The 5:2 Bikini Diet has something to offer everyone as it’s totally different to other diets – diet twice a week, then eat healthily the rest of the time and watch the weight fall off. As an avid follower of the 5:2 diet since September 2012, I want to share my experiences of this life- and figure-changing diet with the world.
I have created an all-new and delicious selection of healthy and filling recipes that are just perfect for summer. You will find salads, barbecues and super summer desserts, which are all suitable for your fast days.
With the addition of a simple and fun exercise routine, developed by David Jones of Sculpt Health & Fitness, this is the perfect diet to lose weight and get in shape for the summer.
This book is for you if you are new to the diet and want to get started; if you are already a follower of the 5:2 diet and are looking for some extra help or a new start; if you want some fantastic new recipes for summer; if you want an exercise routine that will improve your bikini body or you just want to lose some weight in a healthy and simple way.
Join the 5:2 revolution and be happy with your weight and your body. I’ll see you on the beach!
Yours,
Jacqueline Whitehart, April 2013
Let’s cut to the chase: there are three steps that we will be following for the next four weeks and beyond to get into shape for the summer. Follow these rules and you will lose weight, feel healthier and look great.
• Fast – eat only 500 calories for women/600 calories for men – on two non-consecutive days per week.
• Eat normally but healthily on the other five days.
• Follow the 30-minute workout plan three times a week on your non-fasting days.
Looks simple doesn’t it? That’s because it is! It’s really simple and easy to follow, so read on and I will guide you through each of the three rules.
Two days a week you follow a calorie-restricted diet, that’s:
• 500 calories for women
• 600 calories for men
The days are non-consecutive.
If you have followed the 5:2 diet before you will be familiar with the term ‘feast’ day, but that’s something that trips people up time and time again. This is because most of us, if told we can eat what we like, go a bit mad.
The five non-fast days are normal and healthy days, they are not diet days and we do not count calories.
DO:
• Enjoy your food and don’t count the calories.
• Eat three healthy meals a day.
• Do NOT snack between meals and avoid processed food.
Cut out the rubbish. Keep the following items to a very bare minimum:
• biscuits (cookies) and cakes
• crisps (potato chips)
• non-diet fizzy drinks
• chocolate bars and sweets (candies)
• beer, lager and cider
If you follow these steps, you will have plenty of scope for tasty plates of food without excluding any food group, and it means that you will be able to have delicious pasta, bread, desserts and, of course, a glass or two of wine.
Remember that the recipes in this book are not just for fast days; they are perfect for your normal days too. Just add some extra carbohydrates, such as rice or potatoes, if necessary and make sure you eat three balanced meals every day.
While rules 1 and 2 are for weight loss, exercise makes the most of the weight loss by reducing the flab, toning your body and zapping the cellulite.
If you are new to exercise, then perhaps the best way to get started is walking. Start with walking 15 minutes a day, three days a week and work up from there. Walking is great if you are just starting to exercise as it is proven to significantly improve fitness levels. Walking increases the blood flow to the muscles, improving circulation and heart function. Swimming is also a suitable option if you are just getting started with exercise.
If you are fit and exercise regularly then you should find Sculpt’s 5:2 Bikini Diet exercise plan easy and enjoyable, ready to get your body in shape for the summer – fast!
By following the workout plan three times a week, you can expect great results in just four weeks. There’s more detail about the benefits of combining exercise with the 5:2 diet in the ‘Getting beach fit’ chapter (see here).
This chapter simply explains the medical reasons for the diet’s success. When you understand how healthy you will become on this diet – as well as slimming easily – you will keep to this lifestyle forever. The slimming results on the 5:2 Bikini Diet are stunning. And not just that, losing weight healthily and easily improves your overall health. There is also increasing evidence that this new breed of fast diet, of which the 5:2 diet is the easiest and most popular, has some incredible benefits for your long-term health too.
Based on the opinion of several fasting experts, there is now a picture developing of how the scientists believe intermittent fasting changes the way our bodies work, giving us additional health benefits as we age. Here I provide a simple approach to the science, which I hope will make it clearer to anyone with a general interest, but without a scientific background.
When we deprive our body of food for longer than normal, for example during a fast, we notice changes in some of our hormones. As the levels of certain hormones change, this has a knock-on effect on different types of cells within our body. One of these hormones, Insulin-like Growth Factor 1 (IGF-1), is proven to decrease as we fast. IGF-1 is produced in the liver and is similar to insulin. Its purpose in the body is to make cells grow and produce new cells. When levels of IGF-1 decrease, our body produces fewer new cells and concentrates on repairing old ones. This state of ‘repair’ is very beneficial as it slows down the ageing process and may reduce the risks of cancer, diabetes and heart disease.
Another hormone that fasting seems to affect is a nerve cell growth factor in the brain, which changes the way neurons in the brain grow. This research is in its infancy and has yet to be tested on humans, but there are several indicators that suggest this is the mechanism that ultimately leads to a reduction in risk factors for cognitive diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
There’s a final exciting difference between standard calorie-restricted diets and intermittent fasting. Any weight you lose doing intermittent fasting is body fat! If this is not a reason to do the 5:2 diet over anything else then I don’t know what is.
Other diets may show a decrease in body fat and muscle, but with intermittent fasting it seems to be just fat. Scientists are unsure at present why this is true, but it has been seen in a variety of studies so there is a good scientific basis for these findings. The most likely explanation is that when we fast, we have to use resources in our body (i.e. fat) for fuel rather than the food we have eaten. It may also be the key as to why the 5:2 diet is so successful for so many people.
