Episode 5 Food: Truth or Scare

Every day, we're bombarded with conflicting information about our favourite foods.

One minute, we're told something's good for us. The next, it's not.

And we're left feeling guilty about what we're eating.

So we've been wading through the confusion

to separate the scare stories from the truth,

so that you can choose your food with confidence.

Hello, and welcome to the programme that's all about separating

the wheat from the chaff

when it comes to the advice we're given about what to eat.

And today we'll be looking into some of the guilty pleasures that

if we're honest we've probably all indulged in every now and again.

Whether it's snacks between meals or the odd drink or two,

many of us will still follow the old advice

that a little of what you fancy does you good.

But it now seems that may not always be the case,

and you can't have missed the dramatic shift

in the official guidelines on drinking alcohol.

They were announced just after Christmas,

and they completely contradict previous advice

suggesting that the odd tipple or two might even be good for you.

So we'll be looking into that subject.

We'll also find out how the little treats we reward ourselves

can very quickly mean you're eating more between meals

than you would at a proper mealtime.

But for some of us binge-eating is now followed with

what you might call binge-fasting.

Cutting right back on food for a couple of days a week

while eating what you like the rest of the time.

It's a sort of all-or-nothing approach,

supposed to mean that you'll lose weight

while still enjoying the foods that you really want.

Sounds good to me. But, question is, does it actually work?

Well, we'll find out as we explore some of our more indulgent habits

and what we'll do to put them right.

Coming up on the programme today:

The truth about how Britain snacks.

Wait till you see how many treats

these workers have got squirreled away.

People are known to turn up around three o'clock in the afternoon

when they're having a lull and come and have a bit of secret sugar.

After those sobering headlines on whether alcohol is safe

we'll make sense of what it really means if you fancy the odd drink.

So, Doctor, should I be feeling guilty about indulging

in a pint of beer every now and again?

'And, as debate rages on over the fasting diet

'that's taken the country by storm,

'we'll find out what effect cutting down to

'just a few hundred calories two days a week has on our bodies.'

When it comes to snacks, are you a bit of a demon there?

I am known to have the occasional biscuit, or bar of chocolate, yes.

And you know sometimes when you're picking away at all those treats

you're consuming a lot more than you may have realised

and what in your mind you classified as an occasional treat,

just like Chris,

it has in fact become a key part of your daily diet.

So I've been uncovering our secret snacking habits,

not least to see if we could find any kind of healthy snack

that hits the same spot in the way as a lovely piece of cake.

On average, each of us eats more than 800 snacks every year.

And overwhelmingly, when we eat between meals,

the things we eat are sweet.

So if you're snacking on food what would you have?

Everything and anything. I eat a lot of chocolate and crisps

and all sorts.

Dried fruit,

sometimes. Maybe a Marathon or a Snickers, I think it is now,

there's just one of those living in my desk drawer.

Chocolates.

A lot of chocolates?

-Lots of chocolate.

-LAUGHTER

Yeah, I'm studying to be a dentist

so I should probably shouldn't be saying this. But...

Lots of candy.

Now, what do you snack on if you're hungry?

-I try to snack on fruit now.

-Do you?

Yeah, I've stopped the bread eating cos it doesn't do me any good.

Being a diabetic and being working outside

I tend to eat every two hours or so,

Just a little bit of substance, just to keep the machine running.

But that attitude is rare.

one study found that only 15% of us reach for healthy snacks.

And another concluded that we're the unhealthiest snackers in Europe.

With snacking so entrenched in our lives,

perhaps it's no wonder that there are so many headlines warning

about the consequences,

identifying the worst offenders,

or revealing that

even the healthiest-looking snacks

don't cut the mustard.

So, to find out the truth about our snacking habits,

we've come to a place that millions would agree

is where temptation takes over more than anywhere else.

At work.

At this law firm in Manchester,

snacking on sweets, crisps and chocolate

is part of everyday working life.

So if we go into the main concourse of the office...

Andrew Twamley is the boss of this sweet toothed team.

So this is Yasmin who is famous for good snacking.

Oh, look at that!

-Breakfast stuff.

-That's a drawer full of snacks!

Erm...

Crisps, hidden away.

I've never seen in that drawer before,

I never knew they were there.

-Some treats in there.

-Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho. Jess!

Look at all this!

You kept that one quiet!

She's a massive snacker!

Recent research suggests that around a quarter of men

and a third of women lie about their snacking habits.

But in this office, they're not shy about admitting it.

At the moment I've got some flapjacks in my drawer.

I can show you. They're only small ones.

Very special...

..chocolate golden eggs.

There's no denying that this lot love their snacks.

But dietician Anna Daniels says they're falling into

the same calorie-laden traps

as she's seen in countless offices right across the country.

