Check-in:
After yesterday’s FD to combat my NYDay excess I’m 65.1kgs this morning, so not just the excess of celebratory eating gone but another 0.2 as well. Very happy with that. This year I’ve managed the Silly Season much better than I did last year, and that’s given me more confidence I can repeat that in the future.

Freezerish report: we ate down the freezer and pantry during December. It was good for the budget and helped when being time poor dyring the Christmas lead up. Wasted food is a bit of a bugbear with me. (Now where did that word derive from? Seeing a very angry bear. Don’t think I’ve used that expression in years .) Herbs and spices seem to come up with useby dates quickly.

Talking about savings/budgets – custard – now only seems available in liquid form. Aldi had powdered custard in Nov/Dec, and it makes up many litres. The packet was only about $2-3 so a vast saving on liquid form for the custard esters, and it comes with control over the sugar content. Our expat has a packet in USA and used it at Thanksgiving. The guests were amazed at the quantity that one packet made up.

This year I am working on a personal project that will take up a lot of my time. Can’t tell you what – it’s a secret. So I will have to continue being a bit haphazardly absent for a while longer, but I won’t be too far away and will be checking in of course. My goal this year is to get to 62.0kgs , and then I’ll reassess.

Onwards and Downwards,
If you fall off the horse get back on,
Merry

Welcome, Janejust. I hope you like the 5:2 way of life as much as I do. I usually fast on Monday and Thursday too, but this week is Tues and Thurs because we had a celebratory dinner on New Years Day.

Cinque, having Miss 3 stay over should be a good test of how well you’ve recovered. 😁. Hope she doesn’t run you around too much! Thank you for your kind words. I think I’ll be doing the 2 day fasts for maintenance because you, thin and LJ seem to have good results maintaining that way, even around the holidays. How could it be boring with such a nice group to talk with here?

Merry, now that you’ve aroused our curiosity on your new project you’re going to keep it a secret? From US?? 😳

At this rate we are going to have to start a recipe thread for frugal recipes for old freezer food and nearly expired spices! Thin, I’m thinking of finally using those adzuki beans I bought to make your Nigerian stew – I was sold on it as soon as I saw the peanut butter!

Jane, welcome I hope you find it easy to settle into 5:2. If you can’t visualise a big weight loss goal then start with small ones. For example aim to lose 5kg. When you get then decide on the next small goal. Eventually they add up to a big one.
I don’t have specific fasting days, I fit them into each week around whatever else I have planned.

Intesha, good to hear from you and sorry to hear that the pressures in your life are having such an effect on you. I hope you can find a little more time to focus on what you need. I’m also quite sure that some fasting days will start taking off that weight gain.

Merry, I never buy premade custard as they make too thin for my liking, and it’s also too large a quantity for one person to get through quickly. I always use custard powder, except for the very rare occasions that I make a proper baked egg custard. I love custard, and compared to other sweet things the traditional amount of sugar used is really quite small (1-2tblsp sugar per 500ml). My local supermarket sells both Birds and homebrand custard powders – they always have it but it’s hidden away on the bottom self under the jellies. I usually make it up with either all or part almond milk to reduce the calories further and sometimes use all or part stevia. I’ve never needed something else to pour custard over, I’m happy to eat it by itself.

I awoke with a sore throat and lung congestion so I’ve been gargling betadine which should hopefully ease the throat. Unfortunately the lung congestion is showing clear signs of infection, so I’ve needed to start antibiotics. This is becoming a bit irritating as it’s the third month in a row that I’ve had a lung infection. It’s weird that I had so few of them in the colder months, but they’re happening in summer – why do we always expect to be sicker in winter? My poor but bugs, I no sooner revive them with daily kefir than they get bombarded with the next round of antibiotics.

Anyway, I’m doing a FD today.
I took a 600ml container of minestrone (minus pasta) out of the freezer yesterday and made it into a bigger pot of soup by adding a few handfuls of frozen beans and peas, a tin of tomatoes and some sundred tomato pesto, after a bit of simmering it’s lovely and thick and delicious. It took it from one meal into about three. I will have a large bowlful as my FD dinner. Because I’m feeling a bit under the weather I have no appetite which should make this FD fairly straightforward.

Have a good day everyone.

