Hello, everyone, from a rainy Brittany. I started the Fast Diet last week, with the aim of losing about 3kgs overall. I am overweight, and I have raised BP (due to ageing of the arteries) and cholesterol. That’s the confession bit over with!

I do exercise – Nordic walking, in particular, every alternate day unless it’s pouring down – and I don’t eat junk food. I don’t snack – mostly: those evening nibbles on nuts and bread sticks and other less healthy things do add up, so they’ve gone by the way now. I have no sense of smell, so that’s a level of temptation removed, and I never think about food except by the clock. (My OH thinks about food all day!) I cook every meal we eat from scratch, and have recently started using the Clever Guts recipes or adaptations of the same.

There is an element of heredity in gaining weight – look at your parents; but maybe it is simply that we inherit the same intolerances, and just because my mum and dad carried way too much fat doesn’t mean I have to. My brothers haven’t had a spare ounce in their entire lives; my sister battled with weight in her teens, when the rest of us were skinny as rakes. I began to put on weight in my 40s, and it’s crept up.

So, enough is enough; it’s got to go, but healthily, and in a way that is maintainable. Spring is a good time to start, so I’ve bought the books, read the facts, and I’m off and running. I lost half a kilo in week one, and I’ve got in touch with the inner feeling of being hungry, and don’t mind it. My major intolerance is sugar: no sooner eaten (or drunk) than stored. Cut that out, and I lose weight.

I’m not a fanatic, and I’m not a yo-yo dieter – just a middle-aged woman with too much middle!

One thing, though: English food portions are much bigger than French ones. There’s a risotto in the CG book that uses twice the rice I’d ever use for two people. Worth considering, if the 5-day part of the diet is tripping up the good work of the 2-day part.

fasting_me, it obviously works well for you. The most excessive meal we ever saw was an American style diner’s breakfast in England. It was grossly overdone, and the food that was wasted was plain wrong. Mind you, we watched a man eat his way through the lot while working at his computer, and we silently applauded his stamina.
Thanks for the welcome!

Angela, the last time I tried to lunch out in Dinard was at the end of January and it rained – a lot – and most places were shut! Dinan has a wonderful restaurant that we go to when we’re over that way, but it’s definitely a ‘reward yourself’ sort of place.

We lived in the Vienne before coming up here (too hot in summer, too cold in winter) and enjoyed the eating out in Poitiers. But I had my own gym then, which I miss.

I haven’t found the fast days too hard at all. Yesterday we had the tuna and bean dish from the recipe book, but I used chickpeas instead. I didn’t begin to feel empty until about 5 hours later, so will definitely do that one again.

Hope your husband joins in. Mine does, but to a point. Food matters more to him than it does to me!