It's quite a sedentary lifestyle

just being stuck at the desk, in front of the computer,

and it's quite easy to have additional snacks,

specially if they're in your drawer.

So you're kind of snacking on those as well as going to make

some tea or coffee and having extra biscuits,

and before you know it you've mindlessly snacked

on again another half of your day's intake,

which can easily happen.

And the trouble with snacking is that it's easy to keep

grazing without realising how much you're eating.

One study found that more than a fifth of people

will cheerfully crunch their way

through a large size packet of crisps, meant for sharing,

entirely on their own.

Things are often sold in multipacks or large packs.

So they're not just one portion per bag, it's many portions.

Overeating something,

someone might think they're having one bag,

but actually that bag's supposed to be, you know,

it's got four portions in it.

In the office, serial snacker Jess is next on Andrew's rounds.

Jess is the... Acknowledged as the office's queen of snacking,

doesn't look like a snacker,

but she's a MASSIVE snacker.

Have you got any particular examples to show us today?

Erm...

-Ah, and they're all...

-And a small other selection of goods.

-Oh, I've found something else.

-Hot chocolate.

-Hot chocolate.

Butter puffs.

So Jess here has got quite the hoard of snacks in her drawer.

Erm, you know, fine to have on occasion,

but if it's something that she's having on a regular basis

then she could probably try not to have them in her drawer,

because it's just a temptation for her to have them,

easy access.

I try to be a healthy eater.

Doesn't always work.

But I normally try and start the week off reasonably healthy

and it normally goes downhill from there.

I can normally resist walking past the biscuits a couple of times

on the way into the kitchen, but by the third or fourth time,

I've caved, I've conceded, and yeah, there's normally a pile on my desk.

And Jess's willpower isn't helped by her colleague Victoria's

home baking.

I've made some chocolate muffins with buttercream,

and then I've made the famous Tiffin cake

that Andrew really loves, so he'll be eating this.

Well, the sugar...that was like four tablespoons, I think it was.

So that's quite a lot and the butter...

quite a big dollop of that.

About 4oz, I think it was.

I know the recipe in my head now,

but it looks good to eat, doesn't it?

but if they saw the list of ingredients they might think twice.

What's in it?

Just a bit of chocolate, bit of syrup...

Digestive biscuits, which I think are quite healthy, aren't they?

SHE LAUGHS

If only that were true!

Now, birthdays and special occasions almost certainly call for cakes

but it's very easy for home-made treats like this to become the norm.

There's often a culture that can be created in the office,

and rather than it becoming a treat,

it becomes something that's happening regularly.

So...on a weekly basis, and before you know it,

people are eating more cake,

and it's just becoming part of their normal dietary intake.

And of course, with no wrappers,

it's impossible to keep track on

how many calories Victoria's Tiffin contains.

Chocolate Tiffin cakes,

I think they're about maybe 400 calories per slice,

and then you've got the other muffins

which might be a couple of hundred calories.

So that's like almost having lunch over again.

Cos in a light sandwich there can be about 350, 450 calories.

So you're almost eating lunch twice in a day.

You're having these additional calories, really,

from all these extra snacks,

which yeah, can absolutely be double their intake

of what you might need just for a normal day.

The time we apparently are most likely to snack

is around three o'clock in the afternoon,

suggesting we haven't eaten the right lunch to fill us up.

But sometimes we're just craving something sweet,

so I've come to meet nutritionist Yvonne Bishop-Weston

to see why we have such trouble controlling those cravings,

in particular for chocolate.

What is it that's released in the brain

when somebody gives you a box of chocolates, and you think,

"I'm just going to have one, or maybe two"

but in the end you want to eat the entire box?

Well, there have been studies that have shown

that certain reward centres in the brain

are triggered by food such as chocolate.

So it's very possible that it is doing that in you,

and maybe it does that in some people more than it does in others.

Part of it is the habit.

We're brought up that chocolate and sweets and confectionary,

they're a treat, we earn them, they're our reward,

and a lot of us are brought up like that from childhood

and it stands to reason that as we get to adults,

we're going to want to reward ourselves with these things as well.

The sugar highs and lows created by this kind of snacking

get us into a vicious circle, and it's hard to escape.

Chocolate bars are cheap to buy,

they're available everywhere,

and we quickly fill up on something

that we don't actually find is the most delicious chocolate,

it's just cheap and it's easy to fill ourselves up,

and that's going to lead to the blood sugar ups

which will lead to the inevitable lows,

and the desire for more.

So, do you think that because most of us are on the run all day,

you know, we're working, we're not getting proper food,

we're maybe eating a sandwich from a garage,

whatever the case may be,

do you think that the chocolate bar then is just a quick fix?

Anything at all to fill us up?

