I've never heard of the 5:2 diet. I thought fasting was bad for you. Interesting.
I really need to cut diary out of my diet, I'm obviously slightly allergic to it and so is the majority of the population. When you consider that it's what cow babies are supposed to consume and we've only been eating it for a short period of time it can really give you some perspective. We haven't had time to evolve to a lot of the things that are going into our bodies.
Obviously exercise is equally as important as diet. If you cut calories but don't use your muscles your body thinks you're trying to hold out for a long winter. Muscles take more upkeep calories than fat so your body will burn off muscle instead of fat to "keep you alive," because you, "aren't using them to find food".
If milk or milk products affect you, it is not because milk is bad for you. The milk you use is bad for you.
Use milk that has not been homogenised. The process of homogenising milk breaks the molecules, which your body recognises and knows how to us, into something that cannot be identified or used and therefore is usually stored in your fat.
I buy farm milk, using some of it to make my own butter, feta, cream cheese and full cream yoghourt (with honey and sunflower seeds). Having my milk full cream, with a nice head of it at the top, has not caused me to put on even half a kilo.
I eat a lot of lentils, with uncooked slices of onion and black olives placed in it, with grape or apple vinegar and olive oil. However, I also love my thick steaks and lamb chops. As for rare roast beef, a delight, but not something I have often, as it is not convenient for a single person. No potatoes, just sweet potatoes.
One or two days a week, I only eat salad, but it has lots of extras, like big raisons, olives, celery (lowers blood pressure), a hard-boiled egg (eat one if you have had too much sugar, it helps level out your 'high') and anything else I think would make it 'interesting', so that it is not exactly the same each time. Boredom and predictability is the worst thing for me, when to do with eating food.
In fasting, first goes fat, then muscles, that's why you can't survive from fasting. We do need to eat :D
Dairy is messed up and was "justified" for survival, which isn't the case for most humans anymore. Using the breast milk of another animal, when we are past drinking the breast milk from our own mothers, is fucked up. It really is. It's warped.