Dieting is damn difficult and more so the older and fatter I get. I love food and love all the wrong food. Yet year after year there is a period when the discomfort of a large waist line hits home and it is time again to try and lose some of those flabby pounds. It's a time when I want to peak over my belly and see toes below, which are no longer hidden by the half moon stomach which has been keeping them dry. Not to mention the embarrassment of having my very own small but noticeable cleavage. It's time they went so it is the two five diet began three weeks ago and this evening begins the fourth week. So it will be, Monday and Tuesday no food will pass over these lips. The usual calorie intake in the region of two thousand for each day will drastically drop. Hunger will make me sharper in mind, make me alert and also aware of food being consumed around me, because during these two days of self flagellation food just smells so much more appetising. Like some kind of little devil teasing my nostrils it will beckon me to go off course. However, it will not happen and I'm sure the odd pound or two is being lost. So with a little lucky over the next two days maybe another pound will disappear.
It is not easy going on the two five diet, not at all easy. Except on the first week the diet was self imposed and it was for the best. The Sunday night I'd had a dose of the runs and belly rumbles. Having gotten up and had constant broken sleep. I must of ran to the toilet a handful of times, things were not right. Belly was making all kinds of noises, it doesn't help when previously self diagnosed as having IBS as well. I knew it was a matter of starving in order to let the natural gut acids build up and kill whatever bacteria or virus was at work. Two days later on Tuesday afternoon things were a lot better, it was at this stage I realised it would be a good start to the two five diet. So it has been three successful weeks and the start of the fourth, this very minute now. Since then colleagues at work have said my face looks thinner, that it was working. Unfortunately I haven't weighed myself so don't really know what the starting weight was, but I know it is working because another tighter hole on my best is being occasionally used now. Not all the time, but occasionally it is. Therefore some blubber must of been lost. The plan is to keep it up until at least Christmas and then re-start again, but to be really true to this diet it shouldn't matter what time of the year it is. I should just diet and stick to it.
On Wednesday this means now going without food for 8 days out of the last 28 days. I calculate 28.57 per cent of the food I'd of normally consumed has not been consumed. Therefore these must be a weight reduction taking place. Choosing to take two consecutive days was in part serendipity in practice, it just happened as explained earlier. Yet I also saw on a "Horizon" (BBC TV programme) there was scientific research indicating something happens to the human body when hitting a certain
point during this 48 hours fasting. To be specific it was Dr Michael Mosely who advised the consecutive days were important. I guess it is a little like hitting the wall when running a marathon, at this stage your body begins to extract calories from the fat it already has stored up. The diet doesn't reap as many benefits if doing it on non consecutive days although it may well work, it's not going to be the same. Just add in a little very moderate exercise and the diet is becoming a healthy lifestyle option. The thing with the five days of normal eating is you can even overeat if you want. It doesn't matter because the calories lost on the two days generally are not made up. Effectively weight will go down. There are no losers. Which I say because it also means for the two days you are not eating you don't need to buy any food so there is extra pennies left in your pocket. There is however another version of this diet which has it dieters can eat 500 calories on their fasting days. I tried this as well, but it didn't work and the diet went astray. It is necessary though to ensure during the normal eating days to consume a little extra protein than normal. Unlike fat, protein can not be stored up, that's all.
It's now gone an hour into week four and all is well, the best part is when I got to bed in a few hours time there would of gone past an easy 12 hours. Then there's only another 36 hours to pass, but before I know it Tuesday afternoon will arrive. Take heed, the 5:2 diet isn't something which can be done in a few short weeks. It is one of those things you just have to keep going at, setting a target of a few months time and also keeping in mind the need to get fit and healthy as well. The pounds will go, but they will go in the same way the came in the first place. Slowly.
