Wow it sure is gonnna take time to keep up with posts now so many of them! Fantastic!! Heading home today….just waiting for OH to wake up so I can strip the bed & wash the sheets & remake and then the towels. Breakfast & out of here.
Will fast tomorrow back in our own home. As we’re travelling back today just sitting in a car doesn’t make for a successful FD for me. I need to be busy. But really looking forward to getting back on the 5:2 Wagon aaand to eating less! Boy so many meals out and friends to catch up with means so much food in the belly and even OH is ready to eat less and healthier. So I think it will be an easy first FD as I’m so ready for it. Think my body’s saying please please!

Wil be happy to get home to my computer too where I can post replies for everyone. I miss doing that. Looks like we have a great group to start the year off in fine fashion! Let’s do it together and meet our goals or just the next goal which may only be a few kilos. Small achievable goals are way better. SJ XXXX

This is amazing!! So many posts…did we just turn a whole new page in one day?!
Barb – glad you found the recipes; lots of good ideas for those who are into cooking and I think they are all quite simple and user-friendly because we’re all looking for ways to succeed here and not spend hours in the kitchen – which probably isn’t a good idea!
Bert – what a lovely story about your son and so touching. Sounds like you have brought up a very special young man 🙂
GG – the four Ps are vital to the success of this wol and worth remembering for us all. I see you’re really getting to grips with all the emojis like PH – great fun!
PH – I just love your posts – you say the nicest things to everybody and also brighten up the place with your emojis! I’m looking forward to being able to do that too. I hope you enjoyed the pool.
CG – I bet you enjoyed being back in the pool too. It’s especially good for supporting the back and you can exercise safely without doing damage.
Gyps – not sure what my title is supposed to mean, but I love the sound of it!! I’ve clearly forgotten what my duties are, so you’d better remind me before I get the sack!!
Jade – I’m thrilled you’re staying with us and now that Gyps has given you an official title, I guess you’re stuck with us!! Isn’t it brilliant that we now have so many people in different time zones – that way there will nearly always be someone posting whenever we log on…yippee!! 🙂
SJ – I’m sure you will be glad to get home and into your own routine…holidays are wonderful but there’s nothing quite like home. Did your OH do any painting while you were away?
I decided to try and get through the last of the leftover goodies today so that I won’t be able to sabotage my efforts next week. It’s time to get back into a proper routine now and also to commit to regular exercise. So I shared out the last of the pudding, cake and choccies with my OH, two daughters and my sister and the cupboards are bare at last!! By coincidence there was an article in the paper today by Dr. Mosley and he mentioned that eating your calories is probably better for us than drinking them as it not only keeps us fuller for longer but we also get the added benefits of the fibre in fruit and veg. He also advises against diet drinks.
I don’t know if you have heard of a custom we have here in Ireland called Nollaig na mBan or Women’s Christmas; it’s celebrated on the 6th of January and was traditionally the day when women were to waited on and allowed to put their feet up because they had done all the hard work on the real Christmas! So, ladies, tell your menfolk or just treat yourself to a lazy day and do something just for you on the 6th! If anyone questions it, just tell them it’s an old Irish custom and they will be cursed if they try to interfere!! 😉

Up – forgive my memory loss – meant to say that it is only natural to feel a bit strange about getting into the routine of fasting again. I had a similar experience some time ago. Just think of a pattern that worked for you before and plan your meals for that; then bite the bullet and just do it! I know you can. Before you know it, you will be back into this wol like the old hand that you are xx

I’m with you SJ. There have been four posts whilst I have been writing mine. It is good to get on the healthy eating wagon. So glad you had such a great time in Perth. Your house swap was a great idea. Hoping the new year brings with it good things and the strength to deal with whatever is thrown your way. 💜💜💜

Fit. LOVE. The idea of Woman’s Christmas! The Irish certainly have some great ideas. We will have to remind everyone over here in Aus to celebrate it each year. 💃🎄💃🎄💃🎄🎉🎈🎈. Thanks for the nice words. I too look forward to your posts. The pool was great. Just sinking into the 35 degree heat and doing the aerobic exercises with my cute exercise physiologist calling the shots was a great way to start back into routine. 😘😘😘

Doggy. What a lovely family time you continue to have. Time enough for getting back into fasting again when all is back to normal. Enjoy😀😀😀

I took advantage of free time today and read some of the AD “archives” – going back to when the calendar flipped from 2014 to 2015. I have been alternately laughing and tearing up over your stories of perseverance, resilience, and loss….it was very moving. One day, somehow, I intend to come give you all a big hug.

How’s the FD going over in Australia? I’m still in the planning stages here, clearing the house of evil. I cooked a big Brunswick stew, which is basically a BBQ soup with smoked brisket/pork/chicken, onions, tomatoes, corn, lima beans, and they cook it in huge vats down in Brunswick, GA near the beach. It’s not FD fare but will give me plenty of energy – and I needed energy to get through all that reading 🙂

Ha Dawg, if I engaged my brain every time I spoke, I’d hardly say a word. Didn’t upset me in the least, obviously – but then traditional southerners are hard to upset. That is, until people go hijacking nature preserves and threatening to overthrow the gov’t. Then I can get a little testy. LAST POLITICAL COMMENT, I SWEAR. AT least for a while.

