Well done Merry,

Hi Merry, Great that you got to meet up with Joffy!

Thin, loved reading your image of Joffy! I had a similar image too!

Also Merry, sounds like you’ve got some good guidance via the exercise physiologist to expand exercise boundaries. I know I’m so susceptible to pushing too far and then crashing later on, so I can see the value of consulting someone who can draw up a workable plan. Something for me to consider! I’d love to build more muscle.

…The discussion about glycogen has been very interesting to read. I’ve not really understood the role of glycogen stores and in what manner is released. Most curious is that the body prefers to use up glycogen in muscles before it utilizes the liver stores. I hadn’t realized this. I’ll have to go read up more because now I’m wondering to myself if that is true during sleep as well?

As far as ‘wiggle room’ range I’m also reviewing my goal weight envelope. Unless our scales are broken (I’ll have to test it again, been meaning to do that!), I weighed in this morning at 56.4 kg and though that may seem light for someone my height, I can’t comfortably fit into anything smaller than a size 12, which is Medium size. Case in point I recently tried on a sleeveless size 10 top and was too tight around the arm holes and though it looked okay on me, there was little give where it hung down over my abdomen and hips! Maybe it was just that brand of clothing? I know sizes can vary. …Got to check the accuracy of our scales!

LJ, you are powering along! Great for going through with preparing for the afternoon tea even if it didn’t eventuate! …I can relate to what you said about over eating on low/no carb foods too! I’m one of the quirky ones who has binged on things like kale salad. Granted, like you pointed out about the nuts and salt, maybe I overate that salad partly because of the delicious home made olive oil and apple cider vinaigrette I tossed through it which enticed me to continue to eat the the whole bowl of 4 big servings! Yes, my stomach was a bit uncomfortable after that! It goes to show it isn’t always just sweets and carbs that compel us to overeat.

Hi Charlotte, I too am sitting in the same heatwave! I’m about to fill the bath with cold water where I’ll sit and read a book for a few hours. Well, that’s if the water out of the tap comes out cold. Last night it took a long time for cold water and even then was a bit tepid, but still cooler than the air!

chat, well done on completing FD #16! Or maybe by the time you read this, you’ll have completed #17?!

Fishing Gran, I love legumes too! I’ve found a delicious black bean spaghetti threads in the health food store and make them sometimes. I just bought a ‘zoodle’ maker and so will start making ‘zucchini’ spaghetti, though sometimes it is nice to consume something a little heartier so will still occasionally have the black bean spaghetti. Last night for dinner I had the ‘cauliflower’ rice topped with a kangaroo mince pasta sauce I make from scratch. Mr. L. unfortunately can’t have cauliflower due to FODMAP requirements since he has IBS, so I made him brown basmati rice. I observed that was we sat eating I was enjoying my ‘cauli’ rice as much as he was enjoying his ‘real’ rice!

Cinque, all the best for your daughter’s driving test!

Hi Thinatlast – I completely agree about the odd assumptions made by clothing manufacturers. They make the same assumption about large sizes – if you are wider you must be taller?? When I used to wear a size 24 most tops came almost down to my knees! My understanding is that clothes are designed in a size 10 or 12 and sized up or down accordingly, by adding or subtracting approx 1cm around the entire edge of every pattern template (this means it adds width, length and wider openings such as for arm holes). The only proper resizing for plus sizes or petite sizes are manufacturers that have specialist ranges, designed for that body size.

I’m short and have found it quite difficult at any size (I’ve been as large as a 24 and am currently a 14), to find clothes the right length. I found that my best option was actually Marks and Spencer’s online store. Many of their clothing ranges are also available in a tall range and a petite range. These clothes are the same width as the regular clothing of the same size, just shorter or longer accordingly and the placement of shaping is appropriate for the shorter or longer torso. I find their petite tops shape properly to my waist, are the right length, and actually have the bust darts in the right place for my short height. The only time I get this with clothing available in Australia is if I have it made. Not sure why our stores can’t stock these – perhaps we don’t have a large enough population to make it profitable.

If anyone has found Australian stores who cater properly to women who aren’t 5’8″ I’d be happy to hear about it.

