Dr Michael Mosley has been sharing his words of wellness wisdom and weight loss tips for a while now. The science journalist has written several books including The Fast 800, which is based on cutting calories to 800 per day (not something we’d recommend and definitely something to approach with caution if you are curious), and is also the founder of BBC Radio 4 podcast, Just One Thing, in which he shares one thing we could all do to live healthier and happier lives.
SEE: 5 ways to feel fuller for longer
It’s here that he’s shared several diet and weight loss tips and tricks that we won’t dread, rather look forward to, and that are probably different to anything you’ve ever tried before. Read on for the ones we can’t get enough of.
The Fast 800 by Dr Michael Mosley, £7.89, Amazon
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Exercise less
OK, when we say exercise less, we mean less at any one time. Dr Michael Mosley is a proponent of ‘exercise snacking’, which he describes as “strictly short bursts of exercise”.
In an interview on BBC One’s Morning Live, he said: “We all know we should be doing about 30 minutes a day, 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity. But we struggle to fit it into the day quite often, so the idea behind exercise snacking is you can break it down into really, really short sections. And it can be as short as a minute or two, it can be a five minute walk.
“There is research to suggest it is as beneficial as doing it in one chunk and it can be more beneficial. It can be something as simple as - and I’ll demonstrate now - getting up and sitting down on your chair,” Michael added. Sounds like our kind of workout.
MORE: Best weight loss tips to try, from metabolism boosting workouts to sleep
Eat chocolate
In an episode of his podcast, Michael hailed the benefits of dark chocolate for lowering blood pressure and improving heart health. Speaking to the Daily Mail, he explained: “The beneficial compounds are flavonoids, but to be effective the chocolate has to be dark and made up of at least 75 per cent cocoa.” In other words, Dairy Milk won’t cut it, but it’s good news for dark chocolate fans.
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Play video games
Chances are you associate video games with lazy, introverted teenagers, but Michael Mosley reckons it can actually help our brain and vision. Professor Daphne Bavelier, a neuroscientist at Geneva University told him that they can help our memory, and also our ability to multitask. He suggests those with action and that require quick decision-making.
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Get as much sun as possible
Yep, even more reason to book that holiday. Dr Michael Mosley bills a bit of sun as the best source of vitamin D, which plays a huge part in protecting us against viruses like Covid, and also improves our mood and lowers blood pressure.
Sing your heart out
Much like the exercise high we get from serotonin (our happy hormone), Dr Michael Mosley says that singing can have the same effect, albeit with endocannabinoids (chemicals that help relax your body). In an article for the Daily Mail, he said: “An associate professor of psychobiology and epidemiology told me that singing has been shown to not only reduce stress hormones such as cortisol, but to reduce chronic inflammation, linked to depression.”
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