This 5-Day Diet Can Reduce Your Risk of Cancer, Diabetes and Heart Disease

Taking a long break from eating has never really appealed to me, so I’ve never really given it much thought.

But a group of scientists are now claiming you can get all the benefits of fasting without going days on end without eating. It’s called a fast mimicking diet.

What does fast mimicking even mean?

What it really means is that you greatly restrict how much you eat. The good news is, to reap the benefits, you only need to do it five days a month. The rest of the month you get to eat normally, though you can’t go nuts and eat everything in sight when the five days are up.

The study outlining the plan was recently published in the Journal of Cell Metabolism. Participants followed the diet plan for just three months and already their risk factors for cancer, diabetes, aging, and heart disease were all reduced. It was just a small study of 19 people, but the results were so amazing they’ve applied to get approval from the FDA to recommend the diet to patients.

What does fasting even do?

Supposedly, fasting for a few days allows your body to reboot, clear away damaged cells, and regenerate new ones. According to Valter D. Longo, one of the authors of the study, this reprograms “the body so it enters a slower aging mode.”

Sounds pretty great, right? But what can you even eat?

The program goes like this. For the first 25 days of each month, you eat normally. Hopefully a diet full of fruits and vegetables, protein, healthy fats, and whole grains.

Now the hard part. The first day of fasting you are only allowed to eat 1,090 calories, which must be in strict proportions: 10 percent protein, 56 percent fat, and 34 percent carbs.

For the next four days you are allowed just 725 calories: 9 percent protein, 44 percent fat, and 47 percent carbohydrates.

What is that in real food?

The participants ended up eating mostly vegetable soup and chamomile tea. Soup is generally great for weight loss because it’s full of nutrients, low in calories, and takes longer to eat. Most of the carbs end up coming from vegetables, rather than simple grains, which is another great swap.

It doesn’t really seem so bad because it’s not outright fasting. You still get to eat roughly 54 to 34 percent of what you would normally, and as a result, you don’t put too much stress on your body.

Would you even try it?

The benefits of the plan are pretty great. Slower aging, reduced risk of disease, a boost to the immune system and brain functioning. It all sounds wonderful. I really hope more research is done with larger groups of participants.

Plus, I like the idea that you do get to eat at least some food and that you only need to last five days. Do you think you could handle it?