5:2 Your Life: Get Happy, Get Healthy, Get Slim

by Kate Harrison

The 6-Week Plan to get your life back on track

What would you like to change in your life?More time with friends and family? A more satisfying job? Better health and more energy? A closer connection to the place where you live and a feeling that you make a difference?We’re all so busy that sometimes tackling the changes we know we should make feels daunting, even impossible.But small changes can make a huge difference. And that’s what 5:2 is all taking simple steps, on just two days a week, which will have a powerful ripple effect on your whole life. The 5:2 Diet has already transformed the lives of thousands of men and women all over the world.Now Kate Harrison, bestselling author of The 5:2 Diet Book and The Ultimate 5:2 Recipe Book, has taken her knowledge and experience to turn the diet into 5:2 Your Get Happy, Get Healthy, Get Slim. An inspiring six-week plan will help you take control of the things that matter most to you, from your relationships, your work, your health, your leisure time and the dreams you’ve been neglecting. There’s even a brand new eating plan to help you lose weight too – with exciting recipes and guidelines on eating the 5:2 way for the rest of your life.Small changes, big dreams – why 5:2 Your Life is no ordinary ‘self-help’ title.5:2 Your Life is packed with ideas, challenges, activities and psychological insights into the most effective ways to help small changes transform your life. As with her other books, Kate Harrison charts the highs and lows of her own 5:2 journey with absolute honesty – and her realistic, humorous approach cuts through the self-help jargon.The plan includes six weeks of challenges that are personalised to help you identify the areas of your life that need shaking up – and to make the good bits, even better! Each week, there’s a different theme – with activities and tasks to help you achieve what you want.Alternatively, if you have a major goal in mind already, like giving up smoking or changing your career, the DIY 5:2 Option can help you achieve it.Even the busiest person will be able to find enough time to try the enjoyable, energising activities – and 5:2 Your Life also includes a six-week eating plan that complements the lifestyle challenges. You can choose to do them together, or separately – it’s up to you.What are you waiting for? It’s time to 5:2 Your Life!To learn more, on Kate's YouTube Channel, go

Genres: Health, Nonfiction

429 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 4, 2013

About the author

Kate was born in Wigan, and lived in more than a dozen places when she was growing up, including England, Scotland, and the Netherlands. She trained as a print journalist and then worked for the BBC as a reporter and Education Correspondent, before switching to behind the scenes producing on programmes including Newsround and Panorama. Her final 'proper' job involved coming up with TV programme ideas for the BBC whilst sitting on beanbags. She is a dab hand at writing on white boards.

Reviews

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Turning over the possibilities of New Year resolutions in my mind I found myself downloading this book after hearing about it from a friend. I think if you're a little wary of self-help books, as I am, then this is a good one with which to take the plunge as it is written in such a friendly, understanding way that I felt absolutely okay in just reading the whole thing through first, rather than following everything to the letter. Indeed, the author suggests that if you don't wish to follow her plan you can cherry pick and create your own DIY 5:2 your life plan.
I haven't done the 5:2 diet, but the concept sounds more appealing to me than any other diet plans I've come across. And I really like the way Kate has applied this idea towards changing your life. Change, big change, can be hard, which is why so many New Year resolutions are broken after just a few weeks, and so breaking it down into small, manageable, fully explained segments is a great idea. I like the way the weeks are themed, taking you on a journey as you investigate your life, how it is now, what you might want to change and, more importantly, why you want to change it. There are plenty of options rather than a rigid 'you must do this' approach and, as I said, it's written in such an approachable way that you feel like Kate is just one of your friends, helping you out.
Although I haven't begun to try the different activities yet there are already some which really captured my imagination - using timers and having a whirlwind tidy up stand out for me as being instantly useful. Kate has researched all the ideas fully, citing any relevant studies and making her own useful observations. There are interesting links, notes about helpful apps to try, plans to download and lots of different ideas which will help the book appeal to lots of different kinds of people. Each chapter has a little quiz which you don't have to do, but if you like filling in those quizzes in magazines at the hairdressers then you'll enjoy them here! There are reviews of what you've been doing, how you're getting along, little reminders and nudges and lots of personal anecdotes that make you laugh and help you feel like you're not alone in struggling with day to day clutter or finding some form of exercise that you can bear to do more than twice a year.

[Shellie · Rating 4 out of 5]

6 week plan - 4 parts

Part 1: 5;2 basics
create mood board

Part 2: week 1 discover, Wk 2, Connect, Wk 3 Simplfy, Wk 4 Move, Wk 5 Relax, Wk 6 Do!
1 - the 40th birthday party. How do you want it to look like, who is there, what will they remember?
worry o'clock, divide small stuff and big stuff to help you prioritise, pleasure list free/other.
2 - thank you letters, skypes for absent friends, set up donation, volunteer, connect with community, create local yellow pages. Write up NP walks/waterfalls I want to explore. timebank.org.
3- redo budget (go on year plans instead of monthly etc),
4 - use thread to track progress, record in relfections walks, yoga, toning exercises
5 - meditate, bed time rituals, cycle tracker/planner, life pie wheel, do something fun every day
6 - finding your purpose, balancing want to with have to, how to have creativity in your profrssion,

Part 3: the 5:2 eating Plan - all about fasting

Part 4: Tools - 5:2 life planner and websites

[Kerrie Hurrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great help- it was not only 5:2 eating but how to 5:2 different parts of your life. So glad I found this self help book.

[Nigeyb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book on a whim. It was a cheap kindle book and, having enjoyed great success with The Fast Diet: The Simple Secret of Intermittent Fasting: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, Live Longer, I was also attracted by the 5:2 reference.

The 5:2 part of the title is misleading. The book is actually a hot-potch of various tool and techniques to create change in your life and, as such, is very similar to countless other self-help books. The style is easy, chatty and encouraging.

Given my circumstances and life stage, most of the exercises were irrelevant to me, however I imagine for some readers, particularly those who have not previously tried to take a step back, and think of ways to improve their lives, it could be very helpful.

3/5

[Kazz Mossman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helped me for a while. Good recipes.

[Lucinda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked it up from the library as I was looking for a book about the 5:2 diet, but I picked up the wrong one. This was ok but not what I wanted.