The Tim Noakes Diet in 6 Steps

Tim Noakes, Sports Science Institute of South Africa. Eat meat. Eat fish. But most importantly, eat fat. He discovered he was pre-diabetic. He had gastric reflux for 10 years. He was plagued by headaches. He had sleep apnoea. Since being on the diet for 14 months, and he is the lightest he’s been in 20 years. After a month, his sleep apnoea disappeared, his headaches vanished, no more gastric reflux and no more spastic colon. Even his eyesight improved.

The diet that Noakes is following is the Harvey-Banting Diet that became popular in the 19th century. In simple terms it’s called the high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet that produced astonishing results. Here’s how it’s done:

1. There are no meal times. No portion sizes. No kilojoule restriction. Find carbohydrates you can eat which don’t have sugar added. If it’s processed, it’s got sugar. The brain doesn’t regulate carbohydrates very well.

2. The Noakes diet is actually not high-protein; it’s a high-fat, moderate-protein, low-carbohydrate, no-hunger diet.

3. Polyunsaturated vegetable oils are very unhealthy because humans can’t metabolise them. Humans were designed for the fish oils and the ones that come in cattle and meat. It doesn’t matter if it’s saturated, you don’t want the vegetable oils.

4. Change from a meat-based diet to a grain-based diet leads to two things: humans got shorter and nutrition-deficiency diseases appeared such as beri beri, pellagra and scurvy.

5. Avoid refined high-sugar carbohydrates and replace them with whole-grain, high-fibre carbohydrates.

6. Not everyone is going to benefit from this diet, only if you are on the overweight side.

Mbali Radebe