I actually can not believe how well this ‘diet’ works! I say ‘diet’ as it doesn’t actually feel like a diet now, just a way of life!
My sister recommended I try 5:2 as she used it to shift her baby weight. When I first tried it, around this time last year, I sacked it in after a few tries as I thought I needed to try to work fast days around my exercise routine and fitting in gym days, social days and fast days just didn’t work. A few months later I developed shin splits which inhibited my exercise and the kgs started piling on! It wasn’t until I tried on one of my summer dresses in June that I realised how much I’d gained!
Given my fitness level had significantly dropped and I wasn’t in any particular gym routine I thought it might be a good time to give 5:2 another try, this time just concentrating on the eating and general daily exercise rather than vigorous gym workouts. It took about a month to be strict enough to actually stick to 500 kcal, I’d usually go over by between 100-300kcal but I was beginning to learn about how many kcal I actually needed each day and without really trying, my non fast day intake decreased.
After about 6 weeks, I could easily stick to only 500 and after a few more weeks I started adding in the gym classes. I’m now 3 months in, 7kgs lighter and have actually lost 15cm off my belly! Most of this has happened in the past month since I have included the exercise and reached a point where I don’t feel I need to eat that much on non fast days. I tend to eat exactly what I feel like, the portions are just much smaller which is dictated by my shrunken appetite. I also still drink alcohol!
So that’s it! Eat what I like, when I like, just not much at all 2 days a week. As long as you ease into it, it really doesn’t feel like a diet at all. I’m just dreading the plateau as I still have about 10kgs to go until I reach my target weight….