Good morning everyone, a little bit of sun this morning!

Only the occasional sniffle or cough, so my cold is almost completely over. It was short and sharp. I wonder if my healthier, fasting self made a difference? Certainly I got onto cold and flu tablets at the first sign in the hope they could dry me up enough that the cold didn’t go to my chest (before my sister put me onto that trick, EVERY cold ended in a chest infection).

Lael, you are going wonderfully! Is today your second fast day of the week? Woot! How exciting! I am fasting too.
Cheers to you too Judy, fellow Thursday faster!
It is lovely that you have your head in the zone again!
Did you end up getting any snow?

Lael, have you made a decision about the dessert? I love thinking up things to make for others, and I am just like you hesitating between fancy and simple!

Heaps to do today, so I will see if I can get started. Best wishes!

Lol! I forgot to post the link to the dessert! Here it is:

https://lovingearth.net/blog/recipe/desserts/dark-salty-caramel-thyme-tarts/

Well done Merry, slow and steady wins the race.

Lael, this way of life is amazing and once we get our heads around the way it works there is no stopping us. We all still fall off the wagon now and then and I have to admit that I fall off the wagon at least once a week. The munchy monster comes along and I just can’t seem to stop myself from stuffing myself with sugar laden cake/slices or chocolate but this WOL is not about denying ourselves but becoming aware of what we are eating. I can’t completely give up my treats.

My FD’s are Tuesday and Thursday so after yesterday’s FD ……. Drum roll……. 67.7. Only another .6 and I have lost 20kgs since February last year.

I’ve had two people comment this week. A lady I knew from Curves said you’ve lost more weight and my Dr who said you are getting smaller.

My daughter arrives next Saturday, she comes this time every year because of the U.K. summer holidays and I have been madly cleaning the house from top to bottom, this is my yearly spring clean. I bought bunk beads single/double as the little one is now three. Nearly killed myself yesterday trying to make the top bunk. If I hadn’t lost all this weight or been as fit as I am I probably would have had a heart-attack, several times I had to stand on the window sill just to tuck everything in.

Have a good day everyone.

Hi Everyone
Wow Intesha, you have done really well! I had the munchie monster here the last couple of weeks but this week I’ve done so much better and I’m not even tempted to snack. Im also not allowed to drink while on these antibiotics so thats helping too haha. Lael, ill have a look at that dessert recipe- I love it when visitors take leftovers home!
Cinque, we didn’t get any snow . I live Outer Melbourne and a town near us was supposed to get snow. Im sure my granddaughter would’ve loved to have seen it!
Im going to do a semi fast tomorrow as we have nothing planned. Im going on holiday in 5 weeks so want to be at my best then 🙂

Welcome here Jazmac! So lovely to read that you have got into 5:2 with a swing!
Isn’t it a treat! If only I had known this trick in my teenage years I could have gone my whole adult life without battling those extra kilos!

I found things exactly the same as you. Fasting feels so nice at the end of the day, and even better the next morning, and my appetite and tastes regulate themselves, especially at first.

I do have to add that since then (I’ve been going exactly a year this week) I have had some nasty fast days where I have been ratty and hungry and can’t concentrate, and some difficult non fast days when I have wanted to vacuum up food! It seems to go in waves. But even the difficult ones are doable, and I know that after a couple of weeks it will be back to easy ones again.

And in the meantime I have lost all those extra kilos and it feels absolutely wonderful.

Lael, I am so glad the dessert worked out well! Worth all the trouble! Especially if you could relax afterwards!

So glad you are concentrating more on the way you are feeling and the way your clothes feel, than what those dastardly scales say. They have a mind of their own!

I do hope your scales are saying the right thing Intesha! And what lovely comments you are getting!

