Who said 2 non-consecutive days is not recommended? It doesn’t matter how you do them.

In fact, 2 consecutive days is better if you also want the health benefits of fasting, not just to losing weight part.

Some people find it much easier to do 2 consecutive days and get it out of the way, then have a normal rest of the week.

I personally found that stopping eating, then starting again, then stopping again is too messy. My food would go bad in the fridge by the time the fast day passed.

I now do Monday and Tuesday. I have my last meal on Sunday around 9pm and then the next proper meal is the breakfast on Wednesday morning.

On fast days, the only thing that I eat (drink?) is this Exante diet instant food (soup or shake) that has exactly 200kcal per portion but contains about 25% of the daily recommended does of most minerals and vitamins the body needs. Sometimes I also eat a nectarine right before bed, because I find it difficult to fall asleep on an empty stomach.

I feel great on Tuesday. I’ve felt even better when I didn’t eat at all on fast days, but physically I tend to binge on Wednesday because ‘I deserve it, I didn’t eat anything for 2 days!’. So to counteract that, I decided to eat something on fast days after all, and the binge desire/internal reasoning went away. I’ve lost 19 lbs in 4 weeks.

I’ve lost this much because fasting has somehow affected my eating habits on normal days too. I seem to me much more aware of the food that I eat, and previously healthy food that generally tasted bland to me now is quite delicious. I’ve also quit all sugar, drinks (except plain or carbonated water) and pretty much all processed food. Not because I wanted to, but because it felt… right.

I have an appetite for fruits and vegetables now, more than I did before. I do feel a need to eat fat foods – and I do, like a maniac, but I think that’s what our bodies actually need.

I’ve since found out that I’ve inadvertently started eating ‘paleo’ – like humans ate for 150.000+ years, before we invented agriculture and wheat, cheese and milk started entering our diets and we’ve started getting shorter, with bad teeth and poorer health.

This is appealing to me – to eat like humans ate for over 150.000 years. All natural vegetables and meat. As much meat as possible. With fat. Fruits too, but not too much. Every other day, and if possible, seasonal ones.

You can eat as much meat as you want as long as you don’t eat it every day. But that’s why 5:2 is here. Why not ever day? Well, because 5:2 and because again, humans did not always have access to fresh meat. Sometimes they went days and days without it, but meat is and always was our primary food. At least for the European race. Why? Well, we’re the only ones to have met and mated with the Neanderthals, who were pretty much 100% carnivores.

I find it difficult to reach 2000kcal per day now that I’ve cut out most processed foods. The only thing that I didn’t give up is muesli with milk in the morning, because that sits well with me, but sometimes I do a banana instead.

I eat a raw vegetable salad (with no toppings like mayo or dressings or other things). I usually make it from San Marzano tomatoes because they are really nice and sweet, lettuce, radishes, spring onions, bell peppers, leeks, etc.

Sometimes I add a boiled potato, sometimes I do a stir fry (just a bit) with some egg noodles.

That’s my side. There are so many possible variations of foods which include raw vegetables that it’s quite hard to get bored. Sometimes I put cheese, but sometimes I add a scrambled egg instead. Sometimes you can add fruit in it too (like an apple) or if you feel like eating something salty, add olives (or garlic/cheese stuffed olives if you’re feeling particularly wild that day).

That’s the side. If you get a side like that, even with one giant bowl, that’s barely 150kcal. You can put whatever you want next to it. I usually put 500g of rare sirloin or ribeye or 10 rashers of bacon or 2 big chunks of pork barbecue. I don’t do sausages or anything processed, so if I get bored of those meats, I also do raw smoked salmon, barbecued turkey or pan-fried chicken.

That’s my dinner and it’s about 600-700 kcal total. My breakfast is 200kcal and my lunch is 200kcal too (a light M&S raw salad, different types, just not the pasta, macaroni, etc. ). That barely brings me to 1400-1500kcal at the end of the day.

That’s why I lost weight I think. Strict fast days, a paleo diet on normal days with as much raw and fresh food as possible and a bit of exercise (sometimes I go to the gym now, or swimming now that it’s summer, but not that often since I like swimming in open air and it’s quite far from me).

If you try to eat like a prehistoric human, you don’t need to count calories. Your stomach will hurt from too much food before you manage to over-eat. I guarantee it.

You want it more simple than that? Here: Don’t eat anything that comes in a plastic wrap.