Hi. My partner and I have decided to try the 5:2 diet for a while. I’m very overweight and looking to lose 30 kilos eventually. My partner is less chubby but could happily lose 15 – 20 kilos. He’s a desk worker and I am retired/housewife.

We both love good food and I am a keen cook. We rarely use convenience or pre-packaged foods. Much as we love fruit, salad and veg – we find it difficult to get hold of interesting and fresh items in sufficient quantity to eat a properly healthy or interesting diet.

I have ordered the book and a couple of recipe books but they will take a while to reach me. In the meantime I find myself with an enthusiastic hubbie wanting to fast TODAY and no real info in my knowledge bank.

It’s not unusual for us to skip breakfast if we are not feeling hungry and a sturdy casserole last night left us feeling comfortable today so, no breakfast.

We generally practise a “light” day after a heavy meal so a vegetable and lentil soup is on the menu for our lunch, when we have our main meal. There’s some home-made bread on the side if we feel we need it – we’ll skip the butter.

My problem is – where/how can I get a calorie estimate on my soup (I use a throw it all in method rather than a fixed recipe), work out if we can have a slice of bread, and whether any cals are left over for tea? Pointers to online calculators or Android apps would be useful. As would pointers to any threads here with heuristics on what you can get into 500 cals.

Thanks. Good to meet you all. I’ll be seeking lots of support in coming weeks, I think

Thank you, Amazon. I would welcome more information regarding the “calorie bible”

Thank you, Amazon – that’s useful

Thank you Shadow, I’ll take a look at that but I’m really seeking resources that do not focus on branded goods as I use very little prepared or convenience foods – nothing more exciting than canned chopped tomatoes, really 🙂

So far the lookups that I have experimented with in the last few days have been less than useful and bogged down with user entries that bear no relevance to me or my life. Sorry – let me give an example – I wanted to look up how many calories in my homemade granary roll, the weight of which I could easily determine. Looking up Granary Bread gave me calorie counts for 1 slice of branded sliced loaves, but I needed to evaluate my recipe using Granary Flour. I ended up going around in circles and getting nowhere fast, so I wet my finger, held it in the air and came up with a guesstimate.

Before anyone gets clever and tells me to read the flour packet – my flour does not come that way, but in a plain poly bag.