Hi ETJ, I just looked on your thread and nothing new there, so was delighted to find you here. The thing I like about Rooibos tea is that it is caffeine free. I have lapsed today into having 2 coffees with cream, and I almost have the shakes. I feel trembly. I need to have a big mug of water. I couldn’t work out what was wrong, but realise the caffeine has kicked in.

My niece hasn’t let me know this week how she is going. I’ve sent her a message again, and will let you know if she replies.

I only did the b2b because I wasn’t feeling hungry on that second day and I was busy doing lots around the place so didn’t think about hunger. Today I could eat my own hand off. I made Mother cruskits with cheese, salami and tomato for lunch and drank my rooibos tea (available at Coles in the Nerada tea section). I miss eating cruskits, but know that this way I don’t get swelling in my legs.

Is it hard to mark the lambs? Is it a tattoo or brand or what? I am ignorant when it comes to those things. I am far too lazy to live on a farm. All that work. But you sound as though you thrive on it. I’ll be passing through your neck of the woods in November on my way to Melbourne with a friend. I haven’t driven down that way since about 1989. When we lived in Canberra and all my children were grade 1 and younger, I went to EasySlim and went from 73kgs to 61kgs. I was so slim you could see my hip bones in the front. Those have not been seen since that time and I almost doubled my weight in the intervening years. (That was 1977). Huge sigh. I’ll give you a big wave as we go by.

Better go and get that drink. Or I’ll break sown and eat, and that is not my goal for today. Take care.

Thank you Lolly and Coldpizza. One makes some wonderful friends on this forum. I’m a new woman today. Cried it all out, walked it all off and threw my troubles into the waves. I feel great.

Two days at the beach and will head there again today. Suddenly feel as though I am on holiday. In fact, I am going on holiday Monday week and a friend is going with me. Hopefully OH will meet up somewhere along the track. I will ask the convener to send you my email address ETJ so we can meet up on route. We will spend 8th and 9th in Sydney and head out of Sydney so should be near Golburn by the 10th.

Hairdresser and choir are the big events today with a walk in the next hour or so. Getting more active feels great. Will go and hang the washing out and get cracking.

The October challenge is over and now moving into the November challenge with B2tf. I’m hoping to chill out a bit and travelling for 2 weeks from 7th November should help with that. Visiting friends and no doubt plenty of food stops, but will use the tracker to keep a lid on things and remind myself of what this journey is all about…fitter, healthier way of life. Also want to go overseas next year and will need to be a lot slimmer to fit into the airplane seat. It is embarrassing when one has to ask for a seat belt extension, and the arm rest is jammed down onto your excess thigh mass by the person next to you leaning on it. So there are several reasons why I need to get back on track and be more true to myself and my goals. Need to plan my meals more. It’s all become very haphazard.

Hi HollyLJ, Lovely to see you here. We had a great 2 days so far. Have eaten much more than I’ve been allowing myself previously. Slept badly last night. So will try an FD today. Meeting up with a friend for morning coffee and then lunch with another friend. The friend I’m travelling with has never met either of them but that just adds to the interest. Hopefully catching up with ETJ this afternoon and seeing her farm. Really looking forward to that. She sounds so dynamic. And she has followed through on this WOL. So I’m sure I’ll be very inspired. We’ve travelled through some beautiful country on the New England plateau and the Hunter River Valley on our way to Sydney. We didn’t see any bushfires which was a relief. Visited a couple of wineries but had to tip the tastings into the pan in order to not become inebriated. Not a good thing when driving😅😎 but tasted enough to buy several bottles to take back to Queensland for enjoying at a later date. Should be in Victoria tomorrow where I will see my sister and niece. Thank you for your good wishes. Having not seen your post till just now, I wasn’t able to heed your advice but will keep it at the front of my mind today. Warm regards, Heather aka Fuvvie

I’m feeling very paranoid. I’m going to continue to drop into my own story and try and rationalise my behaviours etc, but people I have come to care about don’t seem to be writing on their own threads anymore so will try and give them space. It’s probably co-incidental that my entries are the last on several for quite a while. I’m here for anyone who would like to comment on their journey and I’m in touch with the challenge.

Still have to get out the recipe books. I have to shake off this blue feeling and not indulge in bourgeoise suffering. Life is good. Getting more active. The weight hasn’t got out of hand and the way forward is positive. Acceptance is freedom indeed.

