Thin, Glad make a “large sandwich” ziploc bag which has a gusset in the bottom to allow it to expand outward – ie 3D. I don’t use these often in the freezer because they don’t sit flat and for me, that’s the space saving benefit of the ziploc bags.
I use a permanent marker for writing on ziploc bags (no stickers required), and I use a whiteboard marker for writing on plastic containers so that I can rub it off when I’ve used the contents.
The only thing that appears to get lost in my freezer for months or years at a time is crumpets. A few months ago I found a small ziploc bag containing 2 crumpets that looked very dry at the back of the freezer. Well last week when I was going through what’s in there I found another one – I think they’re breeding as I’m absolutely certain that I did not buy crumpets this year. Actually I could tell by the state they were in that they were at least a year old.

Penguin, I thought my food storage habits were excessive, but you win the prize on this one. I couldn’t be trusted to have 3 freezers – I’f fill them all!
Although I do find a freezer really useful as someone who mostly just cooks for myself. It takes no more effort to cook for six than for one, so I make full recipes and freeze portions. It reduces the amount of cooking I have to do and it means I don’t have to endure endless leftovers of the same meal night after night. It can also stop me heading for the takeaway if I don’t feel like cooking as a meal is only a microwave journey away.

Cinque, you can come and hoover my floors when you’re done if you like – I hate vacuuming. I have polished floor boards rather than carpets so I tend to sweep or mop rather than vacuum.

Most of my body measurements were at or below 1st December this morning – only my knees are up by 2cm each – and that’s inflammation that I can’t do much about.

My last FD for the year today.
Today I also complete my first year on 5:2 as I began on 1st Jan 2017.

Wow Cali, you really do take care with your house and table decorations for special occasions – it’s obvious you love it. I was just thinking a few days ago that the decorating and preparation at the end of the year must get a bit much for most Americans because you have halloween, thanksgiving, christmas and new year all within weeks of each other and these are all a big deal in the U.S. The endless putting up of decorations and taking them down again ready for the next lot to go up would drive me crazy. I had to google tuxedo cake as I hadn’t heard of it before.

I just walked into the town to buy some fruit, mushrooms and milk and to get most of my prescriptions filled. As it’s the last day of the year, it’s also the last day I can buy scripts at the safety net price. So buying them today, they cost around $5 each and from tomorrow they will return to costing $39 each again – I know which I prefer, especially as I have around seven per month to buy. Although it really just delays the inevitable by 3-4 weeks.

My best friend is coming up for afternoon tea tomorrow. I’ve decided to use some of the cooked chickpeas and roasted butternut pieces that are in my freezer to make dips – hummus and stay pumpkin dip. I have some nice crackers that were in a christmas parcel I received and I’ll also do carrot & celery sticks. Then I’ll have healthy dips ready for snacking on through the week, and I’ll have used some more things from the freezer – win.

Hi Sassy,
I live in Brisbane (anyone from Brissie?) and have seen Michael Mosley on several ABC TV programs. I believe he mentioned his books (which I’ve bought) and that’s how I arrived at this forum.
At the moment I’m on a crash diet, doing 6-days low fat, no-carbs + 1-day 500 calories, to fast-track my initial target weight loss of 8 kg. I’ve dropped 2 kg in 5 days, but it may not be real. I’ll then use this 5:2 diet to lose the remaining 8 kg and to keep it off. I need to lose 16 kg altogether and am very impatient!
Thinking of all the health benefits that the fasting brings, in addition to weight loss, is a great encouragement to stick to the diet. Forever.

thinatlast,
thank you for replying. I felt a bit silly inadvertently replying to a 4-year-old message from Alimax & co. Glad to know there is someone out there still! My first day of fast (<500 cal.) will end at 10 pm tonight, just in time for NYE celebrations! Hope you’re having a good day and will be able to enjoy guilt-free treats!

Merry, Happy New Year! And congrats on not gaining any weight during December. That’s a big accomplishment with all the sweets and candy around this time of year.

