Hello Southern Hemispherites!!

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  • Minka, I don’t think it’s a problem to move your FDs around. Flexibility is 5:2’s great strength. It wouldn’t suit me but I’m sure it’s good to keep your body guessing about when the next one’s coming! I have changed mine once in a while to accommodate a Sunday event, I usually do the FD before it was due rather than put it off until another day.

    JJulie, you are brave putting out all this personal info. I don’t even know why it makes me nervous for you but it does. Anyway, being nosey, I, too, had a walk down your street! I can’t remember Cairns at all but have good memories of the Atherton Tablelands, Kuranda markets and rafting on the Tully River. All before you settled there. How funny that the birds get intoxicated on fermented nectar. I have some of those native shrubs in my garden. What dogs do you have? (sorry, I feel as if you have already told us).

    I’m also looking for easy prepare-ahead recipes for a lunch gathering this week. One gent is a big meat eater and one lady doesn’t eat any. I’m thinking of a lemon/parmesan chicken casserole dish and a pumpkin & chicpea curry – if such a dish exists. Couscous would go with both of those. I’m useless at desserts so was thinking of strawberry fool (LJ recently said our WA strawbs are delicious) as it can be assembled in glasses and stored in the fridge the day before. 29C so I’m hoping we can sit outside.

    Stay, it sounds as though you’re in the midst of a special culinary weekend. I’ll be joining you for a fasty Sunday.

    CalifD, no feeding of Australian wildlife please! Especially birds. Your choice of seeds and nuts does seem a healthier option than what I see down at the river – people take whole loaves of bread to feed the black swans. If I have my River Guardians shirt on, I’ll sometimes pluck up the courage to approach them and try to explain how bread is not part of a bird’s diet and that, in fact, it will probably kill them. Some people take boxes of bread (leftover from restaurants I think) to feed seagulls not understanding how this messes with the population, in turn decreasing the available food sources for native birds. DD used to volunteer at a native animal hospital one day a week and a lot of the injuries and illnesses treated were caused by humans (and cats). It’s often tempting to string up some nuts for birds but I can enjoy scenes like this just by virtue of having water in our fountain (sorry not good photo quality as taken through the bedroom window): https://imgur.com/2IHDrSN

    Thanks for the concern. I wish I hadn’t mentioned Ophelia, the latest forecast suggests it will miss us. We get gales frequently, usually after the Autumn equinox but anything approaching a hurricane is extremely unusual and mostly we don’t prepare for one. Usually they fizzle out before they get to us. In the 1980s we had a famous weather forecast in which the BBC said that suggestions of a hurricane were all wrong and we would only get some strong wind. The next day half of the trees in the country were down, and we had some deaths. Since then they have tended to over-warn us. I have never seen anything in this country to match the Typhoons we had in Kong Kong. The main problem where we live is that our power lines come in through the forest on pylons and we are at the end of the line. Strong winds cause power cuts. It is better than it use to be – when we first came here we were once 11 days without power. I make sure that we always have battery lighting and camping stoves available. One winter I cooked a turkey in a kettle barbecue, which seemed a little weird.

    Our press are currently fascinated by your wildlife. There have been several stories of people finding really nasty snakes in their beds or bathrooms and we have at least two TV series about professional snake catchers. Yesterday we has photographs of a 2 metre tall kangaroo in a water hole and a small dog in this country (a cockerpoo) who had discovered he could climb trees like a koala.

    Tonight I am making a Malaccan curry. To keep my culinary feet on the ground they started on, yesterday I made a batch of green split pea soup for Monday, which will be a busy day. If the wind does come it will heat over a camping stove.

    CalifDreamer. I finished that post and then turned on the TV for the morning news. I see California is still on fire. Makes our wind seem totally trivial.

    Thin, I know…….I thought about it long before I did it, but I thought that the people here on this forum are actually talking to us with their focus on weight loss. Some are thousands of miles away from me and I have nothing that anyone would want. Our house looks really good in that photo but in all honesty it is in great disrepair. As a lot of the house is made of timber a lot of it is rotten. So it is going to cost us quite a lot to do repairs. 30 years ago we built this house, my husband built a lot of it, but over the years with lack of money and lack of time it has never ever been completed as I originally wanted. But as I feel we are all friends here on this forum I wanted to share with everyone what it looks like to live where I do.

    JJulie, I think it’s lovely that you are so open with us all. It’s not ‘us’ I’m worried about. It’s some kind of perception about identity theft, real or imagined I’m not sure! Before I started meeting Perth losers for coffee, yours was the first image I ever saw and I thought that it was really cool to see what another 5:2er looked like! So, I appreciate that about you.

    Penguin, let’s hope it all fizzles out before it gets there. And that CalifD wakes up to better news and cleaner air. I had to look up ‘Malaccan’ and discovered that it does in fact pertain to my only reference of it – being in Malaysia.

    Julie, all homes seem to be constantly in need of one repair or another. They are bottomless pits! If only we have limitless funds to just hire someone to come in and fix it all! After we replaced the microwave, we realize how crappy our range is, that the oven works, but the broiler doesn’t. The oven light that I tried to repair 6 months ago and shorted doesn’t work either. The smoothtop surface which is gray has black spots worn to the glass where we scrubbed it too many times. (Should have bought a black surface one to begin with.) It should probably be replaced. Our furnace/Central air is nearing 20 years old. Dreading the day we have to have that replaced! Our upstairs bath really needs to be redone completely. But bathroom remodels cost like a gazillion dollars these days. And the list goes on. You aren’t alone!

    Thin and Julie, while I love getting to know everyone here better, I do agree with thin that it isn’t just our little group here, the ones that post, but everyone else in the world that can read these posts. Maybe you could ask the moderators to remove that post, if you agree. That said, there are times that I wish I could share things with our group that I don’t feel comfortable posting here. Is there a way to share emails other than posting them on this open forum? Would anyone here be interested in doing that?

    Thin and CalifD,

    I agree I was too hasty in giving out the info. I have looked for the post to ask to have it removed but I can no longer find it. If you can find it can you report it for me?

    Good morning everyone,
    LJoyce, so glad to see your post and that you are getting better. I hope today is a good one.

    Minka, congratulations on your work update. I hope you enjoy your day in the office! And that you can find another good fast day.

    I am like you, I appreciate that fast days can be moved around, but I love my regular days!

    Speaking of which, it is my fast day today after a miserable day yesterday with the latest cold (gift from granddaughters daycare). I need to start wearing latex gloves and a mask around her! Hopefully yesterday was the worst day.

    JJulie, if you want a post removed I think you need to do it yourself. But it is very easy. Click on your name, and then on ‘replies created’ The post with the info is 4 replies back. Just click on ‘report post’ at the right top, and explain.
    I feel like you, that it is so nice to share (and what is there to steal anyway), but I also agree better safe than sorry now that identity fraud is such a thing.

