We value your privacy
We use cookies to help give you the best experience on our site and to allow us and third parties to customise the marketing content you see across websites and social media. For more information see our
Katrina Rendall asks people who cook and eat for a living how they've made the 5:2 diet work for them.
We've long been bombarded by too-good-to-be-true sounding fad diet claims. Truth is, two fifths of dieters quit within the first week and just one fifth manage a month on their new diet. So why is the 5:2 (or fast) diet different?
Medical journalist Dr Michael Mosely highlighted the health benefits of intermittent fasting in a BBC documentary in August 2012. His subsequent book, The Fast Diet, which he co-wrote with journalist Mimi Spencer, has sold over 340,000 copies and fans of the diet are said to include Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Beyoncé.
Limit your daily intake to 500 calories (for women; 600 for men) for just two days a week, then eat and drink as normal for the other five days. Experts say you'll lose around 1lb per week.
Karen Burns-Booth, 55, is a food writer and blogger at lavenderandlovage.com...
...She liked the idea of how easily the diet seemed to fit into her lifestyle, which involves a lot of cooking and eating out, and was also interested in the health benefits as she was suffering from insomnia and joint pain. Karen has lost 2 stone 2lb on the 5:2 diet since August 2012 and is still losing 1-1.5lb per week. She says it's by far the best diet she's ever tried.
· Hot food keeps me fuller when the weather is cold.
· I try to eat three meals a day and have my main meal in the evening, to prevent hunger pangs.
· I take a homemade lunch to work on my fast days, as most pre-prepared foods are too high in calories
· Breakfast: A small boiled egg
· Lunch: Curried carrot soup or roast tomato and garlic soup
· Dinner: Tiger prawn curry, made with 125g prawns per person, tinned tomatoes and low-fat yogurt, served with 60g of steamed rice.
· Snacks: A low-calorie jelly or a milky coffee in the evening as a hunger suppressant.
Elly Curshen, 33, is the owner of the Pear Café in Bristol...
...She's never dieted before but wanted to lost a few pounds and was tempted to try the 5:2 after seeing how successful friends had been. Elly lost 1 stone and 5lb on the 5:2 diet since April 2013. She said the hardest bit was getting through a hangover on a fast day.
· Use digital scales and weigh everything accurately, then use myfitnesspal.com to calculate calories.
· I save 400 calories for the evening and split them into one big meal plus snacks or two smaller meals.
· Social media is a great source of inspiration - I post pictures of my 5:2 dishes on instagram.com/ellypear and tag them #fastdayideas.
· Breakfast: Plenty of water and a mug of builder's tea with carefully measured milk.
· Lunch: Salad with loads of ingredients in small amounts - lettuce, cucumber, carrot, red onion, pickled beetroot, alfalfa sprouts and a small pinch of my homemade coleslaw (made with yogurt).
· Dinner: Chargrilled vegetables with Puy lentils, capers, poached eggs and courgette 'spaghetti'.
· Snacks: I make crudités while dinner is cooking.
Find more great 5:2 tips and read the full feature in the February issue of Sainsbury's magazine, on sale now.
We use cookies to help give you the best experience on our site and to allow us and third parties to customise the marketing content you see across websites and social media. For more information see our