Hi Thin,

Because I’m feeling very low energy, I’m letting myself have my full 500 calories for today’s FD. I’m having my usual whey peptide protein powder with inulin, a bowl of La Zuppa soup with a bit of extra zoodled zucchini and 20 grams of frozen peas. Well, here’s the admission I’ve never written about… I’m going to admit that I actually have what many would consider a somewhat less healthy choice, which is a particular protein powder shake that I really like and works for me. It is one in which I simply add water and shake, so is actually practical when I’m out, especially driving around in the car on a FD and have no break to eat anything while working. I didn’t have any of the above until 2:30 pm this afternoon. Including the Emu Oil capsules I take daily, the calories today total: 497 and I’m happy with that for today. I’m feeling very satisfied. The 500 calories feel luxurious!

Micheal Mosley ‘Do we Need Health Tests’ on SBS 7.30pm tonight.

Good morning everyone,
Thanks for the tv program heads up Gday.

Congrats JJ, aren’t you powering along nicely. Hooray re the trousers. What a lovely plan for the bbq.
Your weather sounds wonderful! That is my absolute favourite weather.

My fast day yesterday went well. I made a big pot of vegetable soup, including lentils, instead of my miso, and took some over to my daughters to have while I babysat. The kids loved it! Miss 3 is one of those ‘no veggies’ kids but loved the ‘soup juice’ and little Miss 1-on-Wednesday loved the cauliflower and broth. So I felt like the worlds best grandmother. (Then accidentally burst the blue balloon and gave the dairy intolerant baby a spoon of yoghurt: dreadful grandma!). And even with them helping me, I still got most of my bowl of soup so it was a lovely end to a hungry day.

Lets see what is on the last page…

Ooh yes, cumin is beautiful in hummus. I’ll have some of that beetroot dip (I love it with cumin in too)!

Thin I love the way you do fast days and, truly, some of my best friends use tea bags!
😉

Good luck with the coconut psyllium bread, and woot for our teenage fashions.
I hope your energy picks up now Minka, and I hope the grandkiddies slept through Stay! I’ll have Miss 3 overnight tonight and I am sad to say we rarely sleep well, but at least her parents get an easier night.

Best wishes for today everyone!

Hi Everyone
Thanks Gday, I will try to watch that.
Julie, I will have a similar weekend. It’s my sisters birthday on GF day and we will all go there. It’s also my daughter’s birthday and we are getting together on Sunday with our immediate family (10 adults and 3 kids). We will have to have a plan!
Cinque, what a great ( not great but lovely 😩) grandmother you are having your granddaughter, knowing she won’t sleep well- my 4yo joined me for a cuddle at 6am and the other slept til 7. I’ve ended up having them most of the day today as my girls have gone Birthday shopping.
LJoyce it often takes something like that to spur us on. This time it was me coming home after a 6 week holiday and everything falling out of the kitchen cupboards- thanks to my kids.
I had a good fast day yesterday and as I officially weigh my self on Mondays, I can report a 800g loss for the week- I’m happy with that 🙂
Have a great day everyone xx

My cleaning bug lasted long enough for me to now have a sparkling lounge, bedroom and laundry. And all the floors are done too.

I had a huge cauliflower to prepare for roasted cauliflower salad later in the week. It was so big I decided to cut two thick cauliflower steaks from the centre and just roast the rest for salad. Normally I just season them and then panfry in butter. I decided to try something different tonight. After blanching them, I dipped one in eggwhite and then in a mixture of grated parmesan, dried thyme, garlic salt and panko breadcrumbs. I cooked it in a nonstick pan in a little butter, so that the parmesan would remain on the cauliflower. It’s really tasty – I’ll definitely make this again.