The simple answer is yes. If your primary goal is health benefits, not weight loss, the science suggests you should eat only one meal on a fast day. Remember that how you consume calories over the fast day does not affect weight loss. Top scientists from the United States are in agreement that to get the absolute best out of intermittent fasting you need to either fast completely for 24 hours or, at most, have one small meal in the middle of the 24-hour period. The tests where they try other kinds of calorie restriction over the 24-hour period just haven’t been done yet, so it’s hard to tell for sure whether the science backs this up.
If you’re reading this and thinking, Help, there’s no way I can only eat once a day, then you’re not alone. And this is why I do not advocate skipping meals unless it’s something that appeals to you and it’s something you can see yourself sticking to in the long term.
First and foremost this is because it does not affect the rate at which you slim. If your main objective is to lose weight and gain the health benefits that come with sustained weight loss, then stick to the 500/600 calories on your fast days, but do not worry about when you eat them.
Secondly, although the health benefits may not be optimized, you are still getting some of them. You are fasting and your body is going into repair mode so don’t panic if you are not fully ‘optimized’. Is anything in your life fully optimized? I know it’s not the case for me.
Finally, and most importantly, what do you think is best: having a strict fast with only one meal but finding it so hard and de-motivating that you give up after a month or eating two or three small meals on your fast day and finding it sustainable in the long term?
I’d say the latter is by far the best option, but use your own preference. If you find it easier to skip a meal, then do so. I often, but not always, skip lunch on a fast day. But if three meals a day works for you then don’t change it. You are doing great as you are.
There are many different names for diets that are the same or similar to the 5:2 diet, so it’s no wonder people are getting confused.
These are, as far as anyone can tell, the same diet – just two names for the same thing. I think the double name comes from the origins of the diet. The 5:2 diet didn’t exist before a TV programme by Michael Mosley in August 2012. Many people, including myself, started following the simple principle of eating less two days per week. At this stage it didn’t have a name and as people were discussing it on Twitter and other social media sites it needed a name, so the simplest name stuck – the 5:2 diet. Later, as the diet became a phenomenon, marketing types got hold of it and it also became known as ‘the fast diet’. In the US, where the diet never grew through word of mouth, it seems to be just called ‘the fast diet’ or ‘the British fast diet’.
The 2-day diet has a totally different root to the 5:2 diet, despite its similarity in name and action.
The 2-day diet grew out of some amazing research by Dr Michele Harvie at the University of Manchester over the last few years. Harvie is a breast cancer specialist and has been looking at ways to reduce breast cancer risks through diet. She has done experiments with groups of overweight women, where she radically changed their diets just two days a week. The diet has many similarities to 5:2, in that you restrict calories two days a week and eat normally for five. But the calories are restricted to 650 for both men and women and the food eaten on a fast day is more prescriptive – it includes a certain amount of milk and is totally carbohydrate free (rather like the Atkins diet) on the fast days. Most contrastive to the 5:2 diet is that the two days must be consecutive.
Her research highlighted two important things. First, that dieting two days a week was easier and that more people stuck to it than dieting all the time. Harvie compared two groups of women. The first group fasted two days a week and the second group followed a standard calorie-restricted diet, sticking to 1500 calories a day. After three months of following the diets, the research showed that intermittent fasters were almost twice as likely to stick to their diet.
The second and most impressive finding of her research was the reduction in a breast-cancer-causing hormone called leptin, which was reduced on average by 40 per cent, and a drop in insulin levels of 25 per cent, cutting the diabetes risk in these women.
Alternate day fasting originated in the US before the fast diet became popular in the UK. The principles of this diet are very simple. A strict fast diet is followed every other day. It also restricts how many meals you eat in that one day. The 5:2 diet is a variation on this theme, allowing you to fast for fewer days in a week and also to take weekends off. They are similar in terms of weight loss and effects, although obviously you may lose weight faster on ADF. But the success rate (i.e. the number of people who stick to the diet in the long term) is lower.
There has been an interesting study in the US by Dr Varady into ADF. Varady’s research is fascinating. She took a group of both male and female overweight volunteers and started them on ADF for a year. This study is still progressing, but initial results in this case show a low dropout rate, gradual and continued weight loss and falls in both total and LDL (‘bad’) cholesterol.
Window fasting is a slightly different way of structuring your fast days. You fast for a part of your day, seven days a week. For example, a popular structure is that you fast from 8 p.m. on one day until 12 p.m. the following day. This means that your eating ‘window’ is 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. every day. Some people find that this kind of fasting fits more naturally into their lifestyle as they can eat a normal lunch and dinner every day, but it’s definitely not to everyone’s taste.
There has not been much research into this particular type of intermittent fasting, but the results are likely to be similar to that of 5:2 fasting or ADF.
Intermittent fasting is a coverall term for any type of fasting diet. So the 5:2 diet, the fast diet, the 2-day diet and ADF all come under the umbrella of intermittent fasting.
There is a reason why more people follow the 5:2 diet than any other form of IF – you are more likely to have success because it’s easier to stick to and simpler to fit into your lifestyle. The dropout rate is lower than other types of IF and, indeed, than other types of diet. Put simply, the 5:2 diet is the simplest and most sustainable fast diet.
Because this diet is a fairly radical approach to weight loss, it is wise to speak to your doctor first to see if it is safe to follow the diet.
