Thanks for sharing the article Precious.
This is why we have had such success on 5:2. I got rid of all bread, pasta, flour and potato from our house for most of the first year. We then totally rethought our food, substituting flour based foods with veg and not buying processed food. I am a great believer that whipping up beautiful home made food only takes planning not longer. I can have a fantastic tasty no refined carb meal on the table before most people can open a packet and microwave it.
Natural whole foods are cheaper, healthier, more sustaining and sustainable, delicious and, as Dr Fung says, no one gets addicted to them.
Come on LOACAS, get down to your local market and stock up with fabulous fresh produce! Start an anti refined and processed foods revolution! 🙂 PVE

Hi BooBoo chino’s and black T -shirt got a wow off big Sis but she would, love her. I loved the look like I said in my earlier post. Thanks again for free advice on colour scheme better than a personal shopper and much cheaper. LOL
Regarding where I want to lose the couple of pounds from around my frame, I have a nice spare tyre which is also known as an apron which is a left over of baby fat from the birth of my very young son age 48 next birthday. Also I am hoping that my Nordic walk in is going to help with bingo wings which are to fat. Other than that I think it could be all I will lose because like you I have not lost anything off my bust just all the bits that use to hang out all over the bra at all angles of my 40G size and now it’s 34GG how did that happen? or was it that I was trying to make 40GG girth fit into a 40G properly.
LOACA. Hope you all had a lovely day, I have and the weather is still wonderful in South Wales, the welsh schools started their holidays last Friday so I do hope it stays like this for the kids.
OW’s and DW’s happy fasting or feasting everyone. JIP

Purple that’s so true, cooking from scratch needn’t be time consuming, and can be delicious (depending on your cooking skills ….). It reminds me of the words of the American nutritionist Michael Pollan “eat (real) food, not too much, mostly plants”. He also says not to eat anything your grandmother wouldn’t recognise, don’t eat anything with more than five ingredients or ingredients you can’t pronounce! Such simple “rules” to live by, a recipe for life.

Wise words indeed, Cheesy! (Every time I even see your handle I start to salivate. Shows how a life long adiction to cheese is very hard to break!) Cheers P

Hello Jackie T Welcome to our great thread, BooBoo keeps us all up to date with each other and you will get all the encouragement you want on here.
G.Day Purple I have a great imagination and the car and this very trendy lady whizzing around in that little car of yours. Go girl go.
BooBoo very interesting about the carbs, when it’s a fast I do not eat bread, potato or rice and I also keep them to a minimum the rest of the week, with the odd slice of bread with boiled eggs. Potatoes are only eaten when I have a dinner with meat and two veg. On a Tuesday I usually treat myself to a small baguette for lunch that buy on my way home from WW eaten with or filled with salad. So I think I could give up these three things just to get that fat off my stomach and would only be for a little while and like 5-2 it’s doable.
Well that’s it from me. Battery running out on iPad and my battery is running out too.
Good night and G-Day all. HF or Feasting JIP.

Go JIP go! You little swinger in your black and pink outfit 🙂 have fun! B

Hi Jackie

Welcome aboard the good ship LOACA. My experience is the same as yours. The weight and fat came off quickly from arms, legs, feet, around the ribs and the hips and stomach. The residual weight still hangs around the belly button. 🙂 In the past the weight always went first off my face and bust. I still have my figure and face such as it is! My family have commented approvingly that I haven’t gone all scrawny. 🙂

I am convinced that we have lost the “bad” fat from around our internal organs. I feel so much more energetic and certainly have a more youthful figure. Fat has also gone from what my grandmother used to call the widows hump, that is between the shoulder blades and above. A most pleasant surprise. !

