I will fast on Monday and friday. That is it. Tue-thurs are fair game. That being said You don’t want to stuff yourself silly for three days straight. This year we are going to take our boys away for the week so we plan to have pretty set times to eat while we are away, which will make it easier than being at home and just eating all day long

Alan (my husband) are on holiday from fasting between Friday 20 December and Monday 6 January.

We both did 5:2 from February – September 2013; now on 6:1 since as we’re both now a healthy weight/shape. I have gone down 3 sizes since I started and I am not sure what I weigh as I regard it as fairly meaningless and rarely bother. I am helping keep the local charity shops in business and it’s great to have the excuse to update my wardrobe. 😉

I gave up wheat etc 2 months ago, following my ‘tin-pot’ version of vegetarian LCHF which is working well for me – I feel well and fit on it and never hungry. We both walk and cycle most of the time (no car) and we do weight-training once/twice per week. We both like a drink and try not to overdo it. Best of all is the prospect of never eating hated muesli (which I call ‘Happy Dog’) ever again!!

Meanwhile, Alan eats carbohydrate like there is no tomorrow and he remains as a skinny as a rake…

I read the posts on this forum from time-to-time and I’m struck by how many people report weighing themselves frequently, even daily, and get very distressed if the scales don’t change or even go the wrong way.

CONTROVERSY ALERT: It is very easy to get self-obsessed if you’re dieting and I would regard the compulsion to fill-in My Fitness Pal, count calories, stress about exceeding your TDEE (??) as symptoms of this.

Rather, if as someone who has had some success with 5:2, can offer my simplistic 2-pence worth, it would be:

Let how you feel and look be your guide, not the scales. Eat sensibly on your normal-eating days but don’t stress about it. If you miss a week (or 2) just start again when you are ready. It is actually very simple to do 5:2 and it’s about health rather than just weight-loss.

Stick to the basic programme (in the book or the various ‘how-to’guides). Be patient, ignore any advice with equations or scary acronyms in it and remember it’s a lifestyle choice which we’re lucky to have in the mostly-overfed Western hemisphere.

Above all, please don’t let it become an alternative religion with its associated guilt, sin and penitence if you fall short. Over time it does seem to work for most people who stick at it but it takes a while to get results. The best bit is that it will help to alter your food preferences in a good direction if you give it some time and relax into it.

Thanks to 5:2, I’m slimmer, fitter, more alive than the chronically-tired, fed-up, crisp/bisuit-addicted Grandma with a broken ankle that I was last 4 February (my 60th birthday). Physically, mentally and emotionally I have not looked back and I look forward to a 2014 when with my new energy and motivation I can stop thinking about my body and what I do/don’t put into it and start looking outwards again. Sorry if I sound like Grandma – I am Grandma!

Finally, whatever it is you’re celebrating in this dark and dismal season, please do give yourself permission to treat yourself and have a holiday from fasting – you will be following an excellent and age-old tradition, after all.

Best wishes and Season’s Greetings to everyone.

Here here to the above, you have to live and have fun, and it is Christmas holiday time.

January is another year to slim us…