I made the hommus recipe, thanks LJoyce for posting it. It tastes lovely but I think i put too much garlic in it so I am going to add more chickpeas to it and a little more lemon juice. I want to take it to the BBQ on Friday night with the carrot sticks and celery. I also found some gluten free crackers called hommus crisps which will also go down well. They are made from chickpea flour and taste really nice. (I taste tested them!)
Tonight I had falafel for dinner. 4 little balls weighing 75g and 176 calories. had them with some tomatoes. Then some of the hommus crackers and the hommus. Total calories for today is 390.

I should go to bed now as if i stay up too long I will want to eat more!!!

JJ, I make my own hummus too. I rarely buy it ready made because of all the oil and lately, sugar that they add. I usually don’t add tahini or olive oil at all and really don’t miss it that much. I don’t measure ingredients, but I probably put in more garlic than most people. LJoyce, I LOVE the idea of using a small amount of sesame oil! I have toasted sesame oil in my frig all the time and it never occurred to me to add it to hummus. I will from now on! It has such intense flavor that your 1 tsp would be plenty.
I’ve been adding a good amount of fresh basil or sun dried tomatoes to my hummus in the past year or two. I went to a restaurant down in southern CA a couple years ago that had an appetizer called a Hummus Trio, with a scoop of regular hummus, one with basil and one with sun dried tomatoes. I love that restaurant, just because of that appetizer. https://www.lazydogrestaurants.com/img/content/Hummus-Trio03122015104307-lg.jpg

The restaurant, The Lazy Dog Cafe has a great menu. I’ll post a link, but be warned that it could be overly tempting. http://www.lazydogrestaurants.com/menu

CharliesMum, thank you for the Golden Paste recipe. I’m going to make some of that. I may have to get a little more turmeric. The black pepper is important for sure since it greatly increases the bioavailability.

I ate too much over the weekend and gained .8 kg. Good thing today is a FD. I really need it. I do seem to sabotage my own efforts fairly often. Why do I do that?

I need to catch up on all the posts here but need to get back to work now. Hope everyone is having a good day. It’s great to see so many people posting!

CalifD, I relate to sabotaging your own efforts. Fortunately, adhering to two FDs in maintenance accommodates my less desirable food behaviour.

Minka, I’m going to have a go at your coconut psyllium bread today – I’m in a baking mood. I have butternut soup for lunch so if I get cracking I may have fresh warm bread to go with it. I’m going to start with half the recipe and a mini loaf (5-6 slices) in case I stuff it up.

Good morning, just waved goodbye to the darling moppet. She slept through (first time) but I go into a hyper vigilant thing with kids so I slept very lightly.

We’ve been to the park in lovely morning sunlight, but the place is a mess because she is at the age where anything you go to tidy up… she decides she must play with.

LJoyce, synchronicity! I made very similar cauliflower things last night. My recipe is to blanch small florets for two minutes and then dip in yoghurt. Then coat in exactly the mixture you described, and pop in the oven until crispy. (Miss three helped me make them but didn’t eat them 🙁 Maybe next time.)

I wonder if the ‘sabotage’ is our back brain mistakenly thinking we want to go back to our heaviest weight. Just so glad 5:2 balances out a bit of sabotage.

I’ll watch the MM doco and find out if I’ve seen it before also!

Need to lie down for a little now. I wonder if the cleaning mood might come upon me. Fingers crossed!

Cinque – if the sleeping through becomes the norm, hopefully you’ll feel able to sleep a bit more soundly. Enjoy our rest.

Cali – the little loaf of bread looks nice. I ended up making the full mixture as I realised half wouldn’t be enough for my small loaf tin. It took 65 mins to cook, but it’s still cooling. I decided to allow it to properly cool before cutting it, so I can judge the texture better. I ended up swapping lunch and dinner. I just made an omelette with parmesan, pancetta and mushrooms. I’ll have the soup & coconut bread for dinner. I am already thinking that when I make a fruit loaf, coconut flour might be a very nice addition to the range of flours I use. Because I don’t have issues with gluten I can just use it as one the flours I combine in a normal bread dough. I am more comfortable making the traditional yeasted doughs that I’m used to than the psyllium option. Although a bit of practice might change that.

