Many people I meet are shocked when I mention I do the 5:2 diet. There is a general perception that the 5:2 is quite ‘intense’. Those who have never heard of it seem to believe that they would perish if they attempted to live on 500 calories for 2 days a week. The funny thing is I can actually remember having a similar reaction when I first heard about the 5:2, thinking it would never be something I’d have the motivation to do, wondering what people could even eat on a ‘2’ day. Since I first heard about the 5:2 a couple of years ago, perceptions of it have changed. Generally now it has become so popular that most people know someone who is on the 5:2, or a friend of a friend and by and large, the reviews are pretty favourable. But I still get asked the question; “how do you survive on just 500 calories?” to which my most common answer is: my body has simply got used to it. It has become a habit, and not even the type of habit that is tedious and annoying. People look at me like I’m a Martian when I tell them I actually find my fasting days really refreshing. Because we are of a generation and culture who eat so frequently and have such an epic fear of hunger, people believe that we 5:2ers must spend our fasting days curled up in a corner in a semi-human state, incapable of normal interaction. This is not how it goes. I’ll walk you through a typical fasting day: 07:22am: It’s a Monday and I have the remnants of a heavy- weekend- induced headache. Get up, shower, drink 2 glasses of water, read a chapter of my book, get ready for work. 09:03am: Resist the temptation when my colleague offers much needed caffeine on the Monday morning round. Coffee is my Achilles heel, but I drink it with sugar so it’s really a no-no on a fast day unless absolutely desperate. I fill up my bottle of Highland Spring and focus on emails. 11:44am: Hunger pangs commence so I have a mug of peppermint tea (a natural appetite suppressant and one of my favourite items in the fasting day survival kit) this tides me over until lunch. 12:20pm: Check my fast-day desk stash of tinned soups, find sachet of Golden Syrup flavoured Quaker Oats but opt for more sensible Chicken Noodle Soup- 64 calories per ½ can (really ½ a tin of soup? Does anyone do that?) 12:36pm: Message boyfriend for fasting-day update. He’s discovered the Sainsbury’s healthy range roast chicken dinner for 304 calories. He has a 600 calorie allowance on fast days. Git. 12:48pm: Scour my favourite health blogs and websites for fasting day dinner inspiration (http://www.thekitchn.com/ is my favourite and has gives me some great fasting and non-fasting day ideas such as cauliflower rice and ice cream made from bananas- just bananas, nothing else). 16:45pm: Start to become undesirable. Human interaction gets a bit testing. It’s a choice between coffee or solitary confinement. 17:30pm: Shove a salmon fillet with herbs, lemon juice and chilli flakes in a tin foil parcel, put in oven with some vine tomatoes and pile up a large pasta bowl with salad. 17:55pm: EAT! 20:00pm: Make 39 cal hot chocolate and run bubble bath to avoid adverts for Domino’s Pizza (mild hang-over cravings are beginning to set in again). 21:30pm: Read book in bed, have post sleep daydream about banoffee pie, clear-up dribble. Have real dream about eating banoffee pie for breakfast.