The Kekwick Diet was named after one of its developers, Alan Kekwick. It was documented in a study titled:

“Calorie Intake in Relation to Body Weight Changes in the Obese,” Lancet, July 28, 1956, 155-161 by Alan Kekwick and Gaston Pawan.

Basically, what they did was to take a group of overweight subjects and put them in three groups. Each group received 1000 calories per day. One group was fed 90% carbohydrates, the second group 90% protein, and the third group 90% fat.

The group receiving 90% carbohydrates gained an average of 0,24 pounds per day of the study. The group receiving 90 protein lost an average of 0,6 pounds per day of the study, and the group receiving 90% fat lost an average of 0,9 pounds per day of the study.

This clearly demonstrates the superiority of diets high in protein and fats over diets high in carbohydrates. Note that each group received only 1000 calories per day. It’s interesting to note that even at the very restricted level of 1000 calories per day, subjects fed 90% carbohydrates actually GAINED weight.

A 1000 calorie per day diet of 90% fat is not a very exciting diet, but it can achieve the fat loss you apparently wish to achieve.

Do please note that the Kekwick is a diet designed by doctors and tested in clinical trials, so don’t be in too much of a hurry to dismiss it outright. It certainly isn’t a diet that should be widely used, however.

Finally, the Kekwick diet isn’t recommended unless you are extremely insulin resistant and have not been able to lose body fat on any other diet, including a more conventional low-carbohydrate diet.

In the book, Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution, Dr. Atkins wrote that the Fat Fast is for the people who are severely resistant to weight loss. It’s not to “speed up” the rate of your loss because you believe you are losing too slowly.

According to Dr. Atkins you can be severely metabolically resistant to weight loss for a number of reasons. But you have to rule out any weight loss “stallers” that can be reversed or alleviated.

Before considering doing the Fat Fast:

1. Did you follow the book exactly during Induction and still didn’t lose any weight?

In other words, did you only eat what was listed on the Induction Acceptable Foods list, followed the rules of Induction, exercised, took your vitamin supplements, etc. If you didn’t do any or all of these things, your lack of weight loss might not be due to metabolic resistance to weight loss at all and you should really consider doing the diet properly before considering to do the Fat Fast.

2. Did you go to your doctor to have tests done for the following: hyperinsulinism, thyroid problems, and yeast overgrowth?

If any of these things apply to you, then your doctor should be able to give you treatments to help you with these problems and once these problems are solved your weight loss, typically, will improve.

3. Are you on any medications that can interfere with your weight loss?

Dr. Atkins cites anti-arthritis medications, steroids, hormones (birth control pills, HRTs), anti-depressants, diuretics and beta-blockers as some of the medications that can interfere with weight loss. If you are on any of these medications, you should sit down with your doctor and try to figure out if any alternatives can be given to you instead.

If you have gone through this list and have ruled out these things with your doctor, then Fat Fast might be an option for you.

Fat Fast/Kekwick diet isn’t for you if:

1. You “cheated” through your Induction phase by not strictly following the Rules and/or eating foods not on the Acceptable Foods List or not in the quantities allowed during Induction. Those sneaks, cheats, and one bites can severely derail weight loss in some people.
2. You are losing weight and want to break a stall.
3. You want to speed up your metabolism to lose weight faster.
4. You want to lose weight faster.

Two British researchers, Prof. Alan Kekwick and Dr. Gaston L.S. Pawan, did the groundbreaking research on the metabolic advantage. In the 1950s and 1960s the two were at the top echelon of British obesity research, both serving as chairmen of many international conferences.

In the early 1950s the two researchers were struck by the many studies that suggested that diets of different compositions of fat, protein and carbohydrate provided differing rates of weight loss.

Their subsequent study on obese subjects found that those on a 1,000-calorie diet comprised of 90 percent protein and especially those on a diet comprised of 90 percent fat lost weight (0.6 pounds and 0.9 pounds per day, respectively). However, when the same subjects were given a diet with the same number of calories, but comprised of 90 percent carbohydrate, they did not lose any weight in fact, they gained a little.

Kekwick and Pawan then replicated a study with humans that they had previously done on animals and found the same phenomenon: A diet of 1,000 calories worked well for weight loss as long as carbohydrate intake was low, while a high-carbohydrate 1,000-calorie regimen took off very little weight. They then showed that their subjects did not lose at all on a so-called balanced diet of 2,000 calories. But when their diet contained primarily fat and very little carbohydrate, these same obese subjects could lose weight even when they ate as many as 2,600 calories a day. The difference is that weight loss between the two programs comes close to being a pound per day. Despite the Middlesex doctors impeccable reputations, the majority of their colleagues remained skeptical, given their calorie-is-a-calorie mind-set. They set out to disprove this intellectual bombshell that Kekwick and Pawan had dropped on them.

Kekwick and Pawan conducted water-balance studies that showed water loss to be only a small part of the total weight lost. Kekwick and Pawan then embarked on a two-year study of mice in a metabolic chamber. By measuring the loss of carbon in the feces and urine, they were able to show that the mice on the high-fat diet excreted considerable unused calories in the form of ketone bodies, as well as citric, lactic and pyruvic acids. At the end of the study period, they analyzed the fat content of the animals bodies and found significantly less fat on the carcasses of the mice that had been fed a high-fat, controlled carbohydrate diet.