Priscilla, welcome to the 5:2 forums. This is a great place for support and encouragement for this way of eating and losing weight.

LJoyce, I think I get more carried away with holiday decorating than most people in this country. (Certainly more than friends of ours.) I like the lights and things since those holidays here are when the days are short and the decorations provide some brightness. I don’t like taking them down and putting them away, and I’m often pretty slow at getting them put up!
I realized when I did a search for “tuxedo cake” it can be a lot of things. Here’s a picture that looks very close to the one I bought: http://www.raleys.com/images/imagescontent/3869146.jpg

Thin, we usually don’t eat at the dining room table. Most often we’re eating sitting on sofas or chairs in front of the TV or our tablets. Or sometimes at the kitchen island. I think one of the attractions of going out to dinner for us is sitting down together for a meal. We need to do that more often at home. Decorating the table for New Years was fun. And my husband and sister are the ones I like celebrating with. We’ll probably watch another episode of Outlander after dinner. We got involved with the story and watched 3 episodes tonight. Did you have trouble understanding the dialogue? Some of the Scottish accents made it difficult. I wonder if it was easier for you to understand because you lived in the UK. I wonder if penguin watched it? We ended up turning on the closed captioning so we could read anything we missed. That made a big difference.

Cali & Thin, I think the problem with the tuxedo cake link is caused by Raley’s. I tried to search for their site and open the main screen – it’s blocked based on my security settings. But after looking at a few tuxedo cake images, the common theme seems to be a layered chocolate cake with a white cream filling between each layer.

Thin, I rarely eat at the kitchen table – I don’t have a separate dining table or a bench & stools. I almost always eat in the lounge room in front of the tv, but I live alone so eating at the table by myself feels lonelier.
I have noticed that second helpings of high calorie things like cake tend to be done at speed and standing up – often bent over the kitchen bench or in front of the fridge. My dietitian said that it’s quite common for us to eat high calorie treat foods much faster than other foods – as if making it disappear fast somehow minimises the damage.

Happy New Year! It’s 2018🎉

Wishing you all a happy , healthy, and prosperous New Year!

Good morning
Happy New Year 2018 Everyone!

Merry, Congratulations on the freezer clearance!
And a big gold medal for getting through 2017 with such a modest weight gain!
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0917/9038/products/MEDAL-CONGRATULATIONS_2nd_Image.jpg?v=1470127570

I did enjoy my vacuuming thanks Thin, and I would happily vacuum your place, LJoyce, although I missed out all the moving around furniture and vacuuming my sofa etc. Next time. But I guess the excitement will be gone by then….

I had a good fast day. Each week I am appreciating again its disruptive quality. I seem to have a cupboard full of bad eating habits that slowly, slowly starts to open its door into my life, but the lovely fast days shut the door, and leave me happily sitting with all my good habits.
At the moment I am having such easy fast days I am not sure if they are able to give me all of the other benefits of fasting, but I think the thing I need at the moment is that good disruption.

How excellent, Thin, that the freezer is in your toolbox for making sure you don’t overeat. I guess it does for me too, it helps me ‘food manage’, and avoiding waste is just part of that.

And ha, yes, we are all another year older, sigh. But it means another year wiser. And look at the alternative!
It is a precious year for you to enjoy your daughter being at home.

LJoyce, congratulations on your 5:2 anniversary! It has been a lovely year of having you here. And yes, I bet your poor knees are carrying around a good bit of water. Let’s hope the infammation eases soon.
You sound set for such a lovely visit, with dips, today.

Cali, I hope it was a lovely dinner. What a gorgeous set up! Such a lovely thing to do.

Welcome Priscilla, and good luck with your crash diet, it will be lovely to hear how you transition to 5:2. It is your longterm health that is the important thing, so hooray for impressive weight loss straight away, but even more hoorays for getting a sustainable way of eating that will get you to a healthy weight and a healthy long life.

Hi Arelkade, it is lovely to have you here, and so I really hope you can get here lots this year!

