Hi there I’m back on the 5:2 again today. Did it a year ago with good results but it all got too much for me during the school holidays.

I found it really hard to deal with cooking meals for the kids, partly because it made me so hungry and it was really difficult not to snack on their food, but also because I don’t want them to know that I’m worried about my weight. I’m 5’5″, currently 146lbs and aiming to lose a stone. Although I feel myself to be overweight, I’m far from obese and my kids would regard me as healthy. We put lots of emphasis on healthy eating at home, but I don’t want them to feel Mummy is dieting, faddy eating. My mother was always going on about her diets and it gave me a massive complex – and in fact an eating disorder – when I was a teenager / in my early 20s, so I’m keen not to pass this to them.

My older 2 kids (13 and 12) are at boarding school during the week and my daughter (8) eats at 5.30pm, whereas my dh and I keep rather European hours and eat much later, so it’s easy to ‘hide’ my 5:2 from them. However next week is half term and I want to keep this up at the same time as having to produce several family meals a day (we always eat together in the evenings at weekends / holidays).

I’m really determined to make the 5:2 work for me this time as I’ve really struggled with getting other diets to work and I know this had an impact on me last time, but this thing with the kids is really worrying me.
How do other people deal with this?
Thanks so much!