The Reverse-Ageing Diet

Can eating protein for breakfast and, yes, carbs at night, combined with intermittent fasting and other lifestyle changes, trick your body into eating its own fat and ageing backwards? Alex Kuczynski drinks the ‘autophagy tea’ in search of answers

THIS YEAR, the holidays really took a toll. I had a grown-up birthday, which somehow gave me licence to drink eggnog with rum every night for a week. Then my eight-year-old got horribly sick and I stayed awake with him five nights in a row, all while nursing a chronic eggnog hangover. By New Year’s Day my son had finally recovered, but I was a puffy and sallow wreck.

I needed to get my mojo back. So when Glow15: A Science- Based Plan to Lose Weight, Revitalize Your Skin, and Invigorate Your Life, by Naomi Whittel, arrived on my doorstep, I didn’t need a lot of convincing. Its claim? By carefully combining intermittent fasting with varying protein intake as well as other lifestyle changes, I could stimulate an internal clean-up process known as autophagy, which reduces inflammation throughout the body, erasing years from my face — and inches from my waist — in just 15 days. “Think of autophagy as a Roomba inside your cells, cleaning and clearing damaged parts,” Whittel says. “When autophagy functions optimally, it works to clear away the cellular junk that can lead to fat and wrinkles.”

First, the fun part: four days a week, you get to eat lots of fat and protein for breakfast and end your day with carbs. Snacks are permitted: one high-protein mid morning, and a carb-rich one in late afternoon. And moderate amounts of dark chocolate (30 grams) and red wine (one glass) are not only permitted but also enthusiastically endorsed as healthful treats for the beneficial flavonoids they offer.