Yes, and it works quickly.

A lot of them have pre-converted glucose in there,

it's going to get into the brain very, very fast,

so they do give us a quick fix.

So is that the one that you say leave it out if you can?

Leave it out. Best time to have chocolate is after dinner,

when we've had a meal, we feel quite satisfied,

and we just want to enjoy the flavour

and the texture of that chocolate.

A couple of squares after dinner

aren't really going to do you any harm.

Back in the office in Manchester it's three o'clock.

Peak snacking time.

If you want to have a quick peep in our snack draw,

we've got all sorts of naughty biscuits.

Got a little bag full of little sweetie things.

And...

Yeah, and people are known to turn up about three o'clock in the afternoon

when they're having a lull, and come and have a bit of a secret sugar.

The mid-afternoon dip, here,

which is often something people talk about in the office

at three o'clock, you know, blood sugar low,

when they're quite likely to reach for the chocolate bar.

But it turns out the sugar low they think they're feeding

might not actually be real.

It could simply be habit.

There's a cue, which is... It can be the time, three o'clock.

It could be hearing the rustle of crisp packets.

Could be knowing that someone's put the cakes in the kitchen,

that's the cue.

The routine then is to go have the snack,

and the reward is how it makes you feel briefly after.

When you feel the urge to snack, don't go to the kitchen,

don't get a cup of tea with a chocolate bar.

Instead, go for a five-minute walk round the block

and you've soon broken that habit.

Well...it's a nice idea,

but I can't imagine the nation's snackers

will ever be persuaded to give up their treats for a stroll.

But what they might be talked into

is switching to something more nutritious,

because the higher the level of sugar in your snack,

the more likely you are to suffer from an energy dip in the afternoon.

It's very difficult to try and eat healthily.

Having some foods that give you quick energy is a good thing,

but just making sure you're choosing healthy snacks is really important.

Still, there's one person in this office

whose drawers are brimming with snacks that Anna would approve of.

And what's your snacking day consist of?

Probably... two of those apples and two bananas,

if there's any left,

if you haven't eaten the bananas that is.

I never ever, ever...eat Tiffin cake or any other snacks.

You do. You do.

No, there's no snacks in there, you won't find anything.

Phil's fruit supplies are about as good as it gets,

but be careful going for dried fruits.

A consequence of the water being sucked out

is that the sugar inside is really concentrated

which can cause the blood sugar highs and lows

just like sugary snacks.

Other healthier snack options might include oatcakes.

They've far less sugar and more fibre than a biscuit.

However don't assume that rice cakes are a similarly good bet.

They tend to release their energy quickly,

which might leave you reaching for another snack before you know it.

Anna recommends wholegrain popcorn without a sugary coating

as a really decent choice.

And seeds and nuts are increasingly popular as a more wholesome nibble.

But choose your nut carefully!

Although high in protein,

even a handful can go a long way in the calorie stakes.

So, best of all are almonds,

pistachios,

and hazelnuts,

which are high in fibre, and will keep you feeling fuller for longer.

But let's face it, we all have a weak moment sometimes.

And back in Manchester, after all those bananas,

even fruit-loving Phil just can't resist some of Victoria's Tiffin.

12 out of ten for that.

Are your snacks adding up to an extra meal?

If you find that afternoon chocolate bar too hard to resist,

and healthy snacks too tough to find,

then head to:

for lots of ideas for healthy alternatives

that WILL satisfy your craving for snacks.

Now, it's not so long since we all lapped up newspaper headlines

declaring that a glass of wine or a pint of beer a day can do us good.

But in January this year,

the official Government advice on drinking alcohol changed,

and make no bones about it,

they were setting one thing straight.

It said there is NO safe level of alcohol consumption.

I'm not asking how much you drink or anything like that

but does that bother you, the new guidelines?

They don't bother me, but I certainly preferred the old ones,

I must admit, but there's still one niggling question in my mind.

Was all that about a glass of wine being good for you just rubbish,

or are the new guidelines being over-cautious?

The average Brit spends more than £50,000 in their lifetime

on alcohol.

Whether it's a big night out on the town,

or a glass or two of wine at home,

there's no doubt that booze is a central part

of the lives of millions.

Which is why the Government's new guidelines

on how much is safe to drink caused such a stir.

For 20 years, the recommended limits had stayed the same.

A weekly maximum of 21 units of alcohol for a man,

and 14 units a week for a woman.

And the impression many of us got from the old guidelines

was that a bit of booze wasn't all that bad.

But in January all that changed.

New official guidelines say there's no safe level of drinking alcohol.

Even a small amount can raise the risk of cancer.

The new guidance came just as the nation was recovering

from a Christmas hangover,

and caused instant controversy.

