the advice doctors have given us for years that going hungry is not a sensible route to long-term weight loss. These days, however, growing numbers of people are claiming weight-loss success by alternating short bouts of eating very little with periods of eating normally, known as intermittent fasting (IF). It’s an eating pattern praised by celebrities such as Hugh Jackman and Benedict Cumberbatch – and it appears to be winning some scienti c favour, too.