Purple – you made me smile as it reminded me of my last trip to Finland. It was December and had not started snowing heavily. We were staying at my cousin’s house and she liked to walk in the winter afternoon for her daily winter exercise. My husband and I started accompanying her on the walks. One afternoon when she was too busy to have her daily walk, my husband suggested just the two of us go. He had no idea at first where he wanted to walk to but started heading along the main road next to the forest. After awhile I suggested we turn back as we had walked for about 40 minutes and it would take us that long to return and it was getting dark (although only about 3.00pm but in winter Finland gets dark early). Anyhow he said he wanted to keep walking and we ended up in the next town where another cousin used to live a few years ago. We had a look at his old house then headed for the shops to purchase potato chips and other snacks he wanted for when he had a beer on our return to the house. By this time it was now quite dark and lights were well and truly lit. We caught the train back to my cousin’s house!! She had been getting worried where we were as we had been away for more than 3 hours!!!

Lotus – Welcome….I am only a newbie too and started last Monday so today is the beginning of my second week. I have found this forum to be great and everyone is willing to answer all your questions, cheer you on and give advice if you ask for it. I know that you will definitely loose the Kgs!!! I fast on Monday and Tuesday, but you dont have to fast back to back days, it is just the way I prefer to do it. The other days I have stuck rigidly to the calorie counting and did not go over my allowed quota. Charliesmum told me about an app which I downloaded, it is called MyFitnessPal. It took me awhile to work how to use it but I watched the help video and finally worked it out. If you are able to download this it is a great tool. I put in all the food I eat and it tells me how many calories I have used for the day as well as how many I have left. It also allows you to create recipes and count the calories and store favourite foods for fast reference. I am finding it really useful and helps me keep on track. As I said you can loose Kgs no problem. I have lose 4.1Kg this week alone!

Hello everyone – So today is the start of my second week and is a FD. When I weighed myself this morning I had not lost any weight at all, so I gather my good run has come to an end and I have hit that plateau. I am so close to being under the 80Kg mark but I am now being teased by my own body. I even had a good walk yesterday!! So it must now be that body adjustment time so I think I will take measurements and see what happens! Thanks for all the support you have given me and I will catch up with everyone again soon!! XXXJJ

Hi Julie
Your husband sounds like me. I’m famous for getting carried away on walks. I took my poor husband on a 6 hour bush hike on a 40 deg day a few years ago. We weren’t REALLY lost, but when we finally hit civilization, we found a pub and rang our daughter to pick us up!
I’ve learned it is safer to follow the rail line so that I have a way of getting home every couple of kilometers. Great for avoiding eating on a fast day. 21 hours into my fast. Tea and coffee (black) only. Why is Monday always easier to do?.
Julie, I would be surprised if you have plateaued already. Usually takes months to get to. Have a look at your nonfast eating. Set your calorie level for your goal, not current, weight. Eg If you need to get to 60 kg, you should be eating as a 60 kg person now, don’t feed that extra 20 kg. 🙂 P

Well done on maintaining on your cruise CM. This really is for life 😉 P

Thanks Purple.
JJ, Personal Best!!! And we know there will be many of them for you too!

You’re a great inspiration to all PVE, maintaining for so long and sprinting up the stairs. Thanks for sticking around.

CM: yay, well done girl! You’re back on track and heading for a PB any day now. I’m 100gms off my PB so all back to normal after the dress-up party madness and the huge Sunday lunch at friends last w/e. Feel positively stuffed after dinner and we only had a stirfry.

JJulie, I was thinking the same – unlikely to be a plateau. Also, I know you’ve read up a lot this time but just checking anyway – your Fitness Pal isn’t deducting your cals burned on a FD from the allowed 500, is it? No, of course not or you couldn’t have shed 4kg. The likely reason is food in transit and of course greater intake as the week nears your marathon two B2B FDs. By the end of this week, my guess is that you’ll have lost more.

Bay, Croatia sounds nice, your hols too Merry but now you’re on the previous page and I’m not going back just in case. So, how are you both planning to tackle the time o/seas vis a vis 5:2? Skipping meals? Travel day fasting? Combo? Or just go for broke and fix it when you get home?

