Jacqueline Whitehart - The Complete 2-Day Fasting Diet - Delicious; Easy To Make; 140 New Low-Calorie Recipes From The Bestselling Author Of The 5:2 Bikini Diet

If you get bored of counting calories or find it difficult on your diet days, you may want to try this new variation suggested by Michelle Harvie and others from the Genesis breast cancer prevention centre.

On your two diet days, follow a very low-carb diet (think ‘Atkins’) but do not count calories. Their incipient research [5]suggests that this is at least as effective for weight loss and other health markers as the restricted calorie approach.

These are all genuine questions that people have asked via Facebook www.facebook.com/52DietRecipesor Twitter @52DietRecipes. If you have got a question that’s not listed here, I’d love to help if I can.

Don’t panic! You have got two choices. Do you break the diet or not? Having a drink and breaking the diet would mean that the effort you have put in during the day would be lost and you’d have to schedule another diet day later in the week. If it’s the evening and you have already got through most of the day, is it really worth giving up on the diet day? You could have a water, a diet coke or diet tonic water without adding any extra calories.

Eggs, baked beans and soups are your friends here. All are filling and you should find the calorie content on the box. If you don’t have any of these in your house, all will be available from your nearest supermarket or convenience store.

Sometimes you will find that you have to do exercise on your diet day. The problem with exercising is that it burns calories and makes you hungry, meaning that you are more likely to struggle with your diet day. Sadly you cannot add on the calories that you burn during exercise to your calorie intake for the day. If you do need to exercise on a diet day, try to do it before you eat in the morning. Light exercise in the evening can also be a distraction from hunger. Try to avoid exercising in the afternoon as this will make you very hungry and most likely to falter.

I would recommend any aerobic exercise that increases your breathing and heart rate as being best for weight loss. Walking, jogging, cycling, swimming or tennis are all good to get your heart rate up. Try to exercise three times a week for at least 45 minutes each time.

Sometimes this happens to the best of us. For all sorts of reasons – stress, hormonal, lack of sleep – we can find a diet day particularly hard. You areallowed to give up on a day if it is truly dreadful.

It is always worth assessing what is causing it to be so hard and trying to see if it is worth pushing on through. Late afternoon is often a time when we feel at our weakest. If you can bring your evening meal forward or have a small snack at that time, you may find you get over the hump. Remember that the sacrifices you have made already during the day will be wasted if you stop. Try counting the number of hours until bedtime and make sure you get an early night.

If you give up entirely on a diet day, don’t beat yourself up about it. Allow yourself tomorrow off and re-attempt the following day. If you still manage to fit two diet days into your week, then the week has been a success.

I think it is very hard to follow the 2-Day Diet when you are on holiday. If you have been dieting for weeks beforehand, then I would say that it is time to relax and enjoy your hard work. To avoid putting on too much weight, try to still be sensible when you can. Eat a big breakfast (especially if it’s free!), eat healthy snacks or a light lunch and enjoy your dinner.

If you have got a partner or family who are not dieting then you need to make sure you can accommodate everyone’s needs without much fuss. The easiest way to deal with this common problem is to cook the same meal for everyone. Just serve everyone else’s meal with plenty of extra carbohydrates. If it’s not possible to all eat the same thing, then at the very least try to eat at the same time. There’s nothing worse than watching other people eat when you’re starving.

It is natural for your weight loss to level out after a few weeks on the 2-Day Diet. The high weight loss that you experience when you start the diet can only be maintained for two to three weeks. After that, at the same time as it gets easier and you get into a rhythm, the weight loss will diminish. This is normal and healthy. The extreme early weight loss cannot be maintained. If you have a lot of weight to lose, then you will hopefully find that the weight loss flattens out at about 0.9kg (2lb) a week. If you are nearer your target weight, your expected weight loss will be about 0.5kg (1lb) a week.

If you are not losing any weight while still following the diet plan, then you should look at what you are eating on the five normal days. You may be eating too much. Indeed this is the most likely cause of a plateau. Make a food diary for your healthy days and be a bit stricter with yourself. Most importantly steer away from the biscuit tin and any junk food.

Nutty banana energy bars

Fruity bran loaf

Roasted parsnip soup

Creamy pea and mint soup

Spicy sweet potato soup

Super easy coleslaw

Cheat’s Caesar salad

Celeriac remoulade with smoked trout

Japanese-style sake prawn salad

Garlicky king prawns

Saffron ‘rice’ cauliflower

Oven-baked vegetable fritters

Courgette ribbons with tomato and chorizo sauce

Quick tomato and mangetout curry

Cajun fried chicken

Garlic grilled chicken

Power up breakfast

Baked eggs with ham and tomato

Smoked fish chowder

Quick tomato haddock

Purple sprouting broccoli with creamy caper sauce

Patatas bravas

Warming leek ‘pasta’ with olives

Asian-style stir-fried beef and mushrooms

Grilled lamb in fresh parsley and mint sauce

Vietnamese yellow curry

Slow-baked chicken rolls in tomato sauce

Blueberry fool

Baked banana with dark chocolate

Crème de menthe pudding with chocolate crunch

Paprika chicken salad

Spring chicken stew

Grilled lamb with tangy lemon couscous

Spicy lamb keema

Slow-cooked stuffed cabbage rolls

Creamy purple sprouting broccoli with Parma ham

Spring is all about hope. After a long winter of cold grey days, all you want is some sun and a few green shoots. You probably want to ring the changes when it comes to food too. Are you bored of stews and soups and crave something lighter and greener?