I wanted to drive again yesterday (Ooh it is so lovely!) so I popped over to visit my daughter and so enjoyed my granddaugters, the youngest one has got to an age (16 months) where they can roll around together laughing. It is such fun.

Coffee time.
Cheers all!

Happy new year SHs, I hope no one is nursing a sore head this morning.

I’m so impressed with the way everyone handled the christmas challenges. I felt like I was struggling every NFD to not indulge in extras. However I managed to get through December without weight gain – helped along by the fact that I did 3 FDs in the last 5 days.

I didn’t start posting here until 5th Jan, but I did start fasting on 1ts Jan last year (I lurked for a few days before I felt safe talking to you). So I thought I’d post my changes for my first year on 5:2.
I lost 9.4kg (87.6kg to 78.2kg). I also lost 7cm from my hips, 11cm from my waist and 2cm from my bust. But actually it isn’t these changes that have the biggest ongoing impact, it’s the new skills and thinking that I’ve developed over the year. A year ago I was scared that I would never have the skills to keep my weight stable and I was at the mercy of thinking patterns that continually drive me to binge eat. Although I know I still have room for improvement I do feel a great deal more confident that I have reliable tools that help me now. My thinking is also slowly shifting away from the unhelpful patterns that seemed to drive binge eating. What I learned during December is that I still need to work more on mindful eating because despite knowing how to use it, I too often don’t think to do this until I’ve already eaten too much. I need it to be a more natural and instinctive process.

Thankyou all so much for your support, inspiration, advice, humour and patience over 2017. I am in no doubt that having help so close to hand made an enormous difference to my progress this year.

Hope 2018 brings you the things you hope for.

Hi fellow Southern Hemispherites! Happy New Year!!!

I’m celebrating with a New Years Day FD!

It feels so good, since I did indulge spectacularly this year on our travels and though I both enjoyed and felt a bit too pulled by cravings at times, I’m now happy we are back home and that I am already half way through a FD. I did skip some breakfasts, which helped while we were away, though it wasn’t to be to track calories during that time. I’m a kg. up on where I was and said I wanted to be at the start of the holiday season.

I wrote a lengthy thread over on Thin’s Silly Season Challenge if you’d like to read more details!

Cheers!

Hi Minka, good to see you again! I like that term, ‘lounge-eaters’. 😁 I’ve kind of backed off on the evening news for a while because it just makes me angry. But my sister loves one of the mews shows and can’t miss it. OH Usually has the Sci-fy channel on the other TV. And I’m usually on this forum or looking something up on the internet. You’re right, it is a hard habit to break.

Less than 2 hours until midnight here. We’re watching the different parts of the country ringing in the new year. I’m still pushing for one episode of Outlander….

I want to lose 30 pounds as new year resolution. Your post has boosted an immense effect to start my weight loss regime.

Hi everyone
Hope you’ve all had a wonderful day celebrating the New Year – it really is the best time of year – mostly, all are happy, we feel motivated to help our lives be better, we feel closer to friends and family. Lets hope these feelings last well into 2018 & beyond. I look forward to being a whole lot more accountable, and determined, to myself with this WOE, and also to all the health benefits that have already shown themselves to me – I know that my portion sizes and food selection have improved a lot, though my mindful eating needs to be more active, maybe a bit more exercise with my ? sedentary life style would also be helpful. I don’t intent to beat myself up if I have setbacks and know this is a life long commitment, not just a passing phase.
Thank you to each of you for the encouragement, wonderful tips, the self expression in where you are at – it all helps all of us, we are forever learning.
Now the special occasions of the last few weeks are behind us, lets get back on track with our intentions for 2018 – hopefully in December 2018 I’ll be a smaller version of me.
Have a good evening or morning, wherever you may be.
Bye for now xx

Yesterday I went into town with OH, who felt the need for retail therapy. Wildly excessive spending on both parts – OH got 3 paperbacks for our forthcoming trip and I got a new potato peeler. Whilst in the Mall we found a new shop “Penguin” with a large sign – “60% off”. Not much chance of that.