Hi Lolly. Could have wept with relief when I saw you here. It had crossed my mind that you may have been with family as that happened once before when you dropped out of orbit. But I have the bad habit of hearing horses and thinking zebras. The mind plays strange tricks. Have to go over to your page and re-read what you wrote there. I’m on a b2b and managing well so far. Having a long black st the swimming pool while the boys are having lessons. We have choir practice tonight so won’t swim today, But tonight is the last practice for the year, 3 Christmas concerts to go and one tour through the wards at Nambour Hospital and that’s it for the year.

I’m glad things have been more settled for you, ETJ. Have you read the Complete Hip and Thigh diet by Rosemary Conley? She was due to have a cholecystectomy when she did this diet and managed to fix herself. However, it means no fat practically which is a bit opposite to what we have been doing. Still an interesting read. Years old now of course. Good luck with it all.

Hi Annette52. Thanks for your support. I have read the Obesity Code and watched all of Jason Fung’s YouTube talks on the Aetiology of Obesity. I certainly agree with his conclusions and his lectures are an eye opener. I think there is pal so a psychological element involved. I haven’t cracked the code yet but am finding it much harder to do the fasts whereas back in April through to August I found them relatively easy. I will continue to aim for that peace I found then. 2017 is my year to do it I believe.

Hi Annette52, I wonder how you got on with making better decisions? For some reason, this season seems to generate a need in me to overeat and disregard all the good that I know helps me in the long run. I keep telling myself that I will start again and do all the right things once this full on entertaining and cooking and socialising settles. Although the time is spent with people I love and who love me, it still seems to bring out this destructive behaviour. The food dragons, trolls or whatever they are seem to take over the reins. I am positive that this too shall pass and the too mark will be breached. It has to. The exercise will be part of the package as well. So here is to a New Year and a continuation of the good that has resulted in fits and starts in 2016. Goodbye to sugar and grains. Hello health.

Here we are with December almost over. Hoping to finish it off with style. Fasting today. Weighed in at 110.0 kgs today which is way up, but still 13.9 kgs less than when I started this journey. I have started reading The Fast Diet again and will be using quotes out of it to inspire myself and hopefully others on the January challenge thread. I’m really psyching myself up by rereading Lollies thread and going over some of Buttonboots as well as they are stayers and inspirational. It is hormonal and the psyche plays its role as well. Not sure how the hormones affect the psyche, but probably associated with the gut, the second brain. If there is inflammation there, it is reported that this leads to depression so can look forward to feeling brighter as I sort this out this coming month.

Good on your exercise efforts, Annette52. A local half marathon is a major incentive I should think. Wow. I’m still too heavy to run. My cartilages in both knees are too frail. Swimming is likely to be a better goal for me. Just have to convince myself to go there.

Hello Lolly,
I just wrote on your thread and then came over here and was thrilled to see your note. I guessed you must be away. Big hugs and YES 2017 is the year for little steps resulting in big strides.

Hello Nomorefat: I think if you follow intermittent fasting, it becomes a life long habit and then there would be no spring back. Many people who take up IF don’t regain the weight. I think that when I started this in April, I went gungho and think I probably ate a lot less than my TDEE so really was on a low calorie diet as well as fasting. I am pretty sure I probably dropped my metabolism as a result and my body is trying to get back to its set body weight. I am ignoring this. I’m back to being less rigid and getting 5:2 going again, never really having stopped completely but I did throw all caution to the wind for a while there. If you read Lolly’s thread, and look at Buttonboots, who has been doing this for a lot longer than 2 years, then you will see that you don’t have to rebound. Bigbooty often puts comments in. He has been in maintenance for a long time. If you look at the maintenance thread, you will find a host of people who have maintained. It’s not always easy but you can do it. There are a host of people on the 31 Day January challenge who are losing weight at a steady pace, some are on maintenance and holding nicely. So I hope that answers your question. It is by far the best way of eating that I have found and I hold a PhD in dieting and all it’s pitfalls, having followed almost every diet I could get my hands on and have wasted thousands of dollars on a variety of programmes. This works best for me and costs me nothing apart from data and i pay for that anyway. I’ve made lots of virtual friends and love their humour and caring ways. Go for it. Just dive in and make the most of it.

Hi PamelaV,
Thanks for dropping in and your very kind thoughts. It is strange how one’s words can suggest one thing when maybe we mean something else. So the front one portrays can obviously be misleading, without intent. One doesn’t get to 123.9kgs without having some real issues with food. And those issues for me are gigantic. I’m trying to get on top of my vices, indulgences etc. Some days it works, others I succumb to lifelong habits. It’s a crazy roundabout. But I truly do think this is the way to eventually get to where I want to be. I enjoy the company I’m keeping here. So many people give me joy and a feeling of companionship.