Wow, that idea about a salad in a jar is neat. I have heard of it a few years ago but didn’t really read up on it but now I am starting the 5-2 diet I think it might just be the way to go. I eat a lot of salad, usually make it in a big bowl, but by the end of the bowl it is rather unappetizing and soft!
Just made a note to shop for some decent jars to use.

Hi Charlotterose, I live on the Tweed Coast, just over the border from the Gold Coast! Cheers, Lael

Lol! True, Thin! …Charlotte, It would be great to meet somewhere for coffee! Do you live northern or southern G.C.? If northern, I periodically drive to Southport to see my doctor so we could get together then maybe. If southern, Coolangatta has some great cafes and that beautiful walk along the esplanade!

Lael i make sriralized zucchini with bolognase sauce love it but sometimes it leaves you wanting more.thanks Cinque i will look at those recipes I have one for a curried lentil spread i will dig out but i will admit i am not much of a cook.

Same here Cinque, another great FD. I could only manage half my meal so I’ve saved the rest for about 8pm when I’d normally have a spoonful of cottage cheese. It’s cooling off now and there are no temps forecast for over 33C for the next week – I can handle that.

Intesha, are you home yet? How was your trip? Merry, hope you’re doing alright too. And Joffy, you surely can’t still be on holiday can you? Looking forward to hearing from you all soon.

I’ve just re-visited your legumes page Cinque. I love them too. I’ve been adding black beans to my salads lately – they look great against feta cheese. Also, and I realise it’s not a legume so don’t write in please, but yesterday we had lunch at a brewery and they served the most delicious salads; one of which was pumpkin with pearl couscous – little white beads that looked so pretty and had a lovely crunchy texture. I think that, by occasionally adding ingredients like that in small quantities, my family will be happy to eat a lot more plant-based meals which is what I am striving for.

Hello Everyone,
Intesha, my heart goes out to you. So hard that you had to do that all on your own, and to have so much to do in so little time.
You should get LOTS of good karma for it!
I do so hope you have time now to rest and recover and do all the good things for yourself, that you can do.

Thin, so glad you had a good fast day. I agree about how pretty black beans look! I think they might be my favourite at the moment.
I have never had that pearl couscous, just the usual tiny one. What a yummy dish!

I’ve written my list of things to do, and am ticking them off in red pen. Luckily I added in lots of small easy ones! Off to do some more.

Cheers to people fasting today, and cheers for lovely mindful eating!

Hi spititedpagan. Fast day for me too. I find if I just go away. From the food source, kitchen, and get engrossed in something else I have little trouble. I have eaten one apple so far today, boiled egg later and rabbit food with tin spring water tuna for dinner. Yes we are supposed to be hungry but it is only for today. I will have Christmas cake with my coffee tomorrow. Cheers.

Good morning all,
I have just done my exercising for the day, 4 hour spring clean house! This happens only once in a while ( if I get the urge ).
I have a couple of questions for the group so here goes.
I know I have only started my 5-2 diet a couple of days ago and I have read the book, not that it stays in my head ( have a short term memory problem side effect from brain surgery in 1998)but
1. I can’t find in the book if, on my Non Fasting Days I can eat Multigrain Bread?? Now and again I like a piece of toast with a bowl of veggie Soup.
2. I blitz up 2 oranges with 1 tablespoon of water and put the mix into 8 ice block molds. Would 1 of those be classed as a “treat” or as 1/4 piece of fruit??
I have , at this moment got a pan of Legumes ( not sure if I have spelt that correctly) on the boil. Not sure what I will do with them apart from cold added to a salad . I might try puree them to have with veg sticks.
Now I have to go find the Pulse thread to look up some recipes!!!!!
Have a great day all.

Hi Charlotte,

You can eat anything you like on 5:2. It’s about restricting calories on your 2 FDs to between 500 – nil, and up to your TDEE on your non Fast Days. That said, many people. do restrict starchy carbs. You can eat grains or not, eat fat or not, choose what protein you want, how much fruit or veg is all up to you. That makes it very adaptible to any sort of lifestyles. There are oeople on the forum with strong beliefs about various styles of eating but they are personal opinions. Bwhat we can help you with is giving some guidance on helping you tweak your lifestyle food choices to fit you and your personal needs. That’s what makes. 5:2 so do-able by so many people. We are all very physically, emotionally, age, medically, and lifestyle
different and there’s no one style that fits all.