Hi Thin

I didn’t have any oranges either. I suspect it was high winds at the wrong time that blew the blossom off the tree. Sometimes unseasonal heat can do that too – the tree drops its blossom or fruit and concentrates on survival.
I am however due for a bumper plum crop – the tree has so much blossom I can barely see the branches.

Good luck with those meal – I’m sure you’ll be planning in advance like I will. I have a Malaysian lunch tomorrow (I’m thing of ordering sambal squid). Friday is lunch at “Sarah’s Sister” – a vegetarian restaurant. I haven’t checked that menu yet. Thursday needs to be a FD and then probably Sunday.

I’m under no illusions about time and the gym. I don’t expect it to make much difference to my weight, just help get my activity levels up to what they need to be and hopefully contribute a little to toning. However I seem to get myself into trouble with the exercise bike – which is the only aerobic equipment I can use at the gym. Unfortunately the display tells me how many calories I’ve burned in the 10km I usually cycle. The this little voice in my head keeps telling me I can eat more. Yet I can go for a walk and it doesn’t occur to me to eat more to compensate.

The Coconut loaf has cooled completely so I just cut a slice for afternoon tea. (No I couldn’t wait until dinner – I’m lucky I waited for it to cool!)
I didn’t cook it long enough. Most of the slice has a very good light texture but the bottom 8mm of the loaf is dense moist and clearly not cooked. That’s OK I cut the bottom edge off and the rest of it is good. The flavour is good but the texture is unexpected. I’m not sure how to describe it – it’s sort of bouncy. The texture feels really light but it’s surprising how much chewing it actually takes – I suspect that’s the fibre from the psyllium. I can taste the bicarb in baking powder – it has a distinctive flavour and I do seem to be sensitive to its taste in baking.
I’ll have another slice with dinner – I actually think it will be better balanced with other food.

JJ, Cinque & Cali – I’ve seen a few variations on hommus, but this is a new one on me – can’t say I’d ever thought of turning hommus into a chocolate dip.
http://pulses.org/recipes/recipe/355-chocolate-salted-caramel-hummus

GDSA – if you still have broad beans in the garden, I just came across a recipe for hommus made from them. It used dried broad beans (fava beans) that are soaked and boiled. With fresh beans you could skip those steps and just boil until tender.
http://pulses.org/recipes/recipe/246-fava-bean-hummus Actually any recipe that you can find for fava beans you can probably convert easily for fresh broad beans.

It’s quite similar to Indian cuisine. DD likes the momo which is a type of dumpling. It doesn’t appeal to me. She likes it because she did a World Challenge trip to Nepal in high school.

Warning: I’m about to rant.

I know I’ve despaired in the past about the latest healthy eating fad, where the first things everyone seems to do is uses the “rules” to find substitutes for everything they eat now, to avoid having to make any major changes. I just came across a website that illustrates my point. I was looking for interesting things to do with my bag of coconut flour and stumbled over a website that just annoyed me.
The recipe is for Paleo chocolate chip cookies. It contains coconut flour, celtic sea salt, baking soda, palm shortening, honey, hens eggs, and chocolate chips.
Unless I’m mistaken, paleo is meant to involve eating like a caveman. How many cavemen would have had access to any of these ingredients, let alone an oven to bake them in. I will concede that a few ancient Celts may have been able to scrape up a bit sea salt.
If the author of the above recipe hadn’t labelled it paleo I would have been fine with it. If they’d just been labelled gluten free I’d have been quite happy. But the food of cavemen they are not.

That’s it for my rant today. I apologise in advance if anyone is offended.

Hi camcd, welcome

I apologise is my previous post was not quite the welcome you were hoping for. I think we were typing at the same time. It was only after I’d posted it that I saw your post.

We are an eclectic lot on this southern hemisphere thread.
Mostly spread across Oz, but we have one New Zealander and also a couple of Northern Hemispherites who seem to enjoy our company.

