The 2-Day Diet

Say what you like about diets – but ultimately they’re the only way to lose weight. Even when someone says they’re just cutting down their portion sizes and eating only healthy foods – that is a diet!

Last year I tried the 5.2 diet, consuming just 500 calories a day on two non-consecutive days, and eating normally the rest of the week. Now – moment of truth – I didn’t actually read the book behind this diet, so when I ate normally, I ate normally for me… No doubt the book would have told me to eat abnormally for me on the non diet days.

I’m pretty sure of this now as I’ve just bought another 5-2 style diet book – this one is The 2 Day Diet, by Dr Michelle Harvie and Prof Tony Howell. The claim on the cover is: ‘Diet two days a week. Eat normally for five.’ But, start reading, and it’s soon apparent you will be committing yourself to yet another 7-day diet – it’s just that 2 of those days are a little bit harder than the rest.

Here’s what you have to do:

On 2 consecutive days (can be non-consecutive if you prefer but the authors think consecutive works best) eat only 1000 calories comprising 0 carbs, 4-12 portions of protein (one portion is 30g of meat, poultry or oily fish OR 45g seafood OR 60g fresh or smoked white fish OR 1 egg OR 1 rasher of bacon or thin slice of ham), 5 portions of veg (there are however restrictions on these – your best bet is leaves: a cereal bowl full of lettuce or watercress counts as one portion), 1 portion of fruit (again there are restrictions – no bananas for example), 5 servings of fat (eg 1 serving is 1tsp mayo or veg spread but the word butter doesn’t seem to feature anywhere in this book).  There are a few other details but that’s about it in a nutshell.

The protein should keep you full and the theory is that we go on feeling hungry until we’ve consumed the amount of protein that we need.

On the 5 ‘eat normally’ days in fact you still only eat 1400 calories, comprising 3-8 portions of protein, and a maximum of 6-9 portions of carbs (the amount you can have depends on your weight and age, and there’s a handy ready reckoner to help you but as an example 1 medium slice of wholemeal bread would count as a portion), 2 portions of fruit, 5 vegetables, and 3-5 portions of fat (again your weight and height determine how much you can eat, and this is also in the ready reckoner).

Oh and I forgot to say that on both restricted and unrestricted days you should have 3 servings of dairy (1 serving = 1 pot low fat yogurt for example) – but no more than 4oz (120g) cheese each week.

 Despite all the counting and weighing – not to mention the various restrictions – it seems to be quite a do-able diet – so I am going to give it a whirl. I am right at the top of my healthy BMI, and as some experts say we should never let ourselves get more than a stone heavier than our lowest adult weight (eg what you weighed at 18) I need to lose a stone…

I quite like the idea that on a restricted day I can in theory have bacon, eggs, tomatoes and mushrooms for breakfast; prawn salad for lunch; and chicken salad for dinner. And that, on my non-restricted days I can have yogurt and berries for breakfast, tuna sandwich for lunch, and chicken and rice for dinner.

Eating just 120g cheese a week will be a challenge, and going butter-free could be impossible…

Let’s see what happens!