Current medical opinion suggests that the benefits of fasting are unproven. This is because long-term studies take several years, or even decades, to complete and this is a relatively new field.
The good news is that no significant dangers or problems with the diet have been reported so far. We can also take note that certain religions have been fasting for hundreds of years. Fasting during Ramadan requires Muslims to fast during daylight hours for a month. Fasting is also common among most Hindus. They fast on certain days of the week based on their belief and to appease certain deities. Both Hindus and Muslims believe that fasting is important for the wellbeing of human beings as it nourishes both physical and spiritual needs.
As with all big changes to your normal diet and routine, there can be side effects. Some people will not experience any side effects, but a few will find the side effects to be so uncomfortable that they will be unable to continue with the diet.
Some of the side effects seem to occur only when fasting is first attempted. These effects, such as headaches and dizziness, will diminish and hopefully disappear altogether over a period of several weeks.
Dehydration seems to be a common side effect of following the fasting diet that doesn’t fade in time. It is easily dealt with by sipping plenty of water or other low-calorie drinks regularly throughout the fasting day.
What about irritability? Yes, some of us do get grumpy when we are feeling hungry. This does seem to reduce as we get used to fasting. But I can get grumpy on fast days and normal days too!
Some people report difficulties sleeping due to hunger and daytime sleepiness. This is less common than other symptoms. Most people feel a buzz of energy during their fasting days. Difficulties sleeping can occur, particularly if you eat the majority of your calories during the early part of the day. Increasing the size of the evening meal and making sure it is rich in complex, filling carbohydrates helps the body feel sustained until after we go to sleep.
Finally, here’s one side effect that has affected me. I’ve been feeling the cold all through the winter, but particularly on fasting days. It has been a rather cold winter this year, but I have been suffering more than I would expect. The result has been an increased wearing of jumpers – perhaps two or three at a time and a higher heating bill. I take comfort in the fact that this is likely to mean that my body fat is reduced and the diet is working well.
If you suffer from, or might be suffering from, hypoglycaemia as a medical condition consult your doctor before beginning the diet.
The feeling of low blood sugar when you haven’t eaten for a few hours is a common problem and one which I have suffered from in the past. It may put someone off fasting, because they feel that they need to eat every couple of hours to keep their blood sugar stable. The basic problem is that if you don’t eat every three or four hours then you can become hypoglycaemic and therefore irritable, moody, light-headed and shaky.
This is an interesting phenomenon as only a small proportion of the population actually have a malfunction in their ability to regulate blood sugar levels. The rest of us, who do not have an underlying medical condition, do not have to worry about getting ‘low blood sugar’ while fasting. This is because the body is amazingly effective at regulating the sugar flowing around the blood.
A study in which young adults who have symptoms of hypoglycaemia went on a monitored 24-hour fast found that, while they reported ‘feeling hypoglycaemic, their blood sugar levels remained normal. What to do if you are worried about having a ‘blood sugar crash’ during a fast period? This is a very real problem that I myself suffered from when I started the diet. I now know that my blood sugar levels are fine; I am in fact just exceptionally hungry. Here are my tips that helped me get through it, which I hope will help you too.
• Eat regularly during your fast day – this means three small meals.
• If you feel a wave of light-headedness coming over you, know that it will in all likelihood pass and you will feel normal again in 15 minutes.
• Finally, if it affects your ability to function normally or gives you a headache then you should eat something – nothing that big, ideally 100 calories or so of something filling, a slice of toast or a small banana, for example. Allow yourself those extra calories for that day, but carry on with the fast day if possible.
Don’t let it put you off your next fast day, which will probably be easier. On your next fast day, see if you can last longer without feeling poorly.
There are certain medical conditions that would make fasting inadvisable or even dangerous, even in this more restrained form. Don’t attempt fasting if you are diabetic or pre-diabetic without seeking medical advice first. It is also not suitable if you are pregnant, breastfeeding or under 18 years old. If you are in any doubt, you must see your doctor first to discuss your options for dieting.
Those who are lucky enough to have good health and for whom fasting is a sensible diet option should also consider that there are some days that prove difficult for fasting.
If you’re already a 5:2er, you will already know that some fast days will breeze by while others will be hard. There have been a few times where I have chosen not to fast or given up on a fasting day halfway through. I don’t feel bad about this because I made the choice for the good of my short-term health and restarted the diet as soon as I felt better. Some of the things that have caused me to consider whether I should be fasting that day include a cold (it’s hard to fast when you have a bad cold, so my advice is: don’t fast), when I’ve had little or no sleep and possibly, for women only, at certain times of your monthly cycle.
Here are the studies referenced in this section. Be warned, most of it is not light reading, but it’s a very exciting field and could be worth the effort. Finally, this list is not exhaustive. This is because research in this field is booming and there are new studies coming out all the time. Look out for breaking news stories, which I believe will show more proof and more reasons to fast.
1 Parrella E., et al. ‘Protein restriction cycles reduce IGF-1 and phosphorylated Tau, and improve behavioral performance in an Alzheimer’s disease mouse model’,
http://www.scribd.com/doc/126262180/Longo-Cohen-Paper.
2 Mattson M., et al. ‘When a little poison is good for you’, New Scientist, 6 August 2008,
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19926681.700-when-a-little-poison-is-good-for-you.html.
