The 5:2 Diet - Week One

The 5:2 Diet (aka Intermittent Fasting): Week One

I have started the 5:2 diet, the basic concept is that you fast for 2 days out of every seven. On those days consume less than 600 calories. The only other caveat is that you don't have the two fast days consecutively.

So I chose tuesdays and thursdays as it's a lot easier to achieve it when I am at work.

Day one was surprisingly easy and I had less than 100 calories for the approximately 36 hours (from 9 pm to 9 a.m the day after the fast day) and felt little hunger at all. The second day which  was only 24 hours later was lot more noticeable assumably because I had just done one and therefore had less  in the tank. Again I could easily get through the day but I consumed around 500 calories the second day because I needed to, which was fascinating. I can see the people who do alternate day fasting working a lot harder on those off days.

Interesting for me these days are the weekends, as I relax my diet I notice that the less busy I am the more I tend to consume without thought. I Can easily put on 1-2 kilos every weekend if I am eating with zero inhibitions, which I have been doing to see what happens, and so I can see that this diet is most effective if you don't over-react at the end of you fasting period.

The first fast day took me back from 92 to 91 (as the previous weekend I had gained 2 kilos) and the second fast day took me down to a new low of 90.3 kgs.

However in the last couple of days (Friday and Saturday) I put on another 2 kilos - aided by the lack of exercise - I have been to a Xmas party and too busy or suffering from bad timing - to get on the bike for a few days.

With attention to the snacking, the uncontrolled elements and a resumption of daily exercise I can see this being very effective.