FIVE WAYS TO ADOPT THE 5:2 RULE INTO YOUR LIFE
Lockdown deprived us of our friends, dinner parties, meeting for coffee or lunch, everything that makes life fun. But now that we are freer to socialize (subject to the rules), we may not be as enthusiastic as we thought we’d be. British cookbook author Nigella Lawson, you may have seen, has found a certain reluctance to see people. “I’m going on a diet, the 5:2,” she wrote, “only with people, rather than food.” She’ll meet up with friends twice a week, and keep to herself the other five days. Here are some other 5:2 behaviours we can take on board:
1 SHOPPING
Before lockdown, shopping was a compulsion. Not a day went by that we didn’t nip to the bookstore, the organic vegetable market or a boutique. Every other week we’d buy a really useful top, a Moleskine notebook, maybe a silicone poached-egg nest. Now you couldn’t pay us to shop. In the 5:2 scheme, we will shop twice a week, one of those online, and the other five days we won’t even think about it.
2 TELEVISION
Very much a 7:7 habit during lockdown (the whole period has felt like a long-haul flight with twice as many meals as normal, a lot of disturbed sleep, the occasional bout of “this is it” anxiety, and backto-back films). There is nothing left we haven’t seen, with the exception of Will Ferrell’s Eurovision Song Contest comedy (which we started and will not be finishing). Henceforth the TV’s going to be on just two nights.
3 EXERCISE
Doing this the other way around: two off, five on. Because we have got used to doing a bit more and must not stop now, as we’re also used to full-fat Greek yogurt for breakfast.
4 PHONE CALLING
At the start of all this we thought we’d never return to texting instead of actual phone calling, and we thought it would always be through FaceTime. Well. Zoom burnout now means we’re back to five texts and just two calls.
5 PLANNING
At this point in a pre-COVID year, we’d have started thinking about the big birthday in November, and Christmas. Now, for every five plans made in 2019, we’re making two in 2020, and we’re making them weeks — not months — ahead.