Talking of bad habits, today is meant to be an FD. I was going fine and I was driving 2 of my grandsons to the beach when I got a phone call from Daughter No1. She was wondering what we were doing as her son was on his own with her. We diverted and went to her place instead and went to the beach near her. We were in the water for ages. It was absolutely glorious. There was a little bit of seaweed, but nothing to disturb the fabulous feeling of freedom one has in the water. Then she suggested we have a frappe at Macca’s, which we did. Greed surfaced and I ordered large coffee frappes. When we went home, I went onto my fitness pal (MFP) and it cost me 684 Cal, with 81 grams of sugar, i.e. 20 teaspoons full of sugar. So nearly 200 cals over 1/4 TDEE. Came home and had several handful of nuts and then had bone broth for dinner. I’ve had sparkling mineral water with ACV to finish off the day. It was yummy, but won’t be doing that again 😔

One last check in on 31 day January 2017 challenge, and then bed for me. Night and good luck.

The end of January approaches and I am happy with how things are going. I’m on an NFD today and even had breakfast, 2 hard boiled eggs, which I am no longer in the habit of having. Mostly I have been doing 16:8 and trying to eat LCHF. I don’t think I am getting enough fat though. My daughter has just shown me a fat bomb recipe and I think I may start having a few of those now and then. She has also bought a thermomix recipe book from Skinnymix which has some really interesting looking recipes. Tonight we are having marinated butterfly-ed lamb with steamed veggies

For exercise I have increased work around the house. I meant to buy the herbs for the herb garden but decided I really wanted to stay at home for a change. I had to go out to pick the boys up from school but it was lovely to have a day at home just by myself. I’ve been getting a bit of self hypnosis going as well to try and reinforce my desire to follow through on this way of eating to reach my goals.

I’m going to my first hip hop lesson tonight so had better put my skates on.

Thanks Lolly. The sauce we had on the lamb last night was butter and cream which my daughter made. It was delicious. I could have licked everyone’s plate as well as my own, however well mannered people don’t do that. Being a foodie, it broke my heart to see those delightful juices just going down the sink. What ever happened to waste not, want not???? In all seriousness, butter etc will be used more. I have always used butter, never margarine. My mother used to put butter in all our veggies till the low fat craze hit. Then we all stopped doing it. A lot of flavour was lost 😢 One of the really big disasters as a child, and one we loved, was lettuce with sugar wrapped in it and then rolled up. We just loved it. I wonder where the sugar addiction came from? When mum decided we weren’t having the sugar in the lettuce anymore, my brother and I were heartbroken. Maybe it was the only way she could get us to eat lettuce in the beginning. Who knows.

Hip hop was a real challenge. I could not get the routine stuck into my brain. I had to follow the person in front which put me a bit of a beat behind. It was just starting to come together when the class was finished. I filmed it so I can learn the routine. Next week I hope to be better. It was fun in spite of the embarrassment of not catching on as quickly as I thought I would.

I followed LCHF yesterday, had 3 meals and a few nuts mid afternoon (I know, no snacking!!!) and came down 200 grams which is unusual after an NFD. So here is to LCHF and a good track to the end of the month and the end of the year…why stop at a measly month.

It is so hot today. Have just planted a tree which is hard yakka in heavy clay. Mixed the soil with activ8 and water and hope that does the trick. Herbs still surviving. Plenty of food for thought lately around goals, preconceptions and how I respond to others. Doing masses of reading and able to apply what I read at least 50% of the time. I’m more active which is not saying a lot but it is a start. I’m decluttering and that has a knock on effect to my attempts at weight loss as cleaning out pantry and fridge has meant there is nothing there to gorge on, no matter how long I stand there gazing into either storage area. Kitchen benches are much more organised and that makes me happy. A clear space helps with a clear mind.
I’ve just reread Annette’s post about her friend and will endeavour to completely cut the white carbs. I really do believe it’s the clincher, besides the fasts. I know I’m rambling but I have to make myself accountable today and don’t want to clog up the Feb challenge .

I’m hoping ETJ is over her surgery by now. If not, it must be close. If you happen to see this ETJ, wishing you all the best.

We each have to find our own way, Coldpizza, but having others cheering us on definitely helps. I’m so pleased to see you back. And you sure haven’t given up because you are here. No judgement, just lots of hugs and sincere wishes to see you succeed. 👌👏🤗