Hi all,
very nice to meet you all. Just registered and am keen to become part of your community. Firstly, let me tell you that I will give you all my numbers in the metric system. Always forget how much a stone is 🙂
Secondly, the 5:2 is really amazing and works on this side of the Channel as well. I had tried everything, from vegan to cutting out all sugar, but never really managed to loose much weight. Not that I have to loose lots, but it can be quite challenging to loose 7-9 kg. If you give up yet another diet after loosing 3 kg, you can tell yourself, oh well, 5 kg more or less don’t matter much. But before you know it, the 3 kg are on again and that is hugely frustrating.
Then more and more of my British colleagues talked about the 5:2 diet and how great it works and how happy they are. I was deeply, really deeply skeptical – not eating anything on 2 days a week? that sounded just so radical and difficult and so not fun. But somehow the memory was stored in the back of my head. And next thing I read in a major Sunday newspaper in Germany (FAS) was an article full of praise for this very diet. Saying that it is the thing to do as it is proven that the body needs to be challenged like this, going from fasting to feasting etc. I was always under impression that short time fasting is teaching your body to stow more fat.
What can I say? I gave it a try. The first 4 weeks were interesting. I learned a lot about myself.
To my surprise, the first thing I realized was that fasting with 500 calories is not as difficult as one would expect. And yes, the “tomorrow you can eat again whatever you want” did help.
Problem was that I took that literally. I ate way too much on the non-fasting days. So my weight went down a little bit on some weeks and stayed where it was on others.
And only then the real change happened. I was so frustrated that yet another diet experience would end in disaster, for the first time in my life (am 51 yrs) I really started a very detailed journey looking into my eating pattern. I got this app that lists all the food, the brands, with all calories. You can also add your daily exercises. The German version is called Yazio. Found it very user-friendly. Not for free though but not hugely expensive. But it really changed things for me. Only by hardly eating anything for 2 days/week I became conscious of all the details of the food that I am consuming.
Am now in the 2nd week of my life with 5:2 and this app and lost already one kg. Goal is to get rid of 3 or 4 more and then will try to hold my weight. And I am quite optimistic that this time is different as this is not another diet but a new way of eating and to deal with food.
It is actually quite fun to register all the food that you are eating. And seeing how many calories you have left. Planning for the evening snack, the glass of wine on a non-fasting day, then enjoying it without any guilt.
I also learned to substitute the margarine with the low-cal version. Tastes almost as good and is a fraction of calories. Also cutting down my beloved cheese and going for veggie sausages (yes, am a vegetarian), which are also much lower on calories. Yes, I know, it sounds like a no-brainer and don’t we all know it? But actually changing products, cutting out habits is more difficult than one would expect.
Twice in the past 10 days I forgot all about the daily top limit of calories and ate pretty much what came my way. Felt really bad afterwards, but added everything in the app anyhow. I still lost a kilo that week (only weigh myself once a week on the Saturday morning). So 5:2 is forgiving you your short sins – That was very encouraging.
Would be interesting to hear whether some of you also use such an app and find it useful.
So much for now. Look forward to hearing from you.
Karen
7:00 pm
4 Apr 16