    I love reading about all the wildlife, I am in the inner city so not much around here.

    I need to head out today (careful not to breathe on people) to buy veggies. Fridge is empty and I need to henna my hair and I am out of henna.

    Thinking about my fast days, the morning after got hungrier once I got down to my lowest weight. I am trying to work on a more balanced eating pattern than I have because I still tend to overeat on non fast days. The fast days balance it out, and are also slowly, slowly addressing my flappy bits! (for which I am very grateful). My hardest thing, on non fast days, is to stop eating when I don’t feel completely full. What I want to be self restraint, just feels like self denial. (And feeling of self denial lead to comfort eating). I think this feeling is as slow to change as the flaps on my upperarms!

    Oh well, another day to learn things about myself! And it is a lovely sunny one. Best wishes everyone!

    Happy sunday morning all. Catching up on posts while thinking about getting motivated for the day.

    Ljoyce i do hope you are feeling better now. Penguin glad the weather has turned for you. And cheers to everyone else on your ups (and downs) in the last week.

    Arelkade, on a FD I dont have brekky and leave lunch till as late as possible – usually about 2.30pm. That way I have a great fasting window from 6pm evening meal the night before of about 20hrs. I always have 2-3 coffees in the morning and drink tea during the day (i dont have sugar or milk in T or C) and if I feel I need something mid morning will have a large teaspoon miso paste in hot water.

    Ive found that I rarely have brekky at all now as it makes me super hungry by mid morning (as is the case for ljoyce) but do have a brekky cook up on a weekend and on those occassions don’t have lunch.

    I also do an extended fast every month or so of around 36 to 48 hours with only water, tea, coffee and miso.

    My non FD calorie intake is quite low anyway – between 700 and 1000 and exceed that only if im out for a meal or have a treat…..or have a huge brekky cook up on a weekend !!

    Ive also eliminated all snacking between meals and for the majority only have 2 meals a day. Its taken many months if tinkering with 5.2 to work out what suits me and my lifestyle.

    The cross trainer sold the same day I advertised it – yay.

    Am slowly meeting OH’s adult children…..all 5 of them !! He had children young (in his 20’s) and as most of you know my only child was born when I was 39. So he has grandchildren that are my daughters age which so far is working out perfectly. In fact MissD and his 7yo GD have become best buddies spending all yesterday together and again this arvo. Next weekend we are going on a road trip to meet his eldest daughter in the Barossa Valley (Nurioopta)…..Maggie Beer territory….i cant wait.

    Well I’ve downed 2 coffees while posting so time for so motivation for the day. …. mmmm brekky cook up or not today?

    Good morning SHs

    Thanks for the well wishes everyone. I’m feeling much better although still needing to be quite cautious with food choices and my appetite is incredibly picky still. I suspect it will be a few more days before I’m ready to add back a wider range of foods. The limited foods I chose were instinctive choices – they were both the only things I felt like eating and also felt safe eating. I had a conversation with my cousin’s daughter yesterday (she’s a nurse at the Womens & Childrens hospital). She said the diet that they start kids on after gastro is bread, porridge, rice, banana. Interesting that without knowing this, my body instinctively chose the same things. The only things I added to this (about 3 days after the bug started) was yoghurt, kefir & ricotta. I tried adding egg, but my digestive system wasn’t happy with that choice.

    GDSA – glad things are going well with OHs family – that can be very tricky.

    Cali – I hope the fire situation is starting to be controlled. The news I’ve seen is saying that the high winds are dissipating, so I hope that’s helping firefighters get some control of the fires.

    Cali & JJ – I too have a list longer than my arm of things I need to do to the house. I’m fast reaching the point where I either have to sell the house without doing them, or pay for tradesmen just so I can present the house well for sale. It’s not just the finance that’s an issue it’s finding the physical and mental strength to tackle it all. My intention is to “buy down” to a cheaper property when I leave here so that I actually have a safety net in the bank to fix things in future, I think that will be less stressful.

    Penguin – Hope the storms have bypassed you and you don’t need to drag out the camp stove. Where I live we also have frequent power blackouts due to trees or tree limbs falling on power lines. I specifically chose to have my main heating and cooking not dependent on electricity and I haven’t regretted that. I have LPG bottled gas (propane) for my cooktop and a slow combustion fire to heat the house. Not so useful in summer when I need a fan or air-con, but we get more trees down in cold weather so it has mostly been a good strategy.
    Last year on boxing day we had a huge storm that took out power to the whole state. I was without power for 3 1/2 days. I was really grateful for the gas cooktop and I turned my fridge into an old fashioned ice box. I bought bags of ice and put a huge bowl of them on the central shelf and put fruit and veg on this shelf and then I half-filled the crisper bins with ice and nestled the dairy directly in amongst the ice cubes. When I opened the fridge door the air was really cold – just like a normal fridge – this worked really well.

    Thin – the WA strawberries have continued to be nice, although I’m staying clear of acidic fruits at the moment (which is most of them unfortunately).

    Cinque – sorry to hear you are ill again. I also have to go the shop – I’m out of bananas again.

    Minka – I agree with Thin, moving FDs around so that they suit your schedule is part of the beauty of 5:2 for me.

    That lunch I was meant to go to last week was rescheduled to tomorrow. I’m hoping I feel good enough to go as I don’t want to cancel twice that would feel like a really rude thing to do. I might have to choose food based on what I know I can tolerate at them moment – they have bread and ricotta so I can base something around that.

    Hope you all have a nice Sunday.

    Good afternoon Sunday fasters and non-fasters. For most of you, the FD is nearly over. I’m struggling to make it to 2pm today. A combination of not having my standard A&C coffees due the milk having gone off plus some not very good food choices in the last couple of days. Back up to my trigger weight.

    Cinque, I agree, it would be good if we could just eat properly every day. Thank goodness for two FDs. I don’t think B2B would work for me as that’s too many NFDs in a row. Hope you and LJ are both feeling better by tomorrow.

    GDSA, sounds like everything is working out swimmingly. You mentioned having known Mr Perfect on & off for 30 years. I know a couple who were childhood sweethearts in another country, forced through circumstance to separate, each ultimately married someone else, had children, moved to Australia (different sides of the continent), divorced and then, through a bizarre co-incidence, met again in that original country having had no contact in the interim 40 years or so. They’re now happily married.

    JJulie, I see you managed to get your location removed while retaining the bulk of the post. If you ever need to contact the site manager, (such as when a post disappears after editing), you can click on ‘technical contact’ below. JJ usually responds quickly (allowing for the UK time difference). She’s the reason I call you JJulie. So as not to be confused with JJ.

    Time to weed the verge garden. Allowing for chatting with passing neighbours, that should lead me nicely up to 2pm.

