5:2 Fasting Diet as a Bridge to Healthy Living
I wasn’t particularly impressed by the results of my attempt at the 5:2 fasting diet last year. I starved myself for 14 days (over a seven week period), but I didn’t really have much to show for it at the end. I did lose about 4kg (about 9 pounds), but I put this all back on within a few weeks of the end of the fast. I didn’t feel good at the end of that period of fasting – I actually felt like a bit of a failure because I’d originally planned to go for 10 weeks.
Some Benefits of 5:2 Fasting Diet Are Only Temporary
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could just commit to clean living for a few weeks and then look forward to a lifetime of good health. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. It takes a constant effort to keep the body in good condition – especially if you are over 40.
Like most things in the universe, our health is subject to decay – this is just the natural tendency for things to move from a state of order to disorder. We have been fighting the forces of entropy since the moment we were born. It’s a battle we can’t win, but we can delay our defeat by constantly working hard to stay as healthy as we can.
I’m now almost at the end of my third week of the 5:2 fasting diet (today is my sixth 24-hour fast). I’ve definitely lost some weight, but I’ve no idea how much because I’ve decided not to weigh myself until the end. I don’t want to get too focused on my weight because it would be all too easy for me to put it all back on again.
5:2 Intermittent Fasting as a Bridge to Healthy Living
I see this 10 weeks of 5:2 intermittent fasting (and the fifteen days of juice fasting that came before it) as a bridge to healthy living. I’m taking this massive action because I want to get completely out of my comfort zone. I’m disrupting all my old eating habits, so I can begin to introduce some new healthier habits.
Over the next few weeks I’m going to be adding healthier food choices into my diet. This means that at the end of the fasting period, my diet will have completely transformed without me hardly noticing. After my fast days I’m happy to eat anything so this is the best time to introduce something new. I’m also continuing to slowly increase my exercise regime so this is solidly in place by the end of the 10 weeks.