Cali, it sounds like you needed sleep more than more tv.
It’s funny how the grass is always greener – when they interviewed people waiting for the Sydney fireworks, they were mostly tourists here to tick something off their bucket list. Whereas seeing in the new year in Times Square has been one of my bucket list items for decades.

Penguin, you and your wife did very well avoiding all the sale signs. What does the “Penguin” shop sell? Apart from wandering into town to get scripts filled and buy milk and fruit I’ve stayed clear of the sales.

Arelkade, I think I learned the same things last year that you did. When I reviewed my Christmas season commitments, the two I didn’t meet were mindful eating and exercise.

I’ve pulled my last remaining container of soup from the freezer (although there is still a litre of stock there). It’s getting really hot here by Thursday so I through I’d finish off the minestrone while the weather is conducive to enjoying it.

Hey Cinque, well done to you, and lol, re vaccuming. Your recovery is moving along and it’s so lovely to know you are improving. Enjoy those beautiful little grandies.

Healing hugs to you,
Merry

Ha ha Cinque, Penguin, I liked the sign for the new shop. What does it sell? We, too, went shopping yesterday. It’s DD’s birthday in a few days which means we can take advantage of the sales every year although she’s not much of a consumer either, preferring ‘experiences’ so we don’t buy much. Only half the shops in the mall were open and most of the sales people disgruntled at having to work. If they want customers, it might help to get their act together en masse about whether or not they’re opening.

Arelkade, nice post. Here’s hoping for a peaceful year.

CalifD, we did actually make it to midnight this year although our picnic party had broken up by then as it became quite chilly at the river. It sounds like your weight goal was also achieved more or less on 31 Dec like mine. I could have done with another FD today really but, instead I ate breakfast when I wasn’t particularly hungry. Foolish choice. I’m looking forward to re-setting with my normal FD tomorrow.

Thanks for contributing to the ‘where we eat meals’ discussion. I must admit, I felt a bit sad after reading that so many of us don’t use meal times to focus on the food itself or use the opportunity for socialisation. Busy lives I suppose. You made some good points Minka. There’s also the issue of good posture (i.e. hips and knees at 90°) aiding digestion.

My neighbour bought me a packet of bean curd skin to try. I didn’t really know what to do with it so I made up my own recipe last night. It was really delicious if I do say so myself and I note on myfitnesspal.com* that bean curd skin is not too high in calories (100gms = 50cals) so wondered whether it could become a FD meal. After soaking for 15 minutes in hot water, I simmered it in reduced salt vegetable stock for 15 minutes, then added for just a minute or two some chopped pak choy, mushrooms, a few bite sized pork mince balls, a finely chopped hot green chilli from the garden, 1 tbs sesame oil and then dropped in and stirred a scrambled free range egg (from my neighbour’s chickens), sprinkled it with a chopped spring onion, also from the garden. Tasty enough to rival any Bangkok street fare! I’m having it again tonight. Does anyone else use this?

*what is the pot of orange stuff on their home page please? For years, I’ve been thinking this looks like a sample pot of paint.

Hi everyone
FD for me yesterday – started the year with 80.6kg, down 300gm this morning; looking forward to 75kg as my first ‘get to point’.
CalifD: I like your wiggle room concept – congrats on achieving maintenance level
LJoyce: congrats on your one year anniversary & your achievements, well done. I enjoyed reading your commitment list for early 2018 – maybe we could all use this list for an easier life. Was also impressed with the number of tourists, from many countries, who made their way to Sydney for NYE – they appeared to be having a wonderful time. I didn’t clean out the freezer, though it’s coming, I sorted 2 kitchen pantries, through out any out of date stock & decided to only buy when it is needed!
Merry: enjoyed your post & as we do share similar history, I look forward to one day being 65kg – only 15 to go! I feel that 5kg increments are doable.
Cinque: you seem to be recovering really well – enjoy; I’m here for the long hall, so will be here often – maybe not every day though!
Thin: I’ve never tried bean curd, or it’s skin – have had tofu rarely – your recipe sounds interesting & tasty – you seem to have very good ideas on how to put food together, very impressive.
Penguin: I can see Cinque loading that sign into your car – hope you took a photo as a keepsake!
Hi to JustJ, Stay, Minka, GDay & LindsayL.
Currently overcast with thunder outside – hopefully will cool us down, been so hot & humid lately.
Welcome to all the very new Southern Hemispherites – enjoy, & take in all the wonderful ideas that the
‘longer’ SH’s have to offer – they have the experience that we are all looking for to make our life goals achievable.
Bye for now xx

