5:2 Vegetarian

INTRODUCTION

If you are reading this, you have just taken a step towards improving your life. If you’re already a 5:2 devotee, I hope you’ll embrace this book for prolonged fast-day inspiration – you know how good it feels and this is yet another step forward. If you’re a newbie, what are you waiting for? You’ll soon be reaping the benefits of good health, and you can start tomorrow.

So here’s the scoop. The 5:2 Diet, Fast Diet, or Intermittent Fasting Diet is gaining momentum worldwide as thousands of people who try it see how effective it is for weight loss and improving their general well-being. I am one of them!

This diet emerged onto the British scene in 2012 with a BBC Horizon documentary called Eat, Fast and Live Longer, presented by medical journalist Dr Michael Mosley. His bestselling book The Fast Diet explains the science behind it. I saw the documentary in September 2012 and I decided to give 5:2 a whirl, ‘fasting’ for 2 days a week on 500 calories a day, and eating normally for the rest of the week.

I was quite simply blown away by how manageable it was. Four months later – and 20 pounds lighter – I started a blog about it in February 2013 called 5:2 Vegetarian. Now I’ve created this book to make fast days interesting, painless and fun. On fast days, when you reduce your calorie intake by 75% just twice a week, you don’t want to fuss over food – you need quick, simple and satisfying meals with a low calorie count that still taste gorgeous, so you can fit fast days into your busy life. With a little know-how, inspiration and will-power, 5:2 is the easiest diet ever – and it’s easy to sustain as a lifestyle.

My message is this: you will change with 5:2. You’ll lose weight, feel great and gain confidence. You’ll drink more water and eat more vegetables, which we all know are the elixirs of life. You may find that on non-fast days your appetite is decreased and you crave more healthy foods. You also might find that you relish the foods you love even more on non-fast days. It could change your attitude to food for the better – for ever.

CHAPTER 1

THE 5:2 LIFESTYLE

Many people, me included, have found 5:2 to be effective as a weight-loss diet because it fits so easily into any lifestyle. This is what makes it sustainable in the long term, resulting in the health benefits that are not found with conventional ‘yo-yo’ dieting.

WHY 5:2 VEGETARIAN?

As more 5:2-themed blogs and books spring into the public domain, many of the recipes are focused on meat and fish; they neglect the most important feature of the diet: heaps of low-calorie vegetables! Here’s where I, a vegetarian food writer and 5:2 follower, am applying my expertise and creativity with vegetables. Everything here is healthy and suitable for vegetarians, with many vegan-friendly and gluten-free recipes. Eggs, tofu and beans are the main protein sources, which will help you feel fuller for longer.

Of course the book can also be enjoyed by omnivores. If you ever thought of trying a ‘meatless Monday’ or one day a week without meat, why not try two, and, with this book, start on a path to weight loss and better health?

The last thing you want on fast days is to be chained to the kitchen, so my fast-day meal recipes are all super-quick (30 minutes or less), satisfying, and nutrient-rich, yet all are under 300 calories. Some of the flavour bombs take a little longer to prepare, but that’s only down to marinating time or time in the oven. All recipes make either one or two servings: the second portion can easily be saved for the next fast day, and most are portable, for taking to work in a packed lunch (see Chapter 9).

If you’re cooking for non-fasters on fast days, I’ve added suggestions in Chapter 4 for multiplying and bulking out the meals for family members, as the recipes are delicious enough to share and the low-calorie aspect will go unnoticed. There are also scores of additional recipes and ideas to help on fast days, with my Flavour Bombs, Speedy Breakfasts, Snacks, Drinks and Appetite Crushers, plus a section on dressing up convenience foods and some lunchbox ideas. Now there’s no excuse not to fast!

THE 5:2 DIET: HOW IT WORKS

Here’s all you need to know about 5:2. The 2 refers to 2 fast days when you restrict your calorie intake to 500 for women or 600 for men on each day. The 5 refers to the rest of the week, the non-fast days, the ‘feed days’ or ‘feast days’ when you can eat normally and, within reason, enjoy all the food and drink you want. It is important not to overcompensate on these days and, as often as possible, keep it healthy. If you do over-indulge once in a while, there’s no need to beat yourself up. 5:2 allows you to live life to the full.

Every weight-loss diet requires some kind of restriction on what you consume. Some diets are successful but impossible to maintain, resulting in short-term weight loss that just piles back on once you resume your normal routine. Only cabbage soup or grapefruit? Only 1000 calories every day? No chocolate, no wine, no bread, no cheese? How long can that possibly last? Not only is it excruciatingly boring and repetitive, but you feel deprived, you can’t enjoy social situations, and you soon lose interest. It’s simply not sustainable. Life is just too short. Even if you lose weight with one of these regimes, it soon creeps back, ounce by ounce.

The genius of 5:2 is that you need to restrict yourself only 2 days a week. It doesn’t matter which days – non-consecutive or back-to-back – just whenever you can fit them into your busy week. That means you can still enjoy nights out, long lunches, or indulgent weekends with friends and family, and generally eat what you fancy, almost all week long.

By restricting yourself to the 500- or 600-calorie limit 2 days a week, you will be consuming roughly the equivalent of 3500 fewer calories per week, which equals 1 pound of fat. Once you embrace 5:2, you should lose 1 pound a week, possibly more. Fasting has other health benefits too: studies have shown that it stimulates cell repair and healing, and that it lowers your risk of diseases including heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

But I’ll leave that to Dr Mosley to explain. See thefastdiet.co.uk.

