Welcome to our journey

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So you may well have heard of the 5:2 diet – if you haven’t, it now features as number one on the NHS page of ‘Top Diets.’ Interesting, when any talk around fasting usually attracts a raised eyebrow and a comment like “Oh, but I could never do that.”

Having watched Dr Michael Mosley’s Eat, Fast and Live Longer on BBC’s Horizon, we fasted on alternate days for two months and then dropped down to fasting for two days per week for several months more. Fasting days meant a calorie restriction of 500 calories per day for me, and 600 for my partner, Ross. Ross lost around 7kg, I lost around 4kg, despite being able to eat whatever we wanted on non fasting days. And then, we stopped. Why? Well, I started a new job and fasting no longer felt practical and Ross just kind of let the plan slip away too. 

Last week, we got wind of a new book by Dr Michael Mosley, the fast 800, and reading this sparked new energy and motivation. It reminded us both of the reasons we had started fasting in the first instance. It reminded us that this was never a fad diet, a purely vanity diet. And it reminded us of how important it was to carry on. So this is our story of the new, restyled fast 800 diet which begins by restricting our calorie intake to 800 calories per day, as well as consuming foods low in carbohydrates. 

So let me tell you a little bit more about us. I am 26, Ross is 27. We both work full time in fairly sedentary jobs. I work 9-5, Ross works shifts, which might be very early mornings (think 4am starts) or late nights (think back to bed after 2am). Outside of work, we try our best to lead pretty active lifestyles. My passion is rock climbing and, after a year of persuasion, Ross finally joined me and now enjoys this too. His passion is Roller Derby – a contact sport played on roller skates. We both have recently completed the Couch to 5K programme. We both wear a Fitbit and track our heart rate, sleep and regularity of our exercise. Throughout this diet, we will also be monitoring our blood sugar levels every week, weight and our level of ketosis. (This is where the body begins to fuel itself from fat rather than from sugar. This leads to fat burn and is triggered by a low carbohydrate diet. More on this here.)

We have various motivations for the fast 800. Ross has a weight loss goal; but, ultimately, we both want to stay healthy longer term. That means doing what we can to fight the risks of diabetes, heart disease, dementia and cancer – all of which are referenced in the studies behind this diet. Personally, coming from a family with a strong history of breast cancer and having lost my Mum at the age of 48, I read with eagerness how periods of fasting can give your body a chance to repair and how the human body was never designed to eat the way we do in the modern age. We were never supposed to be eating all the time.Having seen my Mum lead a seemingly healthy lifestyle, I have always thought I would need to do something dramatically different to lower my risk. Something that goes against the current norms. Something like this?

We will leave the science largely to the experts. We may touch on it in this blog, but if you want to know the details get your copy of the book. This is the story of our personal journey of the fast 800 diet, starting from day one. I wouldn’t usually choose to write so publicly about a difficult goal like this. One that I know will be difficult to stick at. But here we are. We will tell you what it is really like. What we cooked. What we ate. When we failed. And how we got back on track.