B2R Office Wellbeing: 6:1 Fasting Madness

Let’s get something out in the open: when the Back To Roots team pitched the idea of intermittent fasting as part of our grand office wellbeing project, I wasn’t exactly queueing up for the job. I’d been making steady progress on the road to “healthier, leaner, less grumpy Elwyn,” sure, mostly because of gradually improving routines rather than saintly willpower on my part. But putting myself up as the official guinea pig for a day of virtual starvation? Honestly, I’d rather have been locked in a room with nothing but my mum’s café cakes and the 1996 Wales v. Fiji rugby replay.

Still, here we are, and here’s how that went. Spoiler: expect grumpiness. Expect confessions. Expect a few not-fit-for-print burger-based daydreams. But if, like me, you’re an office-dweller prone to grazing and shaped by the calorific childhood of a Welsh farm upbringing, you might just find something useful.

Why This Matters

Here’s the real problem: small business owners, freelancers, and designers like us know sitting at a desk all day does our bodies absolutely no favours. We burn less, snack more, and justify it all with late-night pledges to be “good” tomorrow. Enter the latest health trend: the 5:2 diet, now a favourite for motivational podcasts and new lifestyle influencers everywhere.

Sounds simple: eat like a normal human five days a week, then spend the other two running on roughly the caloric value of a turnip. Supposedly, this unlocks everything from weight loss and sharper focus to the kind of metabolic flexibility you’d expect from a professional yoga instructor. But here’s the real catch for our crowd: working a real job, at a real desk, with real deadlines, while pretending you don’t want to mainline pastries at 11am on a “fasting” day? Not so straightforward.

Left unchecked, this cycle wastes time, energy, and, frankly, common sense. We lurch between “all in” dieting and “all out” snacking, losing weeks to schemes that leave us hungrier and more distracted than before. If you work in a real office (especially one conveniently next to a café), you’ll know: diet plans rarely consider the lure of lunch deals, biscuit tins, or the simple joy of not fainting mid-Zoom.

Common Pitfalls

Right, the bits where it all goes wrong (and yes, I’ve fallen into every single ditch):

• Starting with Solo Heroics: Jumping in alone, aiming to be a fasting legend, but end up a coffee-fuelled bore who can’t concentrate past 3pm.
• Ignoring the Calendar: Tossing fasting days wherever, not caring if there are deadlines or brain-intensive tasks waiting. (Spoiler: you will care. A lot. Usually around lunchtime.)
• Being Over-Strict: Trying to do “proper fasting” by the book, a book apparently written by people who don’t get invited to pub lunches or have to manage irate clients.
• Relying on Sheer Willpower: Believing you’ll white-knuckle your way through, despite what the snack drawer is whispering.
• Obsessing Over Food: Spending the fasting day counting down minutes to the next meagre meal, daydreaming about things you swore you didn’t even like (iceberg lettuce has never looked so good).
• Scrapping the Whole Thing After One Bad Day: Falling into the “see, I knew this wouldn’t work for me” trap and reverting to old habits.

Step-by-Step Fix

1. Pick a Fasting Day That Suits Your Workload

After much debate (and only a little pressure from the Back To Roots health squad), I settled on a midweek slot. Wednesdays are generally lighter work-wise, with no client calls booked, no marathon design sprints, just the usual emails and wrangling the to-do list down from “terrifying” to “just mildly unmanageable.”

Why does this matter? Because on low-calorie days, the brain doesn’t play ball. Planning a fasting day for a big pitch or important meeting is temptation for chaos, and nobody wants to risk responding to a client with a combination of low blood sugar and caffeine shakes.

2. Plan Your Meals Like a Miser

Fast days aren’t the time for culinary exploration or testing new recipes that need a boatload of ingredients. I stuck to the bare essentials—protein shakes, popcorn bars, yesterday’s lean bolognese (rescued from the back of the fridge), and the kind of ice lolly that tastes of icy optimism and little else.