I met with a lovely lovely person about my food project yesterday, but she was worried I might be ill. I certainly didn’t take offence because she is tiny and would like to put on weight, and works with a lot of people who are ill.
Most people are used to my new size now. I am still losing weight, but very slowly, which is fine because I only have another kilo or two to lose (infact, I am fine without losing them, but I fancy being lean, and so I want to stop just above the lower level of my BMI range. Especially as I don’t have muscle to add a bit weight (although my super fit hairdresser has given me some good non-aerobic exercises I can do with ME/CFS that shouldn’t make me ill).

Judy are the antibiotics because of the minor surgery you had? I hope all is healing well. Snow would have been fun (if it is going to be that cold, why not have a show!) but it is a rare sight here, isn’t it.
I hope you had a lovely semi fast!

It is day before fast day for me, and I have got an unexpected easy day so I am just planning to potter around and get the house a bit organised, and hopefully cook something delicious (and healthy of course!).

Best wishes everyone for a really lovely day.

Intesha and Cinque, this is so helpful for me to read about how you both go through munchie waves and/or sometimes difficult fasting days and simply continue with the program as is possible at the time and that eventually these waves pass. I will definitely keep in mind what you’ve both written since a whole different level/type of hunger can be triggered in me if I find myself in an emotionally challenging situation.

Cinque, well done for handling the comment from the woman who meant well, regarding her concern about you being ill. I had someone say something along same lines once which made me doubt what I was doing.

Intesha, how wonderful your daughter arrives today!

Judy, with the dessert, I added 1/2 teaspoon + salt into the base layer since the pinch of salt called for didn’t seem to me to do the name of the dessert justice! I also spooned a couple of blobs of rice malt into that base layer as well, thinking that would help it have at least a hint of caramel, since again, I saw no evidence of anything caramel like in the actual ingredient list except for in the garnish! …That was a part of the stress I felt as I was making it, that the ingredient list didn’t really match the imagined taste the name of the dessert conjured up for me! I’m so glad I tweaked as I went along! The good thing is that it really did taste like a healthy, only subtly sweet dessert and I’m happy to report that even though I ate two servings yesterday (one serving at the ladies luncheon and the other after dinner), this morning the scales revealed that I’m back at my recent all time low!

Hi jazmac75! I wonder if we are neighbors!?!? I live on the Tweed Coast at a place called Koala Beach.

Wow dan, what a great effort! Welcome jazmac. Im a bit envious of those who live so far North!! Although we are having a lovely sunny day here- my hubby is even suggesting I mow the front lawn while he’s out. I might even surprise him 😉

Welcome jazmac, you’ve certainly picked the right forum to join. Everyone is very supportive and a wealth of knowledge. We are missing a few regulars at present due to holidays etc. but they will be posting again soon. We all think it is too good to be true in the beginning but perseverance and end goals makes it so worth it when you are suddenly faced with plateaus and feel like giving up.

Dan what a fantastic achievement, it’s not where you start but where you finish and you are well on your way.

Cinque my scales are laughing at me but I will win. I still can’t quite shake the 70’s at night but I’ve seen that magic 67 so I know it’s there.

Lael my daughter arrives next Saturday night if I make it till then. Had one of those days. Left a cloth in the laundry tub and flooded the laundry while I was washing. I was standing on my three step ladder and thought I was on the smaller one. Fell off and luckily the clothes basket with a large doona in it cushioned my fall and then I tripped over 🙃🙃🙃

Hi everyone,

Another couple of days before I’m home again. A wee bit tired today, but enjoying being with my family. A family funeral in my son-in-laws family, last week, and helping with littlies on the day. They did well. Only did 1 FD last week and really looking forward to one tomorrow when OH and I will be on our own. Small birthday celebration tonight and another special one Tuesday. All systems go. Birthdays are a bit like lighthouses – we have to navigate the shoals and rocks around them so we don’t crash and sink!

jazmac – welcome 🙂learn as you go along, ask questions, and you’ll be fine!

Dan – congratulations. Gonna start calling you Steadfast Dan, well done! You now definitely belong to the Southern Hemisphere success stories.