3 Varady K., et al. ‘Alternate day fasting (ADF) with a high-fat diet produces similar weight loss and cardio-protection as ADF with a low-fat diet Metabolism’, pp137–143, January 2013.
4 Alken J., et al. ‘Effect of fasting on young adults who have symptoms of hypoglycaemia in the absence of frequent meals’, European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2008; 62: 721–726.
Everybody is different: different weight, different height and different fitness. In this chapter we work out your Body Mass Index (BMI) and metabolic rate (BMR), which is how many calories you burn in a day. By calculating your BMI, we can set suitable and sustainable weight-loss targets. By working out your personal metabolic rate we can set a personalized calorie intake guide for the fast days, and, as we know, every calorie counts on a fast day.
Recently, there have been improvements to the way the BMI is calculated. This is because the old scale of BMI didn’t work very well if you were tall or short or more muscular than average; Brad Pitt, for example, at the time of Fight Club was very muscular and would have been considered overweight using the old BMI, so the new scale aims to be more accurate for everyone.
It doesn’t make much difference if you are relatively average, but if you are short it can make your BMI higher and if you are tall it can reduce your BMI a little. If you are tall, like me, it’s worth having a look at the new calculator – I dropped by 0.5 points from 21.6 to 21.1. But if you are average height it won’t make a difference.
The simplest way to calculate your BMI is to use an online calculator, such as:
http://people.maths.ox.ac.uk/trefethen/bmi_calc.html
• A BMI of less than 18.5 is considered underweight.
• A BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 is considered a normal healthy weight.
• A BMI of 25 to 29.9 is considered overweight.
• A BMI of 30 or greater is considered obese.
While we use the standard numbers of 500 calories as a quarter of a woman’s normal daily calorie intake and 600 calories as a quarter of a man’s, we can in fact be far more accurate.
By calculating your Metabolic Rate (MR) you can work out your daily calorie needs. The BMR is how many calories your body burns when at rest.
First calculate your BMR:
To calculate your actual calorie needs to maintain your current weight, you just need to work out where you are on the exercise scale.
To work out the actual number of calories your body needs to maintain weight, multiply your BMR by the factor in the table above.
My maintenance calorie needs are:
I decide I am lightly active, so my multiplying factor is 1.375.
1414 × 1.375 = 1944 calories
I can also calculate how many calories I need to take in on my fasting days, as it is a quarter of this figure.
1944 ÷ 4 = 486 calories
So when I work out how many calories I am going to eat on a fast day, I need to make sure it is less than 486.
You should end up with the number of calories you need to eat on your fasting days. If you are like me, it will be slightly lower than 500 calories, but you might find you have a bonus of a few extra calories instead!
Don’t forget, if you lose a lot of weight, but find it slackens off after a while, you might need to re-calculate your calorie intake, as these formulas depend on your weight.
There is also one more thing that is worth considering: there are about 3,500 calories in 1lb of stored body fat. That means you need to reduce your calorie intake by 3,500 to lose 1lb in weight. That might sound like quite a lot, but if you think of it in terms of the restricted calorie days, a woman has a calorie deficit of (2,000–500) = 1,500 per day on a fast day, so will reduce her calorie intake by 3,000 over a standard 5:2 week. For a man this figure is increased to a 3,800 calorie reduction. This means that without doing anything else, a woman will lose just under 1lb a week on the 5:2 diet; a man, just over 1lb.
Taking into account the level of exercise and healthy eating on non-fast days, then we are looking at an even greater weight loss. This is simple maths and doesn’t take into consideration the effects that the 5:2 diet has on the body, which research is showing is more effective than standard diets.
Now you know the basics it’s time to get started and think about your first fast day.
Are you fit and well and ready to lose some weight?
The first thing to think about is what days would be most suitable for a fast. Remember, you need two days a week with at least one rest day in between. You can have a set routine and pick the same days every week or pick and choose. The diet is extremely flexible and is designed to fit in around you and not the other way round.
‘Tuesdays and Thursdays. My husband is out so I don’t have to worry about catering for anyone else on those days.’
Peggy
Monday is a common day to start as most people want to enjoy their food at the weekend and are ready to start the new week with good resolutions.
‘I like to fast on a Monday, to get rid of that weekend bloat, and on a Thursday, in preparation for the weekend bloat!’
Jodie
Take a look at your schedule for the week and rule out any days where you have social engagements, especially involving food.
‘My fast days are variable, depending on what I am doing that week. It changes from week to week.’
Christina
Look at this as the greatest asset of the diet. Imagine going out for dinner with friends, not worrying about what you eat and even having a dessert and wine, and all the time losing weight.
Do the planning, do the fast days and then for five days a week, don’t diet. Especially when you are first starting out, your diet days should be the least social days on your calendar. They are also likely to be busy days or work days, as you want to be distracted from food and away from the kitchen as much as possible. The only restriction on your fast days is that you must have a rest day between fasts.
Your first fast day will probably be the hardest as your body needs time to adjust to the new regime. So make sure you pick your days wisely when you start out. For the first two weeks you need to give careful consideration to when you fast as there is a possibility that you will feel lightheaded, grumpy and perhaps get a headache as well as feel properly hungry. Don’t worry or be alarmed. There are plenty of tips here to deal with all these things. After the first two weeks of fast days, you will see it getting considerably easier. Focus on the fact that it’s only one day.
Before you start you need to take your starting weight. Don’t think about it too much – everyone’s starting weight is high, otherwise you wouldn’t be thinking about your diet. Think positively. Think how good you will feel when you start losing weight.
