Continuing on the low calorie plan? If this is your first time doing the 5 day fast and you are hoping to alleviate symptoms you may have suffered for many many years, you will probably need to continue with the program for a number of weeks to see an improvement in your ailments. And this will of course be done in consultation with your own GP or specialist doctor.

As I am a routine faster, it only takes my body 5-7 days to reset itself, but I have been doing this for a number of years.

The philosophy of the program is simple, eat vegetables (lots and lots), minimise animal proteins, make your food from scratch yourself so you know what’s in it! This is probably what some people call clean-eating?!?

Here’s 3 recipes to get you started, I will post out more recipes over time, but hopefully you will begin to understand the philosophy of the program. If you are remaining on the ‘plan’ you will need to continue to restrict your calories to 800 per day. Please do not remain at this level for any longer than 8 weeks (this is a metabolic limit). If you are coming out of your initial fast you should commence to slowly increase your daily calories by around 100 per day until you get back to normal intake.

The daily program remains very similar to the fasting days – you will need to continue using the tonic vinegars, kvass and kefir, for those increasing your calories you are welcome to move onto one of the fruit kefirs instead of the basic vanilla kefir used on fasting days. Breakfast will remain the berry bowl with a small portion of low-fat-greek yogurt. Choose one of the 100 calorie snacks during the day and one of these small meals. Continue with your beans and vegetables for dinner. If you would like to introduce tomatoes you can occasionally swap your 4 bean mix for the equivalent of plain baked beans in sauce (1 mini tin = 130 g) and take your vinegar as a diluted shot 20 minutes before dinner instead of using it on the beans (baked beans and vinegar don’t really go together!).

The recipes below show ingredients per person (just multiply for the number you are cooking for!)

Brussel Sprout and Egg Salad

• 100 g fresh brussel sprouts (these can either be steamed or fast boiled)
• 1 Egg (poached in white vinegar solution)
• 10 g grated parmesan
• 15 g pine nuts (toasted in a non-stick fry pan)
• Tablespoon Basil leaves – finely chopped
• Balsamic Vinegar to drizzle over the top

…even my kids love brussel sprouts when they are cooked properly! If you need advice on how to cook anything just send me a message or leave a comment below!

Strawberry and Walnut Salad

• 20 g toasted walnuts (toast in a non-stick fry-pan)
• 125 g fresh strawberries (half a punnet)
• 10 ml olive oil
• 50g baby spinach and rocket mix
• (combine the above in a bowl and mix, then place in serving bowl)
• Sprinkle with 15 g of grated parmesan, drizzle with either strawberry balsamic vinegar or regular balsamic vinegar.

Superfood Sir-fry

This is really simple – get yourself some bags of pre-prepped superfood stirfry. The one I use has 3.5 servings per bag and each serving has 29 calories. You can stir-fry an entire bag using 10 ml of olive oil and pour-on 30 ml of soy sauce while you are cooking it.

This stuff fills you up very quickly for relatively few calories – I can’t eat a whole bag in one go but even if I did – it is approximately 100 calories for the entire bag, plus around 100 calories for the small amount of oil and soy sauce.

You can cook the whole bag in one go and eat it over the course of the day if it’s too much to have at once…. your gut bugs will love this one!

For comparative purposes, when I need a protein hit (post weight-lifting) I often have a slice of low-fat bacon-egg- tomato pie… 300 calories in a slice that is 1/10 th of the total pie… but never have anything like this during the 5 day fast!