Welcome Janejust!
I do so hope 5:2 suits you. The ‘be hungover to make fast days easy’ just might catch on! 😉
Good idea to make mini goals, it will be an interesting journey to see where you end up. I was keen to get below 60 kilos and ended up at 50. I’d never been this weight as an adult. I am a short-arse and it is near the bottom of my healthy weight range. I got to this weight in November 2016 and have been maintaining since then. If I stopped 5:2 it would all creep back on, so this is a lifestyle for me. But it includes delicious food and occasional feasts so I am happy! Plus, to tell the truth, I love a good fast day.

Thin, I didn’t see your post until I submitted mine. Enjoy your 30c while I enjoy my 21c!

Hi Merry! How exciting your secret project is! I might have to have some guesses! You might need to give us some occasional hints.

Interesting custard facts. Oooh I love packet custard. Lucky I can remember the taste since I haven’t had it for about a decade!
And yes so much cheaper. The same with stock, I buy the little gel concentrates. (Yes, yes I know, both custard and stock I would prefer to make my own).

Cali, yes! granddaughter test time! And yes, the 5:2 community makes it all much easier and more fun.

Intesha, I am so glad Thin forced you out of the lurk room! Sympathies re the 4kg, but it is just harsh reality that Christmas time, visitors and difficult times ahead make maintenance so tricky it is almost impossible. Realty is our friend, and hopefully you will decide that getting back on that slippery old horse is better than the alternative. Yay for your gym session and your food diary. You can do it!
We can make a nice thick patchwork rug to put on the horse’s back so it isn’t quite as slippery. My first square for you is dark blue with a picture of the world on it.

Nearly time for visitors. Cheers all!

Janejust, welcome. You are JustJulie’s NZ counterpart. When I started fasting in 2014, I never dreamed of being a size 10 either. But I have been a sz 10 and the same weight (within 1.2kgs) for 29 months now. It took me a long time to get rid of my larger clothes ‘just in case’. I accept it now. You can do it too. Planning ahead, as you are, was very helpful to me. I eventually ditched breakfast and started my FDs with a 2pm lunch of soup, saving most of my calories in the bank for later in the day. Somehow it felt easier knowing there was something in reserve rather than counting them down as they were consumed. I do love white coffee though and, on FDs, have mine with almond & coconut milk which is very low in cals (I’m not familiar with trim milk but, if it’s like skim milk, I couldn’t handle it).

Cinque, I hope you’ll have a great day with the little one and that she looks after you very well. A lovely measure of your recovery.

Intesha, … short leash? oh dear, I don’t think my message was received as intended, which was just to let you know that there were people here who cared about you, waiting for your return. I shall have to re-evaluate my content. In the meantime, if there’s anyone I’ve yet to offend, please be patient, I’m sure I will get to you eventually. 😆

LJ, is your FD going well? I was truly looking forward to today’s. I’m on my third peppermint tea with the same bag. I expect you’re horrified! I should at least make a large pot.

Merry, I hope that project is going well. I bet it is spectacular. Great goal too. This will surely be a fabulous year for you and Mr M.

Stay, that’s a good loss of 600gms. Do those chocolates and biscuits and puddings have expiration dates? I think they’ll still be good after the wedding!

CalifD, are you back at work now?

Thin, yes the FD is going well, just some pots of tea so far. I’ll heat up some minestrone soon. Still not hungry actually.

I was searching for recipes for coconut flour, as I happen to have nearly a full packet in the pantry. I came across a lemon lime coconut flour cake recipe. It sounded nice, but I was a bit dismayed when I checked on the size of the cake. It said: “Serves 4-6 (10 slices)”. Seriously, they are assuming some people will eat 3 pieces and that’s a “serve”. If chefs publish recipes indicating this is normal, no wonder we have unrealistic expectations about serving sizes. Not that I haven’t been known to eat more than one piece of cake, I’ve just never consider this to be reasonable or “a serve”, I’m well aware I’m eating several serves and that this is excessive.

Penguin, 50 wow that’s a lot of meals, you’d have to be up early to get all of those meals in. A normal 5:2 week for me is just 12 meals and at least 5 snacks – it’s the snacks & grazing (especially on NFDs) that vary a lot, the 12 meals is pretty standard every week (0 breakfasts, 5 lunches, 7 dinners). You know, I hadn’t stopped to think about just how few meal I actually eat in a week.
Just thinking about that it’s made it quite clear that on weeks I have trouble with overeating it’s probably not the meals. With so few meals I should be able to eat quite freely and not gain any weight. It’s clearly the snacks and grazing that is the issue for me.