Starting weight:__________ st __________ lb
Don’t worry about only weighing yourself once a week. You should weigh yourself when you like, just try not to do it every day as your weight can go up as well as down. We only care about the downward trend.
Ladies, be aware that your bodily cycle will have an impact on your weight. You may put on weight the week before your period and may also find fasting harder during this time. Try and stick with it and make allowances for your cycle if you find you haven’t lost as much weight as you would like.
I would recommend weighing yourself the morning after your second fast day of the week. If you fast on Mondays and Wednesdays, then Thursday morning before breakfast or a drink and after you have been to the toilet is when you will be at your lightest. If you can, use this as your weekly weigh-in to see if you have lost weight and hit your target.
This will depend entirely on your starting weight and fitness. If you have got more to lose, you will lose weight faster and can set a higher target. If you are quite close to your target weight and already reasonably fit, you won’t be quite as quick but you will still lose weight.
The target for your weight loss should be between 1 and 4lb per week. This is not a crash diet and you should only be aiming to lose weight in a safe and sensible way.
As a general guide, if you are just fasting but not exercising you should aim to lose 1lb per week. If you are fasting, exercising and staying healthy on your normal days then you could potentially see a weight loss of 2–3lb per week.
If you have more weight to lose then your target could be potentially higher than that.
Target weight loss per week: ___________ lb
It is also worth calculating your BMI at the start and end of the four-week period. You should have dropped at least a couple of points and may even have crossed into a healthier bracket.
Starting BMI: _______________
(Look in the ‘Magic numbers’ chapter on here if you want help calculating your BMI.)
BMI at the end of the 4-week plan: _______________
Try looking at yourself in the mirror before you start, as it will help you see which areas you would like to look better for the summer. If you want to see the improvements, you need to see what you look like before as well, so ladies, put on your bikini or swimsuit, and gentlemen get your board shorts out. It’s time to try them on and have a good look at yourself in a full-length mirror.
First of all, ignore the fact that you are probably a little pasty – everyone looks like that at the beginning of summer and we all know how to fix it. That is a different problem.
What you want to be looking at is where you think your problem areas are. Is it your tummy? Thighs? Cellulite? Or a little bit of everything?
The 5:2 Bikini Diet exercise programme is designed to burn as much body fat as possible while improving muscle tone, giving you a leaner, healthier body in just 30 days. Remember that the diet will help shift the excess pounds, specifically some of the fat. Where we need to help out with exercise is to bring some definition to the flab.
Exercising three times a week for four weeks, as well as following the 5:2 diet, will bring noticeable changes to your body shape. After four weeks put on your swimsuit again and see if you can spot the changes. Then slap on a bit of fake tan if necessary and get yourself to the beach!
You need to do a bit of planning before you start on the first fast day. There are many different ways in which you can eat your 500/600 calories, but I would recommend that on your first day you have three small meals.
For women this means something similar to:
100 cals for breakfast, 150 cals for lunch, 250 cals for dinner
For men this could look like:
100 cals for breakfast, 200 cals for lunch, 300 cals for dinner
You should plan out exactly what you are going to eat. Take a look at the recipe section (see here) for some inspiration. Try not to eat much carbohydrate as this is very calorific. Stick to lean meats, vegetables and complex carbohydrates such as pulses or beans. Don’t consume too many calories in drinks. Drink black coffee or tea, diet colas, etc. An omelette (one large egg has 89 calories) makes a good, filling and simple meal. A salad is also a good option for lunch or dinner.
If you normally drink caffeinated drinks, don’t cut them out, as a sudden lack of caffeine could give you a headache and make the fasting day harder. If you like milk in your tea or coffee just remember to count the calories. A cup of tea or coffee with (50ml/scant ¼ cup) semi-skimmed (low-fat) milk has 25 calories, made with skimmed milk it has 19 calories. A short skinny latte from Starbucks has 67 calories and a tall skinny latte has 102 calories.
You may find the evening rather long and drawn out too. As you have hopefully had 250–300 calories for your dinner you actually won’t feel as hungry as you did during the day. But if you are at home with some snacks in the cupboard then you may well need some will power. Top tips to get you through your first fast day evening: find something good on the television, have a hot drink and go to bed early!
Remember:
• Feeling hungry is a natural state.
• Have a calorie-free drink to satiate your hunger.
• The first fast day is the hardest.
• You only have to do it once.
• Tomorrow you can eat like a king.
• You are actively losing weight right now.
• Feel proud and revel in a real sense of achievement.
Congratulations on making it through your first fast day! If you want, you can weigh yourself before you eat or drink anything. You may well have dropped 1lb in your first day. Now, normally I would be suggesting that you eat healthily and don’t snack on the day after a fast, but I think the rules can go out of the window on the first day. So you can eat what you like. Even though you have most likely been looking forward to your breakfast for most of the day before, you may find you are not as hungry as you thought. Or you may find you are starving and can’t stop eating. Don’t worry about it. It’s just your body adjusting and you can allow yourself some treats.
I remember on my first normal day I didn’t feel as good as I was expecting. The big breakfast made me feel tired and lethargic and I found it hard to get motivated all day. I have heard similar tales from others when they were just starting out with the 5:2 diet. These feelings will change quite dramatically as you continue with the diet. Just as the fast days get easier, the normal days get more, well, ‘normal’ really.
