Anyone else from South Africa?

This topic contains 5 replies, has 4 voices, and was last updated by hermajtomomi 10 years, 8 months ago.

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GoodHope3418

12:09 pm
29 Mar 14
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New to the forum, also to IF. Michael Moseley’s programs ‘The Truth About…’ have only recently been aired in South Africa, quite a revelation.

The idea of IF makes such intuitive sense to me, I decided to try it. Goals include a bit of weight loss, though I’m more or less down to where I should be, I’d also like to improve sugar balance and cholesterol (though not sure how much to worry about that).

Have now ordered the book and the recipes! I thought you had to fast for 24 hours on one day and eat light on another, so that’s what I have been doing – fasting completely supper to supper, though not going without cups of tea (with some milk, not sugar), a light supper, light eating next day, then eat what I like five days. It’s going fine, I don’t feel too hungry on fast days. For a long time now I’ve tried to keep at least a 12 hour fast in each day – this was before I’d heard anything about IF, I just realised I feel better like that and eat less overall.

I noticed that on feed days I’m more prepared to make the effort to eat healthy food, boosting fruit and veg, and avoiding starches (not completely, just more than before). It’s as though awareness of nutrition has become sharper. Anyone else notice something like that?

barbarita

12:49 pm
29 Mar 14
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Hello

Definitely agree with what you say in the last paragraph, so glad I discovered fasting because without it I would have struggled to eat low carb but the fasting has rebooted my appetite and now I eat lots of healthy salads, proteins and fats and mostly give grains, sugars, sweeteners and transfats the elbow.

hermajtomomi

12:55 pm
29 Mar 14
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Hi GoodHope,

I’m not sure whether there are any other posters from South Africa, but if not may you be the first of many. If the programmes have only just gone out it may take a little while for the word to spread.

You mention cholesterol. 5:2 should certainly help. I don’t know about the docs in your part of the world but here in the UK they keep moving the goal posts. While at one time 6.0 or under was considered a healthy level, some of them keep stuffing their patients – especially those of mature years – with statins in the hope of getting them down to 3 point something. Some 12 years ago, I did have high cholesterol, but thanks a low dose of statins and 14 months on 5:2 it’s now in the very low 5s and even went down to 4.8, but the quack still won’t agree to wean me off the things. You also mention sugar balance. Despite two diabetic parents mine is well within desirable limits – low 5s – no doubt helped by 5:2, although I must have been doing something right even before that.

I did have another encounter with things South African earlier in the week, when looking online for oxtail recipes. I came across a whole load of versions of oxtail potjie which looks very, very nice, but very, very naughty, even if you trim away all the visible fat and then bake it in the oven to get rid of some of the less visible stuff, before starting the recipe, as I do on the rare occasions I cook oxtail. Definitely one for a non-fast day, with a very abstemious fast day on either side. Would you be able to guide me to a link to a lower fat version?

GoodHope3418

1:03 pm
29 Mar 14
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I would just cook it, cool it down, skim off whatever fat I could from the top and eat the rest!! Oxtail is a fatty cut but so nutritious. However, in SA you can cook just about anything in a potjie (a three legged heavy pot that sits over the coals of your barbeque or braai as we call it here). So maybe you could use a less fatty cut of beef and boost the spices a bit to keep the flavour intense.

Sympathise with doctor moving goalposts, I’ve tried not to get into that as my GP still thinks that you keep cholesterol down by avoiding saturated fat, and I don’t really believe that any more. I would like to do some tests so that I can re-test after following Fast for a while and see if there are changes, as Michael did on the TV show.

Amy C.

1:14 pm
29 Mar 14
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GoodHope3418:

I am not from South Africa, but am sharing this journey of following the 5:2 Diet, so I thought I would comment.

After 8 weeks of following this plan, I, too, have noticed that I can better resist eating food that are low on nutrition — like chips, cookies, ice cream and the like.

Another thing is I have noticed that I am more patient overall. When I am hungry on fast days, I think, “I can eat in XX hours”. All I need to do is wait. Now when I am hungry on the non fast days, I think the same thing. It contributes to the success so far — along with other things I am trying. I am more patient with waiting — especially in driving.

What I am really trying to do is not eat compulsively. Losing control and stuffing your face is not conducive to losing weight.

I have made it 14 days straight without eating compulsively.

hermajtomomi

3:03 pm
29 Mar 14
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Thanks for the tip, GoodHope. How annoying medics can be sometimes! I got all the yadayada about high cholesterol, not to mention excess weight, being caused by eating fatty meats, which I loathe, and sugary-fatty stuff, which I don’t eat simply because I simply don’t like them.

When I suggested to my present doctor that I could try controlling cholesterol by dietary methods alone, she assumed I meant just switching to low-cholesterol products in the Benecol range (don’t know if they operate in SA but I’m sure you have similar brands over there), rather than intelligently choosing foods known to help to lower cholesterol. To be fair to her, though, she was very impressed with the results of Fast Dieting and even told me I looked great.