LJ, serving sizes can be very misleading. I’ve read labels on cakes or pizza that showed a serving size to be a minuscule amount for most people who would be likely to be eating that cake or pizza. I saw a recipe recently that showed 24 servings for a cake baked in a 23 x 23 cm pan. Seriously? No self respecting sugarholic would even be able to cut such a small piece!

Minka, I use myfitnesspal as well, for FD and very occasionally for NFD when my eating seems to have gotten off-track. It’s so quick and easy to use, especially after you’ve recorded some of your favorites. And I like that it’s cloud based so it can be viewed across several devices. I use the free version.

“Trust me” covered the following:

Fizzy drinks v still drinks. Conclusion – carbonated drinks, including water, make you hungrier than still. Not sure why, but typically you eat more afterwards, – interesting to me because in the mid 1960s when alcohol breath tests for drivers started in the UK I helped run some trials that showed that fizzy alcoholic drinks hit you harder and faster – a gin and tonic goes into the system faster than a straight gin.

Exercise and caffeine. Conclusion, the right amount of caffeine, 2 -3 large cups of filter coffee an hour before, is good for endurance exercises, but not all the time because the body gets used to it.

Baldness in men – not my problem and I guess not anyone else on this thread.

OCD.

Diabetes – a new high tech piece of kit for judging insulin needs and providing it.

Fewer subjects in greater depth might have been better, but generally worth seeing if it comes your way.

annette52. To be totally fair, the guy did lose an enormous amount of weight that way and I am all for making healthy food tasty. It was the thought that we have to treat adults like children by giving them a low cal muffin with artificial sweeteners that got me. That and the fact that today our local book shop was pushing the book to go with the series as the new wonder healthy diet

Your friend who has already lost 5 stones has done really well. With the knowledge and confidence that come from that, the remaining 3 stones should go.

Have you tried kombucha, kefir or fermented veggies for your IBS? They put the good bacteria in your stomach again. I have great results with them. Right now I’m fasting with water and raw apple cider vinegar. But after my fast I will break it with kombucha to add good bacteria back in my stomach.

Hello everyone
Hope you have all settled back into a daily rhythm & taking it easy now.
Minka: thanks for your offer to meet up sometime, would love to one day – I live in Gloucester on the Mid North Coast of NSW. Whenever I get to visit the Tweed area, I’d happily meet up with you. Pleased for you with your weight loss.
To all: I often feel how nice it would be to all meet for morning tea, lunch, etc – it’s interesting trying to imagine what everyone looks like, how we all go about our daily lives, our unique personalities – maybe one day we could all meet up together (time travel maybe, where we all just appear!).
Thin: thanks for your encouragement – 5kg is achievable, 15 sounds like a mountain!
Penguin: we also have ‘polo t-shirts’ with a penguin logo on the pocket – you really have to get one!
LJoyce: hope you are starting to feel better with your chest infection – never good in the Summer months. Budgeting certainly helps to keep things in order – you are very organised, as will be seen in your results. My pantries are so tidy now – wonder how long it will last. Clothes are next! Enjoy your homemade pizza & bread – I love the smell of it cooking, can smell it now.
Cinque: I like your analogy that when maintenance is achieved, you’ve served your apprenticeship & now we become masters – I feel the knowledge to be gained from the experience would be life changing & I am so thankful that all the ‘maintenance masters’ are happy to share their knowledge with all us hopefuls. Enjoy the time with your GD.
Janejust: warm welcome to our new ‘way of eating / living’.
Merryme: so exciting for you to have a secret project – enjoy & may it be all you can wish for.
Stay: hope you enjoyed your BBQ & have a great time at the upcoming wedding.
I’ve just started a new food & exercise diary for 2018 – will help keep me on track & show me where I can improve with dietary choices. Also occasionally recording in MyFitnessPal, but it doesn’t like it on FD, when 1200 cals are not consumed!
Its currently 1.50pm on Thursday 4 January – 24’C & cloudy, thankfully less humidity today & so more tolerable – the older I get, the more I don’t like the heat!
Enjoy whatever you are all doing & bye for now 😃

Arelkade & Cali – after 24 hours of antibiotics and a day of gargling betadine for my sore throat I actually woke up feeling a lot better. I need to take the whole packet of antibiotics but I’m extremely happy that this infection seems to be clearing very quickly. In each of the last two months I’ve also had lung infections and each time it was difficult to shift, I’m glad it’s proving easy this time.

