After 7 weeks on the 5:2 diet, I’ve noticed a definite pattern in my behaviour on fasting days. Move over mindfulness … This is what I seem to do every fast day.

1. I batch cook huge quantities of family meals for the freezer.
2. I spend at least an hour walking round WholeFoods in a trance, looking at food.
3. I read recipe books with an intensity not seen outside a monastic library.
4. I embark on a long phone call normally to complain to a telecommunications or utilities company. Pity the poor call centre operative who answers my call on a fast day.
5. I read the first chapter of War and Peace.
6. In the evening I watch Babette’s Feast.
7. I slather myself in food scented toiletries at bath time : vanilla body lotion, coffee-scented face scrub, mint shower gel.
8. The family tells me not to stare at them quite so intensely as they eat their normal meals.
9. When I do sit down to consume my 500 calories, the mealtime takes on the air of a complex Japanese tea ceremony where I try to extend the experience of eating.
10. When I eat, I turn from a lady into a Labrador, inhaling rather than eating my food, at record speed. Woof!

So : what are fast days like for you?