Limiting yourself to just 500 calories one day and then stuffing your face with anything you want the next is the latest diet craze to hit the UK.

Those who have tried this alternate-day dieting or intermittent fasting profess to it's efficacy. It's even supported by well known healthy journalist, Dr Michael Mosley.

Mosley says he effectively decreased his body fat percentage by about 25 percent, improved his cholesterol and sugar levels and lost nearly a stone (about 6.35 kilograms) after just a month of intermittent fasting.

The diet directs you to eat normally for five days in the week while on the other two days, you’re restricted to eating just 600 calories.

Mosley told viewers during a excerpt on BBC2's Horizen show that he ate his 500 calories split over two meals, breakfast (ham and eggs) and dinner (steamed fish and vegetables), as he found that was the best way to avoid feeling hungry or deprived.

Some devotees say you should eat nothing at all during your two fast days while others say the 500 calories should be eaten at one meal at midday. Increased water consumption is suggested during these two fast days, otherwise you could suffer from digestive problem such as bloating, abdominal cramps and constipation – but despite these side-effects, devotees of the diet claim it really works.

According to scientists, intermittent fasting reduces the risk of disease such as Alzheimer’s and diabetes, helps you keep the weight down and can help individuals to live longer.

Dr Krista Varady of the University of Illinois in Chicago, one of the scientists involved in research into intermittent fasting, says that weight loss occurs because your body is no able to make up for that lack of food over the brief fasting period.

"People in our studies didn’t binge," she pointed out. "They only ate about 100 percent to 110 per cent of their calorie needs."

Still, the diet has been criticised by nutritionists who believe it could cause followers to actually put on weight because of overindulgence on feast days, as well as encourage them to develop eating disorders.

Zoe Harcombe, author of The Obesity Epidemic book told the Daily Mail that she was not comfortable with the binge and starve diet.

"I did this during my late teens and early 20s. It was called bulimia. My biggest concern is that it's an approach that could encourage disordered eating in people who are prone to that sort of behaviour."

Harcombe says the effects of this restriction may result in you experiencing symptoms related to low blood sugar.

"The body does its best to get us to eat. So if you're only eating a quarter of the calories you need, you can expect to experience symptoms associated with low blood sugar. Anything from feeling light-headed and having shaky hands to feeling irritable and lacking concentration."