1. Yes you can have bread. Just work out the cals per slice for your bread
2. 1/4 orange if you blitz the whole orange minus skin. A bit different if you just juice it as you don’t get the whole fruit then.
3. Yes, any nut butter

Remember what you eat is your choice. As you go on you’ll find your food choices changing a bit as you work out what works for you individually, and you’ll do it quite happily, because somehow 5:2 effects our thoughts and compulsions around food as well.

You’re going well!

Merry

Ha! Thanks Cinque & Ladyfish 🙂 I have not long ago sequestered my daughter to go and get me a new set of scales (I’m at work currently) – preferably not digital. I don’t want to obsess over the number but I gotta have a start point and now, I don’t even know if the info I plugged into the calculators is right so I’ll make it that last week was a practice run and this week is where it starts from! 🙂
Not feeling so hungry now. I’ve brought my two hard boiled eggs with me and some celery and have now eaten one of the eggs so I’m doing ok. Later, I’ll have some of my cauliflower fried rice that I made up. I really like that, it’s delicious and I should hopefully end up around the 400 cal mark today.
Hope you all enjoy the rest of your day – take it easy 🙂

Hi everyone,
Busy day! Lots of emails and messages, the plumber came and finally cleared the bathroon basin drain. Went to cook zucchini slice and the food processor wouldn’t work. Decided I had better go and see what was up: and good for my patience as I was keen to have a bit of the slice as soon as it was out of the oven!
Got the replacement part (a bit had broken off the lid) and called in at the Ivanhoe Op Shop…. stunning silk dress in sunset colours, a lovely spotted, light cardigan made from silk and cotton, TWO pairs of unworn sandals (one pair white, one brown) and a lovely pair of earrings. And the lady added an egg timer that you put in with your boiling eggs and it changes colour to tell you how done they are. (She thought it was stupid, so was happy to give it away!).
What a haul!

Made the zucchini slice. It is just out of the oven.

Charlotte, I second everything Merry said. All the things you mention sound delicious and healthy to me. Ofcourse, you can have too much of anything!
And they do caution you not to have fruit juice all the time, but your lovely iceblocks are great for a hot day, and a lot healthier than the ones you buy!

Merry does your FIL being in hospital mean you are getting a break, or is it more work? Sending good wishes! You are nearly back to 62kg already!

Spirited Pagan, cheers for your lovely new scales! Hope they behave themselves!

Welcome AudDevo! Lovely to have you here! I sometimes get dark circles under my eyes, but I haven’t noticed it in relation to fasting. Have you been sleeping badly? Or are you a bit dehydrated? It is the thin skin under our eyes that show up when blood without much oxygen is pooling there. Maybe this info will help? http://www.mayoclinic.org/symptoms/dark-circles-under-eyes/basics/causes/sym-20050624 I hope it is gone tomorrow!

Off to have a piece of zucchini slice! A treat!

Hi spirited pagan.
You might already have those new scales my now, but I just wanted to ask – did you check the battery? Mine gave some erratic results for a few days, but were fine again once I put a new battery in.

I hear you on the toast. When I used to eat breakfast (which I stopped about a year ago), what I always wanted was vegemite toast (on white bread). I still eat plenty of carbs, but very few refined carbs these days and I never buy white bread – it’s now a rare treat that I’ll occasionally have at a cafe.
A big change from decades ago. I remember as a university student just about living on vegemite toast and cups of tea.

Hi Vaderz:

To your competitive question, I would suggest it matters who you choose to compete against. If my goal was to lose a lot of weight – say 50 pounds – and keep it off – I would choose to compete against someone who has already lost 50 pounds in 45 weeks. So I would try to lose 50 pounds in 42 weeks.