    CalifD, I didn’t answer your earlier post about emails. I believe one group, Aussie Determination, abandoned their thread in favour of a FB page that they share between a pretty tight-knit group of posters. If I appeared paranoid wrt JJlulie’s post, I’m even more paranoid about FB! I don’t like their business model at all (being probably the only company in the world refusing to tell its customers how it uses their personal information). People think FB is the commodity but it’s the users themselves that are the commodity. Sorry for the rant, I know I’m in the minority given that 80% of the planet is connected via FB (as if that’s not scary enough in itself!). I can see how, for people who do trust FB, it could be ideal for this application and maybe some on here would like to pursue it.

    Alternatively, you can contact JJ at the address at the bottom of the page (tech support) and give your own handle and that of the person you wish to contact. JJ will forward your registered email address to them. It’s then up to them to get in touch.

    I did have several people contact me this way a few years ago but I found it became cumbersome trying to correspond with so many different people – most of them have since moved to the MC thread. There were also a few of us who exchanged emails primarily for the purpose of being able to stay in touch if anyone stops posting for who knows what reason.

    When I meet new Perth losers for coffee, I tend to post the cafe details and the time we’re meeting and see who shows up. We don’t have much representation on this side of the continent so I’m pleased to have been able to have met about seven. And yes, it was very strange being invited to meet someone from a forum for the first time. This is the only forum I’ve ever read, let alone contributed to. Luckily that person was CharliesMum and she was fairly normal. 😆 where are you CM?

    One other way to exchange email addresses is when someone is willing to post theirs on their profile and later remove it when the intended recipient indicates that they’ve seen it.

    Let us know if you have any better suggestions.

    The sun is setting here and I have had my miso soup.
    I hope you got through your day okay Thin!

    My cold is getting better, rhinitis is my big problem, but I’d rather be coping with that, than what LJoyce is going through.

    I hope you are well enough to make the lunch tomorrow, LJoyce. You may even like my trick of explaining you won’t eat, just have a cuppa and enjoy the company.

    Wow Gday, hasn’t your family expanded! So lovely!

    I’ve just made a big pot of Mexican beans, yep! used them up!
    But realised I’d bought another packet of mung beans so I can make my soup again. The aduki beans will have to wait!

    Don’t know how I would manage my beans without my beloved pressure cooker as it cooks them in about a tenth of the time of a normal saucepan. Luckily my mum used a pressure cooker without drama so I never got scared of them as so many people do. Plus I have a modern one with its excellent engineering, three safety measures, it would be very hard to have an accident.

    Re emails, I just love having the forum and everyone here, and I am finding it hard enough to keep up with emails at the moment. It does mean that there are some things that are hard to share, and I’d be happy to be emailed if anyone needs it, but otherwise I am glad to keep this nice little community in one spot!

    They were talking about hurricane Ophelia on the radio (saying it was headed for Trump’s golf course 😉 ). When it is an event we aren’t used to it can do so much more damage because there is no infrastructure (or structure generally) ready for it. Glad you are in the clear Penguin, hope Ireland stays safe.

    The fires still look dreadful Cali, we’ve got a bad season coming so I feel the dread for us as well as you.

    Oh well, at the moment the birds are cheeping contentedly as they put themselves to bed in the nature strip trees, I’ve had a good fast day, have food for tomorrow and I will see my daughter and granddaughters. Best wishes all.

    Hi

    Cinque, sounds like you’ve had a god FD.
    Thin, I hope yours turned out OK in the end.

    I managed to eat a dinner that looked somewhat normal tonight. I made some couscous and had it with little cubes of grilled haloumi, mushrooms & zucchini. A small serve, but a step back toward normality.

    A good post to end your FD, Cinque. Yes, thanks, I made it to 2.30pm before having my cauliflower soup proving, once again, that hunger can be distracted. I weeded the verge and did some ironing before realising that it was well past time for the soup. I’ve now had the miso soup too. I made meatloaf for the OFMs. I haven’t made that for about 30 years and think of it as an American recipe; it certainly smelled good.

    I bought mung beans when you first started mentioning them, Cinque, and everyone loved the recipes you’d posted, but now I can’t remember where I bought them. I checked the 3 major supermarkets without luck. I can remember my mum cooking rabbit stew in a pressure cooker. I don’t have one but, apart from reducing cooking time, it must be a great way to seal in all in the nutrients and flavours.

    Wasn’t Stay fasting with us today? I hope it went well if so. And I hope I am under my trigger weight tomorrow. I am so looking forward to a proper coffee.

    P.S. Hi LJ, yes thanks. All good in the end. Glad you’re feeling better. Have fun tomorrow.

    Hi everyone
    Just catching up with all your interesting posts.
    I had a wonderful time away with my siblings – ate too much, put on weight, but had a great time. Today, Monday, is my fast day, so let my new day/week begin!
    Hope you all have an interesting day. Cheers

    Thin, my OH likes meatloaf but I’m not crazy about it. My mom used to make it often because it was an inexpensive dish and as a young couple they didn’t have a lot of money. That, tuna casserole or tuna salad in the summer, along with spaghetti with meat sauce (in the Midwest all meals included some kind of meat or poultry) were common meals. So I got tired of them. OH was the youngest child, with siblings 10+ years older than him, so his parents were no longer struggling and could spend more on groceries. They rarely had meatloaf which is probably why he likes it.😄 https://www.mccormick.com/recipes/main-dishes/easy-meatloaf

    Pressure cookers today are all pretty safe. I’m not sure you could make one explode even if you tried. 😁 I love them for beans since you can start with unsoaked dry beans and cook them in 45 minutes or less, depending on the type of bean. The Instant Pot is the best new appliance I’ve seen in years, since it makes the pressure cooker completely simple and automatic. It’s also priced a lot lower than a good traditional pressure cooker. Even my OH will use it.

    Julie, I made the Slow-cooker spicy pineapple roast pork with lemongrass and lime rice last night and it turned out well. Thank you so much for the suggestion! I made it in the Instant Pot because it was too late for a slow cooker. I used tinned crushed pineapple with its own juices instead of pineapple juice, but otherwise stuck pretty close to the recipe. It turned out really well. I made an appetizer tray with veggies, fruit, meats hummus with curry (homemade) and pita chips. I can’t believe I forgot to take a picture of it! LJoyce, everyone thought your idea of adding sesame oil to hummus instead of tahini was pure genius. They loved the flavor.

    Thin, I have a FB account mostly for keeping in touch with family and friends in other parts of the country. I don’t necessarily agree with their business model either, but the platform is easy for people to use who know little about computers, so even some elderly relatives post there. It’s easy to post pictures, so we manage to stay in touch. Your idea of posting an email in a profile that can be deleted after a day or is a good one. I’ll do that if anyone is interested.