Keep us posted and be prepared for the plateau in weight loss, and admire your new figure as it appears. B

Hi PVE and all LOACA

I Had a night off from this thread so need to catch up, 17 staff from school went out for an Italian meal. I was good and didn’t have a starter, but did have cheesecake for desert. There is a topic called “Meal plans and meals” and this has lots of recipes on it. I’ve just put the veggie curry on there. Will have to find time to browse the recipe ideas, well we break up today so I’ll have lots of time once I’ve finished the long list of jobs I’ve made for the summer holidays!!
Ali x

Good Morning all LOACA. I did a fast on Monday, ate last at 9pm on Sunday. We had a 100 cal lunch at 2pm Monday and ate our allowance by 9pm. When I woke up on Tuesday I didn’t feel at all hungry so waited until 1pm to eat. Even did the supermarket shop!! So that was 2 fasts on following days.It was so easy I can’t get over it as in the past I have always been so scared that something dreadful would happen if I missed a meal. Don’t know quite what but it probably goes back to childhood. This WOE has been a revelation!!! WN.

I do the fast diet now for. 4.5 weeks. I am 59 years old and yesterday I had my period so I am still not at the end of it. Lost 4.5 kg in this time but not smoothly. The non fast days I eat less than allowed, about 1500-1600 cal although I move about a lot. The fast days I only eat 1 fruit, vegetables and meat, no carbohydrates. And I don’t drink any calories, not even on feed days. Stopped using all artificial sweeteners and since then I lost all sugar cravings. Does this help?

Hi Juliana

Well done. I also gave up all sugars and starches and have had good results. It is healthy to eat small portions of protein such as fish, chicken or meat with steamed green vegetables. Enjoy!

Hello eveyone! This is my second week and fourth fast today. I’m in a weird way enjoying the fast days as it’s a novelty not to think about food. I plan my 500 cal and thats it. I’ve battled my weight for many years and am a bit of a grazer so this is a big change for me and what I need I’m sure. I’m not nearly as hungry as I thought I would be and the only slight problem is being a little ‘jittery’ in the afternoon. Yesterday was my hardest day so far – non fasting and trying not to slide into old patterns. I’ve just started HRT and my GP is going to monitor BP so hopefully that will be helped too.
2 1/2 lbs off and lots more to go so I’m in for the long game!

Hello Precious BooBoo and LOACAs
Even though I don’t always post messages, I find this forum very inspiring. I am unfortunately not yet at a stage of showing my new found body to the world, I feel happy for those of you who have.

I am having difficulty fasting at present. I am still running after my 2 year old grand son in Rome and fasting is not easy. The new grandson was born and we are wetting his head on a daily basis.
But the fresh produce of this wonderful land is such a pleasure to eat au naturel, so I am not really using your recipes.
But this women’s network is as it should be open in every sense of the word.
Thanks to all you regulars.
One other positive point for me is that the forum is in English and as an expat kiwi living normally in France where I don’t have the opportunity to discuss such things as the odd excess 25kg which I have, I am even more grateful to be a part of this forum. French women don’t get too overweight, so no discussion is necessary.
So it would be a medical affair if I do nothing myself.
For the first time and thanks to you all.
I CAN LOSE THESE KILOS.
Thanks and yes please regular contributers, please go on
Wiwi XXX

Precious, I am reading a lot on the Zite app on dieting, and I hate all the articles about how easy you could lose weight just eating avocados or using this or that supplement. I think they do not respect the fact that it is really difficult to lose weight for a longer period than just that first dieting week nor how difficult it is to change your normal eating pattern and to synchronize it with the people around you (husbands, wives etc.).

And then I read about how artificial sweeteners make you want to eat real sugars because after you get the taste (in coffee, tea etc) your body also wants the calories! It took me two days to wean off the sweeteners and the sugar cravings left me as well. It’s not that I don’t eat sweet things anymore but I can stop after 1 chocolate or 1 bit of a sweet desert, wonderful isn’t it?

I guess these first kilos are what I gained since last summer, from now on it will be more difficult I suppose but I must lose about 10 kg more to be in the save zone again… I hope to be able to help you ladies as I feel already stronger having read all your comments.