Those that choose to compete against people losing a lot of weight quickly will, like most that lose a lot of weight quickly, quit the diet and go on with their overweight lives. That is because within a few weeks people that lose a lot of weight quickly stop losing quickly or stop losing weight at all. They come face to face with the reality that it takes a lot of time to lose a lot of weight. And not only do they realize that, they start to realize that they will have to eat less than they have been eating and want to eat until they lose the weight they want to lose. And not only that, they begin to realize that to maintain their weight loss, they will have to eat less than they have been eating and want to eat for the rest of their lives.

Not wanting to do that, they quit the diet.

You really, really need to want to lose weight to do it and keep it off. Studies show that even people that have suffered serious heart attacks and have been advised to lose weight so they won’t have another one and die still don’t lose the weight they have been advised to lose. Their desire to continue their current eating patterns trumps their fear of dying.

Pretty much any reduced calorie diet will cause weight loss. And many people lose a lot of weight on diets. But to keep it off you need to permanently change the way you eat. I believe 5:2 helps that change, while most other reduced calorie diets do not help as much as 5:2 does. But for 5:2 to help change the way you eat, you have to do it for months, not weeks.

Easier said than done!

Good morning everyone!

Vaderz, I read your post last night and knew I needed to have a good think about your question.
I’m not a very competitive person so I had to think a lot about this!

Anyway, my take on it is that of all the places in your life, your health is the best one to focus on yourself and be fascinated by your individual needs, wants and reactions. It is like an athlete, who is running the race of their life, needs to focus on what they are doing, and don’t go looking around at others running. They concentrate on doing their best and getting to the end of the race.
Those are fine things to do with 5:2.

And at the end of the race (fast day?) look back and analyse, then plan and practice and improve.

Now I know athletes check out all the other athletes and know their weak points and strategies etc but, as well as being competitive, this is instructional. You see the diversity and can be impressed by what is possible. You are also making judgements about what you can can take from this info. Is it something you can incorporate, or is it that they have super twitch muscles or something (showing my ignorance 😉 ) and you just have to accept that some people are lucky?

So, the more I think about it, the more I can see that you can use your competitive spirit to advantage. But be an elite 5:2 athlete, not a school yard scrapper!

Cheers

PS Just thinking (continuing the sports analogy) also how you can learn most by watching the people in the paralympics, the people facing the biggest odds, and maybe the people who don’t get into the Olympics at all. Life!

Hi Joffy, what a great holiday.
So glad you and Merry had such a nice meeting (she is lovely, I know), and best wishes to you for this time between the breaks.

Hi Simco!

Hi Annette, I am so glad for your friend! I have had a similar experience. It is amazing how many wonderful foods there still are in the world, even when you have crossed out a large section of the ones you used to eat!

Day before fast day for me! And it is a hot one!

Best wishes everyone for a really good day!

I can see what you are getting at, I think, Vaderz. As well as our own innate wish to do well, we live in a society full of messages about ‘pushing through’ and ‘soldiering on’ and the dreadful thing is to be slow, or lazy, or fat.

But I find the answer to that is to focus on making the best decisions. It is an ongoing and fascinating process. It does involve a bit of ‘Not giving a f***.’ but even more it is about mindfulness and analysis. And keeping on going in spite of everything.

The truth is that you don’t know where the line is until you have gone over it. And so, every time, you have to make the best decision you can, and then live with the consequences.

But the best thing I have found about getting older, is that all those mistakes that I have learned from have led to me making better decisions, smaller mistakes, and a clearer picture of where the line is. I guess it is still a bit like becoming an elite athlete.

That’s us! The elite athletes of 5:2. the elite athletes of life! 😉 Mindfulness and Good Decisions! Nice little gold medals every now and then along the way!

I just reread your post and you are talking about the same things! (we got the thesis!)

Hi Vaderz:

If we are talking about problem solving, in my opinion the problem every Newbie should attempt to solve is how to do two proper diet days every week for a month. Most never achieve that solution, and those that do usually have to keep trying for awhile before they reach that eight in a month goal.

As the Beatles said, ‘you know it ain’t easy, you know how hard it can be’, but when they do it, they usually find it was worth the work!

Hi Cinque!

