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While we use the standard numbers of 500 calories as a quarter of a woman’s normal daily calorie intake and 600 calories as a quarter of a man’s, we can in fact be far more accurate.

By calculating your Metabolic Rate (MR) you can work out your daily calorie needs. The BMR is how many calories your body burns when at rest.

First calculate your BMR:

To calculate your actual calorie needs to maintain your current weight, you just need to work out where you are on the exercise scale.

To work out the actual number of calories your body needs to maintain weight, multiply your BMR by the factor in the table above.

My maintenance calorie needs are:

I decide I am lightly active, so my multiplying factor is 1.375.

1414 × 1.375 = 1944 calories

I can also calculate how many calories I need to take in on my fasting days, as it is a quarter of this figure.

1944 ÷ 4 = 486 calories

So when I work out how many calories I am going to eat on a fast day, I need to make sure it is less than 486.

You should end up with the number of calories you need to eat on your fasting days. If you are like me, it will be slightly lower than 500 calories, but you might find you have a bonus of a few extra calories instead!

Don’t forget, if you lose a lot of weight, but find it slackens off after a while, you might need to re-calculate your calorie intake, as these formulas depend on your weight.

There is also one more thing that is worth considering: there are about 3,500 calories in 1lb of stored body fat. That means you need to reduce your calorie intake by 3,500 to lose 1lb in weight. That might sound like quite a lot, but if you think of it in terms of the restricted calorie days, a woman has a calorie deficit of (2,000–500) = 1,500 per day on a fast day, so will reduce her calorie intake by 3,000 over a standard 5:2 week. For a man this figure is increased to a 3,800 calorie reduction. This means that without doing anything else, a woman will lose just under 1lb a week on the 5:2 diet; a man, just over 1lb.

Taking into account the level of exercise and healthy eating on non-fast days, then we are looking at an even greater weight loss. This is simple maths and doesn’t take into consideration the effects that the 5:2 diet has on the body, which research is showing is more effective than standard diets.

Now you know the basics it’s time to get started and think about your first fast day.

Are you fit and well and ready to lose some weight?

The first thing to think about is what days would be most suitable for a fast. Remember, you need two days a week with at least one rest day in between. You can have a set routine and pick the same days every week or pick and choose. The diet is extremely flexible and is designed to fit in around you and not the other way round.