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How I got my dream body at 45...and, says MIMI SPENCER, it changed not just her waist size and wardrobe but her whole personality, too

Confidence: Mimi Spencer says she is finally at ease with her body at the age of 45

How do you feel about your body? In the brutal light of day, on the beach, in a (gulp) bikini? If you're anything like me, the very thought might make you shudder.

As you pack for your summer holidays, you'll probably be thinking about sarongs, kaftans, cover-ups, a swimsuit that holds in your tummy and something, anything, that might draw attention away from your bottom as you walk from pool to bar (fringing? A full mariachi band, perhaps?). We all do it.

It may not be something we're proud of - heaven knows, we have enough real challenges in our lives to not sweat the small stuff - but something as itsy-bitsy as a bikini can loom large as summer approaches.

The sun arrives and suddenly it's the elephant in the room. Except, we all think we're the elephant. I know I did for years. But this year, at the age of 45, everything has changed.

Just recently, I lost a significant amount of weight on The Fast Diet  (of which more in a moment).

Now, 21lb down, something seismic happened, not only outwardly - yes, my jeans suddenly felt great - but inwardly, too: I began to trust my body again, in a way I hadn't trusted it since 1989, since the pre-motherhood, pre-mortgage years.

Like so many otherwise sane women, I'd spent a good quarter of a century flipping between diets like a mackerel caught in a net. Though never overweight (I worked in the fashion industry, which is a guard enough against that), I had always carried a bit of extra.

It came to a head, as it does for so many of us, after I had two children. The stone I gained with motherhood stuck around; it was there when I dressed, and there when I undressed. It was there when I took my toddlers swimming at the local pool, or when I wanted to wear a vest top or a shorter skirt, or when my thighs would kiss as I walked. And most of all, it was there on the beach.

I would wear swimsuits, of course, but with a hum of anxiety at the back of my mind, tending to hold my breath, only getting up from a prone position when the coast was clear.

I tried every diet going, partly for professional reasons (I've written on the subject for decades), but mostly because I was fed up with feeling bigger than I truly wished to be. I was always half a stone over, sometimes a stone. I'm 5ft 7in, and at 10 st  4lb, I looked and felt heavy, in body and in heart.

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So it was Dukan for me, or Atkins, or grapefruit, or back-to-back calorie control, week upon week, in an attempt to skinny down for the summer holidays. Nothing worked, at least not in the medium term.

It was all too dull, too tough, too repetitive - the constant deprivation required to hold back, to say no, to avoid celebration cakes and bread baskets and birthday suppers and the two fingers of Twix lying in the door of the fridge.

Like so many otherwise sane women, I'd spent a good quarter of a century flipping between diets like a mackerel caught in a net. Though never overweight, I had always carried a bit of extra

I discovered, as many of us have, that I simply wasn't cut out for the serial, unending bore of dieting.

And then I met Dr Michael Mosley. He'd been researching the ins and outs of the Intermittent Fasting method for a BBC Horizon programme on TV. Here was a part-time diet that might work for me. 

We ended up writing a book together, which swiftly became a bestseller both here and in the U.S. Since New Year, 380,000 copies have sold in the UK alone. When people ask me why the diet is selling so well, there's only one answer: because it works.

The basic approach is uncommonly simple: slash your calorie consumption to a quarter of your normal intake for two days each week.

On the other five days, you eat normally. And 'normally' can include a flapjack, Sunday roast with all the trimmings, or a half bottle of pinot grigio. It doesn't matter: on a non-Fast Day, you are blissfully free of diet rules.

So it was Dukan for me, or Atkins, or grapefruit, or back-to-back calorie control, week upon week, in an attempt to skinny down for the summer holidays. Nothing worked, at least not in the medium term (stock image)

The results of this simple expedient have been, for many who have made contact with Michael Mosley and myself, spectacular - in the same way as they were for me. In a little over 12 weeks, I lost 21 lb and I gained, for the first time in two decades, a body that could happily wander down to the seafront in a bikini. Paradise.

In fact, it was on a beach near my home in Brighton, on one of the few sunny days of spring, that I realised quite how far I had come. I happily stripped down to my pants and a T-shirt and paddled, just like the children - something that would never have crossed my mind before.

It was a moment of real liberation. I recognise that this is, in the grand scheme of things, hardly an earth-shattering achievement.

But I also know that huge numbers of women will understand the pleasure that such a change can bring. Research at the Max Planck Institute For Human Development in Berlin found that a woman's weight has more impact on her happiness than the state of her love life does.

Weight matters, whether you applaud the fact or not. Lose weight and your clothes start to sing. Lose weight and people notice. But it's more than this: something happens on a visceral level.

There's a relief from the droning hum of body doubt, a release from that dark and nebulous place, a place where you surreptitiously, instinctively hide from view.

 At last, I’m freed from the droning hum of body doubt

Reach your target weight - whatever that may be - and you feel in control, joyous.

