Jacqueline Whitehart - The 5:2 Bikini Diet: Over 140 Delicious Recipes That Will Help You Lose Weight, Fast! Includes Weekly Exercise Plan and Calorie Counter

Before you start you need to take your starting weight. Don’t think about it too much – everyone’s starting weight is high, otherwise you wouldn’t be thinking about your diet. Think positively. Think how good you will feel when you start losing weight.

Starting weight:__________ st __________ lb

Don’t worry about only weighing yourself once a week. You should weigh yourself when you like, just try not to do it every day as your weight can go up as well as down. We only care about the downward trend.

Ladies, be aware that your bodily cycle will have an impact on your weight. You may put on weight the week before your period and may also find fasting harder during this time. Try and stick with it and make allowances for your cycle if you find you haven’t lost as much weight as you would like.

I would recommend weighing yourself the morning after your second fast day of the week. If you fast on Mondays and Wednesdays, then Thursday morning before breakfast or a drink and after you have been to the toilet is when you will be at your lightest. If you can, use this as your weekly weigh-in to see if you have lost weight and hit your target.

This will depend entirely on your starting weight and fitness. If you have got more to lose, you will lose weight faster and can set a higher target. If you are quite close to your target weight and already reasonably fit, you won’t be quite as quick but you will still lose weight.

The target for your weight loss should be between 1 and 4lb per week. This is not a crash diet and you should only be aiming to lose weight in a safe and sensible way.

As a general guide, if you are just fasting but not exercising you should aim to lose 1lb per week. If you are fasting, exercising and staying healthy on your normal days then you could potentially see a weight loss of 2–3lb per week.

If you have more weight to lose then your target could be potentially higher than that.

Target weight loss per week: ___________ lb

It is also worth calculating your BMI at the start and end of the four-week period. You should have dropped at least a couple of points and may even have crossed into a healthier bracket.

Starting BMI: _______________

(Look in the ‘Magic numbers’ chapter on hereif you want help calculating your BMI.)

BMI at the end of the 4-week plan: _______________

Try looking at yourself in the mirror before you start, as it will help you see which areas you would like to look better for the summer. If you want to see the improvements, you need to see what you look like before as well, so ladies, put on your bikini or swimsuit, and gentlemen get your board shorts out. It’s time to try them on and have a good look at yourself in a full-length mirror.

First of all, ignore the fact that you are probably a little pasty – everyone looks like that at the beginning of summer and we all know how to fix it. That is a different problem.

What you want to be looking at is where you think your problem areas are. Is it your tummy? Thighs? Cellulite? Or a little bit of everything?

The 5:2 Bikini Diet exercise programme is designed to burn as much body fat as possible while improving muscle tone, giving you a leaner, healthier body in just 30 days. Remember that the diet will help shift the excess pounds, specifically some of the fat. Where we need to help out with exercise is to bring some definition to the flab.

Exercising three times a week for four weeks, as well as following the 5:2 diet, will bring noticeable changes to your body shape. After four weeks put on your swimsuit again and see if you can spot the changes. Then slap on a bit of fake tan if necessary and get yourself to the beach!

You need to do a bit of planning before you start on the first fast day. There are many different ways in which you can eat your 500/600 calories, but I would recommend that on your first day you have three small meals.

For women this means something similar to:

100 cals for breakfast, 150 cals for lunch, 250 cals for dinner

For men this could look like:

100 cals for breakfast, 200 cals for lunch, 300 cals for dinner

You should plan out exactly what you are going to eat. Take a look at the recipe section (see here) for some inspiration. Try not to eat much carbohydrate as this is very calorific. Stick to lean meats, vegetables and complex carbohydrates such as pulses or beans. Don’t consume too many calories in drinks. Drink black coffee or tea, diet colas, etc. An omelette (one large egg has 89 calories) makes a good, filling and simple meal. A salad is also a good option for lunch or dinner.

If you normally drink caffeinated drinks, don’t cut them out, as a sudden lack of caffeine could give you a headache and make the fasting day harder. If you like milk in your tea or coffee just remember to count the calories. A cup of tea or coffee with (50ml/scant ¼ cup) semi-skimmed (low-fat) milk has 25 calories, made with skimmed milk it has 19 calories. A short skinny latte from Starbucks has 67 calories and a tall skinny latte has 102 calories.

You may find the evening rather long and drawn out too. As you have hopefully had 250–300 calories for your dinner you actually won’t feel as hungry as you did during the day. But if you are at home with some snacks in the cupboard then you may well need some will power. Top tips to get you through your first fast day evening: find something good on the television, have a hot drink and go to bed early!

