Dieting and Weight loss | The 5:2 Diet IS THE BEST

What is the 5:2 Diet?

• This diet is great for quick and easy weight loss, however, in order for this diet to work, you must follow the steps mentioned in the second section of this post.
• This diet involves you eating under 600 calories for 2 days a week, then you would eat up to the normal calorie intake for the remaining five days, if you are a woman, this intake would be 1500 - 2000 calories a day, and for a man it is 2000-2500 calories a day.
• For this diet to work effectively, you must diet for two simultaneous days every single week.

What Do I Need To Eat When I am Fasting?

Breakfast

• If you are partial to breakfast, which I hope most of you are, then things such as yogurt and fruit such as bananas are really filling and ready to fill you up for the day.
• If you are a cooked breakfast person and like to have something hot inside your tummy to start the day, we recommend eating porridge, you may have up to 30g of porridge, although, as a woman, I find this portion a little too big, therefore substituting the remaining 10g or porridge for a little sweetener such as golden syrup or honey.
• You can still have hot beverages such as tea and coffee, but make sure you only limit yourself to one or two of these a day, as milk carries many calories even if you don't have the full fat (blue top) milk.

Lunch

• If you are still at school or work from 9-5, then you should be making this meal the main meal of the day.
• For lunch you can eat salad, rivitas with cottage cheese or any other substantial, healthy, low calorie meal that you can rustle up yourself.
• When I'm fasting, I like to stay away from carbohydrates, these include anything from pasta, bread, potatoes, rice etc.
• I find that a nice big vegetable salad fills me up for the rest of the day, which means I can last hunger free until dinner time.
• REMEMBER, fruit salad carries a lot more calories than a typical vegetable salad.
• It depends what you like to put in vegetable salads, or what your likes/dislikes are, I tend to include these vegetables...

- Lettuce

- Tomatoes (plumb/cherry)

- Cucumber

- Peppers (orange, yellow and red) - please go easy on the peppers as these carry the most calories

- Carrots

- Red Onions / White Onions / Leeks

Dinner

• If you aren't at work or school, or work nights, then this should be the main meal of the day.
• For dinner I often like to have rivitas, or gammon ham with salad and dressing.
• Fish is also a nice alternative to meat as meat carries more calories than fish.
• Fish such as cod, tuna and salmon are really healthy and low in calories, however they can be rather expensive so be savy and keep an eye out for some bargains either in the frozen food section or even the fresh fish counter which should be present in most big or main chain supermarkets across the country.

Should I Still Exercise While I'm Fasting?

• Yes, fasting is not an excuse to sit and do nothing.
• If you go to the gym normally and do say 100 calories on the cross trainer, then maybe lower it 50 calories on a day that you are fasting.
• This is a health and safety issue if you over do it.
• Why? when you are eating what you eat everyday, your body has all the energy it needs to pull you through 100 calories on the cross trainer, if you haven't eaten a lot all day, your body and heart rate will began to decrease and you will feel very lethargic and tired.
• If you carry on doing what you normally would at the gym on a day that you are fasting, it can create nausea, headaches, being physically sick, cramps, stitch and possibly fainting.
• If you are really tired anyway from not eating what you normally would then you are tired anyway, therefore it would be harder for you to control breathing patterns if you increase, lengthen or step up cardio exercises.  
• CONCLUSION - Still exercise, just be sensible in what you partake in, how long you do it for and what you do, for example, the cross trainer would make you more tired than the bike, but you would lose more calories on the cross trainer.
• I recommend having a planned out exercise schedule just for the days that you fast, this way, your body can easily get used to what you eat and also how you exercise on the days that you are fasting, this can help you become less tired in the gym on the days that you are fasting.  

Hope this helped!