First fast day

On the way home from France today I changed onto the last train just after 8. I was lost in thought as I recovered from having had to walk up one very long platform (was sitting in the second to last carriage) and then down another one (had a seat in third from last carriage of an even longer train - typical) in the fifteen minutes between one train arriving and the other leaving and it occurred to me that I don't need to wait until my holiday is over and I'm back at work to start this whole 5:2 fasting thing. Based on the timetable I think will work optimally for me, I would normally fast from after lunch or mid-afternoon snack on Wednesday until lunch on Thursday. Well, as the idea is to go 12-16 hours without eating, I realised that I could just start straightaway.

As I was travelling today, I had a light enough day with regard to food, albeit one that involved far too many crisps. I had two slices of toast and a glass of milk for breakfast at around 10 o'clock. At around half-one, I had a packet of crisps, followed an hour or so later by some cherry tomatoes and some chipsters. I ate my pasta salad at around six (pasta, tomatoes, mozzarella, olive oil) as well as the rest of the cherry tomatoes and a few more chipsters. All in all it was just over half a 500g punnet of tomatoes, half a packet of mini mozzarella balls and just over half a packet of chipsters. When I realised at eight o'clock that I could start my fast I was a little bit hungry so I just finished off the last of the chipsters and had two squares of dark chocolate and that was it. I've also drunk two litres of water over the course of the day, just finishing the last of it now. Which I'll probably regret when I need to get up during the night to pee. Oh well.

I'm up later than planned as I got home at 10 and first had to air the place and then decided to unpack, rather than sit looking at my case for a month before fully emptying it. I have the washing machine full and ready to be switched on in the morning and everything I brought back with me is put away. I've also managed to write down a few of the things I mean to do tomorrow. I'll be out and about from early so missing breakfast probably won't be too big of an issue. Given that it's nearly one now and I intend sleeping until I wake naturally tomorrow, I probably won't have all that long to go before getting to eat tomorrow anyway. Sixteen hours from eight o'clock is twelve noon tomorrow - let's say half past, since it was about quarter past eight that I took out the last of the chipsters to finish eating them and it definitely took longer than two seconds. Tomorrow morning I need to go to the doctor to get my hayfever shot and I have to wait 30 minutes after getting that before I can leave. I have a couple of things I'd like to do in town as well so I think I'll head straight there after the doctor and aim to do things in such a way that I end up going to Habitat last. It just so happens that Habitat is beside a nice Italian place, where, although the atmosphere is not as nice during the day as it is at night, I plan to get a bruschetta for lunch.

Technically, on a fast day, I should be aiming to eat around 500 calories. Well, I've never been much of a one for counting calories, so it'll take me a fair while to get the hang of that and for the first few weeks at least, I'm just going to go with eating light meals. The bruschetta in this place is three small rounds of Italian bread (lots of holes in it), topped with tomatoes and garlic and, admittedly, just a bit too much olive oil. But it's a filling portion and, most importantly, a limited amount. I suspect if I were to make my own lunch at home, I'd end up just eating for hours. We'll see how it goes anyway. Thus far, having stayed up later than planned, I am feeling a little bit hungry but not very. Even if I weren't fasting, I probably wouldn't bother eating at this stage of the night anyway. Time for bed and we'll see how things look in the morning.