I suggested that you should eat three small meals on your first fast day. As you continue with the diet, you will probably want to adjust this to suit your body’s needs and your lifestyle. It is normally wise to leave at least 50 per cent of your calorie intake for the day until your evening meal, although you can eat this meal as early as you like, any time after 5 p.m. But how you split your breakfast and lunchtime calories is more interesting. You could skip breakfast, skip lunch or have a small meal at each.
Here are a few questions that might help you decide how best to manage your meals on a fast day.
• Do you get up early?
• Do you work in an office?
• Are you exposed to unhealthy food during the day?
If you answered yes to some or all of the above questions then it might be worth considering missing breakfast and having a slightly more substantial lunch. Why? Because eating at lunchtime will make it easier to avoid snacks during the day. If you are rushing out first thing, you should find it easier to miss breakfast.
• Are you busy during the day with little time to think about food?
• Do you feel cranky if you skip breakfast?
• Do you have a morning ritual which involves breakfast and coffee?
If you answered yes to some of the above questions then you should try having a bigger (200–300 calorie) breakfast and then going through until your evening meal. Why? If you are busy at work you will not notice lunchtime.
If you are still unsure, stick to three small meals and perhaps adjust a little when you discover your hungriest times of day.
This is, I admit, the boring bit of a fasting day. You have to count calories and you need to do it accurately, without leaving anything out. Don’t allow yourself any snacks between meals (except low-calorie drinks), as a snack will just waste your calorie allowance.
Read the packet of anything you are planning to eat, as practically all packaging will list the calorie content, then use one of the recipes in this book, which has been accurately calorie counted for you. Or, make up your own recipes, counting the calories in each individual component, using the calorie reference at the back of this book (here).
You will find that you have a few favourite dishes that you come back to time and time again. It’s often omelettes or eggs in some form, or a salad. You will be able to work out the calories once and know for next time.
I’m going to be totally honest here: you will feel hungry on your fast days. It may be a new kind of hunger that you have never experienced before, but it’s not a bad thing. It won’t make you ill and your body adjusts to it very quickly. This is because hunger is a natural state for our bodies, which haven’t fundamentally changed since the Stone Age. Hunger makes us energetic and efficient and we use our coping mechanisms to find solutions to the hunger. In the old days this would have meant hunting for food. When we feel hungry by choice, this means finding distraction mechanisms.
‘I have a drink to deal with hunger pangs or nibble on a carrot stick.’
Sarah
You will notice two positive things on your fasting days that you won’t believe until you try it. First of all, you will have more energy, not less. It’s unbelievable I know, but the majority of people on the 5:2 diet feel great on their fast days. I tend to feel lively, very chatty and have a natural buzz – the same kind of buzz that I get when I exercise. This feeling may not appear on the first fast day, but give it a week or two and start enjoying the feeling.
‘I’ve had more energy, so the house is cleaner. The windows have never been so clean!’
Deek43
The second thing that seems a bit crazy before you start is that hunger comes in waves and normally passes in a few minutes if you think about something else. I tend to feel a real wave of hunger mid-afternoon, a time when in the past I would tend to snack unhealthily, but I now head out for some fresh air and don’t think about food, and the feeling goes away. I might not feel hungry for another couple of hours and then it’s nearly dinnertime and I’m on the home straight.
Are you a mother of young children? Do you struggle on a fast day at teatime? Because I do. With a meagre breakfast and/or lunch, by teatime I am hungry, and then I have to prepare food such as pasta or chips (French fries), which I can’t eat. It’s just the temptation to pick up the odd chip that I find really hard to resist, because I could do it without even thinking about it.
So if you find yourself in a similar situation, you are not alone. I try and eat with the children or soon after. This helps, as I know my food is on its way. If there’s ever a time to employ the best of your willpower, it is now. Remember there are many mothers out there sharing your pain.
My backup plan after a hard day: fish fingers and beans, then we can all eat together. Two fish fingers and a quarter of a 415g can reduced sugar and salt beans has 220 calories and is very filling.
Do you eat your evening meal and then find the evenings rather long and boring? Do you find yourself constantly wishing you could eat some chocolate or cake? Don’t worry, this happens to the best of us. You are probably not that hungry, it’s just a bad habit, which is worse because you are relaxing.
Here are some of the things I like to do to keep myself busy and keep my mind off food until bedtime.
Take up a hobby – anything will do, something you do at home or go out to, as long as there’s no food or drink involved.
Watch a movie – go to the cinema or put a movie on the TV. A movie is longer than a TV programme and if you are enjoying it, you won’t be thinking about food.
Go for a swim – exercise is generally not a great idea on a fast day, but some gentle swimming is very distracting and no one is eating at the poolside.
Have a hot drink – fruit tea has no calories. I like peppermint myself. Another option if you have allowed yourself the calories is a low-cal hot chocolate drink. Normally around 40 cals, these will stop that chocolate craving.
‘I make myself a black tea or glass of water, ring a friend and try to take my mind off it. It’s only really bad just before I go to bed as I’m relaxing and nothing distracts me, but it doesn’t last and when I wake up the next day, I’m no more hungry than normal.’
Deek43
Everyone has slightly different ways of managing their fast days. You may find there’s a right or wrong way for you. Or you may find it develops over time.
‘After the first week, I realized I had to adapt the diet to suit my needs. I start with a minute quantity of bran flakes and semi-skimmed [low fat] milk. Any diet of mine just has to include a minimum of three cups of tea plus a low-cal chocolate drink at night. I have a mug of Bovril for lunch and calculate all this at about 200 calories. I then have a proper dinner in the evening.’
