5 and 2 dietTypical diets leave you hungry every day of the week and become too hard to stick to. Most people end up failing on these diets, and many people who succeed end up developing eating disorders because they don’t know how to eat a diet that satisfies them without putting the weight back on. If this sounds like you, then the 5:2 diet may be exactly what you are looking for to lose the weight and sustain the weight loss.
Dr Michael Mosley embarked on the plan. He documented his endeavours in BBC2 programme Eat, Fast And Live Longer, which was watched by more than 2.5million people. Since then everyone has been at it A-listers Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lopez and Gwyneth Paltrow have reportedly been giving ita go.
What Is The 5:2 Diet?
Essentially, it is just as you would expect from the name. You spend five days eating one way and two days eating another. The five days are spent eating normally, while the two days are spent fasting. However, you do not need to completely fast on the two days because you can include a certain amount of calories in those two days, depending on your gender. Women can have 500 calories and men can have 600 calories, to help you with this there is a new product called 5:2 Fast Formula.
Benefits Of The 5:2 Diet
In today’s world, fasting gives our body a break from all the processes that it has to go through and allows it to return to balance, which aids in healthy functions in our body. A healthy body will lose weight quicker and maintain that weight loss for years to come. Following are a few benefits of this diet.
1. Removes Toxins
Because many toxins enter our body from the chemicals in our food, intermittent fasting gives our body a break from processing these chemicals and allows it to get rid of the toxins that are already in our body. Many chemicals are stored in fat, and during a fast they are also released.
When your liver has to process too many toxins, it can have a negative effect on your ability to lose weight. For instance, toxins can build up and cause inflammation, which has long been associated with obesity.
2. Allows You To Acknowledge Real Hunger Cues
If you eat until you are too full, they you may not be listening to your natural body cues of hunger and fullness. Fasting allows you to tune in to your body and its messages, and thus allows you tune in to your body when you are not fasting. This can help stop overeating and eating when you are not hungry; two very big factors in weight gain.
3. Allows You To Make A Lifestyle Change
The current agreement in weight loss is that you have to make a lifestyle change in order to sustain the weight loss in a healthy way. This means that you have to be able to choose healthy foods and eat only what your body requires. Because fasting gives you the ability to listen to your natural cues, you will start to understand what is really healthy and not healthy for you, and you will start to make more appropriate choices when it comes to healthy eating.
In addition, old patterns are removed. For instance, you cannot eat like you normally do for two days of your week, which causes you to break habits, such as the TV/eating connection.
4. It Balances Out The Calories For The Week
Many popular diets allow you to eat a limited amount of calories in the week. However, this can feel restricting when you only have so many calories in a day. On the 5:2 diet, because two out of your five days involves fasting, you create a calorie deficit for the week that allows you to easily eat comfortably while still maintaining a calorie intake that is less than you are exerting. In short, you will lose weight without counting calories.
Extra Considerations
On the days that you can eat whatever you want, you have to maintain a healthy diet. You cannot eat continuously all day and expect to lose weight. If you are just making up the calories that you lost on your fasting days, then you will not be successful. Therefore, eat a diet that is healthy, and do not overeat or eat when you are not hungry. Pay attention to your body cues.
Hunger pangs can happen on days of fasting. Often they can be relieved by drinking a glass of water or tea. Soon you will be able to work through the hunger pangs with very little effort. Often hunger pangs are brought about because you are thinking about eating, so distracting your mind with something is a great way to move past them and stay committed to the diet.
On the days of fasting, you may experience headache, dizziness, or fatigue. This is normal when toxins are being removed from the body. In addition, because you are not receiving a lot of energy throughout the day, fatigue may occur. However, some people experience no issues during their fasting days.
In the end, the 5:2 diet can help you to remove toxins, bring your body back to balance, learn how to listen to your natural hunger cues, and give you the weight loss results that you have been looking for.
Is there any help for the 5 and 2 diet?
Fortunately there is a product to make fasting diets more successful and much easier to follow called 5:2 Fast Formula. It helps to suppress the appetite during both fasting and non-fasting periods whilst helping to restore a healthy balance of vitamins and minerals in the body – which also helps to avoid the tiredness many people experience during fasting.