Not much time to post – last day with my little grandchildren, and lots to do! It’s been a bit colder than Zi expected and I’m really noticing it this winter. Don’t know if it’s because I’m so close to my goal weight and the fats not there any more or maybe it’s just in my head. My BMI is about 22.5 or so.

Onwards and downwards,
Merry

Hi Merry, I wonder if you get home today! Hope it is a good trip!

I’m going to remember the lighthouse analogy too, it suits so many social engagements.

Lael I hope your fast day was a good one. Mine was, but it was a hungry one also! Like you say, the waves of hunger come and go, and I ended up with such a busy afternoon that it flew.

Today is cold and grey so I will have my pot of coffee and get some work done.

Cheers to anyone fasting today! And everyone not fasting!

Hello!
I’m Teri, I live in Sydney & I’m a 2nd try newbie! I started the first time about a year ago & only managed about 2 weeks…this time I want to give it a real try.

My husband has been doing 5:2 for about 4 weeks & has lost 8kg so I’m determined to support him (mainly by not having food in front of him!!!) & hopefully see some weight loss myself!

We have 4 kids & I work full time, I’m wondering how people who have to feed others & not themselves manage? I hate cooking but don’t want to resort to noodles or take away for them twice a week…

thanks for any advice, Teri

Hi Teri,
it is only two days a week that you won’t be eating what your family is eating. If you are like me, and prefer to just have a bowl of soup on the fast day, then that is pretty easy to organise (she says hopefully!).
It could be a good habit to get into, to get your kids to cook themselves a (healthy) meal on your fast days, so you don’t even have to think about cooking.

The best trick for 5:2 is to make it a sustainable part of life, and most of us need to try things and then adjust them, and then tweak them a little bit more, before we get it nice and easy. Hopefully you will keep posting here and talk about your problems. Even if our ideas don’t suit, they might set off an idea in your brain that will work!

All power to you taking this on with 4 kids, a full time job, and a husband who needs your support! It is a big change to adjust to, but if you can do it, then your health, and your husbands health, will really make it worthwhile!

Also, Hi Intesha and Annette!
Annette do you pick chilli day and macaroni cheese day for your fasts?
Intesha what a lovely day yours sounds! And what good scales!

Welcome Teri! I too plan and make extra ahead of time to serve others on my FD. My slow cooker is helpful for making extras to serve the next day. Annette’s tips sound very helpful. On my FD, I like the idea of serving things to my husband that he likes but that I don’t fancy.

Intesha, great news reading that you’ve shaken the 70s! You kept on with the program and the magic happened.

My FD on Monday was a bit more challenging than previous FDs. I think it didn’t help that I’d forgotten to take some of my thyroid replacement medication over the prior two days, so went into FD a bit hypo. In any case, I woke up the day after the fast feeling fabulous, so I can’t complain! This underscores the vigilance required on my part. You see, I have been feeling so well, it is easy to forget the thyroid medication! However, lack of it does eventually catch up! Also, I know I won’t shed fat if by default I end up slipping into a hypo state!

I’ll be fasting again tomorrow (Thursday) and I’m going to take the plunge and fast on a day I attend class at TAFE. I have a bit of trepidation, though feel I’ll be okay. My concern is I’ll over extend and end up feeling fatigued in after math. Effort required is to make the half hour drive each way and enough reserve of mental clarity to pay attention in class!

Hi Cinque and everyone! I’m pretty sure that full moon kept me awake last night! I agree that it was the size of a dinner plate as it rose over the horizon and then shone so brightly through the gaps in our blinds!

I’ve resumed being diligent about taking the afternoon thyroid dose and am feeling much better. I’ve decided that better late than never is a good rule and am going to make sure I always take it by dinner if I’ve forgotten to take it earlier!