    Good morning all,

    I had a busy weekend. I decided to get rid of a lot of things I have been hanging onto. Things that belonged to my father and were in his house. I have stored these things in the big shed for almost 7 years now and it is time to let go. I saw a lady on one of the Cairns facebook sites who was asking for help for a friend who had just escaped a violent relationship and had moved into a house with her 3 kids with no furniture. I offered two single beds with mattresses, a queen size bed and matching dressing table of which they wanted. So before they came to see them, I had to get them out of the shed and give everything a wipe over.
    OH is very pleased that we are decluttering!!!
    There are a couple of other things that need to go as well, so I will take photos and put onto the Things for Free FB site. I also have heaps of my dad’s tools and woodworking equipment that I have to get rid of too.

    So now I am about to go into town to get some Japanese supplies. Miso, azuki beans, green tea, konyaku ribbons are just a few that I can think of at the moment. I might also be lucky to get some fresh shitake mushrooms if he has some left from his Saturday market day. Also might be lucky to get some Enoki and Shimeji mushrooms that he gets from down south. He also has great tofu as well.

    Weight today was back over 80kg but only just so determined to have two good fast days today and tomorrow so I can get well under. Fingers crossed!!

    Want to make a minestrone soup for tonight and put in the azuki beans as something different and the konyaku in the place of the pasta.

    I have started picking the snake beans in my garden and yesterday’s dinner was miso soup with snakebeans,shitake mushrooms tofu and chang’s lowcal noodles. It was really nice but I then ran out of miso.

    Well off to town I go.

    And yes I did get part of that post removed. Thanks.

    Good morning,
    It was a good fast day. I did have something to eat in the early afternoon, and I think I need to do it to avoid those irritable hours where I can’t concentrate. I’ll plan for that in future.

    Hi Arelkade, I hope you have a nice fast day today and feel back on track to normal eating after your wonderful family time.

    I hope you can find the mung beans again Thin. It is the Asian supermarkets that always have them here. I have just been reading a yummy Indian breakfast dosa/pancake recipe made by blending up soaked mung beans with spices. I want to try it.

    We never had meatloaf growing up, just heard jokes about it on American sitcoms. But in my vegetarian days I made some yummy nutloaves, and when I started eating meat again I discovered I just loved meatloaf! I make a yummy one with lots of grated veggies in it, it is quite different to your recipe Cali. Must make it again!

    Ooh, just came back to the computer to find I hadn’t posted this (after coffee with a friend discussing the meaning of life and the human condition! Great stuff). Let’s see if anyone has written in the meantime.

    Cinque yes my family has expanded at speed. One thing worries me….as OH is a grandpa does that make me a grandma ? Nooooo……Haha all good.

    Good morning, Cinque. There are lots of variations for meatloaf, pretty much whatever one can think to throw into it as long as it sticks together. 😁 I used to make one with nuts and grains too, back in my vegetarian days. It was probably from one of Molly Katzen’s books. There was another one that was popular for a while with a middle layer of mashed potatoes and sour cream. (And a gazillion calories no doubt.) Remember the days before the internet when we had to go to books or papers for recipes? Seems like the olden days now, doesn’t it? We are so spoiled!

    That dosa/pancake recipe sounds good. Let us know how it turns out if you decide to make it.

    Julie, good on you for doing all that decluttering and helping out another family in the process. It’s not easy getting rid of things from our pasts, even if they are things we’ll never use. Sometimes they seem like a tie to loved ones we’ve lost. But really, they’re just things, and our memories and the love we will always have in our hearts for those who have passed are what matters.

    Arelkade, hope you have a good week. My weekend was a disaster as far as food choices. I need to remember to only purchase as much high calorie food that can be consumed at a single meal and not leave us with a bunch of leftovers.

    Gday, great to hear about your quickly expanding family. It sounds like your daughter is enjoying it too!

    Here are some of our Halloween decorations in the entryway: https://imgur.com/a/wBzVm

    Hi JJulie,

    How lovely to go shopping for Japanese ingredients.
    Cheers for decluttering, it is a wonderful feeling (that’s what I find anyway!), so glad you could help that family making a new life for themselves.

    I LOVE snake beans but this far south they are usually twice the price of other green beans so I miss out. I love the way your minestrone is morphing into an Asian soup!

    Before my neighbour came in I was looking for my meatloaf recipe, but I can’t find it! I remember it had onion and garlic and celery fried off first, and then grated carrot and zucchini, with oats soaked in milk to soften it, a mixture of beef and pork mince I think, some mustard and Worcestershire sauce for flavour, eggs to bind, and tomato sauce to spread over the top for a glaze.

    Another neighbour is going to pop in and advise me on my tv aerial that has come apart at the wall connection and is only working by my holding it down with a cast iron pudding bowl. Fingers crossed he knows how to fix it!

    He’s here! I live in a great set of flats. Lovely neighbours!

    Cheers all

    Edit: And now posts from Gday! Hi! It is a big change in mindset to become a grandma! Give yourself time!
    And Cali, a time of being vegetarian is very handy, isn’t it!

    Good morning, I woke to my coffee machine’s milk frother not working. Disaster! But OH fixed it and I had the best two coffees ever. I’m probably the only person in Australia still hand frothing milk. But my Rancilio has given me years of faithful service so I’m loathe to trade it in.

    JJulie, I felt lifted as I read of your de-cluttering and especially to such a fabulous cause. One of the best times in my life was the ritual handing over of keys – employment, apartment, car. All I had in the world in 1985 was my sleeping bag, Swiss Army knife, backpack and a one-way airline ticket with the whole world out there to explore. I remain on a constant de-cluttering mission yet every space still seems filled.

    Thanks Cinque, it must have been the Asian grocer for mung beans then. I can’t wait to cook up another pot. That instant pot thingy sounds interesting CalifD, I shall investigate.

    CalifD, looking at that meatloaf photo made me laugh. OH was sort of hinting that it wouldn’t be meatloaf without tomato sauce smothered across the top. I don’t buy tomato sauce so he was out of luck. But I roasted some halved grape tomatoes in balsamic vinegar and served them on the top and he thought it was delicious. Yes, I associate it with a poor man’s meal too. As I don’t own a bread tin, I went on-line to see if it would be OK to use a pyrex or a square baking pan and was amused to find, ‘how to make meatloaf from scratch’. If it comes in a packet, I’m envisioning breadcrumbs and dried parsley with the need to add your own meat, onion, egg …..

    To those pushing the weight envelope, I’m joining you this morning. 60.9kg. Narrowly escaped a trigger weight fast. An opportunity to make some better food choices today and tomorrow and try to get back to the other end of 60kg.

    Penguin, 50mph winds are forecast to hit my home town in Blighty over the next day or so. Stay safe.