MY SUCCESS STORY

My passion for food and cooking is so fervent that I made it my profession over 20 years ago. I write cookbooks, develop and demonstrate recipes, and run food tours in London. Everything I do is about inspiring people to appreciate good food. If I’m not eating or cooking it, I’m thinking about it.

Getting fat is clearly an occupational hazard for someone like me. For most of my career I’ve kept that hazard at bay. People often ask, ‘How do you do what you do and stay slim? to which I have an automatic reply: ‘tons of exercise’. I stopped hearing that question about 2 years ago. A combination of life-altering factors conspired against me and BAM! I gained 20 pounds, seemingly overnight. Carrying that extra load around marred my confidence and rendered my fabulous wardrobe obsolete. I kept beating myself up for letting it happen but I just couldn’t shift it, even though I was maintaining a steady exercise regime. Then, in mid-September 2012, I stumbled across Dr Michael Mosley’s BBC Horizon documentary online and decided to give the 5:2 discipline a try. Some weeks I cheated and, as always, I enjoyed an excessive Christmas period. Within 4 months I lost 20 pounds and have now reached my ideal weight, but I’m still keeping up with 5:2. It requires patience, but by losing weight slowly, you’re more likely to keep it off. Once you achieve your goal, you’ll never want to turn back. I’ve embraced 5:2 as a way of life, maintaining both my ideal weight and my food-loving lifestyle.

MY FAST-DAY MANTRAS

• If you’re finding your fast day difficult, just remember, tomorrow you can feast!

• If you’re feeling hungry but have to wait for your next meal, drink water, herbal tea or any other zero-calorie drink. Keep busy and distract yourself: do 10 jumping jacks. Call your best friend. Take out the trash. Or focus on whatever project is currently pressing. Hunger will pass.

• If you cheat or miss a fast day, don’t feel guilty. It won’t set you back. There’s always next week to make up for it.

HOW TO BUILD YOUR BUSY LIFE AROUND 5:2

Some weeks I find it’s difficult to designate 2 fast days. It’s best to mark my calendar ahead of time. I try to get it over with early in the working week. I generally work from home a couple of days a week, so those are the days I choose – it’s pointless trying to fast if I’m running one of my food tours or have plans for eating out. I get invited to a lot of boozy, canapé-laden industry events, so I try to schedule my fast days around those or give them a miss. I never fast at weekends, so I can be footloose and fancy-free. If I’ve only managed one fast day during the week, or even none, I don’t beat myself up. There’s always next week.

If you work outside the home all week and socialize at weekends, you’ll probably need to plan your meals ahead because you really have to devote yourself to fast days. If you choose to fast during the week, you can’t just load up at a salad bar or skip the bread with your soup – it’s impossible to calculate the calories hidden in the food we eat outside the home, unless it’s packaged and labelled. If you are at the office all day, you may find it most manageable to eat a small breakfast, bring a small snack to the office to keep you away from the biscuit tin, and skip lunch altogether, then complete your calorie allowance at home at dinnertime. Alternatively, take a fast-day friendly packed lunch to work. You’ll need to choose fast days when you won’t be going to a leaving-do after work or dropping round at a friend’s in the evening – get yourself home and fed and it’s over and you can congratulate yourself on another fast day well done.

If you’re a busy parent, it can be tempting when feeding the kids to gobble down a few cheeky chips – but on fast days, don’t. It may help to eat a late breakfast plus a snack, or a late lunch before they get home from school so that you aren’t famished while you’re cooking the kids’ meal. If you eat as a family, you can expand fast-day meals to feed the non-fasters, as explained in each recipe in Chapter 4.

As for exercise, it’s perfectly fine to build in your fitness on fast days, but don’t overdo it, and don’t compensate for extra calories burned by upping your 500- or 600-calorie allowance. You may find that you will feel extra hungry after exercise, so be prepared to stave off hunger by drinking extra water or eating your calorie-counted meal after your workout.

STRUCTURING YOUR FAST DAYS

There seem to be three different approaches to the fast day; it’s just a matter of finding which system works for you:

• Literally fast all day and eat one full 500-calorie (600-calorie for men) evening meal.

• Eat breakfast and an evening meal only with nothing in between.

• Spread out three meals over the day and keep each meal under 200 calories, with the occasional snack (that’s what works for me).

It does make sense to give your system a break from the constant grazing that we are accustomed to in modern life, but as far as weight loss and health benefits are concerned, it doesn’t matter which configuration you choose. You’ll be eating a lot less overall. You will lose weight.

There is no question that you will have some frustratingly hungry moments on fast days, but they can be overcome. Hunger waxes and wanes. If you focus on your hunger, the toys come out of the pram. Just chill. Chances are you don’t have to walk more than a few feet to grab something to put in your mouth. Instead, take a walk, but not to the fridge – go outside and breathe deeply. Find distractions.

ZEN AND THE ART OF CONTROLLING HUNGER

Some people find that if they give in between meals and have a snack it makes them hungrier – after all, we are addicted to food! It’s a practical discipline to just keep doing things to forget you are hungry – drinking water (or something enhanced with flavour like Fridge Tea), keeping busy, and remembering that it will soon be over because tomorrow you can eat normally. All of these simple things help. It may also help to join one of the several online