Malidog, take a slice of that choc-raspberry cake – and it’s yours tomorrow! JJ made me laugh when she said we give advice when asked – some of us give advice when we’re not asked as well. But feel free to ignore it. I often do.

Welcome any newbies I’ve missed. Let us know how you get on – we take the good with the bad so don’t be shy in reporting.

MK88 – are you back from Brisbane yet? If you’re lurking, please report in.

Forgot to mention CM, all good with the rescue greyhound, we hardly knew she was here. Seemed to appreciate a warm house and lots of cuddles and teen said she wasn’t impressed to be deposited back into the ‘cage’ thing this morning (that makes it sound awful it’s not, it has an indoor area and an outdoor run attached so way better than the race tracks). Let’s hope this horrid sport is soon ended.

Good morning ladies, thank you for the warm welcome Just Julie, Charlies mum, Purple VE and iSobella – exciting to have a fasting buddy, too.

I’ve decided to do Mondays and Thursdays. Monday has surprisingly worked easier than I expected. It’s 10am on Tues morning, I haven’t eaten properly in over 36 hours and everyone around me is still alive (AND they continue to talk to me!) Yay!

This fasting, watching your calories – would you say it has altered the way you eat on your non-fasting days? I don’t feel like fasting two days in a row, but definitely feel like I want to be good today, too…

Off to download MyFitnessPall, whilst sipping my hot frothy latte – hmmmmm, it’s going to taste so much better!

Good morning Lotus, and all. 8.15 am on Tuesday here in South East Queensland, Australia.
I, too, find that I am much more aware of eating healthier foods and not over-indulging on non-fast days, which I believe is a good thing and certainly helps with the weight loss and general health.
I cannot nominate specific fast days though as it always seems to gets spoiled. However, I think that when I start a fast day and eat my almonds and fruit and, say, don’t eat until dinner time when I end up eating more than the balance 500 calories, it still definitely acts as as an almost full fast period and assists the FD benefits. For me anyway.
Have a great (and successful) day everyone!

Good Morning everyone, and big welcome to iSabella and Lotus. Lots of good advice and laughs along the way on here. Lose weight, get healthy and enjoy the process is our unofficial motto.

FD fast day
NFD non fast day
OH other half
PB personal best
PVE Purple Vegie Eater, and one of our wise Yodas, her OH is Mr P
CM Charlie’s Mum, Charlie is a beautiful dog,

TDEE total daily energy expenditure – the calorie figure to stay under for non fast days. Look up the right hand corner of the page and click on Fast Tracker to work out you personal TDEE

BMI body mass index, look in the same spot

GI Glycaemic Index , a food rating for how fast or slowly food is converted to glycogen or glucose or something like that – sorry, my accuracy brain hasn’t kicked in yet today – anyhoo, the lower the GI the better. Low calorie and low GI foods are your very good friends and weight loss magic pills. By volume these make up a bigger portion and will bulk out your FD food?

CM – thanks, and yes, I’m going to be very careful about how much I do on the bus trip, but it’s great seeing some of the world and meeting new people from everywhere. Hoping there’s spare seats and no-one wants the back seat, which is good for rests and snoozes.

Thin – I plan to keep up my FDs on Mon and Thurs – marked them on the itinerary yesterday. OH won’t be fasting so a little more prep and psyching up in order for doing them on my own. So here’s the plan:

1. Cont FDs- the key point for me.
2. Take travel scale – Petit Mignon, about 500 gms, thanks to PVE who introduced us to these. Bought them this morning on ebay. Weigh daily in the morning as usual.
3. Try to stay as gluten free(GF), starch free and sugar free as possible. This will take some doing as although I’m gluten and grain intolerant, my reactions aren’t so bad that I can’t put up with them for awhile. I do give in now and again, and the challenge is getting back off them all.
4. Carry some food with me e.g. Apples, nuts, tiny tomatoes if I can get them, rice crackers in a pinch.
5. Be flexible – for me, part of the joy of travelling is in trying all the different foods. So, enjoy but don’t pig out. Plan on Mon Thur FD’s but if a day seems a special food day shift my FD to the next day instead.
6. Set a goal. Come back at the weight I left.
7. Skip breakfast. I have to sleep more than normal anyway, so not hard to do.
8. Don’t drink calories.
9. Share dishes with OH.
10. If I do decide something is just too good to pass up then stick in an extra FD

Cheers,
Merry

Morning all. Cold and damp here in Perth this morning & the Hairy One (Charlie for the newbies, not OH!) won’t even take off his PJs!