How did your first FD go? Did you find it easy to stay within your calorie limit?
And how about today? In the beginning I found I was tempted to overeat the day after a FD and it took some time to learn not to do that.

There are a few people on our forum that have been following 5:2 for years and used it to lose weight and then maintain. I found that encouraging when I started because it showed me that this was sustainable long term.

Welcome. If you have questions, just ask.

Thanks LJoyce and GdayfromSA for your welcome. I found my first FD relatively easy with a bit of a dodgy time early afternoon. And today was okay as well – helped by working late so avoiding my hungry time late afternoon. For the last few weeks I’ve been following a mindfulness program which has been helping me improve my relationship with food through being aware. It doesn’t include any diet, but should fit with and enable any diet. I’m hoping it will integrate with 5:2 and will help each other. Thanks for your offer of help, I’ll certainly be looking out for ideas!

Welcome cancd,

Definitely lots of help here in this forum and some lovely people to chat with.

If you did not know there is also another forum that the Southern Hemispherites post on and that is for recipes only. You might like to look at that one too for some great recipes ideas.

Sounds like you had a good first FD.

I do back to back BTB fast days usually Monday and Tuesday and then if the weekend is going to be hectic with maybe a restaurant visit I also do a FD on Friday too.

This weekend is going to be one of those with family arriving in FNQ for the long weekend.

OH flying home tonight, he is sitting in Hong Kong airport as we speak waiting for his next flight which is direct to Cairns.
So early morning pick up for me and then I will catch up with everyone again after that.
I want to share a new soup recipe with you all!!

signing off now!!

Welcome camcd! I’m one of the Northern Hemispherites who made my home here, in this thread. There are so many really nice people here, A few have lost a lot of weight and are maintaining with the 5:2 WOL. It’s important to me that this way of eating is sustainable long term. I’ve gone up and down too many times in the past. I’ve got about 2.5 to 3 kg to go to get to my goal and then I want to stay there! I’ve been following the 5:2 since early May of this year and for the most part, it’s been pretty easy. It’s nice to know you don’t have to worry about eating on holidays or going out with friends and family. Fast Days seem to atone for those days. Of course, it’s still good to be mindful on NFD.

Glad you had a good first FD. Are you doing 2 fast days together? (B2B) I usually fast on Monday and Thursday unless there’s something going on one of those days. I’ve occasionally done a B2B to try to break a plateau or even 3 FD in a week when the scale won’t budge. But mostly it’s pretty dependable. B2B FDs can be difficult.

LJoyce, I don’t usually judge without trying, but the chocolate hummus sounds just plain weird. There are some things that just shouldn’t be mixed!
I’ve found a lot of the Paleo recipes a little strange. That cookie recipe fits in that category. I think the paleo exercises are pretty effective. The food? Not so much.

Thin, I had to laugh at your suggestion of having a meal with your DD while she discussed the days events about reach up inside a pregnant cow. That could be a very effective way to restrain eating for weight loss and should be suggested to Dr. Mosely! 😝

After hearing some of you talking about the Mosely talks on SBS, I went to their website and found the episodes. I saw that you could sign up for a free streaming account and watch them on the computer or tablet. Yaay! I got an account, but every one I tried to watch said that due to licensing agreements, they weren’t available to watch outside of Australia. 😚 BTW, every time I see ABC I think of our American Broadcasting Network. 😁

Ha! True!

PS I did enjoy looking through your link LJoyce.

Good morning all,

Well up early this morning. OH flight was delayed by an hour as it took them that long in the queue on the runway just to get off the ground in Hong Kong!! He did not get much sleep so now is resting for a few hours.

Veggie patch going great guns. I have two lettuces ready to pick, tomatoes are ripe, spinach is ready to pick along with Mizuna and two chocolate capsicums. Will be making heaps of salads this weekend with all the relatives arriving so it is good timing.
My greek zucchini vine is now flowering, but the butternut pumpkin is not as yet. The watermelon and Japanese melon plants have germinated but only coming along very slowly. Strawberries are coming along great with a couple of ripe ones for us to taste. I have so many different varieties this time. Strasberry (cross with raspberry/strawberry) pineberry (which is a white strawberry that is popular in Japan) bubbleberry (which I have no idea what flavour it will be) and your normal variety of strawberry!

