The 5:2 Approach: 500-calorie meals thread.

[hopkinette]

Hi all :)

This is a thread for everyone who's giving the 5:2 approach a go to share their 500-calorie meals/recipes (or their less daunting 2 x 250-calorie meals/recipes!)

IIRC, we need to keep our protein intake relatively low on fast days - does anyone have a figure?

I linked to this site on the diet thread but I'll put a link here to because I really love this site: nutritiondata.self.com It gives you calorific values for a huge range of foods, and also values for protein, fat, sodium, vitamins etc.

Now I'm off to calculate calorie & protein values for some salad recipes in a realy fantastic Pret A Manger salads & sandwiches book I bout about 15 years ago :)

Tuna an Tomato Rice, Takes 25 minutes 346 calories. Easy, Serves 4, store cupboard ingredients

Ingredients
225g/8oz pf long grain rice
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves of garlic
1 large onion or two smaller ones
2 smoked bacon rashes chopped. (I used 3 as I didn't want to be left with 1 bacon rash)
1 400g chopped toms
200g of tuna (or I used 2 80g of tuna the ones that come in packs of 3)
generous handful of parsley chopped

1. Cook the rice in boiling water for 10-12 minutes (I use a rice ball) or as directed on the packet.
2. Meanwhile heat the oil in a pan and gently fry the garlic, onion and bacon for 5-7 minutes. Keep stirring to avoid sticking.
3. Stir in the tomatoes and tuna and season well. Heat through for 5 minutes.
4. Drain the rice, stir it into the tomato sauce with the parsley, mixing gently.

I added cooked some peas and added them to the tomato sauce and cooked for another minute or so.

I feel stuffed. The DC had garlic bread with the meal and loved it.

Good luck

My other tip, is when doing mash potato, do your potion with no butter only skimmed milk and add grated nutmeg. Once you have dished yours up, then add butter for the rest of the family. You'll be so hungry that you wont notice the lack of butter.

Also, on a fast day (if you usually like white coffee and sugar) try it black with no sugar. I was because I actually really enjoyed it. Before fasting I would have thought it too bitter.

Full English frittata

So do you do the 2 days in a row or across the week. I watched that programme and liked it. My dm is doing it, but says she finds it easier if she doesn't est at all for 2 days-surely this is bad?

Can people put wether the cals are per portion or per entire recipe please? :)

Lime & Coriander Prawns

100g Tiger Prawns (120 cals)
Zest of a lime (4 cals)
Tablespoon coriander (4 cals)

Lightly fry the prawns in 1 cal cooking spray then add the lime zest & coriander, and stir until cooked through.

defineme, come & join us on the regular thread, lots of people there to answer your questions :)

Tomato & garlic soup

91 cals per portion (recipe gives 4 portions)

Very tasty, very healthy & very filling!

Summer Veg Curry

207 calsper portion (makes 4 portions)

This totally filled me up! Lovely flavours too.

Another wanting to know of you have to do the 2 days together or if they can be split?

I've just done the second fast day, and definitely find it easier to leave off earring as long as possible, preferably in the evening.

It seems easier to remember not to eat at all than remember to stop eating! And I'm not worried about protein as I'm vegetarian - turns out I was doing something right all those years

You can split :) Come & join us on the big thread!

Why have you got to cut your protein down on fast days? The guy on the programme was eating eggs and ham. Protein would fill you up.

I don't think you do have to cut down your protein - in fact if you reduce protein intake overall you risk losing muscle tone rather than fat I believe.

I have read that you should try to use up your calorie allowance on protein and fat (yes really), rather than carbs. A rather snotty chap on a different forum gave me a right telling-off cos on my first fasting day I had tea with sugar in, and 2 slices of toast with my egg in the evening.

They did say to reduce protein to keep it to the RDA amounts (which most people rarely do). Protein encourages new cell growth, whereas we want to encourage cell repair instead.