Hi all,

Pagan, bang on all you like. I am the Queen of Banging On and I hereby confer on you The Right To Bang On!

Valderz, I can be quite competitive, but my best quality (I think). is that I never give up. This translates in 5:2 as:

1.I am goal oriented but with 5:2 looked at my goal and was daunted, so I work in min-goals only, knowing my mini-goals will get me to my big goal, and they did, and the will with my new one. Sometimes those mini goals are tiny, but because they are achievable I get a series of accomplishments which is better psychologically.

2. Gratefulness – my health was seriously compromised by one of those viruses-from-hell. Given a Third World scenario and I would be dead, no question. I will be very very slowly recovering for the rest of my life and I’m 19 yrs in to that recovery. I have learnt patience. I have learnt non-competitiveness. I
Competitiveness and survival are not compatible for me. I literally could kill myself being competitive, (despite the dramaticness of that statement). So……. I am gratefull….to be blessed to live ina First World Country and its gifts of safe food and water, an excellent medical system, the PBS scheme for pharmecueticals in Oz, for peace of mind about many things, for having a good, leakproof roof over my head, to be able to keep clean and have clean clothes, to have choices, to have a car, to still be walking, to have access to many things, to have 5:2 and this forum, and particularly this thread where we are so caried in many ways but we support each other in our individual choices.

5:2 – is literally, because of my personal situation and no exercise capability, the only…repeat ONLY …way for me to normalise my weight. I will not compromise that by giving up, or by being consistently on threads where certain things are heavily promoted. I float around the forum, reading, learning, observing, and sometimes commenting, but where there is a consistent group of people who do or promote things I don’t personally agree with or are wrong for me, I don’t hang around there. When you hang around with tennis players you end up playing tennis. Same goes here. I have experimented and for me water only fasts, back to back fasts, 3 fast days a week or more , lots of saturated fats and coconut fat, absolutely no starchy things, are not right for me. Some I physically, medically, cannot cope with. Some, if I practiced them would cause me to fail. Some I disagree with for various reasons. But, my point is, where I hang out on the forum is a factor in having reached my goal, improving my life in so many ways.

Hope this helps,
Merry

Welcome back Joffy, Merry and Intesha, you’ve all been missed. Welcome AudDevo.

Vaderz, I too read your post yesterday and decided to have a think about it as I really couldn’t identify with it at all. I’ve never felt that I was competing with anyone else. It was always all about my health, my longevity and my weight loss while encouraging anyone else that I could.

Perhaps we do need a convention to thrash all this out over some miso soup!

When I joined this thread 150 pages ago, I was inspired by some posters who’d reached their goal weight and were continuing the WOL which made me realise that it wasn’t some kind of fad but something sustainable.

During the course of the next year, while I enjoyed a steady weight loss punctuated by a couple of plateaus, most of those posters left the thread and dozens of new ones arrived. So we were all at different stages supporting each other, swapping stories and making friends (on and off the thread). A bit like driving on a freeway, everyone starts and finishes at a different place but, as you drive along side by side with others, you all share a common goal to get where you’re going in the best way possible which requires courtesy and yielding. You allow others to merge but they might just get off at at the next exit.

There have been so many posters who suddenly disappeared never to be heard from again. Clearly 5:2 isn’t for everyone although for those of us for whom it’s worked so well, this can be hard to comprehend. I too have read of fantastic weight loss rate claims but have never had thoughts of ‘that person’s doing better than me’. Frankly, I mostly think, ‘I don’t believe you’! For me, it was never about how fast I could shed the weight, more about finding a sustainable way of doing it.

Once I reached my goal weight, I stuck around in the hope of inspiring others. I did briefly consider that it was time to let the newer members run with the thread and stopped posting for a few weeks. During that time, I discovered that this thread also plays a very important role for me in my maintenance programme. Thanks again to everyone for being here.

