The 5:2 Fast Diet Update - Five Ways How the Diet Has Changed my Life
It's now been over six months since I wrote the first ever 5:2 post about a fasting diet I'd seen on TV a few weeks earlier. The rest is history: Dr Mosley and Mimi Spencer wrote The Fast Diet book and included that first post in it. The book is now world-wide best seller for the small indy publisher Short Books.
Sadly I don't think this makes me a world-best selling author, too; but I digress.
Anyway, I thought it was about time to let you know how I'm getting on with the Fast Diet.
1. Feeling Great!
I have just started going back to the gym. After all my problems with the small op, my back and my frozen shoulder (touch wood!) I feel fit. The extra weight I'd gained due to the health problems have gone, and I feel as if I am back to myself again.
2. Feeing Healthier
What's more ( again, touch wood!) I seem to be able to shrug off any colds and sniffles very quickly. I can't really put this down to anything else but the Fast Diet. Before I started the diet, I'd get two or three really bad colds a year and I'd be really poorly at least for a week, and it would take two for me to feel fully well again. Now any little sniffles take just a day or two to clear.
3. My Weight
Although my weight fluctuates, I have kept the 8 kilos off that I lost in the first 3-4 months. This is quite a feat since I've had several long breaks in the diet (Christmas and holidays) when I've eaten exactly what I've wanted (cinnamon buns, Daughter's cakes, beer, pizza, curries etc., etc.). I also do not count calories on the days when I'm not fasting. To me, being able to not worry about what I have on the 'free' days is what this 5:2 diet is all about. Plus there are weeks when I just do one fast day.
4. New Relationship with Food
The 5:2 Diet has given me the confidence not to eat. This sounds strange, but in the past I'd be afraid of feeling hungry, and would often eat a meal 'just in case' I might feel hungry later. I've learned that feeling hunger is OK, it's nothing to be afraid of.
5. Healthier Lifestyle
Taking into account all the pizza and cinnamon buns, on the whole as a result of the 5:2 diet, I eat more healthily purely because on the fast days I cannot have the empty sugary and fatty calories. I also think that my body has got used to eating less sugar and fat on the non-fasting days too. I also drink less wine (mores the pity!) because I just don't seem to want as much of the bad stuff as before. There's also independent evidence for this: the little health scare I had just about at the same time I started the 5:2 diet, with raised glucose levels, which is the first sign of developing type 2 diabetes, has totally disappeared. My levels are now normal.
In summary, I feel great! Of course I'd like to lose more weight. To be table to fit into a size 12 (again) would be nice, but since I am quite tall (175 cm), of a certain age, and have - what someone once very gamely put it - a tennis players physique, size 14 is OK with me.
Sadly I don't think this makes me a world-best selling author, too; but I digress.
Anyway, I thought it was about time to let you know how I'm getting on with the Fast Diet.
1. Feeling Great!
I have just started going back to the gym. After all my problems with the small op, my back and my frozen shoulder (touch wood!) I feel fit. The extra weight I'd gained due to the health problems have gone, and I feel as if I am back to myself again.
2. Feeing Healthier
What's more ( again, touch wood!) I seem to be able to shrug off any colds and sniffles very quickly. I can't really put this down to anything else but the Fast Diet. Before I started the diet, I'd get two or three really bad colds a year and I'd be really poorly at least for a week, and it would take two for me to feel fully well again. Now any little sniffles take just a day or two to clear.
3. My Weight
Although my weight fluctuates, I have kept the 8 kilos off that I lost in the first 3-4 months. This is quite a feat since I've had several long breaks in the diet (Christmas and holidays) when I've eaten exactly what I've wanted (cinnamon buns, Daughter's cakes, beer, pizza, curries etc., etc.). I also do not count calories on the days when I'm not fasting. To me, being able to not worry about what I have on the 'free' days is what this 5:2 diet is all about. Plus there are weeks when I just do one fast day.
4. New Relationship with Food
The 5:2 Diet has given me the confidence not to eat. This sounds strange, but in the past I'd be afraid of feeling hungry, and would often eat a meal 'just in case' I might feel hungry later. I've learned that feeling hunger is OK, it's nothing to be afraid of.
5. Healthier Lifestyle
Taking into account all the pizza and cinnamon buns, on the whole as a result of the 5:2 diet, I eat more healthily purely because on the fast days I cannot have the empty sugary and fatty calories. I also think that my body has got used to eating less sugar and fat on the non-fasting days too. I also drink less wine (mores the pity!) because I just don't seem to want as much of the bad stuff as before. There's also independent evidence for this: the little health scare I had just about at the same time I started the 5:2 diet, with raised glucose levels, which is the first sign of developing type 2 diabetes, has totally disappeared. My levels are now normal.
In summary, I feel great! Of course I'd like to lose more weight. To be table to fit into a size 12 (again) would be nice, but since I am quite tall (175 cm), of a certain age, and have - what someone once very gamely put it - a tennis players physique, size 14 is OK with me.
No comments have been added yet.