Headlines honed in on the much bleaker assessment

of the risks than we'd heard before,

with press coverage that would either have made you terrified

of ever touching a drop again,

or convinced that the risks had been exaggerated.

I think it's all a little bit excessive, really,

and a little bit nanny state.

I don't think anyone's going to listen to it, to be honest.

I think people are set in their ways.

It's such a social thing, drinking,

people don't think about how many units they're recommended each week,

they just drink.

If you were confused by the news, perhaps it's no wonder.

In recent years we've seen plenty of conflicting reports

on whether alcohol was good or bad for us,

something we were already planning to look into for this series

when the news of the updated guidelines broke.

So what's the truth about this particular scare?

Well, the most obvious change is for men,

who've seen the maximum they should consume in a week

reduced to the same 14-unit limit as women.

But the entire new guidance is underpinned by a sobering message.

That any amount of drinking has been linked to cancer.

And it's this shift in thinking that's provoked the most discussion.

I don't think it's changed that much to what we think

we should be drinking in a week but again,

I don't think that actually changes consumption habits,

especially for younger people, even though they know it's probably

not best for them,

it's probably not going to stop them on a Saturday night.

We can stick to the guidelines.

Two white wines, she's anybody's.

I'm gone.

-Gone, I tell you.

-And that's with soda in it.

Honestly, yeah.

SHE LAUGHS

The new alcohol advice may have surprised many,

but there are other European countries that have

lower recommended limits.

In the Netherlands, it's just nine units a week

for both men and women.

In Bulgaria, women are told to drink

no more than seven units,

whilst men can drink the same as the new UK limit,

of 14 units.

That's all in stark contrast,

though, to other parts of Europe.

In Ireland and Denmark,

men are told not to exceed 21 units,

the same limit British men had

until earlier this year.

In Spain, women are told

they can have up to 21 units too,

while the upper limit for men there

is equivalent to 35 units a week.

That's more than double the amount

set under the new British guidance.

But only the UK and Holland go as far as saying

there is NO such thing as

a safe level of drinking,

and that staying within the 14-unit-a-week limit,

with several days of not drinking at all,

will lower the risk to your health.

Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies

says none of this is scaremongering

but instead is all based on new evidence.

Now we know it,

I would be failing in my job

if I didn't tell the public what I know.

Almost two-thirds of people were reckoned to have stayed

within the previous weekly drinking guidelines.

And by and large I was one of them,

generally sticking to the 21 units a week.

But now that the advice is the same for both men AND women,

14 units a week,

it's going to mean a lot of cutting down for men like me.

But when you're out with your mates

and the conversation AND beers are flowing,

it can be easy to lose track of how much you're drinking.

I've come down to my local pub to find out what, up till now,

some of the drinkers here might have got through on a typical night out.

Right, ladies and gentleman,

if you would like to come up and show me on a typical night out

how much beer, wine, or spirits you might be consuming.

-I definitely have four spirits and coke.

-Yep.

And then I'd probably have a wine... to tip me over a bit.

-Maybe they're a double.

-Right, OK.

-So these four are now eight.

-Yeah.

SHE LAUGHS

Do you think that's a reasonable amount?

I don't drink very often,

but I think that's fine if I'm on a night out.

If the girls are with me, probably at least another two.

So that would be maybe like a bottle and a half of wine, roughly? OK.

And no, it's not a good idea.

About five pints...

Or if I'm staying slightly longer,

and if I'm being truthfully honest,

I'd probably have about eight pints.

Yep.

It looks like quite a lot when it's all lined up like that.

You don't drink every day.

I drink Friday, Saturday, and Sunday,

-and normally it's spread over two, three, four hours.

-Yeah.

I'm very boring, and if I'm just down here on a Friday night,

with a load of mates, I normally just have one red wine.

-Do you?

-Yeah,

and then, erm, soda water with a slice of lime in it.

Only Dawn's typical night out comes within the official guidelines.

Her two unit glass of wine breaks no rules at all.

Charlotte's four double spirits total about six units

and her extra glass of wine tops it up to about eight.

So strictly speaking that is within the guidelines

but the very clear advice now

is that we should spread our drinking out over a few nights

so it's a bit too much in one go.

As is Angela's night out.

She'd get through her entire weekly allowance in one fell swoop.

And though, as the guidance recommends,

Jeff does have a few days of the week with no alcohol at all,

he still drinks around 20 pints at the weekend.

That's around 40 units,

so about three times his weekly allowance in just three days.

The new guidance was published

after two and a half years of consultation,

taking in a wide range of evidence from all over the world.

But its conclusion that any amount of alcohol is dangerous

wasn't to scare us into believing that

it would definitely cause a problem.

It was to help us better understand the risks.

