Hi!

I’ve just registered, so followed the advice to introduce myself.

I’m a British male in my mid-fifties, 5’11” tall.

In typical Western fashion I’ve piled-on the weight over recent decades. Not through drinking but rather through a love of chocolate and cakes!

For a long time my weight had ballooned to 17st 8lb (246lb or 111kg). To be quite honest I felt quite comfortable at that weight, even though the chances of being able run much more than a few hundred metres were unlikely. At that weight though I was able to swim (my favourite exercise) and do any jobs in the garden without running-out-of-puff.

This year though my weight went up again. This time to 18st 5lb (257lb) and I started to struggle a bit with sore knees. In particular I found myself sweating excessively in humid weather. That, and a desire to improve my swim times (my best 100 metres just this year is 1 min, 17 seconds) was enough to convince me that I had to diet and not just to get back to 17st 8lb, but a lot further under.

A BMI calculator reckons I should be between 9st 5lb and 12st 6lb. I don’t even want to be at the high end of that range; at 12st 6lb I doubt I’d survive a bout of flu! My target rather is 13st 7lb. My target for the end of 2016 is to hit 15st (210lb).

I’ve tried lots of diets and although they work generally, I’ve never found one that I either wanted to keep going with over a substantial amount of time, or one that would keep the weight off over an extended period after finishing it. After a chat with someone at the swimming pool I thought to try 5:2, notably because it is less of a diet, but more of a lifestyle change.

I’ve just finished the 4th week; 8 fasts completed to-date. My weight is now 17st 10lb (248lb) so 9lb lost in four weeks.

I lost 6lb in the first week, but most of that was likely water retention. The 2nd & 3rd weeks just saw 1lb lost each week. I finished the 8th fasting day yesterday and weighed myself this morning; another 2lb lost. So the regime obviously works. The first fasting day was a nightmare; wobbly legs and me decidedly feeling a little unwell. Every fasting day after that has been better, and the most recent one…easy.

I’m finding that exercise is a key component. I don’t try to exercise and fast on the same days; that’s probably dangerous. Rather I try to exercise the day before and day after fasting. For me as mentioned, that means swimming. Working in ‘sets’ I try to swim a minimum of 2,000 metres every session. Saturdays are set aside for sprints; efforts to beat PB’s. Sundays are set aside for Sunday dinners!

And that’s the joy of this diet. In the past any regime that saw you constantly fretting about your intake simply wasn’t fun. I like a big Sunday dinner and so does the family. I can one without guilt, knowing the next day I’ll either be fasting, or burning through carbs in the pool.

After four weeks I’m now aware (and read up on) ketosis (fat-burning state) and how vital it is for the 5:2 diet. I try to be in ketosis for most of my fasting days (testing with Beyer Ketostix helped confirm this).

The key bit of course is that I’ve become conscious of the food I do eat on non-fasting days. That’s the lifestyle-changing bit of 5:2. I still enjoy all the things that are bad for you, but I’m just a bit more selective in finding them!