The 5 : 2 Diet – it works for me and mine

Pre-Lodge Farm was a time when I was gym fit, healthy, a lot thinner and underworked with cute little children.

How times have changed, not to sound to much like a grumpy old women – we bought a derelict farm house, lived in a caravan for a year and worked like clangers – My weight ballooned, my fitness deteriorated, my bones ached, my children turned in to teens and I hit my 40’s-ish.

For years I’ve been trying to loose the 2 stone I put on eating cookies with the builders, feasting on BBQ meats in the caravan and over consuming in all directions ever since. I’d go down only to go up a tad more – a typical yo yo diet.

Then after hearing so much about it I tried the 5:2 with encouraging success – 2 months on I’ve lost over a stone and am half way to my perfect weight. I’m back in the gym to help it along but most of all I’m actually enjoying the fast days knowing that I can only go down and improve health and longjevity.

I’m studying it big time so I can put on a 5:2 cookery club – in short – you eat normally 5 days a week sticking to your recommended daily calorie intake, then for 2 intermittent days you have a 500 for women and 600 calorie for men fast day. It really works – you actually can’t go wrong as long as you stick to it. Theres a few side effects like disturbed sleep, moodiness and hunger pangs but nothing you can’t cope with if at all. Plus you only have to watch what you eat 2 days a week and you kind of feel good doing it – you learn control, a lot about what calories are in what and the next day you know you’ll weigh less.

For breakfast I have 30g porridge, 100ml skimmed milk made up with water with a black tea at around 150 calories. At Lunch time I started off having 1/2 tin of mushy peas with some mint sauce at around 100 calories but soon got bored of that and now have a small banana with 2 ryvita or 3 crisp breads at around 150 calories leaving me a 150 calorie evening salad, soup or steam fry with half an orange, kiwi or a few grapes for my evening snack. Plus I drink black tea and enjoy water all day to fill me up. Of course you can have your 500-600 calories any how you like, some people avoid meal times so they can enjoy more calories in one go but I like to space it out.

My previous diets consisted of limited calories every day which never worked because as soon as I ate over that my body held on to fat plus weight would come of slowly if at all. Now I get to enjoy my recommended calorie intake for my age of 1700 calories which is more than I had before – – So I’m loving it, enjoying more food than before and still loosing it.

I even managed to go out for lunch last week on a fasting day – we popped in to Yo Sushi and since everything on the menu has been calorie counted we opted for 1/2 miso soup each at 30 calories, 1 kaiso salad at around 120 calories and then shared some sushi – leaving me 100 calories for a raw salad at dinner time.

So its cheap, allegedly extremely healthy for you with the potential to help you live longer, manageable and effective – its certainly well worth considering.