The evidence is pretty clear that

alcohol does increase the risk

of developing certain types of cancer

but different cancers are affected by alcohol at different doses.

A good example of that is liver cancer.

If you stick to the guidelines,

you're not really at much of an increased risk.

Whereas for other cancers,

your risk of developing that cancer

increases even if you drink anything at all,

and then it's a linear increase,

so the more you drink the higher your risk,

and a good example of that is breast cancer in women.

The risk of breast cancer increases even if you have a few units a week,

compared to if you drink nothing at all.

When the report was published, the Chief Medical Officer was clear

on exactly how those risks break down.

Take bowel cancer in men.

Actually, if they drink within the guidelines

their risk is the same as non-drinking.

But if they drink up to the old guidelines,

an extra 20 men per 1,000 will get bowel cancer.

For women, there's an even more pronounced risk.

If you take 1,000 women,

110 of us of that 1,000 will get breast cancer without drinking.

Drink up to these guidelines and an extra 20 women will get cancer

because of that drinking.

Double the guideline limit of drinking,

and an extra 50 women per 1,000 will get cancer.

Stats like those are why the new advice says there's no such thing

as a completely safe level of drinking.

Even so, there's no need to panic.

If you stick to the maximum weekly amount,

which is 14 units a week,

then your risk of dying from an alcohol-related disease is low.

It's not completely abolished, but it's low.

There was one part of the report that seemed to go

against all the other conclusions.

It said that for a small group of women over 55

a very low level of drinking could actually have some health benefits,

and possibly protect against heart disease.

Tony Edwards is a journalist who's analysed the results

of over 2,000 studies into the effects of alcohol on our health.

He's in no doubt that the odd drink can be good for everyone

not just women over 55.

One of the reasons is because they've got good things in them

called polyphenols,

and polyphenols do very, very good things to your heart

and your bloodstream.

Hundreds of studies across the world on millions of people show

that there's what's called a J curve,

that your risk of death goes down as you start to drink,

and then the more you drink, the curve of risk goes back up.

And here's what that curve looks like,

with the key bit right at the start.

It shows that one unit a day

can be better for you than none at all.

Go on to two units, however,

and that's completely cancelled out.

Then beyond that, the more you drink,

the higher the risk of dying

from an alcohol related disease.

But the proof that sticking to just one unit a day

actually lowers your risk is widely supported

and the Government was criticised

for apparently ignoring it when it comes to anyone but women over 55.

But that's not a criticism everyone supports.

People think that the J curve

has been dismissed when it shouldn't have been.

What they've done with the Government report is

that they've considered the whole balance, the whole picture,

so that's the risk of getting an alcohol-related disease, any disease,

but also the risks associated with acute alcohol consumption.

When you put it all together,

if you drink no more than 14 units a week

your risk of dying from an alcohol related disease

is only 1%,

which is comparable to risks of other things that you do quite often

like driving.

The truth is while those scary headlines

about no amount of alcohol being safe

made us think the new guidelines were saying

"Every single drop is dangerous"

in fact what it was really about was bringing the risks

into sharper focus.

We're not being told to stop drinking entirely

but it does make sense to think about the amount we sometimes have.

So to get a sense of what might be OK for me,

I've asked Dr Shikha Pitalia to put it into context.

So, Doctor, should I be feeling guilty about indulging

in a pint of beer every now and again?

There is absolutely no reason to feel guilty about having

a pint of beer every now and then.

And as long as you know your safe limits

and are drinking within those safe limits,

it's absolutely fine to do so.

OK. Well, that's music to my ears.

So, in terms of my safe limits,

what should I be looking at in terms of a unit for me?

Every man and every woman is different.

It may depend on your preferences,

so do you prefer a strong lager or beer,

or are you drinking strong wine?

I do drink a fairly strong lager

so what would be a safe amount of pints for me to be consuming

in one sitting?

A pint of strong lager can actually be three units

so it may well be that with your preference

what would be considered safe and moderate for you

is just one pint of strong lager.

One pint of strong lager four times a week would take me to my limit.

So perhaps one thing I should do is swap it for something else

that stretches out those units a little bit further.

After all, 14 units could also be a bottle and a half of wine,

eight small bottles of lager,

or 14 single shots of some spirits.

I guess, like many people,

I totally get the thinking behind the new guidance.

But putting the recommendations into practice

may take a bit of getting used to.

Still to come:

Some say the 5:2 diet has almost miraculous powers,

others reckon it's just another weight-loss fad.

So what really happens when we eat just 500 calories a day?

I'm just really concerned about mood swings.

I have to say, for the first two or three days,

you may notice that your mood is a little bit off

so just warn everybody around you.

The food we eat has amazing powers

and can help our bodies conquer all sorts of common conditions.