Joyes101
I find your post quite inappropriate. We’ve had enough of fad diets and pretty pictures of (dubious) success stories. No one needs to buy those books.

The first day of the year has gone and so have two pounds. Yesterday was a NFD, but a sensible one. Some time ago we discussed the possibility of our bodies having a set weight. Last summer I hit my first weight target and my body now seems to accept that as the norm. If I put on weight or lose it, I return to the set weight very easily. The target now is to persuade it that the set weight is seven pounds lighter – that is something I decided to do months ago, but I have been too relaxed in my approach.

That Penguin shop sold, I think, men’s clothing but I didn’t go in. Cinque, shame on you, encouraging criminality. Anyway the Penguin sign was above the door and 60% off in the window.

The freezer review we all seem to be conducting continues. One of the large freezers is very nearly empty – we have eaten quite a lot of last year’s fruit and we are low on fish, which I buy frozen in bulk. What is left seems to be mostly stock, which I am working my way through – pea soup today. I have now started on the wardrobe – there are too many things in there with plenty of life left in them that are just too big. Yesterday I put on an old favourite shirt that was like a tent. My problem has been that I keep the old things “to work in ” and then don’t. This has happened with a BMI that is still 26. If I ever hit Cali’s 21.2 it will cost me a fortune.

Hi Everyone
Penguin, if you lose 60% there will be nothing left of you!! CalifD- congratulations- great effort in reaching Maintenance.
Well I dont understand scales at all. I was 600grams lighter this morning after having a wine with chicken curry at my girlfriend’s last night. Today I did a FD so I should be in the 58s tomorrow- now just to “Stay” there 🙂
Have a good one!! xx

Oh dear I really have set the unstoppable freezer cleaning gremlins in motion. Never mind it will do us all good. I think a good declutter of any kind is rather freeing. I also think the fact that so many of us seem to be food hoarders says something about us that we should probably try to figure out.

Priscila, Lots of raw veg means extra fibre which can definitely result in gastric consequences. People experience a wide range of reactions when they make a major change to their diet. I wouldn’t be concerned unless it continues.

Penguin, I did a google search on the clothing store you mentioned – they sell tops with “Original Penguin” in bold letters of the front, or graphic images of penguins that reminds me of the one on the spine of Penguin books.

Lindsay, I also did the cash only thing for a few years until I became more adept at sticking properly to a budget. It really helped – and I think it hurts more to hand over cash than a card. I still make a detailed annual budget and savings plan – just finished the one for 2018. I don’t use a lot of cash these days, instead I use the same accountability that I use for food – every single dollar of spending is recorded in my budget spreadsheet and tracked against the plan. As with food, if I have to write it down, it makes me think twice about doing it.

Thin, yes I’m expecting a very hot weekend here (up to 41C is forecast) – sure you wouldn’t like to keep it over there a bit longer? Thankfully it is just 2 hot days forecast, which is to be expected – it is summer after all and we’ve had mostly milder days so far.

Cali, I’ve released the party balloons to celebrate you getting to goal. It can take a bit of time to mentally adjust to the fact that you are maintaining now.

StayIT, scales are unpredictable irrational beings that are determined to confound us. Don’t expect them to be logical – they don’t understand the meaning of the word!

Hope you all had a good day, mine was a reasonably well controlled NFD. I’m planning a FD tomorrow.

Thank you to everyone on the congrats for my reaching maintenance. LJ, thank you for releasing the party balloons! (Even if it was just figuratively speaking.) Thin, you’re probably right about maintenance being boring. Some of the last couple months have felt like maintenance since the scale moved so slowly. I’m guessing it’ll be the same up and down between FD and NFD.