I’m surprised at how well I did today at TAFE on my FD!! I actually fared better than I did yesterday which was a NFD! For example, yesterday I felt spaced out and not very with it. Today my head was clearer and I seemed to have the energy that I lacked yesterday. I even got a couple of compliments from other students. One was a type of compliment I haven’t received in years. A woman my age came up to say I looked so good that I was ‘glowing’! I felt that way too, so it was a well appreciated acknowledgement.

Cinque as I reflect on the compliments today, I’m also aware that, like you, I too could eventually attract a well meaning person who might think that illness might be behind my thinning figure. In fact this also happened to me once too when I was in my twenties. Over a period of several months I’d intentionally shed a considerable amount of weight and an acquaintance had only witnessed such a thing take place in response to a particular underlying grave illness, so cautioned me! Well, I’m still here to tell this story, so all was well!

I’m kind of hungry, though haven’t eaten much so far today, so I’m looking forward to a heartier evening meal! Yum! I must say that magic has taken place with regard to my appreciation for food since starting this WOL. All food I eat tastes so much better, maybe because I on FDs at least, I eat when I’m hungry! What I’ve found is simply that food tastes better when I’m really hungry! …And that prior to this WOL I never really let myself get even close to hungry!

Good morning,
I love that renewed pleasure in eating too, Lael! (having my breakfast after fast day now, yum!).

Intesha, best wishes for a great flight for your daughter! So exciting! And she has a three year old? What fun you will have. Is that 4 generations in the house? Precious times.

Cheers all!

Oh two lovely ones! What a special time!

Hi everyone! Welcome Ferret! I’m somewhat new here too, only having started on this program about a month ago.

Intesha, by the time you read this, your daughter and kids may have already arrived! I trust they had a safe journey. I’m wondering if this is the first they’ve seen you since you commenced 5:2?

I hopped on the scales this morning in the aftermath of yesterday’s FD. The scale registered a 100 gram loss! If I had a scale that just registered weight I would be very disappointed after the effort I put in during the two FDs this week! However, my scale showed that I actually shifted fat and muscle percentages favorably. So here’s what took place over the past 9 days:

13 July:

62.3 kg.
28.2% Fat
32.9% Muscle
49.7% Water/hydration

22 July:

62.2 kg.
28.0% Fat
33.0% Muscle
49.9% Water/hydration

I take the above raw/stand alone numbers with a grain of salt since if I add up the Fat Muscle and Water percentages, they add up to more than 100%, which doesn’t make sense! So mainly I use these readings to track direction. So even though I only shed 100 grams over the span of 9 days which included 2 x FDs, the results reveal that I shed fat, gained muscle and improved hydration. I’ve had such difficulty raising the water/hydration number due to adrenal issues, so this is welcome news to see this healthy number returning! It’s been years since I’ve seen the Water/hydration numbers in the upper 40s, so I’m rapt! To me it is confirmation of healing that is taking place under the surface!

Good solid numbers there Lael! Keep up the great work 🙂

Thanks Cinque 🙂 I’m actually not that hungry today either and I haven’t eaten since 7.30pm last night. It doesn’t help that it’s the first day of the ‘red zone’ if you know what I mean 😛

It’s bloody chilly here in the southeast of SA, though the sun is out.

Good morning everyone,

It is chilly and sunny here this morning, the weather just arrived over from SA I guess! It is pretty gorgeous!

Lee, I hope your day ended well. I do know what you mean, I bet that effects all the women differently, ie how the cycle fits in with fasting!

Merry, Lovely to see your message! Woohoo for the size 12 jacket and the shriek of delight from your daughter!

I had a lazy hungry day yesterday, so very glad to have my fast day today!

Hello everyone! Quickly giving you all a cheer on.

I’ve had such a busy day I’m going early to bed!

But I’ll just mention that I wore my (green label) Ralph Lauren trousers (that are getting a little loose on me), and the lovely styled red jumper that was fitting, and I felt so good! Thanks 5:2

Ofcourse, that was inside at my meeting! Outside I needed a scarf, hat, coat and mittens!

