Kudos to Dennis Bird, the author of the 5Percenters blog, for discovering the simplicity of Fast-5 and for introducing it to his audience. During his interview with Dr. Bert Herring, their conversation addresses some of frequently asked questions, like:
Listen to the full interview here.
Dr. Herring talks about the “mirage that’s been created by the marketing from the breakfast industry” and his literature review during which he discovered that “the calorie restriction research has shown quite clearly that doing with less food could consistently extend the lifespans and healthspans of many animals.” He shares his surprise in discovering that “the one known way that animals could have an extended lifespan was not even taught to me [Dr. Herring] in medical school,” and notes that the gap illustrates “how siloed research and reality can be.”
In his discussion about how Fast-5 started, Dr. Herring highlights an important differentiation between Fast-5 and some other diets that are popularized and promoted in the media. Fast-5 “wasn’t a theoretical thing … [it] was what was actually working and what [Dr. Herring and others had] already been living with for some time and had found to be very effective and practical.” He observed something that worked for him and for “some other people who were willing to try it out,” and then poured through and studied literature spanning seventy-five years and multiple scientific disciplines to understand why it worked. He analyzed, distilled and translated the research into a quick and easy-to-read book, The Fast-5 Diet and the Fast-5 Lifestyle. He also made the full manuscript for the book available as a free PDF download.
Through his work to share the Fast-5 way of eating (WOE) with others across the world since 2005, Dr. Herring has been helping to “set people free who have been sort of imprisoned by their own body and unable to change it.” We’ve featured a few of their stories here.
Here at Did I Enrich Today, we especially admire Dr. Herring’s realism and pragmatism when it comes to navigating the way forward to a fully enriched life:
With 6 billion people in the world, there are too many different combinations of food choices, schedules, genetic makeups and family situations and so on to say that one thing is going to work for every person. So what I [Dr. Herring] encourage is for people to start somewhere and adjust as needed to see the effects that they should be having… social life is as much a part of being healthy as choosing a decent diet.”
Dr. Herring encourages people to do their own study of one. During the interview he said, “experiment with your own biology, your life, your schedule, your needs, the food choices that you make and find the result that works for you.” Now that’s an enriching way to discover your best health!
