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I’m the cook, not the farmer. These are the people who did the real work, and the books I’d hand you next. Honest verdicts, not a sales pitch.
If you read only three
- The Obesity Code — Dr Jason Fung. For why. Insulin, not willpower. Start here.
- Fast Like a Girl — Dr Mindy Pelz if you’re a woman, or Outlive — Dr Peter Attia if you’re a man over 40. For how it applies to you.
- Eat Stop Eat — Brad Pilon or The Longevity Diet — Dr Valter Longo. For the protocol you’ll live with.
The science
- The Diabetes Code — Dr Jason Fung. Required reading if type 2 or pre-diabetes is in your life. Read it, then talk to your doctor.
- The Complete Guide to Fasting — Fung & Jimmy Moore. The clinical how-to, and good breaking-the-fast recipes.
- The Circadian Code — Dr Satchin Panda. The proper book on when to eat.
Living with it
- Delay, Don’t Deny — Gin Stephens. The gentle, friendly way in. Good if you’ve tried and found it too strict.
- Fast. Feast. Repeat. — Gin Stephens. The full daily-protocol treatment. Long, so skim to your chapters.
- Life in the Fasting Lane — Fung, Eve Mayer & Megan Ramos. The human side, honest and often funny.
- ROAR — Dr Stacy Sims. Not a fasting book, and more cautious about fasting for women than Pelz. Read both and decide.
The long game
- Lifespan — Dr David Sinclair. A thrilling read about where the science might go. Keep your eyebrows raised at the supplement chapters.
- Fast This Way — Dave Asprey. The biohacker corner. Take the practical bits, skip the pitches.
- The Fast 800 — Dr Michael Mosley. Faster and stricter than my ladder, and a good fit for some. Clear and careful, like the man himself.
The kit (all of it, honestly)
You don’t need a cupboard full of gadgets. You won’t find a supplement stack here. This is everything that actually helps:
- Sea salt. The single most useful thing on a long fast. A quarter teaspoon in water does more than any sachet.
- LoSalt, for potassium on the longer fasts, from day two. Not if you have kidney trouble or take potassium-holding blood-pressure or heart tablets: read the Sensible Bit first.
- A one-litre water bottle. Three or four refills a day on a long fast, and you know where you are.
- A tape measure. Your waist tells the truth when the scale won’t.
- Herbal teas. Hot drinks blunt hunger waves better than cold ones.
- Six eggs, boiled, in a bowl in the fridge. Not available on Amazon. The most useful fasting kit there is.
And the book that ties it all together? The 72-Hour Fast. Biased, obviously.
Greg x