All going well Lotus. Certainly, I am more mindful about what I put in my mouth and also eat much less after a FD. Nice to be able to enjoy the things we love “tomorrow”! Sipping my flat white as I type!

Isabella – Where are you in SE Qld?? I’m a Brissie girl, living in Perth. If you find you’re consistently exceeding cals on FDs, try having 1 or 2 big glasses of water in the lead-up to dinner. I also have celery/carrot sticks if I’m feeling particularly hungry while I’m preping the meal. Works for me.

Bay – I found when taking long-haul flights that if I ate the hot meals, but left the mandatory carbs which they always include, I didn’t get bloated at all. Also tried to keep up my water intake…..only down side was going to the loo more often. Doing this I actually lost weight when flying – it acted as my FD. Has never happened to me before.

Merry – here here….love the motto!! Also sounds like you’ve got it all sorted for your holiday – a perfect plan! Don’t forget to tell your tour company & airlines about your food requirements. They will cater for that, and make it much easier on you.

Hope your part of the SH is warm and sunny!! CM xx

Just joshing CM, thanks for the tips Merry and Bay and well done with your respective losses. I’m back at my PB of 62kg today – will I sabotage it or will I see a new low in the 61s come Thursday?

PVE, I’m with you, I like to spread my FDs out (only because I haven’t the guts to try B2B fasts though). It just happened to be a Sunday when we decided, “what are we waiting for?” and since then, Sun/Weds has worked really for me because that’s one less day of the weekend guilt, as you put it, just by virtue of one of the weekend days always being a FD. I’ve only switched it once or twice for Fathers’ Day, etc. but on those occasions, I fasted on Saturday so the effect was the same in terms of limiting weekend over-indulgences.

Gloomy, cold and wet in Perth, don’t blame Charlie for staying in bed CM. Tossing up between soggy walk or boring treadmill…..

oops JJulie – I hit the wrong button on my computer and accidentally hit “report post” on one of your posts! It took me to another screen so I just pressed the back arrow so hopefully I have not submitted any report. I certainly didn’t mean to if I had!! Hopefully it didn’t submit. I was just trying to find where I left off reading posts as there have been quite a few new posts since then. Much love, EA xxxx

Hi all
I’ve been reading your posts for a few weeks and enjoy the hints and advice.
I’ve been doing a relaxed version of the 5:2 for 3 months – the only thing I haven’t been doing is religiously counting my cals on my FDs day. I have had no issues at all skipping breakfast and lunch on the FD, drinking heaps of water, fruit teas and black coffee (I do have a white coffee mid afternoon as that seems to fill me up for the rest of the day) –saving basically all my cals for the evening meal. (this has been very liberating as prior to now I’ve always convinced myself MUST EAT BREAKFAST / REGULARLY etc… impending doom etc etc)

(I did calorie count dinner to start with, but realised mostly what we were eating came in well under, so I figure if/when the weight loss stops I can focus more on the cals if necessary)

I’m 43 years and 172cm tall, and started my journey (this time) at 91.3kg. I haven’t been below 79kgs in the last 10-15yrs but have set my goal to loose about 18-20kgs.

I’ve lost about 6kgs. My OH also started doing this with me and has lost 9kgs (best bit – no more snoring!!!)

It was one post that mentioned bread that got me thinking, and I experimented last weekend with not having my usual generous quantities and so far I think that is going to be a big step forward for me. I’ve also enjoyed reading about 16/8 and sometimes do that on my NFDs.

I live in Southland, NZ.
Cheers Nik

Hi JJulie, there’s no difference. Only between Kj and Kcals.

That’s weird, pressed Submit and other posts appeared already answering your question. PVE, why do you say Kj is the one we should use when the recommendation is for 500/600 cals? I find that I’ve enough maths to contend with without converting to Kjs too!

Well done to you and OH NikT.