Hi Precious BOO BOO and LOACS. I am in my 6th week of 5;2. I’m proud of my weight loss- it is 11lbs. I’m struggling a bit on fast days, with dizzyness when I stand and I get a bit cranky and reactive to boot! I’m a Kiwi, from Auckland New Zealand. I survived Invasive Breast cancer and put on weight after for the first time ever. I reckon it was plunging headlong into menopause overnight with Chemo. I’m most enjoying feeling in touch with my body, with feeling energized when I walk and the feeling of lightness in my step! I watched Dr Michael Mosely’s Truth About Exercise and got a lot from that. I discovered I am a ‘responder’ to exercise and it helped me hugely in working out what to do to help myself with weight. I’d thoroughly recommend people interested in this looking at it online- it filled in a missing gap for my knowledge anyhow. I’ve been watching this thread for the full 5 weeks now and getting lots of inspiration from reading everybody’s postings. I especially find it helpful to read on fast day pms! I eat my last meal at about 6pm, my next first at about 11 am the next day, dinner at 4 and on to breakfast with a really sharp walk in the day and some rebounder walking also. It’s the sharp walking that burns the fat for me! Thanks again to all the posters on here, it’s lovely to read the inspirational stories!

Hello all

I began writing this last night, then couldn’t post it this morning because for some reason I had to log in again. Stupidly I had forgotten my password (again!) and was out all day so gave only just been able to sort it out.

Before I launch into my tome, Happy Birthday Booboo’s Thread! BooBoo you deserve the FD Award For Consistent Support, Encouragement and Enthusiasm For Ladies Of A Certain Age. Fantastic!

This is what I wrote earlier:

Back in the land of WIFI after a few glorious days in Wales. We managed to fit in a bit more unpacking in between lovely long walks with the dogs on an almost deserted beach. The water was so warm, and I actually wore shorts in public and looked half-decent! There was also some filming going on for a tv series called ‘Da Vinci’s Demons’, which I’ve never heard of as it’s on Sky which we don’t have, but apparently it has a cult following in the US.

AliH16 – you certainly had your work ‘cut out’ (ughh – pun!). Hope the sewing went well. I certainly don’t know if I could have given away half my chips! And I’m not sure I could have left the skin on the fish if it was all lovely and crispy.

BooBoo – I do hope you are now getting some of our sunshine up there. Very well done on passing the 3000 posts mark and also on the anniversary of your thread. From the number of subsequent posts (which I am desperately trying to catch up on), it is certainly gathering momentum. Thanks for being such a consistent and enthusiastic leader, which I have no doubt is why it is so successful, along of course with regular contributors like JIP,LUVT, Purple, Cheeseplease, and Bayleaf to name just a few. It’s a great gang to be in.

To answer an earlier couple of questions – I lost the 17 lbs in 9 weeks, as I extended the FBD by a week because of the difficulties in following it during my stay in Scotland. I weighed this morning and have now lost another pound, so I am clawing my way towards that 20lbs Award! I had a FD yesterday and for the first time went without breakfast. I often skip lunch on a FD but not breakfast, which is usually a boiled egg. Strangely I didn’t feel too hungry, and made sure I kept myself busy. Fortunately there was lots of gardening to catch up on so I got some exercise too! It was an 18 hour fast, so I hope it did some good. I didn’t drink nearly enough water – I’m very lax in that respect.

With regard to the adverse reaction to high-sugar foods, I get a severe pain, like someone sticking a knife into my abdomen. Fortunately Gaviscon helps, but it has certainly been something of a revelation to realise what causes it. I’m not sure if starchy foods affect me in the same way, as I eat very little except for a small amount of Fruit & Fibre with fresh fruit and low fat Greek yoghurt on NF days. As I write this, following said breakfast, there is a bit of discomfort which I haven’t previously been aware if. Maybe I was just so used to it. I will take note next time I have a large bowl of pasta.

I think the recipe idea is great. Haven’t quite got my head around the options for how we do it, but will read more of the posts when I have time. I’m happy to go with whatever is easiest.

JIP – well done on finally plucking up the courage to wear the pink chinos! The outfit sounds great. I wish I could say the same for my shorts on the beach, but at least I could get into them. They are very old and faded and I look like a beach bum but they are so comfortable! I’m looking forward to the day when they are too big.

Haven’t had time to catch up on the rest of the posts. Looking forward to an interesting read later!