I have to giggle at the image of penguin and Cinque as partners in crime, stuffing that sign in the trunk or boot of the car. 😁😎 Penguin, you definitely need a shirt with a penguin logo on it!

I started on the 2 freezers a month or so ago after searching for something to prepare for dinner one night and finding at least 2 packages the were so obviously “freezer fatalities” with “snow” around them inside the bags and obviously dried out meat. There were also bags of veggies that were freezer fatalities as well. There are probably a few hidden packets that LJ’s posts will have me checking out now that I am reminded.

LJ, I need to be more careful in my spending as well. Because I generally detest shopping in stores and can rarely find what I want at a reasonable price, I purchase most things on Amazon. (Here they carry everything from tea to socks to vitamins to TVs.) It easy to see from my purchase history on their website where the money has gone. Impulse buying is just as easy, if not easier online. I too have dozens of ebooks that I haven’t yet read. And with the Amazon Echo, most of the music I want to hear is free to listen to by just asking Alexa to play it. (Its covered under a yearly subscription cost of $99 that covers free 2 day shipping for most items and lots of free videos as well.)

Thin, I don’t recall ever seeing bean curd skins in a store but I did see recipes online for making them from soybeans and soy milk. Maybe an Asian grocery would sell them. (Amazon does, but very expensive.) We do eat lots of bean curd. I’ll have to try them if I find them in a store. Were yours in sheets or rolled up into sticks?

Arel, my pantry is another project for this year, though right now it’s at the top of my procrastination list. 😙

Lindsay, the cottage sounds like a great getaway. Just a change of scenery is sometimes all we need to air out our brains.

Hope everyone is having a good day today. FD for me.

Good morning,
Cool and grey here with a spot of rain. Lovely. It is working up to over 40C on Saturday, but I love it when hot days come in ones.

Nice spam handling Priscilla!
I hope your tummy troubles settle down. If it is connected with 5:2, then I think LJoyce is right that it will be your gut flora adjusting to the raw veggies.

I’ve bought tofu skins a few times Thin, but I am sorry to say that each time I use it once and then it sits in the pantry until I decide it is too old, and throw it out. (So don’t do that). You are making me think about buying it again though, it would be lovely in my miso soup. I liked the sheets better than the sticks that tended to stay hard. But I’d like to try it your way.

Ha Minka, I wonder if your soy skin would have been the same. I do know that that is pretty much how they make them!

Good luck with the saving LJoyce. And Stay! And Cali. Ok…. Everyone!

Cali, congratulations from me too, sorry that they are so belated. It is such a wonderful thing to get to maintenance. Thin is right, it is a different game when you no longer have the excitement of lower numbers, surprises in the mirror, new and lower clothes sizes. But there are some fascinating things, my body is still changing shape (more and more slowly) and there is a nice satisfaction of making new habits to roll with for the rest of our lives. It is like we have finished our apprenticeship and now we need to become masters.

I had a real topsyturvy time working out whether to do one fast day or two for maintenance, and if and what I needed to do differently. In the end it is two fast days still, but they have more wriggle room in them.

Re freezers: I have that tiniest sort of freezer at the top of my fridge. I had been dreaming about getting a new fridge with a bigger freezer, but now I am thinking that could be counter productive.

So nice to read all the posts of nice losses! Arel, great idea to have mini goals!

Penguin that Tshirt sounds gorgeous! Good luck, in there among the lentils!

Hi Intesha, if you are having a quiet day catching up on posts!

Best wishes everyone. I am having little miss 3 staying overnight for the first time since the op. Excited but not sure what state I will be in tomorrow!

Good morning everyone,

Welcome Jane, and great way to start the year with a fast. You were in good company with many 5:2rrs fasting on New Years Day, and you’ll have company on your Mon/Thur FDs.Do you have a goal weight that you’re aiming for?

Onwards and Downwards,
Merry