Every day, GP Dr Rangan Chatterjee sees patients

whose problems could be helped - or indeed even solved -

by changing their diet.

So we asked him to share some of his secrets.

Today he's looking at some of the foods that can help

with our hair and nails.

Because how we look on the outside is often about the fuel

we put inside our bodies.

In my experience, many patients don't make a connection

between the quality of their diet and the health of their hair.

Healthy hair relies on lots of nutrients, working together,

so the best diet to boost your barnet is one full of protein-rich

foods, lots of fruit, vegetables, beans, pulses and wholegrains too.

Together, they've all been linked to stronger, shinier,

healthier hair and scalp.

Without that wide spread of nutrients,

you might find your locks lacking or worse still, thinning,

because even losing our hair can be affected by what we eat.

Half of all men will experience baldness by the time they're 50,

while as many as eight million women will also suffer hair loss.

And in some cases, it's a result of a vitamin deficiency.

Common problems I see are hair that's falling out or thinning.

If that's the case, you might want to increase your intake

of iron-rich foods, such as red meats.

In particular, liver is a rich source of iron, as are dried figs,

apricots, mussels, oysters, chickpeas and tofu.

But contrary to popular belief -

a pint of Guinness contains very little.

You'd have to down three pints of the stuff to get

the same amount of iron as you'd get from one egg yolk.

But there is an easy way to top up your iron.

If you're having something with lots of iron in,

if you have vitamin C with it you'll absorb more.

So if you're going to have a bit of steak,

have an orange with it and it helps you absorb more iron.

Foods that can help blood flow to your scalp

and stimulate your hair follicles are also worth seeking out.

Leafy green veg like kale and spinach are particularly key,

thanks to the iron and the wide spread of nutrients they contain.

But unfortunately no amount of vitamins

can reverse male pattern baldness,

the type that's hereditary.

Just like your hair, the condition of your nails

reflects your overall physical health,

so the more varied and nutritious your diet,

the stronger your nails will be as well.

But there's one very common urban myth about the condition

of your nails that Dr Rangan is very keen to bust.

Something I bet you've heard from either your friends

or your colleagues is that a little white mark

on one of your nails may be a sign of something

like a calcium or zinc deficiency,

and generally that's not the case.

Whilst many white marks on many of your nails might indicate

something more serious, just the odd one here or there is probably just

due to a bit of trauma, or because you've just banged your nail.

After our waist-bands have been stretched

from a little bit of overindulgence,

many of us turn to a diet to help trim down a little bit,

and while over the years different diet plans have come and gone

the ones everyone are talking about these days

are based around occasional fasting,

so while most of the time you'll eat whatever you fancy

there are other days where you'll drop down

to about 500 or 600 calories.

So what's really happening to your body when you do it?

We wanted to find out if fasting's all it's cracked up to be.

Diet fads come and go,

but it's been a while since any plan for losing weight

has taken off quite so spectacularly as the 5:2 diet.

It captured the public's imagination

after being the subject of a BBC Horizon documentary

back in 2012.

And it's easy to see why.

For five days of the week, you stick to the food you'd normally eat.

But then, on two non-consecutive days,

you cut your calorie intake dramatically,

to around a quarter of what you'd normally have.

And it's claimed that the days you eat less

can help you lose around a pound a week.

But ever since we first heard of it,

the 5:2 diet has generated headlines with fervent supporters

praising its benefits,

and cynics questioning if it lives up to the hype.

I tried the 5:2 diet but it just didn't work for me.

I had no energy, I had to stay in bed all day and, yeah,

I just don't think it was the right diet for me.

My dad's actually trying it at the moment

and he's lost quite a lot of weight on it,

but similarly, he doesn't have a lot of energy.

Not tried it, no. Could do with doing a diet.

So, I mean...

Over the course of life we try most diets.

Doesn't sound too bad.

I know friends of mine who have challenging jobs who do do it

and cycle to work and cycle home and get through the day

but, yeah, I'd rather not.

I'd rather try and eat less all the time than do something drastic like that I think.

5:2's fans make some really bold claims about the powers

of fasting, with suggestions that it might help prevent cancers

and Alzheimer's, and even reverse diabetes.

Lots more research is really needed to substantiate all that,

although there is evidence that a very low calorie diet can put

type two diabetes into remission,

as it forces the body to use fat

that's stored around vital organs for energy.

But whatever the truth of its long-term benefits,

there's only really one thing most people want to get from the 5:2.

And that is to lose weight.

And on that point, critics says it's a short-term fix

to a long-term problem

because, like all diets that temporarily cut your calorie intake,

unless you're prepared to stick with this regime forever,

the weight you lose will most likely go back on when the fasting stops.