I've started this today [starving emoticon] and had an innocent veg pot for lunch which was 300 calories and having salmon fillet and sugarsnap peas for tea.

Got another innocent veg pot for tomorrow too and think I'll have grilled chicken and broccoli for tea.

A friend just posted a photo on facebook of her husband's man vs food challenge at a local restaurant and I'm drooling!

oh and I snook a couple of DS' raisins earlier

Hi I don't have a recipe as such but I did want to recommend Glorius Skinny Soups (available in Sainsbury) as they are not only low cal but they are absolutely DELICIOUS

A half pot portion of each flavour is circa 110-130 calories and a whole pot would be very filling indeed.

I'm going to have a 'down' day tomorrow.

I'm going to skip breakfast, because I always do anyway when not at work.
Then I'm going to have 2 meals.

Lunch -100g piece of salmon fillet (180 cals) and lots of rocket, spinach, watercress and some cherry tomatoes on the side with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.

Mid afternoon - ice lolly 40 cals.

Dinner - same meal as lunch (2 pieces of salmon in a pack and I'm the only one who likes it!) with a multipack sized milkybar for pudding. 69 cals.

Total = just slightly over 500 cals. Will be walking LOTS if the weather is nice enough to go to the zoo though.

Can anyone tell me if the fasting days get easier? I'm nearing the end of day two and being so hungry is driving me crazy!

are you doing the two days together nomoremini? I couldn't, wouldn't even attempt it! the 5:2 is a variation of the ADF (Alternate Day Fasting) it works best if you don't do the two days together.

Ah shite! That's what I get from taking instructions from the girl at work who watched the documentary...

I missed it on iplayer so did a bit of reading about it but didn't see anything about them not being consecutive, until just now!

Off to have that bagel that's been staring at me all day now

Just to clarify, I am sure you do not have to restrict yourself to one meal, the 500 calories can be spread over meals and snacks.
This is my second week, my fast days are Monday and Tues and I eat approx 600 cals;
Breakfast - 50g plain porridge made with water
Snack - 25g peanuts/sultana's
Lunck - Shredded Wheat with Skimmed Milk
Dinner - Roast chicken with stacks of steamed veg
Lots of water/green tea/black tea in between.
I am not in the least bit hungry as I've picked carb based meals to keep me fuller for longer but only 600 calories for the day.
Week one I lost 2lbs, I was genuinely amazed, I've lost 14lbs since January and had hit a plateau 4 weeks ago.

Treadmillion I've just answered you on the other thread. To lose weight, no, I guess you don't. But if want to reduce your blood markers for disease you do. If you eat bits and pieces during the day your insulin will continue to circulate. Insulin stores fat rather than breaking it down and plays a role in the cell growth hormone which is a marker for disease such as cancer.

Oh no, just lost my post by accident. Here goes again!

Stevia is great as a sweetner. It is sold under the brand names Truvia and Pur Via. It is a lot sweeter than sugar so you use a lot less of it volume and weight-wise. (I'm just mentioning this as I made a cake once with it, before I realised how sweet it was, and used far too much and had to throw out the cake as it was too sweet!).

I use stevia in porridge in the morning. I find porridge keeps me full for ages.

Sugar free baked beans are low calorie and very filling. The brand I have is 59 calories per 100gram and this means the whole tin of 420 grams is only 248 calories.

Someone mentioned on one of the threads beetroot. From a jar, drained, it is only 41 calories per 100gram (that is the Chef one anyway) and it is about the same calories if you buy it fresh and cook it yourself.

Soups are great. I got some Glorious Skinny ones today and the Butternut squash one is only 206 calories for the whole tub (600 grams, so a big tub) and the Tomato and Lentil one is only 300 calories for the whole tub. They have meat soups as well but I don't eat meat so I didn't check them.

I'm hoping to get a bit more adventurous on my low cal days and do the soups etc. from scratch but for now I think it is easier for me to stick mostly with either with really simple foods like porridge or beans, or ready-meals with the calories clearly marked out.