See you tomorrow!

Sending best wishes Lee, one nice thing about turning into an old lady is the end to all that!

Hi all, have a small window of sanity. The children have gone to the park for half an hour. It’s wonderful having them here but they are so full on. I had a little body crawl in with me this morning at 6.15.

FD today and all going as per usual but weight was slightly up 68.7.

Lael my scales also register all the extras when I do my full weekly weigh in and I have never really taken any notice of the water and muscle but I managed to find an early weigh in sheet.

When I was 84.5, water percentage was 36.6, muscle 16.2.

Now at 68.7, water 48.3, muscle 27.7. I’ll take more notice in future.

Merry welcome back what wonderful feedback from your family. My daughter hasn’t said anything about my further weight loss but I no longer crave approval I know I look good.

Merry I am SO glad to hear your injuries are getting better. What a relief!
And it sounds like a great fast day!

Intesha, I am glad you got that small window! Much needed! And it is clear your grandchildren are just gorgeous. Happy Fast Day!
It wasn’t until you said that bit about people not commenting any more, that I realised that is happening to me now. It is the end of that first fasting era when everyone kept being surprised. Nice.

It was lull day for me, a very nice busy day with good food. Next fast day is Thursday.

Good Morning All,
Hey Judy – good to hear from you🙂 – I think just about everyone has had that “I stuffed up, (or thought I’ve stuffed up) , I feel guilty, I don’t want to post…….” Moments, or 2 or 3 or several more in my case, but the secret is that 5:2 is very forgiving of all sorts of things, and the 2 nd secret, as in life, is to just get back on the horse. Fall off the horse, get back on the horse and just keep going? It works. How do I know this……….. The world doesn’t end 🙂 and the weight starts normalising again! Who’d’ve thought we could be so , well, normal, and the weight will still come off.

Intesha – enjoy those beautiful moments when the littlies open your eyelids and climb into bed with nanny – very precious. Not always enough energy to play “lump in the bed”, but we can summon it up from somewhere.

Merry

Good morning!

So good to see your post Judy! I am sorry you have had a hard time, and I hope you are over that tummy bug now.

Hooray for 5:2. It is so easy to start again after a bad time.
And it is an ongoing learning curve. I especially like the way the fast day gives me a break to consider what went wrong or right on the non fast days.

I have learnt so much on fast days, but I have learnt even more by thinking about non fast days, on fast days! haha.
And what makes it easiest for me is planning ahead so that I have good, delicious meals ready, and then the trick is to work out what is going on when that isn’t enough for me. Oh wow, the psychology of eating! (especially mine 😉 )

So glad you could check in too Jazmac! It looks like a few of us will be fasting on Thursday!
It does seem to be the pattern that weight comes off quickly at first, and then slows (especially when all that socialising is going on!), but it doesn’t have to be quick fix, it just has to be a fix. And yay, it is!

I saw the Catalyst program previously, I might catch it again though! (hooray for iview).
I am keenly watching the research on gut flora. It might play a part in my illness (ME/CFS). I think the research is still to early, although Dr Mercola has written an article about how fasting helps with gut flora. But all the signs are that the healthy bugs are much happier when we aren’t sending through lots of junk food, and are giving them lots of greens and other vegetables.

I bet we will find out more soon, the whole issue of the gut biome is getting a lot of attention, and hopefully lots of good funding!

Hi Merry, Hi everyone else too!
It is wet and cold in Melbourne!
I’m off to enjoy my day before fast day!

Hi all,
I had a busy day yesterday and ended up going to a big shopping mall with my daughter and granddaughters right on lunchtime. I had Vietnamese soup so that was a good choice. Otherwise it all went to plan.
Today is a FD for me. I’ve made some bolonaise sauce that I’ll have on zoodles. Lunch is homemade pumpkin soup and a boiled egg.
Have a great day everyone xx