Weight today was 80.8 YAY I have got into the 80 zone which is so close to getting into the 79 zone which is so much better to see on the scale. It can only get better and I have my sights on 75 for the month of October.

I have just posted my soup recipe in the Soup forum.
Smoked Chilli Velvet Soup – got a bit of mexican flavour to it and some spice to go with it. OH loves this one as well. Hope you enjoy it if you decide to try it.

catch up with everyone again later…..Julie

Thin,

Spent lots of time in Victor Harbour over the years. My dad’s school friend who was also his best man at his wedding to my mother was Alan Greer who also had a home in Victor which we would visit. Many trips over to granite island which I have fond memories of. I also have a good friend who went to Victor High school who is now living in Nagoya Japan,
I love that area and I remember the Greek festival that was many years ago. Ihav enot lived in Adelaide now for over 30 years but travel back every now and then to visit relatives.

Hi everyone. Had an unusually busy day today. Lunch in the city with ex work colleagues, food shopping at the Central Market and then a trip to the far southern suburbs to create a CV and covering letter for one of my great-nephews. (I seem to be the family guru when it comes to writing CVs.) This will be my great-nephew’s first shop based job. He’s 15 and still at school but is hoping for a part-time job in a bakery – baking is his passion so I hope he finds something. I have also promised him that once I’m done with the house reno and sold this house he can come over regularly for baking days – I love baking too.

I finally made it home at 6pm and have just finished a big bowl of roasted cauliflower-spinach salad smothered in kefir as a dressing.
I have a similar busy day planned on Friday, so I’d better have a quieter one tomorrow.

JJ – They still have the Glendi festival every year in November – packed full of Greek food and culture.
All those berry varieties sound fascinating – I’m wondering if the bubbleberry tastes like bubble gum.

Thin – Glad you had a nice Nepalese meal. I had a look at those dumplings online. I suspect they’d be something that I would rather like too. Don’t let the scales get you down, you know the number will fall in a day or two.
I went to an Asian cafe for lunch and ordered sambal quid – squid, lots of veg, a VERY hot chilli sauce and white rice. I left the rice and ate the rest. A bit too hot for me but nice all the same. I deliberately kept this to a healthy meal choice as I’m going out for lunch on Friday too and I want to be able to get a bit carried away as I know I’ll want some high cal things from the menu. I’m still trying to limit my overindulgence meals to once a week max.

Cali – Every country has separate licensing for tv. I get the same access denial when I try to access BBC programs. You just need to see whether any US tv channels have shown these programs and you might be able to get online access through their website.
I agree about the chocolate hommus, but then I’ve never understood the trend to add chocolate to everything. I adore cheesecake, but loathe chocolate cheesecake, to me these flavours just don’t go together.

Cinque – There was an Insight program on SBS recently that dealt with the problem of food fads – and how malnourished some people were becoming with the amount of exclusions they were applying. It’s not so much the idea of Paleo that bothers me, it’s the way people apply it. If they actually applied the core idea of how someone from an ancient culture would have lived they would probably have good health – fresh food, gown locally, seasonal, days of abundance and days of fasting, minimal preparation or processing, few natural sources of sugar, fresh water is the main source of fluid, very active lifestyle as you have to hunt and gather your own food, hunting gathering and eating were probably also communal events that strengthened family and tribal bonds. Unfortunately that’s not the message people take from it.

Must go and make a pot of tea, I’m 2 pots behind on my usual consumption, so I have some catching up to do.

Hello Everyone: Another “öld duck”here, 61 years young. Just joined this site with view to trying to bump of another 5 – 10 kgs.
Oh and I am from South Australia.
Good to hear how other people are managing this new way of eating.
cheers.