Calorie counting is essential. I kept my meals plain and satisfying(ish): a protein shake for breakfast, fibre bar for lunch, a small helping of bolognese with miracle-noodles and some trusted broccoli for dinner, and “treats” like dry crackers or, my proudest feat, a single rocket lolly. Every bite was logged, and every grumble noted.

3. Face Down The Cravings, and Try to Keep Your Dignity

By midday, everything—even the office shampoo—smelled delicious. I fantasised about crisps, roast dinners, and even the kind of limp salad you’d normally ignore at a buffet. Cravings really flattened me at this point.

Here’s what helped: hydrating like mad (herbal teas, black coffee, water, on repeat), keeping myself distracted with short walks and actual work (funny how that helps). I even sat on my hands at one point. Typing was a little more hazardous as a result.

4. Enlist An (Unwilling) Audience

This was more accidental than planned, but telling my team what I was doing (with specific instructions to ignore me if I became especially moody) created just enough accountability to stop me quietly sloping off for a rogue sausage roll.

Health colleagues, too, were in on the secret. If you’ve got someone with a clipboard hovering, you’re less likely to cheat. Or at least more likely to feel appropriately guilty if you do.

5. Allow For Grumpiness (and Embrace The Early Night)

Let’s not pretend: I wasn’t the cheeriest person by late afternoon. My solution? Pretend I was being “purposefully mindful” by calling it an early night. Whoever invented the post-7pm bedtime for adults deserves a national holiday.

Next day, life goes on, and there’s always breakfast waiting (after you dream of elaborate feasts involving buttered crumpets and double helpings of guilt-free toast).

6. Adapt As You Go, and Don’t Expect Instant Enlightenment

I’m not sticking to Mosley’s full 5:2 this month. Right now, 6:1 is ambitious enough. Trying to cram in a second fasting day with current workloads would be a recipe for disaster. (Let’s be honest, that’s also how you end up with an office atmosphere that leads to angry Post-It notes.)

If you’re still standing (and your colleagues are still speaking to you), that counts as a win. Focus on consistency, not self-flagellation.

What Most People Miss

Let’s be honest: the real trick isn’t gritting your teeth through one fasting day. Anyone can white-knuckle their way for 24 hours if there’s enough tea and righteous indignation. The magic comes from being brutally honest about what works for you and what doesn’t, and ignoring comparisons to books, podcasts, or headlines.

It helps to pick your battles, work with your own rhythms, and find a way to laugh at the occasional hangry outburst. Also, remember nobody wins prizes for being the most miserable office worker of the week. (My team would have voted me off the island.)

The Bigger Picture

After a couple of weeks playing fasting guinea pig, here’s what changed. My weight nudged downwards. Not dramatically, but I could see it. More importantly, I’ve gotten a clearer handle on when and why I mindlessly sneak in those extra calories. Prepping meals in advance means less faff and fewer last-minute sandwich disasters. Even the mood swings are less severe (if you don’t count this one evening when I almost declared war over a misplaced cracker).

Structure feels steadier, my focus is a bit sharper (at least on non-fasting days), and I’m rolling along without relying on perfection. That’s what feels like a long-term win. Lasting change is smaller habits sticking around after the current “healthy office” trend.

If you’re running a business, freelancing, or doing design work from the far corner of a spare bedroom, these changes add up to fewer wasted hours, better mental clarity, and maybe even friendlier colleagues.

Wrap-Up

The 6:1 approach isn’t glamorous, doesn’t come with a medal, and will almost certainly turn you into the office curmudgeon once a week. Still, it’s manageable and realistic if you play to your strengths, laugh off your stumbles, and keep going without waiting for sainthood.

I’ll be reporting back soon, hopefully slightly leaner and definitely less dramatic. In the meantime, if you’re after more painfully honest trials and genuinely useful advice (and the occasional nutrition hack that doesn’t taste like cardboard), join us at Pixelhaze Academy for free at https://www.pixelhaze.academy/membership.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with a bowl of porridge and a fresh slice of optimism. See you next Wednesday for round two (assuming I survive).