Peggy
‘Routine is key to the running of our household. I have breakfast at 7.15 a.m., a piece of fruit mid-afternoon and a light evening meal at around 7 p.m.’
Deek43
‘I drink lots of water and limit myself to one cup of tea and one black coffee during the day. I keep myself totally busy so I don’t think about food. I eat one meal in the evening, normally salmon and vegetables.’
Lou Piac
‘I eat lunch (200 cals) and tea (300 cals).’
Jo
‘Three meals – 150 cals for breakfast, 150 cals for lunch and 200 cals for dinner.’
Sarah
There are also plenty of tips about how to deal with the dreaded hunger pangs. The most frequent is simply, ‘By dreaming of tomorrow!’ but there are some other ideas too.
‘To deal with hunger pangs I drink a lot more fluid and look forward to my hot drinks as though they were food. I tend either to be more active in the evening or go to bed a bit earlier.’
Rachel
‘I drink more fluid, which helps with hunger pangs. I also try to do something interesting in the evening. I might go to the cinema or the theatre. In fine weather, I’ll go in the garden or out for a walk.’
Christina
‘I use drinks and snacks like Diet Coke, herbal tea, zero-fat yogurt and miso soups to take away the hunger pangs.’
Mikep
So now to the five normal days in a week. If you have tried the 5:2 diet before you may have heard the term ‘feast’ day bandied around for the non-diet days. This is a term I have made sure not to use here.
Let me explain. If you have tried the 5:2 diet before and found you didn’t lose much weight or you lost weight at the beginning and then it tailed off to nothing, then you are one of many. Lots of people who have problems losing weight on the 5:2 diet have the same problem. We are eating too much on our normal days and negating all the good work we are doing on our fast days.
Let’s look at me for example. In November 2012 I had been following the 5:2 plan for three months and was very close to my target weight. My plan was to continue following the plan right up to Christmas week, hopefully reaching my target weight in time for Christmas, and then I’d allow myself a week off. But as Christmas approached, although still sticking to my fast days, I stopped losing weight and even gained a pound or two. At the time I couldn’t understand it. But as I re-examined my goals after Christmas I realized how much I had been eating on my normal days. I would allow myself the mince pies or chocolates or fancy canapés because I could eat what I liked and enjoy it. In fact, I ate far more than I have done in previous years at Christmas because I felt I was justified in doing this, as I was still on a diet. But I’m sure, looking back, that I was eating far more than my recommended daily calories. No wonder the diet was no longer working for me.
The revelation that I had in the cold light of January is that you cannot go crazy, binge and eat rubbish for five days a week. It just cannot work. For sustained weight loss and a healthy, long life, you need to eat healthily on your non-fasting days too.
The difficult truth is that it took me until the end of February to get back to the weight I was the previous November. So if you are reading this because you are finding that the 5:2 diet isn’t working for you, then take a look at your ‘normal’ days and re-assess. The more people I have talked to about problems with the diet, the more often I find that this is the cause of a de-motivating failure of the 5:2 diet.
Since my moment of revelation in January, I have found a simple and logical solution. Feast days become normal, healthy days and the 5:2 diet is a winning formula once again. Here I set out the rules or suggestions that can make your normal days work for you. Don’t worry, I don’t suggest cutting out all fun and treats, but as with all healthy eating it involves saving snacks and chocolate for an occasional treat, rather than making them your standard diet. Your formula for a successful ‘normal’ day is as follows:
• Eat three healthy, balanced meals a day.
• Have light, healthy snacks such as fruit or yogurt if you feel peckish between meals.
• Do not calorie count or reduce portion size; you are not on a diet.
• Do be aware of what you are eating. Is it necessary? Is it healthy?
• Do allow yourself the occasional treat.
• Cut back on processed food and ready meals.
• Prepare home-cooked food as often as possible – the recipes in this book are just as good on a normal day as a fast day.
• If you are still hungry after a meal, wait 20 minutes and see if you are still hungry.
• Do allow yourself a glass of wine or two, a tasty dessert or even a few squares of dark (semisweet) chocolate.
Foods to avoid:
• biscuits (cookies) and cakes
• pastries
• crisps (potato chips)
• non-diet fizzy drinks
• chocolate bars and sweets (candies)
• beer, lager and cider
Use the recipes in this book as a guide for healthy, balanced eating. Just add rice, pasta and bread as necessary, but avoid processed additions.
Three of your normal days should also be exercise days. Try and get yourself into a good routine so the exercise becomes an integral part of your normal days. If you like, you can split your normal days into three healthy days with exercise and two normal days where you can be a little bit more relaxed. This means you can effectively have the weekend off. But remember, don’t go overboard and cancel out all the things you have achieved during the week.
My schedule looks something like this:
If you are reading this without reading the section above about eating healthily on your normal days, then please have a look. It is by far the most likely reason that you are not achieving the desired weight loss. If, however, you think you are eating healthily on those days but would like to give yourself an extra push, then there are a number of additional options worth trying in the short term to help you reach your goals.
One of the things to try is extending the window. This means increasing the length of time you are fasting. A standard window might be from the last thing you eat the night before the fast until the time you eat breakfast the following morning. So if you start the fast on Sunday at 10 p.m. and fast until Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. then the total fasting time would be 34 hours. To extend the window to an optimum 36 hours, you could just make sure that you don’t eat after 8 p.m. on Sunday.