    CalifD, I just came back from shopping and started to read all the messages. I see where you made the spicy pineapple pork dish. Gee I wished I was at your house for dinner last night, it sounds as if all was delicious and the appetizer was healthy too. I might give that recipe a go too now that I found it. I love using my slow cooker to create meals as it leaves me free to do other things if you can put it all into one pot and forget about it. Mostly I use my slow cooker for corned beef but I have done some other recipes in it that have turned out well.

    I know there are heaps more messages to read so I will get on with reading them now with a cup of green tea and will respond again later.

    Hi all
    I’ve been catching up with your posts. What busy and interesting lives you lead. Thin loved reading about your dolphins. Julie we are further down the coast but it seems like we share a lot of the NQ wildlife. There are quite a lot of koalas on Stradbroke – we often see people clustered under a tree and know one’s been spotted. BTW the noise they make when mating has to be heard to be believed! True story about koalas and eucalypts. We’ve been told always that they only eat eucalyptus leaves – one afternoon we were sitting on our little verandah and noticed a branch of the mango tree bobbing up and down. It was a koala, eating the mango flowers! I’d never seen or heard of it before. My s-in-l attached his Go-pro to the end of a fishing rod and got some footage – shaky, but proof of what we’d seen.
    Another FD today – and it’s tough. I got to 1.30 before having some soup. I’ve spent the morning reclaiming my house after a weekend of grandchildren (4,3 and 18 months). Beautiful and fun, but when they get together it’s full-on. The 18 month knows no fear and is at that age where every second she’s up to something….painting the walls with the toilet brush, up-ending her bowl of spag bol on the floor, dumping a brass duck into a big glass bowl (yep, it didn’t survive). I’m counting the housework as my exercise today. Enjoy your day all.

    Hi SHs

    I’m just back from lunch in the city. I ended up having the bruschetta with fresh ricotta and panfried mushrooms. All foods that I knew my digestive system would cope with. It was a nice outing as it’s 32C here today. A true spring day.

    Lindsay – I totally agree about the koalas. They mate in trees really near my house. Unfortunately they seem to get frisky at 1-2am and the bellowing and squealing wakes me up.

    JJ – well done on the de-cluttering. I find it usually makes me feel better – especially if I can send things to a good home.

    Thin & JJ – my policy with both FB and any other site that wants personal info is that I don’t have to tell them the truth. Now if I’m applying for a mortgage or something like that online of course I need to be accurate. But, most sites are just unreasonably nosy. So anything I don’t believe they really need to know I bend the truth. The only time I give an accurate name and address is if I’m buying products, and I have my security setting really high so that I am unable to buy from any site that doens’t have encrypted security. I don’t use my real name, even on FB I haven’t used my real name – and FB thinks I’m 90! I never ever give my true date of birth online as this is one of the essentials to stealing an identity. Basically the only reasons they want a date of birth is: to know you are over 18, and to target you with advertising. So I just use a false dob that means I’m over 18, and I see no reason to help them send me advertising.

    Cali, Thin & Cinque – I’ve looked at lots of meatloaf recipes but never made them as I can’t figure out how I’d get through that much meat – it would have to be for a family event. Although like Cinque, I have made some vegetarian lentil or nut loaves in my time. Thin your comment about making things from scratch (as if that’s a novelty) reminded me of something I saw on tv. A woman was taking cooking lessons because she said she found baking easy but didn’t know how to cook. I was trying to figure out how someone could bake but not figure out how to cook, and then she clarified – “baking’s easy, you just follow the directions on the packet”

    Arelkade – glad you had a good time with family. I think most of us find that family time usually equates to more food. Thank goodness for FDs.

    Cali – that’s quite a halloween display – did you carve all those pumpkins. I can’t imagine even being able to do one without serious injury to a few fingers.

    Thin – I found the closest source of mung beans is the local health food shop – no asian grocers nearby.

    GDSA – I hope your trip to the Barossa turns out well – lovely place to visit.

    I’m thinking that I’m well enough to consider a FD tomorrow. I’ll make a final decision tonight. I still avoiding meat, fish, cruciferous veg, legumes and most fruit but I can handle cheese & yoghurt and some veg, so I can build a FD meal from that.

    GUT HEALTH TV programs start tomorrow

    ABC (channel 2, 20, 21) is showing two 1 hour Catalyst specials on gut health. Tuesday nights at 8:30 and repeated Saturday afternoons. This is according to the Adelaide timetable – might be different in other states.

    Hoping they have some straightforward advice to provide.

    I have just scrolled back to discover some posts that I am SURE were not there when I pressed submit. CalifD, I loved your house decorations. Do you make them freshly each year or are they stored away as with Xmas decs?

    Topically, after my little FB rant, I’ve just been listening to an interview on the car radio with Australian author Richard Flanagan. I had to sit in the garage to hear the end of it once I returned home as it rang so true for me. His recent novel entitled, ‘First Person’ was being promoted. He quoted Mark Zuckerberg as having said that no-one will any longer have a work identity and a personal identity, only an on-line identity. Flanagan says that in this world where privacy is so much under attack, social media is being used to persuade us all to be our own Big Brother reporting daily, hourly and even more frequently on our own lives. Everyone is encouraged to be their own ‘first person’, the hero of their own lives. But what is really happening is that social media is being used for monetary gain by corporations and surveillance by the state. He tied this in to how novels were a form of subversiveness, a way to find our own ‘secret identity’ again.

    All this left me to conclude that perhaps it really doesn’t matter if we give away our identities here. It may be too late already?

    And now there are most posts. LJ, since yours ties in with this, I’ll add that I take the same approach with what info I provide and I’m pleased that you’re 90 because there’s a lot less to try and sell you I expect! The thing is though, it’s well beyond the info you have supplied, real or false, that they are passing on. For example, FB sells algorithms to companies. Anything you ‘like’ , post or comment on becomes part of that company’s data.

    To give an example, my young niece is pregnant for the second time. Because she fully embraces FB and sees a need to post every aspect of her life including the ultrasound photos, companies have been targeting her with all things to do with having a second baby for the past 6 months. The reason FB gets away with this is that people tend not to mind receiving targeted advertising because it’s possibly items we do want.

    What concerns me more though is that when a social media company has 80% of the world subscribed, there exists the possibility to literally change people’s thinking and change the world through this medium. You could say that Zuckerman is the most politically powerful man in the world – without ever having been elected. These are the things that keep me awake at night, OK not really, but I think it’s worth considering. CalifD, I absolutely understand how convenient a platform they have created for us to stay in touch with friends and family. Clever, aren’t they?

    Oh dear, I’m not finished yet. But I’m off the social media rant.

    LJ, that comment about following the packet directions for baking is hilarious! Glad you were able to make it out to lunch. Good luck for tomorrow’s FD. You probably lost a heap of weight this week?

    Lindsay, lovely story about koalas. I believe they are under serious threat so I wonder if their diet is adapting to compensate for loss of natural habitat? Stay strong for your FD! Tomorrow is a new day.

