I have had my Phil of 5:2 dieting
Schofield too skinny after shedding 2st
TELLY presenter Phillip Schofield has binned the 5:2 diet after he went from porky to storky.
The host of ITV’S This Morning show was on the regime for two years after seeing a picture which made him look a little tubby.
The diet was so successful that 5ft 10ins Phillip shed 2st and ended up at a superlean 10st 13lb. Now he has come off the eating plan because it has also permanently shrunk his appetite.
Dieters on the 5:2 eat normally five days of the week and limit their intake to 600 calories on the other two.
Phillip, 54 – who hosts This Morning with Holly Willoughby, 36 – said: “I quit the 5:2 diet as I don’t really need to do it. It worked so well that it made my appetite really small, that I just eat sensibly now every day.
“I don’t have to do a crazy amount of dieting. If I think my weight’s creeping up a little bit, I’ll miss a meal and it’s back down again.”
Phillip also keeps fit by doing hardcore pilates with a private instructor. The married dad of two added: “I do intensive pilates, I have a core of steel! A lady comes every Tuesday to our house and beats the cr*p out of me, which is just brilliant. I’ve also got an exercise bike.”
Phillip started the diet in 2014 after a snap made him think “You look a bit porky”.
The early phase wasn’t easy and he admit- ted feeling dizzy on fast days, saying: “I have had hallucinations.”
Other famous converts to the diet plan include X Men star Hugh Jackman, 48, supermodel Miranda Kerr, 33, TV chef Hugh Fearnley-whittingstall, 52, and One Foot in the Grave actor Richard Wilson, 80.
At one point Phillip, who also fronts All Star Mr & Mrs, tried to get friends on it too.
In 2014 he said: “I don’t do fad diets. I can’t bear to say, ‘Let’s eat cabbage’ or ‘Let’s eat no fat or carbohydrates’. All that is not normal. For me, this is very workable. I like the science behind it.
“It’s not far away from when you had to go out and hunt your own food. People didn’t have a supermarket to go and pick up grub.
“It does your body good to have a couple of days a week when you are not fully fed. It makes perfect sense that your body uses the resources it has got and it goes into repair mode.
“What is amazing is how used to it I have become. They say you can eat whatever you like on the other days but the thing is your stomach does shrink. Your appetite is less and so whereas with a Sunday roast I’d always go back for seconds, after I finished my meal this weekend I couldn’t have eaten another thing.
“I know it does not work for everyone but I definitely feel great on it.”
hannah.hope@trinitymirror.com