If, on the other hand, you find the 36-hour window a bit too long then you could try a 24-hour fast. This means starting at either 2 p.m. or 8 p.m. after lunch or dinner respectively and fasting until 2 p.m. or 8 p.m. the next day. This is slightly easier as you are eating a normal meal on both days, never having a full-day fast. This is also a good option if you don’t want to lose weight but want to gain some of the health benefits of the diet.
Another way to extend the diet is to add another day, making it a 4:3 diet. Try this if you want to lose some extra weight. The days should be non-consecutive, such as Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Finally, try a mix between the two. This is a kind of two-and-a-half-day diet. Have two normal days of fasting, say Monday and Wednesday – these are 36-hour fasts as described above – then have one day 24-hour fast day, say from 6 p.m. on Thursday to 6 p.m. on Friday. This is something I do occasionally and means I still get my relaxed weekend.
The 5:2 diet will help you lose weight and look and feel healthier, but to look good all over we need to look at body tone. The good news is that exercising just three times a week together with the two fast days will dramatically improve how you look and feel. There’s no magic cure, but fasting plus exercise should even improve the appearance of cellulite. Remember, all exercise should be done on your normal days, not on your fast days.
Start slow, but if you want to look good for summer I recommend walking or swimming. I wouldn’t recommend starting on the exercise programme in Part 4 without improving your general fitness first.
Walking is exceptionally good for you as a starting point for exercise. It’s free and very simple to start. Walk with a friend or take some music to listen to. Plan your route before you start and time yourself. You should be aiming to walk for 20 minutes, three times a week in the first week, increasing to 30 minutes, three times a week from the second week onwards. Your speed should be brisk with intent so it’s not a dawdle, but it’s not a speed test either. You should find that you naturally walk a little bit further every time you go out.
Swimming is another good way to get started with exercise. Choose your favourite stroke and swim gently, don’t push yourself – for 20 minutes in the first week, increasing to 30 minutes when you can. You could also try water walking, where you walk up and down through the swimming pool. The natural resistance of the water makes this a great exercise technique to try.
If you exercise or have an active lifestyle then this programme is for you. Even if you don’t exercise regularly but are not sedentary then you can find success with this programme. This means if you are running around after active children or walk/cycle to work every day then you are ready to step up and look stunning for summer.
The 4-week plan on here has been especially designed to fit in with the 5:2 Bikini Diet and your life. By following the programme three times a week on your normal days, you will notice considerable changes in your body shape and tone.
The plan uses a combination of resistance training (for your muscles) and cardio exercises to raise your metabolism and burn body fat for up to 24 hours after each session. The exercises can be done at home with some basic equipment or at your local gym.
The plan is quick and fun, so you don’t have to spend hours on the treadmill. The training plan comprises 12 training sessions over four weeks that get progressively more difficult. For best results, make the three sessions a week part of your routine and don’t let anything interfere with them. Remember, it’s all about balance. Fitting this routine into your schedule is the simplest way to achieve amazing results.
The 5:2 Bikini Diet is a fantastic way to reduce cellulite. Cellulite is just a type of body fat, but it is a horrible lumpy body fat that’s deposited in all the worst places: hips, thighs and bottom. What’s worse is that it has a dimpled ‘orange peel’ appearance that can make us feel self-conscious, especially in a swimsuit. The good news is that the 5:2 Bkini Diet is ideal for reducing cellulite, because when you lose weight through fasting, all the weight that you lose is body fat, and that includes cellulite.
The distinctive ugly appearance of cellulite comes from the fibrous tissue that only occurs in certain parts of the body like bottoms and thighs. In these areas, the fibres tether the skin to the muscle below. The cellulite is where the body fat bulges through the skin. The fibrous tissues cannot expand as the fat layer increases so we get the dimpled texture that we hate so much. You can’t do anything about the fibres connecting the skin to the muscle so the only way to reduce cellulite is to reduce fat in these areas and to increase the tone of the underlying muscles. By fasting two days a week to reduce the fat and exercising to increase the tone, you should see a marked reduction in cellulite.
‘Most surprisingly my cellulite seems to have melted. It used to be all over my bottom and on my thighs, but now there’s just a little bit on my bottom and I’m confident that will go too. I didn’t expect that kind of result at all, let alone so soon.’
Emma
There is a known medical process by which the body deposits fat on the hips and thighs. If we reverse that process then the fat will be removed from these areas first. An excess of insulin is one of the triggers for depositing fat in these areas. Intermittent fasting has been proven to reduce insulin levels, so that is one reason why the 5:2 Bikini Diet has an impact on cellulite in particular. Another trigger is an increase in oestrogen caused by pregnancy, the pill or HRT. If you are on the pill or HRT you may notice an increase in your cellulite. Other factors are smoking, too much alcohol and not enough exercise. If we keep these factors to a minimum, fast two days a week and exercise to increase muscle tone, we are doing everything possible to reduce cellulite.
On a ‘normal’ day, yes, alcoholic drinks are definitely allowed. Obviously beverages that are higher in calories – such as beer and lager – should be kept in moderation, but wine and spirits are relatively low calorie and can be indulged.
On a ‘fast’ day I would not recommend drinking alcohol. It is unlikely that you can fit it in easily within your reduced calorie intake. If you do drink on a fast day it may make you feel light-headed and ultimately lead to you breaking the fast on that day.