    Enjoy those little grandies all who have them. It will be a very long time, if ever, before I will be enjoying that. I do see a lot of animals on the horizon though …..

    Thanks for the heads up on the gut programme. Catalyst did one before but I think this is a new series?

    Thin – I think my weight’s been fairly stable – all that bread & porridge. I’m still in the 79s – weighed yesterday.
    As to the social media tracking – I never “like” or “follow” anything. I’ve never used twitter or instragram, and I see no need to offer onging comentary about issues that I only know of through the media to people I don’t know at all. Even my FB registration is very recent and I only did that because lots of cafes are no longer creating websites, but are using a FB page to post their menu – if I wanted easy access I needed to be registered otherwise they block you from viewing half the page.

    I think the current catalyst episodes are new. Last week it was about exercise and although they covered a similar topic last year, this was definitely a different program with different presenters.

    Hi everyone, FD started out good – porridge with blueberries & organic green tea, then hubby, neighbour & I went to Bunnings (75klm away).
    Neighbour bought morning tea – couldn’t say no to flat white coffee & Byron Bay cookie. All the cakes & slices looked too rich for any day! Probably over 500 cals already. Maybe I need to stay home on FD’s.
    Just the thought that I’m trying to do something to change for the better helps & all your posts are wonderful – I’m very new to all this! Enjoy your day, cheers.

    Arelkade – I find Bunnings dangerous for another reason – in SA there is always a sausage sizzle in progress near the front door – walking past that is a killer, especially on a FD.

    LJoyce and thin, the pumpkins are a thick foam type material and I purchased them already carved. The only thing I changed was to put LED lights in them rather than the little incandescent ones they came with. (All the light bulbs in this house are LED and a few fluorescents) I store the decorations in the attic and sometimes add a few things. I love all the lights on the stair rails this time of year when the days are getting shorter.

    Thin, I like your tomato sauce from scratch topping for the meatloaf. Minced turkey is a good substitute for the minced beef if you want to eat less red meat.
    Your comments about that interview with Flanagan and Zuckerberg are something to think about. People do share a lot of information on social media sites, including this one. But we also share a lot of information aside from the internet, when we apply for a credit card or buy a car or join an organization, buy a house or other property. If you’ve ever looked up an old friend or someone you used to go to school with, it’s amazing how easy it is to find information. Plus, so many government and credit reporting agencies have been hacked in recent years, who knows what’s out there? I added a temporary email to my profile for a day or so.

    Tomorrow, Monday will be a badly needed FD. I really need to get a handle on my NFD eating. Maybe it’s just that time of year that there seems to be so much tempting food out there. Or maybe I’m just noticing it more. But I really need to get it under control or add a 3rd FD or something.

    Thin you were talking about not feeding swans bread. I recently saw a sign in an area where people regularly fed ducks bread. The sign stated that the bread was bad to them and asked that people feed them lettuce and other vegetables instead. Here is a link to a picture of this sign or one that is similar to the one I saw….https://stokenewington.info/2013/04/17/please-dont-feed-the-clissold-park-ducks-with-bread-say-clissold-park-users-group/
    Maybe we could start doing the same thing in other places around the country.

    Gday, I have relative in the Barossa Valley, Tanunda in fact. Maggie’s place is not far from their house and we had a great time there a couple of years ago. My cousin knows her well and it just happened that she was there at the time and we got to say hello to her!!! Hope you have a great time. If you are also wanting somewhere to eat the Peter Lehmann’s place is lovely too. You can sample the wines but there is an area to the side where you can order food platters with a bottle of wine and sit out on the balcony and enjoy. If you go try his Barossa Blonde wine. https://www.peterlehmannwines.com/index.cfm?

    Talking about doing things around the house…… I think I told you ………..We decided to get solar to cut down the electricity bills but was suggested to get the roof checked beforehand. We ended up having the roof rescrewed and resprayed in readiness. Now they have told us that it will be installed on the 26th October which is great. Just before we go away and in readiness for our hot summer to come. It is starting to get quite hot and humid now and we have had thunderstorms the last two days. (good for the vegie patch as I dont have to water) Next I need a new kitchen……then we want to extend the back balcony across the whole house to give us a bigger entertainment area. We need a whole new balcony as a lot of the timber is rotten. The front balcony needs repairing as there is rotten timber there too and when the house was built they put one of the supporting poles partly over the entrance to the garage. This caused a lot of problems getting in and out and OH hit is a few times over the years damaging the cars. With the purchase of a new work vehicle this pole was removed and the area supported awaiting proper repairs.
    I started to have the bathroom redone in October 2015 and lost over $10,000 when the guy was proving that he had no idea and his credentials were false so I sued him for the money lost and won the case 2 months ago. Now we can not find him to get the money out of him so have to go back to the courts.

    Bunnings!!!!! I go there often to get vegie seedlings etc. Those sausage sizzles always smell great but I have learnt to keep walking and it is not a big problem for me these days.

    IKEA is another thing!! I have to have the Swedish meatballs and mash when I go. Thank goodness we dont have one in Cairns or I would be there all the time.

    Shopping this morning….No shitake or shimeji mushrooms left but got enoki no problems. Had a big talk to Tetsuya who owns the shop. He told me he was going to Japan in a few weeks. Turns out we are leaving the same day!! Anyhow he did not have any dry Adzuki beans when I asked him. So he rang his supplier and ordered them for the shop. I ended up getting some at the other asian shop that is korean owned. Everything else was available at the Japanese shop.

    I picked heaps of tomatoes again this afternoon and about 15 snake beans. I made the stock for the minestrone by putting 1kg of ripe tomatoes in a saucepan with water and two teaspoons of vegie stock powder and waited till the skins lifted. Picked out all the skins and then instead of the stick mixer to puree it just used the potato masher to smash the tomatoes leaving the stock a bit chunky. Then added one onion chopped, two diced zucchini, 5 chopped snake beans and 1 cup of the boiled adzuki beans. Finally I added the konyaku ribbons instead of pasta. http://www.exoticgroceries.com.au//product_info.php?manufacturers_id=516&products_id=14295&osCsid=4h5te2b39l71em68n4tsf6iok5
    Tastes great and very filling. Only 146 calories a serve.

    So after having only green tea all day and a serve of this soup I have had a good FD today.

    Hope everyone else has had great days too whether you are fasting or not.

    JJ – that’s a nice looking recipe – most of the pumpkin curries that I’ve seen include heaps of coconut cream. This one seems much healthier.

    Cali – the way to tell whether you’ve been successful in keeping you info private is to do a google search on your name – mine comes up with several people with my name and lots of pictures, but absolutely none of them are me, and they are virtually all in the UK & US. I consider that to be a success.
    That’s pretty cool that you can buy lightweight fake carved pumpkins – I’m sure hospital emergency rooms are happy about that.