I’m still on my temporary break from 5.2 at the moment (last fast day was a week Monday) and I have noticed that I am slowly starting to fall back into bad habits of nabbing a biscuit with my tea etc etc. But when doing the 5.2 I generally am a good girl all week without depriving myself (or rather not feeling deprived when I don’t have naughty things.) It is interesting and I can certainly see why people still fast once a week on maintenance – it keeps you in the right mindset I reckon. So, until I can resume my 5.2 (and yes, I am missing it), would someone please give me a slap to stop me from going totally off the rails. Pretty please. Thanks EA

Ha ha EA, are you still unwell? I agree completely that fasting re-sets your portion sizes, food desires and habits. Maybe make yourself some FD soup and get back on the wagon one day a week until you feel fully up to it?

JJulie, I bought some of those mini tuna cans yesterday. They look to be about two mouthfuls (or is that the old me talking?). Needed a longer arm to read the cal content but, after some time, I realised that the one in brine and the lemon one are less cals than the others so decided only to buy those and add my own taste treats like chilli & lime.

Hi everybody!

Another newbie here, I have just started 5:2 and being from Australia, this seemed like a good place to introduce myself 🙂 I am 27 years old, female, and study and work part time (conservation biology & cafe work).

I have started on the diet for both weight loss and health reasons, and because it sounds very sensible and natural to me. It’s so demoralising trying to restrict all the time, even if it’s not as much of a restriction! In the last few years I have gained 14 kg; at my highest I was 69 kg, making me four kg overweight. Not too bad really, and certainly not as great a mission as many are facing! However, I feel that I am still too young to be letting myself get overweight (not that you’d aim to at any age, but I haven’t even had babies which might be a reasonable excuse, haha).

Anyhow, I am currently back down to 65 kg (healthy weight range, wooh!) through sensible eating. I’m hoping to lose another ten kg (!?) with 5:2 which would take me back to my ‘four years ago’ weight of 55 kg… If my body wants to… I’m sure it doesn’t! We’ll see how it goes, anywyay. Today is my first fast day and so far so good: black coffee in the morning, and tea with skim milk; boiled egg and a carrot at 2 pm when I finished work; and lentil soup is in the fridge for dinner with my boyfriend later.

Hope everyone else’s week is going well, looking forward to chatting more! Wish me luck! Oh, and sorry for the essay, oops!

Hi Nik & Gatsby welcome to our motley crew and good luck….this really does work.

EA – Hope you’re almost better now. So, OK, you asked for it!! Kick-in-whatsit now being delivered…and just remember, everything naughty you do now, will just have to undone again once you restart!! Does it really taste better than being slim and feeling great??? Does it taste better than a PB?…& that does NOT mean peanut butter! I think Thin’s idea of a staggered restart is a great idea too. It took me a while to get back into a routine after my trip, so I think a day a week would be a great idea.

Thin – re the tuna…something I found is the tins with “other stuff” in them also have LESS TUNA! So, there’s something else to annoy you & another letter you can write while you’re at it!! It’ll keep you warm on these miserable & cold days. 🙂 You’re idea of adding what you like to the tins, is exactly what I do.
Very envious of your weather Purple. Just want some sunshine…the cold doesn’t bother me. CM xx

Hi CM, yes thanks, can’t even remember what I was venting about – oh yes, I went on the Slendier site, told them how much I love the product and made my suggestion about packaging in a single serve suspension.

Welcome Gatsby. Sounds like you’re off to a great start by having your FD well-planned out, good for you, planning ahead will help you to stick with it too. Someone’s going to ask which part of Oz you’re living in so it may as well be me. Are you in Perth by any chance?

…and while I was posting that, two more entries appeared. Don’t know what’s going on with this thread and me today. Thanks for the tuna tip CM, good to know. Have a good night everyone.

Thin, re the other messages popping up , it just means other people are posting at the same time you are and they finished their message before you did. No dramas, nothing weird:-). When you submit your post the page will also refresh and put you message in time order.

Thanks for the welcome CM and Thin! And in response to your question, no not Perth sorry but Adelaide. There seems to be quite a wide spread of forum posters, I’ve hardly seen two people from the same place!
Just in the process of reading back over this and other forum topics, so much to read through but so much useful experience to learn from – I think I’ll be here all night 😛

It’s only been happening today Merry. Some of the earlier posts were time stamped up to an hour before mine but weren’t showing when I began mine. Even with my ramblings, it doesn’t take me an hour to write a post. Must be something to do with cookies/not refreshing the page properly.

