Starving to live the fast dieting craze: a feast or a farce?

For many people the words fasting and self-denial conjure up negative images, ones of pallid, listless bodies and of hard-to-bear sacrifice that are out of tune with the zeitgeist of the me generation.

But more and more people are vouching for the physical and mental benefits that drastically cutting the body's food supply for limited, regular periods can bring, including preventing illness and disease and prolonging life.

Of course, the practice of fasting, especially as a way of increasing spiritual awareness, is far from new, being a staple of many religions going back thousands of years. All the more surprising then that in the materialistic 21st century millions are adopting intermittent fasting as a kind of secular sacrament, one that rather than enlightening them will make their bodies lighter, with all the other benefits that this is said to bring.