Reading your subsequent posts, I’m wondering if this advice from my GP would help. Before I discovered 5:2, I was frequently lamenting about how much weight I had to lose. I was obsessed with it and it made me depressed. He told me stop thinking about losing 20kg or even 10kg and instead focus of losing ONE kg per year for the rest of my life. Hardly daunting is it? When you set small goals, it’s far more achievable and sustainable. I followed his advice and, with the small changes I made, managed to lose a measly 5kg from January to August 2014. A path I’d been on many times before in my adult life. Then I discovered 5:2 and the rest is history. I’ve maintained my 23kg loss for 18 months – which isn’t a record for me but I just know this is sustainable whereas my other weight loss achievements (involving constant deprivation) were not.

My advice to you and anyone else starting is to master the fast days before you do anything else. You have the rest of your life for tweaking and finding your own rhythm and style. The rest will follow. Do it for yourself and don’t worry about anyone else. Keep posting. Good luck.

Lael, do you fill up a litre pitcher with water three times a day and take a drink whenever you walk past it? I’m sure I’d have to work hard to consciously drink that much but I think that having a fridge that delivers chilled water on demand helps. I seem to do most of my water drinking after dinner. I don’t cook with salt so I wonder why that should be?

Hoping you and Charlotte can arrange a meeting. After my last post, I was thinking that it can be frustrating when newbies just ‘drop off’ and we never learn why they didn’t stick with it (or stick with us anyway). But then I cheered myself up by thinking that, for every poster, there are who knows how many lurkers out there who we might be helping without even knowing it. Let’s hope it’s a lot. To that end, if there are any Perth lurkers out there, some of us will be meeting for coffee next week and you will be welcome to come and join us. Show yourselves – what do you have to lose? Come and tell us!

Thanks Thin and Lael. People who have already lost the weight are undoubtedly an inspiration… in fact just about everyone on here is an inspiration and I love seeing people do well and encourage that as much as possible… it’s just easy to focus on the numbers sometimes (and that can be both a positive and a negative thing) which can sometimes lead to second guessing yourself and pushing yourself too far.

Anyway, I think the important thing is to focus on the process… don’t let your mind talk you into doing more than you’re comfortable with – it’s more important to stick to two fast days a week and still be doing it in 12 months time (which we know a lot of people have done and are continuing to do) than trying to make the numbers go down faster and risk pushing too hard where you might go over the line and make things unsustainable.

Thanks for that deep and meaningful everyone… bit deep to start off the week, but I think it helped 🙂

Just started 5:2 on Sunday with my first fast day. I’m in NZ and heard about 5:2 from my brother and his wife who live in Australia. I’ve been trying to lose weight for some time now, and I hope this is the answer. I lost 10kg with low GI (GI diet) in 2003 (down to 53kg) and kept it off for 3 years, but since then the weight’s been creeping on no matter what I do. I tried Jenny Craig, but as I couldn’t quite make it to my goal weight and stopped buying their food, they would not help me with maintenance, even though I was trying to get pregnant and so did not want to be dieting. So all the weight went back on and more. I’m now hovering around 80kg which at my height of 153cm is way too much. Recently I tried AWW Monday to Friday diet and lost 3kg and learnt some great new recipes so I’ll probably incorporate some into my non fasting days.

My first fast day was a little chaotic, I thought it would be good to do it while I was on a 4 hour drive, this way I wouldn’t constantly be thinking about food. The troubles with this was fixating on every café I passed along the way, also I had no way of preparing any meals either. I did end up buying some food to takeaway at one café because the custard square (vanilla slice) and bacon & egg pie just looked too delicious, and then I was quite happy to save them until the next day. I also got a milky coffee and this may have tipped me over 500 cal slightly, but still a lot less than I’d normally eat. I didn’t find it difficult at all, I expected to wake up ravenous the next day and I didn’t, although I did end up with a bit more processed food than I would like.

So tomorrow I’m doing my second fast day. I have a selection of foods in a bag set aside and I will eat from the bag tomorrow. So in the bag I have: a small can of tuna, a pack of wholemeal English muffins, konjak noodles, Wattie’s soup for one, Dole blueberry and custard (a little low cal treat to keep me happy). I can just add an egg and some already prepared salad and that will nicely round out my 500 calorie day. It’s a little hard to work in calories as everything’s labelled in KJ here, but I worked out that 400 KJ is around 70 calories, so that makes it a bit easier.