CG hope the exercises go well – you sure do have some Aussie Determination to push on through the pain. I know you’ve been doing that for a while! Enjoy the massage if you can remember when it is 🙂 Been in that spot many times lol.

Fit I love the idea of a Women’s Christmas, and we certainly deserve it as we do create most of the festive things there are in this world, at Christmas time and the rest of the year. I’ll be sure to advise OH of his duties on the 6th.

Good luck to all of you wonderful ADers. I’m looking forward to the FD fun tomorrow. A bit nervous too, so I hope yours went well! jade xx

Hi Countrygal:

Your philosophy and attitude are amazing. There is no wonder why this thread is so popular.

Have a happy and healthy new year!

Hi Countrygal:

I doubt many feel I am a ruling body, and I absolutely know my approval is unnecessary to confirm you as a wonderful and leading example of how to be successful, not only with 5:2, but with achieving goals whatever they may be. People lead by example, and you are a very positive example. I simply pass on basic information.

Thank you!

Yesss! first real fast day in a month! 468 cals so far. And it was hard. but buckets of water are helping. just enough cals left for another egg or a piece of cheese if I can’t hold out til bedtime. Phew! I see the straight and narrow path before me…I will do it! No time to write more but diid have askim read. good going everybody. So looking forward to a sav…….TOMORROW! NITE ALL XX

Hello all. Just wanted to report on my first ever fasting day. I had black coffee at 8am, hot water & lemon juice at 10am, numerous glasses of water during the day and held off having anything to eat until NOON!! I am really happy to report I had Misso soup with spinach & mushroom for dinner & 150g cherries & intend having hot milk later tonight. Altogether my day equaled……….drum roll………. 437 calories including the milk.
Thank you everyone, I can’t tell you how much your encouragement meant to me & how much it helped me look ahead. xxx

Yeh, here’s to us, Poiple! Bloody well done! xx

Hi All.

Fast day today was a little bit of a challenge but due to supportive husband we pulled through. We had to go into town to have darling husband’s stitches taken out of his hand and needed to go to Telstra to organise changing of phone to new house. Queue for Telstra was out the door and they made a booking for 90 minutes later.

Decided to go and sort out the carpet for the new house while we were waiting but that did not fill in enough time (and as it was lunch time) we decided to have lunch to fill in the rest of the time. At home we would usually just have a salad and a small serve of protein such as a tin of tuna or an egg but finding something similar with the limited choices in a country town was not that easy. We decided we would have a baked potato with coleslaw and as that would be far more calories than we usually have, we would skip our protein tonight and just have our low starch vegies.

When the time came for our evening meal I was starting to feel like I needed more and suggested that we have a cold sausage left over from last nights dinner. Darling husband asked whether that would be too many calories and obviously I had to admit that it would be. Once hearing that he decided against it so obviously I couldn’t “give in” when he was being strong so we had our salad and called it quits. I am currently drinking hot water to keep the hunger pains at bay and will have an early night.

Note to self – plan ahead – carry something with us on fast days in case things don’t go as planned.

As I mentioned yesterday, numbers on the scale are all over the place but noticed today that pants feel more comfortable which is good news.

Hi all. I have come in at 381, didn’t eat until 3. Boys came over for dinner so a challenge for me but got through it.

Well done to everyone who succeeded today.

Jade….. If your in Brunswick, Ga and I’m in Fl, that means we’re less than a 1/2 days drive from each other…. How cool is that!

Congrats Barb…… I knew you could do it! I’m doing the happy dance for you……. Who would have thunk it, this new wol would be soooo simple!

Such inspiration pouring out of Australia! And then Ireland – ah Fit, our rainbow through the gloom 🙂 — all right I’m set, staircase to heaven it is. With a chorus of hallelujah for beloved CG, rightly recognized.
I’ve started the day off right with strong coffee and light cardio of puppy tummy rubs. If only chocolate weren’t bad for them, I’d have a truly “clean” house. Today could be the day I let the rest of the stash go in the bin.
Barb and Bert, sounds like you got a triple dose of Fit’s rainbow with your joyful FDs. Fantastic, and it’s inspiring to see how happy it made you. Bert, my reference to Brunswick was from childhood memories – I wish I lived that close to the ocean! But grew up much closer to Tennessee, up in the hills. You must love the Florida sunshine after living in NY, though I love NY also – very beautiful upstate and NY is a wonderful city to visit.
Katy glad your guy is all better, my word he’s a strong one isn’t he. Talk about Aussie determination! That’s really wonderful that he kept the FD boat afloat.
Gyps, thanks for those photo instructions, might give that a whirl, though my iPad is still smashed from an unlucky tangle with the fly swatter. I can’t be trusted around delicate objects though flies are safe, apparently – pretty sure that one laughed at me.
Gosh it’s like an infusion of joy here today (called it an infection at first, didn’t sound quite right – don’t want all you nurses curing that do we) – CG positively glowing, PH with your laughing angels, GG with your love of nursing & just singing through all the rain no doubt, and all the rest of you smashing a FD like it was a gnat… I think I’ll have what you’re all having (nod to When Harry Met Sally). Seriously thank you all for the lovely Monday cheering, just the thing to get me going right. Wobbly did you get through all right?
Up and CG, yes indeed sometimes there is a benefit to a shrinking top half – it’s nice to sleep comfortably on the tummy. With OH, 2 dogs 2 cats and me in/on the queen bed, sleeping in any position is a necessary skill.
Fit hope your photo memories are more sweet than bittersweet. Love drags us through quite the garden of emotions at times. X
Cheers to all, doing my best to follow your lead on this frosty FD morning – xx

