For the last year or so, I have been on a diet. There's nothing new about that - I'm in a lifelong struggle with the fat guy that part of me wants to be. Sometimes I'm winning the war, and sometimes I'm losing it. Right now, I'm winning.
I've tried a lot of different diets, and I've discovered some things about myself. Most significantly, a diet that is fat-free just isn't going to work. I really like food (Duh!) and food without fat isn't food. It's just an inferior fuel that lacks taste and interest. Diets based on cutting out fat rank very highly on my Agony of Deprivation scale, and I'm going to fail at them, fairly quickly too.
I did South Beach several times, and actually did pretty well as long as I stuck to Phase I, which cut out almost all carbs, but I found that whatever gains I had from that reversed pretty quickly once I started Phase II and brought some carbs back in. The best I ever did on it had me on Phase I for 4 months, instead of the recommended 2 weeks. But South Beach is also high on the deprivation scale - while I wouldn't miss potatoes, I really like my pasta and bread and sweet desserts.
So a bit over a year ago, Mary suggested the 5-2 diet, also known as the intermittent fasting diet. It's pretty different as diets go. The basic idea is simple: for 2 non-consecutive days a week, you restrict your caloric intake to 500 calories. The other 5 days, you eat normally. That's all there is to it. And once you hit your target weight, you switch to fasting one day a week to maintain your weight.
What immediately stuck me about this concept was the fact that I was only going to be denying myself 2 days a week, instead of everyday. For diets, that's about as close to having your cake and eating it as you can get.
I was initially worried about those fasting days. I thought they were going to be hard, but after the first few, I discovered that they're really pretty easy. On Mondays and Thursdays, I have a cup of coffee and a yogurt for breakfast, skip lunch, and usually have a 2-egg frittata for dinner. Am I hungry on those days? Not obsessively so - I maybe think briefly about food 4-5 times during the day, but it's just a realization that something to eat would be welcome, but not necessary.
A side note about this: Mary has tried twice to do this diet and can't make it work for her. The fasting days are a much greater struggle for her than for me. Interestingly, our doctor told her that women seem to have a lot more trouble with the diet, and particularly the fasting days, than men - but I'd still recommend that women give it a shot. It's not a clear cut thing at all according to the doc.
The really surprising thing about the 5-2 diet is that it changes your appetite. I found myself eating a lot less on the regular days - it wasn't a conscious decision - I just found myself eating less. But the real big thing is the tale of the tape: I've lost over 50 pounds and almost 4" of waistline. I'm under 200 lbs. for the first time in over 15 years, and I feel great - lots of energy, and my knees really appreciate the load reduction.
If you're carrying some extra poundage, you might want to check this diet out - it's hard to believe that something so easy would work, but it does.
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