    JJ – at least with Ikea you’ve earned the meatballs by the time walked around that huge store!

    JJulie, that was so thoughtful of you to send that chicpea and pumpkin recipe. I had found it, then lost it again so thank you, it’s exactly the one I wanted. I’m abandoning my other idea (lemon chicken casserole) as it’s going to be 32C on Friday so have decided on tandoori chicken and minted couscous. And a huge salad platter. I’ll stick with the strawb fool as I’m lazy.

    What a horrible story about the bathroom renovator person. I hope you find him. Have you tried FB? 😆

    I love that sign for the duck feeders – offering the reasons that it harms them is excellent, as is offering alternatives.

    CalifD, I get complacent sometimes and give in to food items that normally don’t interest me much. I suppose I just have to put it into perspective that when I feel anxious about my weight gain, I’m getting anxious about 61kg. In the past I would have let that slide. You only have a couple of kgs to go so don’t worry. I have copied your email address and I’ll endeavour to send you a little intro and a ‘before and after’ 5:2 photo so you know who the rambling cauliflower soup eater is.

    I think Halloween is cool in the N. hemisphere just as you describe it, with the days closing in. Here, the children have to go around in broad daylight because it gets dark too late at that time of year.

    LJ, I hope you didn’t think I was having a go at you personally wrt on-line identities, etc. I completely understand the force that pulls us over there and how isolating it can be without SM. I think you’re all correct, the horse has already bolted. Even the Red Cross in Australia was hacked – with its customers’ personal data, sexual histories and who knows what else.

    Arelkade, you’ll have to train your neighbours to know which are your FDs. It’s hard when you’re feeling like you’re missing out. That will pass with the more FDs that you get under your belt.

    OK, I have definitely taken up more than my fair share of space today and it’s not even a FD.

    LJoyce, You made me laugh out loud with your comment about IKEA. Oh is in Brisbane at the moment. He finished the job yesterday and just needed to meet with the ship owner this morning then he was done. He tried to catch an earlier flight home but they are all full so he has had to wait into the 7.35pm flight which is actually now delayed. I suggested he go into IKEA to purchase some things for me. His answer was “I am not walking all through that store to just get to the food section at the end” Good call, I can do without the treats!!

    Thin, no worries with the recipe. You can see I am food orientated just like my Dog!!! lol

    I can give you a Finnish recipe for potroast beef that you can cook in advance then thinly slice once cold and serve with the gravey heated or without the gravey if you dont want that.

    And yes I stalked him on facebook for so long while we were trying to find him to serve him with court papers. In the end I hired a private detective who eventually found him living in the city. He was given 30 day to pay us, but has not and now we will have to take it to the courts again and issue a warrant from the sherrif. More time, more money, but it will be a record against his name probably along with some other ones. He finally deleted his facebook account.

    @califdreamer – some of the October challenge members have been asking for you as you haven’t been on our thread for a while and they were concerned. I happened to see a post from you here.

    Hi Everyone,
    Lots of posts to catch up on!! I did try but couldn’t get on this site with my iPad yesterday while OH was on the computer :(.
    Just Julie, Wow how terrible to be treated like that by your tradie. Bathroom renovations are stressful and expensive enough without that added stress and the inconvenience of having a half reno job done for so long! I do like that info about feeding ducks healthy alternatives. Im afraid I have been guilty of feeding them bread with my granddaughter..sorry 🙁 We go to buntings a lot too for veggie seedlings and other things-usually after church on a Sunday- at lunchtime- but we no longer buy the sausage in bread. Your minestrone sounds delicious. I wish we had such a long veggie harvest time! We, too, are hoping to renovate our kitchen next year. Im hoping some of our kids will be out of here by then!
    Arelkade, Ive fallen by the wayside a couple of times this week with drop ins and guests bringing extra food, when Ive already prepared a meal.
    I use FB quite a bit over the last few years. OH and I have had a yearly 4-9 week holiday and like to post pics so our kids can keep track of where we are- we dont usually plan ahead.
    LindsayL, about a decade ago we stayed at Snake Island where they were doing a cull on the koalas as they were eating themselves out of food. We were the only ones there as caretakers while the rangers were back home for holidays.
    Cinque, I hope your neighbor got your ariel fixed for you.
    Hi GrandmafromSA, haha Im just joking with you x Im sure all your new family members will love you very much.
    Calif, I do love all your decorations. I dont know anyone who decorates for halloween- maybe because its Spring not Autumn here?
    Well regarding fasting… I haven’t done so well this past weekend. After an overindulgence on Friday night, our visitors decadent dessert was worth the hype- an apple pie cheesecake. Its was a spiced cinnamon cake base and then lovely cream cheese filling with sliced apple and walnuts on top. She brought cream to whip for on top and I managed to talk her out of that- it certainly didn’t need it. She did insist on cutting it up herself and cut huge portions- I dont think she wanted to take much home. Of course I had a slither on Sunday afternoon when i got hungry and that ruined my FD. So Mondays weigh-in was not good. -400grams more than last Monday BUT 1.4 kg more than the lightest I was all last week :(. I know I will have lost all this by Thursday but I’ve got another big weekend next weekend. OH is going to the Motorbike GP at Phillip Island. The ‘lonely wives” will get together for cheese, wine, chocolate and card playing on Saturday night and want to go to a winery for lunch on Sunday. Im also meeting a girlfriend on Sat for lunch for her birthday and the work colleague who cancelled last Fridays lunch at my house- chicken and salad -now wants us to go to a Malaysian/Indonesian restaurant on Thurs night. I know I will always have to fast during the week because of my weekends but Im not at goal yet and have to start remembering that!!! And the last couple of KGs are the hardest to lose!!!
    Tomorrow I have the grandkids and I WILL fast! Im at my Sisters on Friday -our fortnightly visit with mum, so i might just have lunch with them and not eat dinner so that could be a FD, although I will try B2B on Thursday or do a CD on Thursday :)- sorry for long ramble
    have a good evening/day all! xx

    well I just did a long post that i then edited but it just disappeared even tho I tried to resubmit it 🙁

    Hi Everyone,
    Lots of posts to catch up on!! I did try but couldn’t get on this site with my iPad yesterday while OH was on the computer :(.
    Just Julie, Wow how terrible to be treated like that by your tradie. Bathroom renovations are stressful and expensive enough without that added stress and the inconvenience of having a half reno job done for so long! I do like that info about feeding ducks healthy alternatives. Im afraid I have been guilty of feeding them bread with my granddaughter..sorry 🙁 We go to buntings a lot too for veggie seedlings and other things-usually after church on a Sunday- at lunchtime- but we no longer buy the sausage in bread. Your minestrone sounds delicious. I wish we had such a long veggie harvest time! We, too, are hoping to renovate our kitchen next year. Im hoping some of our kids will be out of here by then!
    Arelkade, Ive fallen by the wayside a couple of times this week with drop ins and guests bringing extra food, when Ive already prepared a meal.
    I use FB quite a bit over the last few years. OH and I have had a yearly 4-9 week holiday and like to post pics so our kids can keep track of where we are- we dont usually plan ahead.
    LindsayL, about a decade ago we stayed at Snake Island where they were doing a cull on the koalas as they were eating themselves out of food. We were the only ones there as caretakers while the rangers were back home for holidays.
    Cinque, I hope your neighbor got your ariel fixed for you.
    Hi GrandmafromSA, haha Im just joking with you x Im sure all your new family members will love you very much.
    Calif, I do love all your decorations. I dont know anyone who decorates for halloween- maybe because its Spring not Autumn here?