Tania MacDonnell from Leicester has been a yo-yo dieter for ten years,

and is keen to find a strategy that works long-term.

So she's about to try the 5:2 diet,

with the aim of losing 5st for good.

Ideally I would love to lose the weight I have piled on

so if there is any way to do that

then that would be fantastic.

To help Tania get to grips with 5:2,

we've asked Dr Chidi Ngwaba to give her a crash course in how it works.

He's a well-known lifestyle doctor who's long believed that

there are benefits to this kind of occasional fasting.

But he's not surprised that Tania's main worry is

how to get through the two days

when she'll be eating a maximum of 500 calories,

just a quarter of the average daily total for a woman.

I'm just really concerned about being hungry.

The good news is depending on what you eat...

if you eat foods that will allow energy to be slowly released

into your blood stream, you're not going to get a big insulin spike

and that actually can start to make you feel very hungry.

So, complex carbohydrates,

wholegrains, things like that

that will slowly release sugar into your system.

So you are not going to feel hungry all day as well,

and actually it can fill you up.

The foods Dr Chidi would recommend Tania has on her fast days

include wholegrains such as brown rice and porridge,

protein-packed eggs,

and complex carbs like green peas, potatoes, beans and lentils.

500 calories made up of those foods can go a long way.

But even though Tania's favourite treats are off the menu

on her two fasting days,

she can still have them the rest of the week, can't she?

Weight loss is just about burning up more calories than you take in,

and the 5:2 diet is just a simple way of doing that,

but if you over-indulge on the five days,

it will really negate everything you have done on the other two days.

Before Tania starts, she has one more question for Dr Chidi

and it's not about what the diet's going to do to her body,

but her mind.

I'm just really concerned about mood swings.

I have to say for the first two or three days,

you may notice that your mood is a little bit off,

so just warn everybody around you,

but after that, after about three or four days,

you'll be back to normal as your body adjusts

-and you will be completely as you were.

-OK.

Armed with Dr Chidi's advice,

the next day Tanya kick-starts her diet

with the first of her two fasting days this week.

Right, well, it's Sunday morning,

and its the day one of the fasting diet today.

So, hopefully, that will be all good and I won't be too hungry.

Obviously, today I don't really see a problem.

I do tend to get moody if I am hungry.

While it's usually recommended anyone on a diet like this

splits their 500 or 600 calories into two meals on a fast day,

there aren't any prescriptive rules

about when - or how often - to eat.

And Tania's decided to have all of today's maximum

intake of 500 calories in one main meal this evening.

She'll eat nothing at all until then.

So, with no food coming in

to produce the glucose she needs as fuel,

her body will look for other stores of energy instead.

This process actually does start to take place on day one.

Because once your glucose stores have been depleted

your body will need energy from somewhere,

and it will immediately start to take it from your fat stores.

Usually from your gut, from around your organs,

that what we call visceral fat.

This fat-burning process is called ketosis,

and it's at the heart of all diets based around the idea

of intermittent fasting.

5:2 may have hogged the headlines,

but there are plenty of alternatives along similar lines.

Take the Warrior diet, for instance.

No food for 20 hours, and then one big meal for dinner.

Or there's time-restricted feeding,

where you eat two meals in one narrow timeframe

but nothing else for the whole day.

But back in Leicester,

after having only liquids all day,

Tania's finding the lack of food inside her

is having a negative impact on her emotions.

I went to the shop and I think I might have been getting moody

because people were obviously getting in the way

and I was getting a little bit frustrated.

As Tanya's finding out,

it can be tricky for our bodies and minds

to adjust to the unpredictable nature of most fasts.

And the unexpected problems that can result

are one reason why dietician Dr Anna Daniels recommends caution

before rushing into one,

especially without taking advice from your GP.

Someone who undertakes a fast might find that they become really

fatigued, they might get dizzy, they might get irritable,

they might experience some constipation,

because they're not having enough fibre in their diet.

Fasting also shouldn't be undertaken by everyone.

So it certainly should not be undertaken by pregnant women,

or adolescents, and they need specific amounts of protein,

carbohydrate and micro nutrients for optimal growth and development.

So far, Tania's coping with no major side effects.

Her first fasting day is over, and what a way to end it.

She's just eaten her only meal of the day,

which had less calories

than you'd find in a standard-sized chocolate bar.

I had two poached eggs, around 100g of spinach,

and about 100g of asparagus,

so, lots of salt and pepper, very tasty.

So this evening's meal totalled about 195 calories.

I'm not anticipating eating anything more now

and I think if I do get hungry I think I'll just go to bed early.

I did wake up about half-past two

thinking it was actually the morning, so that's how good and much sleep I had.

Well, I was very hungry at that point,

but I had a glass of water, went back to sleep.