Thanks CM, and yes, I from what I’ve read I think you’re right that it soon just becomes a way of life – looking forward to that! It took me a little while to work out what WOE meant, and I was thinking, gee surely people aren’t so miserable that they have to CAPITALISE it? Haha! But I must say, the first FD was actually not too challenging, fingers crossed that they will stay that way!

Good morning everyone being ‘hump’ day I hope everyone is having a good week.

So I fasted for Monday and Tuesday and as you know my weight did not budge! I am beginning to think my body is teasing me! This morning I weighed and I was still 80.3! and thought oh no not again. So I decided to have a shower and then weigh again and guess what???? Next weigh in was 80.0!!!!! My body is still teasing me as it just will not get out of those 80’s!!!
Anyhow had a breakfast of yoghurt and strawberries. I never used to eat breakfast before and I can still go without until about 11.00am but this morning after two FD I felt like I needed something. I actually feel really good this morning. I was up at 4.00am to pick up OH from the airport and we had another couple of hours resting in bed and talking about the events of the last 10 days, then up shower and on the move again. I took kids to school and weeded the vegie patch, planted some more carrot seeds in the planter box, folded the clothes, put more washing on, changed the dog beds to a different position and cleaned up. WOW so energetic today.

As far as calories vs KJ….I prefer calories and although I can get my head around Kilos,metric measurements for cooking and Kilometres for walking I just can not get my head around KJ’s. I too try to convert them and end up frustrated. So to make life easier I stick to the calories!!

One thing I wanted to tell you all was about the slendier noodles. The first time I opened the packet, there was a familiar smell, so I did some research on what they are made of and found why their smell was familiar. Those noodles are made out of the konjac root. I cook quite a lot of Japanese foods as I travel there a couple of times a year, anyhow the Japanese use a lot of konjac noodles in their cooking. They look a little bit different to the Slendier noodles but they are made of the same thing. The Japanese word for this is Konnyaku and it can be found not only in noodle form but you can buy in a block which you cut into cubes and put into Japanese “stew” to bulk it up. It is one of my favourite ingredients when cooking “Nabe” (hotpot). There are so many Japanese recipes that will use either the cubed konnyaku or the noodles. If anyone is interested in these they are available from most Asian grocery shops and where I buy mine here in Cairns I find them cheaper than the woolworths ones. Sometime they are kept in the fridge if your looking for them.

Well that is probably enough from me for now!!

Hope everyone is having a great week, catch up again soon! JJxxx

Celebrating 100 fasts today! Just thought I’d share that.

JJulie, very interested to learn more about Konnyaku both from a cost saving perspective but also to prevent waste if it can be stored longer. I knew the Slendier noodles were made from konjac, the Japanese root vegetable. I thought the fishy smell must have been from that liquid suspension they’re packed in. In what form do the Konnyaku noodles come when you get them at the Asian store? Are they dry in a packet with nutritional info supplied? Is the block form like buying a block of tofu? Have you been able to work out a calorie count on the block? Please tell me more.

Pleased you like that cauliflower soup enough to recommend it to others, I’m just enjoying my coffee with coconut & almond milk and then I’ll be on to the soup this afternoon. It’s Spanish Fideos with Slendier Angel Hair for dinner – recipe is on the Slendier website, it’s very filling and tasty. Maybe next time I’ll be using Konnyaku.

Don’t worry about your weight fluctuations. As mentioned above, I’ve been practising 5:2 for 50 weeks now and I have my daily weight history recorded for the year. There is no logical explanation for fluctuations between FDs but the trend was always down and, if you’re doing this for the long-term as we all should be, all you need is a downward trend.

I used to refer to them as shiritaki noodles and the reaction of everyone was “Eh?” 🙂 Glad someone else knows. In the UK they are referred to as Miracle and Slendier (brand name) here. All good for bulking up winter dishes on fast days. I used to buy them in the local Asian produce store. Same thing, but much cheaper, packaged in liquid that really needs rinsing 😉
Congats on the 100 fasts, Thin!! P