Weekly Meal Plan, 5:2 Diet Recipes and Curried Carrot Soup (85 calories) (2024)

FAQs

What is the 5:2 diet meal plan? ›

This is where you eat normally at certain times and then fast during other times. There are different versions, but the 5:2 diet involves eating a normal, healthy diet for five days every week and 'fasting' on the remaining two days. On a 'fast' day, you would typically consume between 500 and 600 calories.

A typical 500-calorie fasting day might include oatmeal with fresh blueberries for breakfast, a tangerine for a snack, and a chicken and vegetable stir-fry for dinner. You will drink lots of water and may also have calorie-free beverages such as tea, coffee (no milk or sugar), and club soda.

The 5:2 diet plan aims for a weight loss of 1lb a week for women, and for men you could expect to lose slightly more. The NHS recommend a loss of 1-2lbs a week for healthy and safe weight loss, this amount is also more sustainable.

The 5:2 diet should be very effective for weight loss if done correctly. It may help reduce belly fat, as well as help maintain muscle mass during weight loss.

So researchers thought burning or cutting 500 calories a day led to losing 1 pound a week. But this isn't true for everyone. In general, if you cut about 500 calories a day from your usual diet, you may lose about ½ to 1 pound a week.

To lose 10 pounds in one week, you'll need to burn between 3,500 and 5,000 calories more than you consume each day by restricting your diet to small portions of nutritious yet low-calorie foods, and significantly increasing your aerobic exercise with interval training, sports, and other vigorous activities.

In addition, a 500-calorie diet can lead to a number of conditions such as nausea, fatigue, diarrhea, more sensitivity to temperature, menstrual disorders and hair loss.... Besides, the A lack of fiber in the diet can also cause constipation.

How to do it. The New 5:2 approach involves restricting calories to 800 on fasting days, then eating a healthy lower carb, Mediterranean-style diet for the rest of the week. The beauty of intermittent fasting means that as your insulin sensitivity returns, you will feel fuller for longer on smaller portions.

The greatest dangers associated with a 500-calorie diet relate to vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies can lead to many health problems. In fact, most people cannot meet their vitamin and mineral requirements if they eat less than 1200 calories per day.

On the 5 2 diet plan, you can eat what you like for 5 days of the week, and then dramatically scale back your calorie intake for 2 days (hence the 5:2 diet name). Supporters of the diet like the fact it's relatively simple to follow compared to other diets.

What foods should you eat when fasting? ›