you get bored of counting calories or find it difficult on your diet days, you may want to try this new variation suggested by Michelle Harvie and others from the Genesis breast cancer prevention centre.
On your two diet days, follow a very low-carb diet (think ‘Atkins’) but do not count calories. Their incipient research[5] suggests that this is at least as effective for weight loss and other health markers as the restricted calorie approach.
These are all genuine questions that people have asked via Facebook www.facebook.com/52DietRecipes or Twitter @52DietRecipes. If you have got a question that’s not listed here, I’d love to help if I can.
If your plans change and you suddenly find yourself in the pub on a diet day
Don’t panic! You have got two choices. Do you break the diet or not? Having a drink and breaking the diet would mean that the effort you have put in during the day would be lost and you’d have to schedule another diet day later in the week. If it’s the evening and you have already got through most of the day, is it really worth giving up on the diet day? You could have a water, a diet coke or diet tonic water without adding any extra calories.
If you’re starving and there’s nothing in the cupboards
Eggs, baked beans and soups are your friends here. All are filling and you should find the calorie content on the box. If you don’t have any of these in your house, all will be available from your nearest supermarket or convenience store.
If you need/want to exercise on your diet day
Sometimes you will find that you have to do exercise on your diet day. The problem with exercising is that it burns calories and makes you hungry, meaning that you are more likely to struggle with your diet day. Sadly you cannot add on the calories that you burn during exercise to your calorie intake for the day. If you do need to exercise on a diet day, try to do it before you eat in the morning. Light exercise in the evening can also be a distraction from hunger. Try to avoid exercising in the afternoon as this will make you very hungry and most likely to falter.
What is the best type of exercise to do on my healthy days?
I would recommend any aerobic exercise that increases your breathing and heart rate as being best for weight loss. Walking, jogging, cycling, swimming or tennis are all good to get your heart rate up. Try to exercise three times a week for at least 45 minutes each time.
If you find a diet day is proving next to impossible
Sometimes this happens to the best of us. For all sorts of reasons – stress, hormonal, lack of sleep – we can find a diet day particularly hard. You are allowed to give up on a day if it is truly dreadful.
It is always worth assessing what is causing it to be so hard and trying to see if it is worth pushing on through. Late afternoon is often a time when we feel at our weakest. If you can bring your evening meal forward or have a small snack at that time, you may find you get over the hump. Remember that the sacrifices you have made already during the day will be wasted if you stop. Try counting the number of hours until bedtime and make sure you get an early night.
If you give up entirely on a diet day, don’t beat yourself up about it. Allow yourself tomorrow off and re-attempt the following day. If you still manage to fit two diet days into your week, then the week has been a success.
If you are on holiday
I think it is very hard to follow the 2-Day Diet when you are on holiday. If you have been dieting for weeks beforehand, then I would say that it is time to relax and enjoy your hard work. To avoid putting on too much weight, try to still be sensible when you can. Eat a big breakfast (especially if it’s free!), eat healthy snacks or a light lunch and enjoy your dinner.
If you’re cooking for other (unsympathetic!) people
If you have got a partner or family who are not dieting then you need to make sure you can accommodate everyone’s needs without much fuss. The easiest way to deal with this common problem is to cook the same meal for everyone. Just serve everyone else’s meal with plenty of extra carbohydrates. If it’s not possible to all eat the same thing, then at the very least try to eat at the same time. There’s nothing worse than watching other people eat when you’re starving.
If you feel that your weight loss has plateaued
It is natural for your weight loss to level out after a few weeks on the 2-Day Diet. The high weight loss that you experience when you start the diet can only be maintained for two to three weeks. After that, at the same time as it gets easier and you get into a rhythm, the weight loss will diminish. This is normal and healthy. The extreme early weight loss cannot be maintained. If you have a lot of weight to lose, then you will hopefully find that the weight loss flattens out at about 0.9kg (2lb) a week. If you are nearer your target weight, your expected weight loss will be about 0.5kg (1lb) a week.
If you are not losing any weight while still following the diet plan, then you should look at what you are eating on the five normal days. You may be eating too much. Indeed this is the most likely cause of a plateau. Make a food diary for your healthy days and be a bit stricter with yourself. Most importantly steer away from the biscuit tin and any junk food.
Under 200 calories
