Well, I'm now 16 weeks into this. I've gone off boiled eggs for breakfast and now have a small scattering of granola, plus an apple for lunch and a much-reduced portion of whatever everyone else is having for dinner.
It was useful to calorie count at the start, but after a few weeks that became both tedious and unnecessary - having got a rough idea of the portion size needed, I can now serve out a "fasting" portion accurately enough. That means I'm not limited to things out of a packet which has a nutritional statement on the side, which is both useful and healthier.
That's not the big news though. The headlines are:
- I'm 8kg down on where I started. This includes Christmas, when I jumped about 2-3kg! In terms of my long-term aim, that's about 1/3 of the way. I've been waiting for the easy wins to fizzle out and for progress to slow down, but that hasn't happened (yet) and it's a fairly steady 1/2kg per week, plus or minus.
- I'm wearing trousers that are a size smaller than I'm used to. The ones I'm wearing today were an accidental purchase a few years ago that had to be put at the back of the wardrobe as they were so uncomfortable that they were unwearable. I've now had to order a selection of new trousers, as my old size is itself uncomfortable due to all the material gathering up under the belt.
- Talking of my belt, I may have to add a new hole. At the right end, too.
- This morning I had to catch a flight and was running late. Running was actually easy; I'd forgotten that could be the case.
- It's so easy to stick to that I've moved to 4:3 instead of 5:2, i.e. fasting Monday, Wednesday and Friday. That still leaves me with the weekend free, and it means that if my fast day doesn't fit around my work diary then I'm still at 5:2 even if I miss one. This is closer to the alternate-day fasting that Dr Mosley also described but with a weekend and a steady weekly routine instead.
This really works. I'm properly chuffed.