Grrrrr for some reason I start a post, it freezes and I lose everything.
Yesterday was a normal meal day for me but I did well. I also went for a long walk and did a lot of vacuuming.
Today is my first FD. I have had a breakfast from the recipe book – poached egg, spinach, portobello mushroom, and vine tomatoes which is 124 cals. I am working at the information centre today and not sure I can go all day without anything. I am going to take some celery with me just in case.
UP- I am abysmal with maths so will have a handy calculator on my IPAD.
I did work out how to do the weights etc. on MFP. Does anyone know if you can change it from kilojoules to calories. It would be so much easier. I have been converting this morning but it is such a pain.

Hope this works, my first attempt at photobucket. My outfit for my niece’s wedding in the UK, August last year.

Genie. You can download an app called kg to cal. It has a strawberry picture on it. I use it all the time. I also have metric-conversions.org as a link on my iPad. If you do a search and find it you will see an option to download as an app

Congratulations to all our team. 🎉🎉🎉🎉👏👏👏 Wonderful result everyone. I slept in and so have no time to read all the posts as have to get to the pool. Back later.

Hi all

phew, away for a few days and its like reading Anna Karenina, only refering to number of posts – I have actually ready most of that book, but if you are thinking of reading it,leave it for a month where watching paint dry is the ONLY alternative – honestly, halfway through I was wanting to give her a good shake – three quarters of the way through I found myself ready to throttle her myself, never did get to the end, there would have been no emphathy from me!!!

Fit, I think we will go Irish on the 6th!!! Came back from a very good weekend, though absolutely wrecked – standing on concrete floors for hours at a time is not good for the back, to find we have another house guest – my son’s pal has walked out after his dad took his money out of his bank account to bet! We have two bedrooms and a third room we use as an office, looks like the office may be moved into the kitchen – and another lad is staying tonight – we are snug as bugs in a rug!!

Off to Copenhagen once again on Friday – my life is so hard – not! We did well enough at both the New Year fair and the weekend fair that I have lots of dosh to go shopping – I’ll bet that there will be nothing to buy!

Ate nothing all day at either fairs, so pleased, so managed two semi-fast and a full fasts, so into the swing once again. Thought actually it would be harder to get back into the groove!

Welcome to all the newbies, and I hope 2016 is going to be fun for us all!

Aww…. I love coming home from work and seeing warm wishes from you all.
Busy day at work after being closed for two weeks, I felt a little brain dead at times but I’m choking up to having way to many customers on the first day back…… I will not blame it on my FD!
Did super well, coffee in the am…… And my wonderful husband poached an egg for me seeing as I was having trouble getting motivated. It was hard working on a time schedule after being all willy nilly the last couple weeks. I did not realize until this morning that I have a 20 min makeup ritual…… What the heck? Goal this week, cut this time back……
A late lunch today because of too many customers but a cup of soup and sugar free jello.
Two problems have came up….. First being, I was unable to get all my water in through the day, so I must play catch up tonight. Second being, I’ve got to make dinner for my youngest and myself and I’m not hungry!
Of all the years, I have dieted, I’ve have never found myself in a place where I’m not hungry, fustrated, and utterly mad! But as my second FD comes to an end, not only do I want to do this FD again but I’m not fustrated because of being to limited or controlled by the food I can not or should not eat!
I do need to apologize for my ramblings and future ramblings, I can honestly say, I am so excited not only to be doing something so great as this new wol but to have such great friends to share it with.

Noots you look smashing! That outfit is gorgeous too – love the hat/spectator/whatever it’s called 🙂
Well done Bert, fellow yank – nice that your husband is poaching eggs for you. Getting him all set for Jan 6th and Women’s Christmas? Go you.
Milena, LOL re Anna K, I felt the same way about Moby Dick, took me months and I was ready for them all to die well before then.
I’m holding fast here, OH isn’t feeling well so no one’s having dinner. We’ll see if a true fast can be done. Happy Tuesday to you Aussies! xxxxx