Yes, I think you're right wouldbegood - but the array of possible memberships/ discounts/ ways of paying at my nearest one (council) is confusing, and I can't work out if I'd be getting my money's worth by not doing everything I can, when I really only want a bit of stretching that doesn't get me too sweaty a couple of times a week. And maybe a swim in the pool. I'm beyond help, I think...
lockdownbear Personally I find 16 8 not too bad to keep up. You just learn to do without breakfast or evening snacking, and theoretically you can eat anything within your 8 hours (though the slab of chocolate cake earmarked for this evening maybe isn't such a wise choice to actually lose weight...). I have black coffee or herbal tea or water outside those times, to feel like I'm having something when others do. I don't do it "properly" in terms of aiming for the insulin effects or whatever the science is supposed to be around it - so I brush my teeth and take tablets etc outside of the eating window and have the odd splash of milk in tea if someone else gets it for me and stuff - but I find it useful to restrict overall calories over the day without actually thinking about calories IYSWIM. For me it's been slow on the actual weight loss thing, but I am still moving in the right direction generally, and at least not going up any more!
I would find the 2 days of v v low food on 5 2 difficult to maintain long term, personally (different meals when eating with the family more than anything else, especially as DH foes most of the cooking - and I'm not too keen on modelling any kind of restrictive eating to DS, though he's in no danger of wanting to follow that atm...) but others manage it without too much effort and it can be really effective in reducing overall calories over a week. Though I could see myself overeating on the other days (see the chocolate cake above...). I think you can combine the two, though, and 500 cal split across 2 meals definitely sounds more feasible than splitting it across 3.