Hi everyone, I’m Tilly and I’m new here. I’m 23 and from the UK. It would be great to chat to people on here and learn their motivations for 5:2!

Although I’d like to lose a few pounds, I’m not overweight and am mainly doing it for other health reasons – partly to see if it will help my IBS. I tend to find the more I overeat, the worse it gets, so hoping that giving my stomach a break a couple of days a week will help. I’m also doing it for academic/scientific reasons – I’m just finishing a Master’s degree in nutrition and I’m really excited by the research which suggests fasting can help fight ageing, lead to less chance of diabetes etc. and help prevent Alzheimer’s.

I did a few weeks of 5:2 back in March/April but gave it up when I had exams on, but I’ve decided to try again and hopefully stick to it this time. Had my first day today and I’ve found it tough, but I know I’ll get used to it so trying to stay focused and positive 🙂 when I did the diet before I never did consecutive days, but if I’m not feeling too bad tomorrow I’m going to try and do tomorrow as a fast day too, and see how I get on.

I think I’ve honed my eating schedule on fast days – I try not to eat until about 3:30/4:00 where I have soup and maybe some bread. Then I have my ‘evening meal’ between 7 and 8. This is because I have less willpower when it comes to the evenings so it’s when I want to eat food!

Sorry for the long post, and good luck to everyone else here! 😀