And it's now about eight o'clock in the morning

so I will have breakfast soon and set off for work.

And this morning's brekkie is something

Tania's very much looking forward to.

Her next fast day isn't for another two days,

but Dr Chidi is very keen that Tania remembers that

she shouldn't go crazy with her eating today.

So it's important to understand

that when you go back to a normal day's eating

you should be mindful of what actually you are eating.

So if you are eating things that are very high in calories,

your body will still respond as it always did,

and you'll start to lay down more fat and produce more fat.

Those calories will still add up,

so if you eat so much that you counterbalance everything

that you've lost in the two days,

well you're still going to put weight on.

It's one of the most common side effects of fasting.

The very act of depriving yourself of something one day

might make it easier to overeat the rest of the time.

Someone who's undertaking a fast might then crave carbohydrate

and crave food and then on the off days,

or times that they're not supposed to be fasting,

they're going to be eating a lot more,

and that can have actually a detrimental effect,

and really undo all the good work that they would have done

by trying to reduce their calorie intake.

40% of all dieters give up in their first week.

But as her second fasting day, tomorrow, comes around,

Tania's determined not to throw in the towel.

I'm hoping it's going to be a bit easier than I anticipate.

I have to say on Monday I was hungry after only having 195 calories

the day before, so I did seem to worry about food most of the day

but I didn't overeat,

I managed to stick to what I would normally have during the week.

So I'm going to have for breakfast a smoothie.

This will consist of around about 300ml of almond milk,

a largish handful of spinach,

and some blueberries and strawberries all whizzed up,

and that equates to 119 calories

so let's see how we go.

Tania's smoothie might be low on calories

but it's very high on nutrition.

And what's on the menu for lunch is equally wholesome.

Had a poached egg,

around about 100g each of spinach and asparagus, both steamed.

Not really thought about food until it was getting near to lunchtime,

really, whereas I would have thought on what I've eaten this morning

I would have been just thinking about food all day.

And hoping to grab what I could.

Um, so, no, it's been fairly easy.

Dr Chidi isn't surprised

that Tania's finding her second fasting day

less of a challenge.

So on day two, and subsequent fasting days,

it actually get psychologically easier to maintain the fast

throughout the day. It's not such a big hurdle.

And that's just because we just adapt to it, we're used to it.

And knowing that it's not going to be a prolonged fast,

you're going to have five days when you can eat normally,

and only two where you're fasting.

The rest of the fasting day proved surprisingly straightforward.

My meal this evening was 50g of the leanest steak I could possibly find

and 100g of steamed asparagus

and about the same of cauliflower mash.

And I think in total my calorie count for the whole day

is 356, so again I've been under.

Yeah, it's good. I thought I'd be struggling on 500,

and wanting more like 1,000,

but the two days have been OK.

Definitely think it's a mind over matter thing,

so I think you have to get your head into the right place with it

and do your best with it.

But the 5:2 diet is no quick fix.

To maintain any benefit long-term

you really do need to stick at it,

which is why some experts question whether fasting really is

a long-term solution.

What fasting doesn't do is it doesn't look at the diet as a whole

and balance of what you're eating.

There may be other ways that you can lose weight.

Increase your exercise, just eat more fresh fruit, vegetables,

more wholegrains,

it's not necessary to fast, really.

I think a balanced, healthy diet is far more evidence-based,

and better in terms of long-term weight loss.

That's the official position of the NHS as well.

But signs are emerging that some of the claims

made for the 5:2 diet's wider health benefits do have a scientific basis.

And while clearly more clinical data is needed

before there is anything approaching consensus on this particular topic

the anecdotal evidence supporting the diet

continues to make headlines.

As for Tania, in just seven days she could see the benefits of the diet.

But she's since decided to lose weight another way instead.

I'm really pleased to tell you that I lost a couple of pounds in that week.

It's not something I've carried on, I have to be honest,

the reason being I've got a friend whose a nutritionist

and she's given me a plan to follow,

basically cutting out carbs, sugar, and dairy.

She may not have stuck with it this time.

But Tania hasn't ruled out trying fasting again.

The fact that you can be relatively good for five days

and extremely good for two days I think is fairly achievable.

If you're going to do it. then I wish you all the best of luck,

and I'll probably do it again in the future.

If you're like us and you're partial to a mid-afternoon treat,

but you don't want to pile on the pounds,

remember you can find a collection of ideas and recipes

for healthy snacks at:

And on the website there's more information about the subjects

we're talking about throughout the series.

But I'm afraid that's where we have to leave it for today.

Thanks very much indeed for being with us

and I hope you've picked up some really useful tips

that mean you don't have to give up all the things you enjoy

in order to stay healthy.

So until the next time, thanks so much for joining us.

-Bye-bye.

-Goodbye.