You feel you have become all that you can be. I'm not delighted that the world is viewed through the stark prism of body awareness. But, like it or not, our culture is caught up in the cult of thin. As much as anything, we have ourselves to blame, with our constant carping and comparisons, poring over pictures of celebrities in their swimmers, scrutinising their bingo wings or muffin middles to look for discrepancy from the perceived ideal.

Interestingly, it may even be that when it comes to judging each other's bodies (and our own) we are merely subject to immutable laws of biology.

When researchers at Bristol University asked volunteers to look at images of actors and actresses and analysed their eye movements, 61 per cent of women spent their time looking only at the females in the pictures and their eyes tended to roam over the whole figure, not just the face.

The researchers concluded that this makes sense in the context of sexual competition: it is natural for people to size themselves up against rivals.

But whatever the cause, it's clear that body shape, body size and where you see yourself on this grand graph of life really matters. It's enough to ruin a day or blight a fortnight in the sun. The fact that I am now at my Goldilocks weight is truly pleasing. It opens up a whole wardrobe of fashion possibilities (white jeans, shoestring strappy tops, summer shorts) and, yes, it feels great.

Great enough to have my picture taken wandering down the beach in a bikini? Hell, yeah. A year ago I would have run a mile and climbed the nearest palm tree to avoid it. Now? Bring it on.

Dr Mosley and I ended up writing a book together, which swiftly became a bestseller both here and in the U.S.  When people ask me why the diet is selling so well, there's only one answer: because it works

Not that I want to flaunt my bikini body, exactly - that still makes me shudder, and the pictures here are published under mild duress. But I feel that perhaps I can prove - to women of a certain age, women who might think that their body-beautiful days are behind them, women who've struggled with their weight, women who have tried everything - that it can be done.

You can change your figure in your 40s and beyond: all it takes is a little planning, a little willpower and a little push. Of course, there are probably better and more sustainable sources of happiness than a slightly smaller bottom.

But far beyond the issues of weight that seem to coil around us like Gulliver's bonds, there are the significant and well-reported health benefits that weight loss, particularly using the Intermittent Fasting method, can bring.

My father, by way of example, has lost 32lb on the Fast Diet since Christmas. At 75, he is as lean and fit as he has been in four decades and his GP is delighted. Even if you baulk at the twisted thinking of the body shape argument, it's impossible to deny that finding a healthy weight, whoever you are, whatever your age, can only be to the good.

For any woman, adding a great bikini to the mix is simply the icing on the cake.

The Fast Diet by Mimi Spencer and Dr Michael Mosley, is published by Short Books, £7.99. The Fast Diet Recipe Book, by Mimi Spencer and Dr Sarah Schenker, is published by Short Books, £14.99.

HOW MIMI DID IT

The Fast Diet requires only two days of calorie cutting per week. Many people choose to fast on Monday and T hursday, avoiding the social whirlwind of the weekend. Doing non-consecutive days gives you a psychological advantage in knowing that tomorrow is a 'normal' day.

One of the keys to the diet's success is its simplicity. On a Fast Day, just eat a quarter of your usual calories - so that's 500 for a woman, 600 for a man. Many fasters have a protein-rich breakfast at about 7am and then a veggie/ protein evening meal at about 7pm.

The greatest benefits should come with a longer 'fasting window', so try to avoid eating (though drink plenty of water) between those meals. On a fast day, avoid carbohydrates, particularly refined ones. For dozens of meal ideas, get inspiration from The Fast Diet Recipe Book.

Expect that you will feel hungry on fast days, but only for a short period. For most people, these pockets of hunger are manageable and soon pass. If you must snack, make it a fast-friendly snack: an apple, some strawberries or a handful of almonds, for example.

ON A FAST DAY...Say no to... Eggs are a brilliant basis for a fast day breakfast

White flour products, such as cakes, biscuits and white bread. Butter and animal fats.Fruit juice. If you are going to have fruit on a Fast Day, go ahead. But have the whole fruit rather than juice, and stick to low GI fruit such as berries, cherries, apples and pears. Milky coffee. A large latte can clock up more than 300 calories, so don't waste your quota on a fast day. Sugary foods. Sugar is nutritionally empty and a waste of precious calories. Say yes to… Lean protein. Eggs are a brilliant basis for a fast day breakfast. For an evening meal, try grilled fish, prawns or an oven-baked chicken breast (but no crispy skin). Plant protein. Beans, lentils, legumes of all varieties offer bulk and fibre on a fast day, and are packed with vital nutrients. Win-win. Big piles of veggies, grilled or steamed, flavoured with lemon, chilli, garlic, or all three. Introduce flavour where you can. Slow-burn carbohydrates, such as oats. Don't overdo the carbs though: it is better to keep them to a minimum and max out on veg instead. Herbal teas. For more tips, go to thefastdiet.co.uk






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