Have a great day all, whether it’s a FD or a non-FD.

Smiffy x

Ps. Be warned – OH (who, being a man, has lost a stone and a half by default since I’ve been doing this!) is beginning to show a worrying interest in this site. He has a wicked sense of humour, so If we get a suspicious-sounding newbie she may not be all she appears to be……! He has had stern words!

Fantastic speech BooBoo!

JIP – I meant to say we drove home via the A40 for a change and I waved as we bypassed Brecon (that IS where you live isn’t it?)

Boo, I guess I would vote for a seperate location IF it were easy to find. It would be nice if those that tried the recipes posted would recommend them or advise the gals if something sounded better than it tasted. But Jojo had recommended I limit my recipes to a specific thread/post and I could never find where the darn thing was. So as long as you helped us locate it to get all of us started, I would hope it would be helpful. But I will certainly support what everybody decides they want and what is most accessible and useful OW DW FW.

And a Happy Birthday to the tread ( and to your sweet Prince George. The whole world loves your future king. Cheers to Great Britain….some good news amoung all the bad on the TV nightly news for a change). Two big birthdays well earned. Glasses raised (applause can be heard in the background……yeah !!!!)

Smiffy: way to go my dear. You will have to share your secret (my guess is plain old hard work and willpower0.

Hi Smiffy, It would have been hard to see the wave from here, I live nearer your new holiday home, we live about 20 miles from Swansea and 20 miles from Cardiff right in the middle. I have some nice shorts that come just on the knee and I can get away with them now.
Glad your new home seems to be coming together, I told you I am a dab hand of packing and unpacking but it is 28 years since my last move and after all the building work and re-carpeting and deco I think I will be going out of here in a box which is my hubby’s favourite saying. LOL. Not yet I hope or a long time yet I am enjoying myself and life too much. LOL.
I agree with you there are a lot of posts to catch up with and a lot of newbies to welcome.
Happy fasting or feasting. JIP

BOOBOO! Congratulations on your wonderful award from the other side of the pond, it’s is seconded by all of your UK LOACA followers. Dr Michael didn’t think this had anything to do with his little old 5-2 book and program did he? LOL
Hi Purple, bayleaf and Boo I have not lost my sweet tooth but I do find that fasting days and B2Bare easy for me. If I keep looking in the mirror and keep checking the size of my chino’s etc I will not be putting the weight back on. Keep me on track LOACA and thank you all.
Hello to all the newbies, Juliana Liri,Tartan lass, sorry if I have left anyone out by name but when you have had time to read our lovely LOACA posts you will see it is getting a full time enjoyable read. I joined in April and I did start reading back to the begin it was worth it. We are from all walks of life. Join in and enjoy 5-2 WOL.
Good morning, LOACA from over the pond have a good day, I’m off to bed.
I need my beauty sleep. JIP

Before I get going on responses, for those wanting the new LOACA Recipe thread, just go to Active Topics and look near the top for the LOACA Recipe thread. Then tick the response box and you will automatically receive the recipe emails. Easiest way I know of to locate a particular thread. Enjoy 🙂

Hi everyone,
Thank you for the lovely welcome.
Today I was walking the dog with a lovely lady who had a bulldog, and she was raving about her diet. I think she called it the Shaker Diet, and she had been persuaded to spend one hundred and fifty pounds on products – milk shakes, snacks etc. She had to have two shakes a day, two snacks and a light meal in the evening. She had been on the diet plan for the same time that I had, and had lost 5lbs.
I congratulated her, said it sounded like the old Cambridge diet, and said I preferred my own. Mine cost the price of a book, some reading, and a good website, and I had lost 9lbs in the same time period. Big high five for 5:2

Hi JIP

I have not lost my sweet tooth either, but I now only snack on two tiny squares of chocolate. I am happy to report that I have lost my taste for sweet pastries etc made in Oz. That will be tested in France later this year!!

Boo, Thanks for posting the wheat belly article. I have been saying these things to friends and relatives, but had no scientific backup. Many of my family have given up wheat and sugar for the gut reasons that others have talked about on this thread. B