Cali – that’s a very cute penguin. If our penguin wears one of those people will want to pat him! Not sure that’s dignified.

Well the bread dough is made and the small cob loaf is doing its final rise before baking. The bit of dough I kept aside to make a pizza spread out further than I thought. It’s covered my entire enamel baking tray – so it will be three meals not one – more things to add to the freezer! I always overestimate how much veg I can fit on top of a pizza and I usually end up with so much topping that it looks more like an overloaded N.Y. pizza pie than a traditional Italian flatbread with a scant few flavourings. Anyway, the pizza is also ready to bake, but I’ll wait until dinner time. The bread dough ended up being 3/4 wholemeal spelt and 1/4 soy four. I also added linseed (flax), chia seeds and bran to the dough and rolled the cob loaf in oats and sesame seeds. The only drawback of baking today is that the weather’s warming up and heating up the house with a hot oven is not ideal.

After checking through my pantry (and the overflow drawer) I have so many different grain and legume flours and whole grains, rolled grains and seeds – I’d have to eat a great deal more bread than I do these days to get through this while it’s fresh. I might have to deal with my anxiety about wasting food and start throwing things out – that’s quite a challenge for me.

Annette, your friend putting on 1 pound over the holiday season sounds good to me. With so much tempting food around, 1 pound is really good. All the weight that she’s already lost should be good motivation to get back to fasting. It’s very stressful to have family members who are ill, but hopefully she’ll be able to get back to losing, for her own health.

It’s so good to hear that your son is continuing to lose weight. Is he doing the 5:2 or just eliminating or swapping out some of the foods you suggested? Clearly you’ve set a wonderful example for him with your own weight loss. Nothing is so inspiring as seeing someone else losing weight and looking better all the time. I’m always surprised at how much younger people look when they shed their extra pounds. It’s so much better for their health not to be carrying around all the extra weight. You must feel so good knowing how much better your son must feel.

A quick hello. EXHAUSTED after a lovely time with my granddaughter. Can hardly put two words together! Too many posts to respond to, just vague impressions of hams with freezer burn and the old ‘serves’ conundrum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh_ex2mTkJM (enjoy)

Off to collapse on the couch again and watch Food Safari Earth.

PS Felt square for Intesha: yellow yamdaisy on a green background.

Cinque. The problem with grandchildren is that because they don’t stay long, you give them more attention and effort than you ever gave their parents in that short a time. Great but tiring..

Califdreamer my son fasts in as much as he will have long gaps between meals and wont eat if he isn’t hungry, he refused point blank to try the 5:2 when he was at his largest. I did try to persuade him and failed completely! I did suggest that reducing his sugar consumption would help him to shrink and told him not to have rice or pasta or potatoes more than once a week, because after seeing my friend shrink without them, I felt certain that it would help him too. He is very stubborn and I had no idea whether he would try it or not. To his advantage he likes vegetables, fruit and meat. I cooked him meals with meat and vegetables so that he could see what it would be like and he seems to have embraced it since he left home. It has been slow and steady but he can see that he feels better. I was overjoyed when he told me that he was cold and had to buy a jumper. When he was much heavier his window would be wide open on the coldest day driving an arctic gale through the house. When he came to visit at Christmas, he used a blanket and the duvet-he only ever used the lightest tog because he was too hot otherwise. He is strong on routine, so as his habits have changed I am hopeful that he will continue to shrink. I am thrilled for him.

My friend of 5 stone loss famously told me 5 years ago that the polka dot T shirt that I was wearing was very slimming. I simply stated that it was the 26 inches and 26 lb that I had lost on the 5:2 that made me look slimmer and left it at that. I was hurt that she hadn’t commented positively but perhaps to have acknowledged my weight loss would have made her feel that she should do it too. Its very complex. Months passed and turned into years as I drip fed little bits of info about the 5:2 until she told me that she was going to try it but had no expectations that it would be successful. It has been wonderful to see how much happier she is with far more mobility and I hope that she will get back to fasting again very soon.