Remember:

•Feeling hungry is a natural state.

•Have a calorie-free drink to satiate your hunger.

•The first fast day is the hardest.

•You only have to do it once.

•Tomorrow you can eat like a king.

•You are actively losing weight right now.

•Feel proud and revel in a real sense of achievement.

Congratulations on making it through your first fast day! If you want, you can weigh yourself before you eat or drink anything. You may well have dropped 1lb in your first day. Now, normally I would be suggesting that you eat healthily and don’t snack on the day after a fast, but I think the rules can go out of the window on the first day. So you can eat what you like. Even though you have most likely been looking forward to your breakfast for most of the day before, you may find you are not as hungry as you thought. Or you may find you are starving and can’t stop eating. Don’t worry about it. It’s just your body adjusting and you can allow yourself some treats.

I remember on my first normal day I didn’t feel as good as I was expecting. The big breakfast made me feel tired and lethargic and I found it hard to get motivated all day. I have heard similar tales from others when they were just starting out with the 5:2 diet. These feelings will change quite dramatically as you continue with the diet. Just as the fast days get easier, the normal days get more, well, ‘normal’ really.

I suggested that you should eat three small meals on your first fast day. As you continue with the diet, you will probably want to adjust this to suit your body’s needs and your lifestyle. It is normally wise to leave at least 50 per cent of your calorie intake for the day until your evening meal, although you can eat this meal as early as you like, any time after 5 p.m. But how you split your breakfast and lunchtime calories is more interesting. You could skip breakfast, skip lunch or have a small meal at each.

Here are a few questions that might help you decide how best to manage your meals on a fast day.

•Do you get up early?

•Do you work in an office?

•Are you exposed to unhealthy food during the day?

If you answered yes to some or all of the above questions then it might be worth considering missing breakfast and having a slightly more substantial lunch. Why? Because eating at lunchtime will make it easier to avoid snacks during the day. If you are rushing out first thing, you should find it easier to miss breakfast.

•Are you busy during the day with little time to think about food?

•Do you feel cranky if you skip breakfast?

•Do you have a morning ritual which involves breakfast and coffee?

If you answered yes to some of the above questions then you should try having a bigger (200–300 calorie) breakfast and then going through until your evening meal. Why? If you are busy at work you will not notice lunchtime.

If you are still unsure, stick to three small meals and perhaps adjust a little when you discover your hungriest times of day.

This is, I admit, the boring bit of a fasting day. You have to count calories and you need to do it accurately, without leaving anything out. Don’t allow yourself any snacks between meals (except low-calorie drinks), as a snack will just waste your calorie allowance.

Read the packet of anything you are planning to eat, as practically all packaging will list the calorie content, then use one of the recipes in this book, which has been accurately calorie counted for you. Or, make up your own recipes, counting the calories in each individual component, using the calorie reference at the back of this book ( here).

You will find that you have a few favourite dishes that you come back to time and time again. It’s often omelettes or eggs in some form, or a salad. You will be able to work out the calories once and know for next time.

I’m going to be totally honest here: you will feel hungry on your fast days. It may be a new kind of hunger that you have never experienced before, but it’s not a bad thing. It won’t make you ill and your body adjusts to it very quickly. This is because hunger is a natural state for our bodies, which haven’t fundamentally changed since the Stone Age. Hunger makes us energetic and efficient and we use our coping mechanisms to find solutions to the hunger. In the old days this would have meant hunting for food. When we feel hungry by choice, this means finding distraction mechanisms.

‘I have a drink to deal with hunger pangs or nibble on a carrot stick.’

Sarah

You will notice two positive things on your fasting days that you won’t believe until you try it. First of all, you will have more energy, not less. It’s unbelievable I know, but the majority of people on the 5:2 diet feel great on their fast days. I tend to feel lively, very chatty and have a natural buzz – the same kind of buzz that I get when I exercise. This feeling may not appear on the first fast day, but give it a week or two and start enjoying the feeling.

‘I’ve had more energy, so the house is cleaner. The windows have never been so clean!’

Deek43

The second thing that seems a bit crazy before you start is that hunger comes in waves and normally passes in a few minutes if you think about something else. I tend to feel a real wave of hunger mid-afternoon, a time when in the past I would tend to snack unhealthily, but I now head out for some fresh air and don’t think about food, and the feeling goes away. I might not feel hungry for another couple of hours and then it’s nearly dinnertime and I’m on the home straight.