    Well regarding fasting… I haven’t done so well this past weekend. After an overindulgence on Friday night, our visitors decadent dessert was worth the hype- an apple pie cheesecake. Its was a spiced cinnamon cake base and then lovely cream cheese filling with sliced apple and walnuts on top. She brought cream to whip for on top and I managed to talk her out of that- it certainly didn’t need it. She did insist on cutting it up herself and cut huge portions- I dont think she wanted to take much home. Of course I had a slither on Sunday afternoon when i got hungry and that ruined my FD. So Mondays weigh-in was not good. -400grams more than last Monday BUT 1.4 kg more than the lightest I was all last week :(. I know I will have lost all this by Thursday but I’ve got another big weekend next weekend. OH is going to the Motorbike GP at Phillip Island. The ‘lonely wives” will get together for cheese, wine, chocolate and card playing on Saturday night and want to go to a winery for lunch on Sunday. Im also meeting a girlfriend on Sat for lunch for her birthday and the work colleague who cancelled last Fridays lunch at my house- chicken and salad -now wants us to go to a Malaysian/Indonesian restaurant on Thurs night. I know I will always have to fast during the week because of my weekends but Im not at goal yet and have to start remembering that!!! And the last couple of KGs are the hardest to lose!!!
    Tomorrow I have the grandkids and I WILL fast! Im at my Sisters on Friday -our fortnightly visit with mum, so i might just have lunch with them and not eat dinner so that could be a FD, although I will try B2B on Thursday or do a CD on Thursday :)- sorry for long ramble
    have a good evening/day all! xx

    wow i think my post was too long??

    Good morning everyone
    It’s nearly time to get ready for the day. I work one day per week in a General Practice. Might be a good opportunity to eat less today – make up for yesterday! Next FD is Thursday.
    I very much enjoy all you have to say and appreciate the encouraging comments. Thank you.
    It seems like you have all been friends for ‘ages’ and it’s very welcoming to feel the ease with which you all communicate.
    Looking forward to catching up at the end of our day.
    Enjoy whatever you get up to, cheers

    Stay, it is great to hear all that you are up to so dont worry if your post is too long. I know mine have been long lately too. It is good to be able to talk about what you are getting up to especially if you are stable in your weight or even putting on a bit due to social lifestyle. I seem to go really good for awhile then we have a social event and it all blows out the program! My biggest problem still is the wine. If I did not have wine I would have lost a heap more by now, but one glass is never enough. I have cut down a lot to what I used to drink. For some reason wine drinking (and beer drinking) is part and parcel of living in the tropics. We tended to have a drink every night after a hot day at work. Now I only indulge on Friday or Saturdays, but that tends to wreck all the good I have done during the week and I get stricter with myself the following week.
    I am still stable now at just over 80kg after the last weekend Taiko get together.
    Even after a really good fast day yesterday when I had no more than 365 calories I did not budge.
    FD again today so let see what happens!

    Have a good one everyone.

    JJulie, that’s frustrating that you’re not seeing the loss when your FD intake is so low. That probably means that something’s wrong with your NFD intake. In theory, you can have whatever you want on NFDs, including wine if you want it. But this doesn’t mean as much as you want. You still need to eat within your TDEE, or even better, the TDEE for the weight you want to be.

    Counting calories on a NFD is a real chore and something I avoided for years but it might be worth jotting down everything that passes your lips just to take a look at it. Not that I’m any saint on NFDs but I did have my eyes opened when LJ kindly calculated my intake on a typical NFD for me. Alcohol is a tricky one. It’s embedded in the Aussie psyche, not just the tropics. If, as you say, one is never enough, can you consider giving it up say for 2-3 weeks just to note the difference? I bet you’d see a drop in weight not just because of the high cal content of the alcohol itself but because of the food choices we tend to make while we’re drinking. It’s habit more than anything. Once you get to your goal weight, you can re-introduce the offending foods and drinks on a small scale. If you can’t give up those weekend drinks, you could try eliminating bread from your diet for a couple of weeks and see what impact that has. Bread makes a huge difference to my weight. I hope you get into the 70s soon! Good luck with your FD today.

    Back to the duck signs, DD and I decided we will send your examples to our local council. Would you have any clearer photos as we can’t read them very well and our council needs everything spelled out for them very clearly!

    Arelkade, quite a few of the current posters are fairly new to the thread. I hope you have a good eating day at work. When I worked in healthcare, patients were always bringing in goodies so it was a minefield of temptation.

    Stay you have an exciting social life! The cheesecake sounds yummy. Don’t worry about the length of posts. I’m guilty.

    Happy to report that I responded to CalifD’s email offer and she looks amazing. She’s another of these very youthful looking women like Merry and Intesha who look nowhere near their age. I’m afraid I look much older with the weight off as I always lose it in my face. Oh well, we can’t have everything.

    Did I beat you here today Cinque? I woke at 5am today. Have a great day all.

    Post disappeared!!!

    Thin, hope this photo is better for you.

    https://stokenewingtoninfo.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/62851_500890536642819_112346887_n.jpg

    Thin I did respond to your post on the alcohol but as I hit submit it disappeared and then asked me to sign in.
    Anyhow I was saying that I have given up bread about 5 weeks ago when I decided to not only go vegetarian but also gluten free. I tried gluten free bread and it was not the same so am going without all bread.
    I have cut down on the alcohol a lot since doing this but yes agree that I should stop altogether for weight loss. Really hard when you have visitors and then OH likes to drink wine too. I can cope when he is having a beer or a scotch as i dont drink that, but when he brings home wine and sits with a glass…….it is torture!!!

    Hello I am here. Tired from grandma duties. 5:30 get up and then full on. Playing shops, playing doctors, breakfast, watering the garden 3yo style, walking up to see the calico cat and then the weekly excitement of seeing the truck pick up the big waste bin from the spiral staircase factory over the road. It comes backwards up the road so we hear it beeping and run out to watch the excitement. She been picked up now. Not by a waste truck!
    I’m not even going to try to answer things in this post, just say hi and hope this doesn’t disappear. Time for a rest. catch you later. Cheers all.

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