Annette, it sounds like your son is headed in the right direction with his weight loss, so what he’s doing is working. You can’t argue with success! The number on the scales is but one measure of weight loss. It isn’t really necessary if you have other ways of measuring, especially if your body holds on to a lot of water or something. I use the scale because it seems to reflect the gains and losses pretty well in my case. But I use the fit of my clothing as well.

Cinque, it sounds like the “Miss 3 Workout” will be pretty effective for you once you ease into it. 😃

Penguin, after LJ’s ornery otter story, I think the cute Tux penguin would be the best logo for your shirt. 😁 And think of all the ‘high 5’s’ ✋🏻you’ll get from all the Linux programmers. 😁

Penguin, those sea lions on Pier 39 are huge and look like fat, grumpy old men, snorting and arguing with each other. I could imagine them with undersized t-shirts, big bellies hanging out, calling for Martha to get them a can of beer. 😁 Years ago, when they first took up lolling on the piers, people who paid big dollars to dock their boats there tried to chance them away. There was an outcry from animal rights people who correctly pointed out that they are a protected species and not only could they not harass them, they weren’t even allowed to look at them funny! Here’s an article with some videos of them. At one point the piers were half sunk due to the weight of them. These guys need 5:2 for sure! 🤣

https://www.pier39.com/the-sea-lion-story/

Good morning all. Well we are set to have record breaking heat out here in the south west of Sydney over the next few days. I think I had better get out the children’s pool I just put away.

Taking down the Xmas tree and decorations today which is always a sad time. I love seeing the flashing lights on the tree and all the bits and pieces around the house.

I would like to apologise to you all that I don’t respond to your posts but want you to know that I do read/skim them. My life caring for my elderly parents does not lead to anything exciting and as I have previously said I get overwhelmed with how many posts there are.

I do need structure and hearing of all your daily struggles with food and this way of life keeps me going and determined no matter how long the journey. I don’t know what my set point is but as most agree it is the fit of the clothes that determines how well we are doing.

After two FDs and one day of mindful eating I have gone from 72.3 to 69.1 this morning. So my conclusion is,wine is not my friend….

Eleven weeks till my trip and I am hoping to see 65 or lower before then.

Hi everyone,
Just needing to share my mini achievement – 80.6kg on 1 Jan; 79.9 today. I’ve been wanting to get under 80kg & it’s finally happened, been over it for a very long time – now to keep it there, or even less.
Have a wonderful day & bye for now 😊

Hi LJoyce
Thank you for above comment. It really did feel good – felt like doing a little dance. I’m also doing a FD today, then my FD’s will hopefully be Sunday’s & Wednesday’s from now on.
Enjoy your day, bye for now

Hello all. A quick skim through a few posts as i haven’t checked in for awhile. Ive lost the couple of kgs gained over the xmas period without much effort so pleased with that.

Feeling very happy as OH and I just booked a 10 day holiday to Bali in May. This will be MissD’s first plane journey and obviously first time out of Australia so hoping she will enjoy the experience.

Arel, congratulations on your entry into the 70’s! What is your next mini goal? Onward and downward!

Intestate, congrats on losing the weight you picked up over the holiday! It’s good to get back to normal. We still have to take the Christmas trees and decorations down. I love having all the colored lights, but I’m getting tired of them now!

Gday, you’ve lost weight too, congratulations! We’ve had a very successful group. We should all do the naked Happy Dance! 😁😮👏🏻 10 days in Bali! That sounds so wonderful and exotic. I bet your daughter is excited. How long does it take to get there from where you live? 🌴🌞

Stay, I had a FD today too. (Thurs) I’m done eating for today and feel good. I’m in the 58’s with you. Since you’ll be chasing your grandkids around for the next couple days, the exercise and activity should keep you there. Don’t let them tempt you with food! 😁

LJoyce, the whole East Coast seems to have been hit with snow today, and yesterday some of the upper panhandle of Florida got some snow too. That’s not very common for Florida. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/florida-snow-photos_us_5a4cf9e0e4b06d1621bc6a54

Cinque-It is lovely to hear of everyone’s success on here too!

LJoyce- I completely agree with you. What interested me was that although I was fasting regularly, I didn’t continue to shrink. A work colleague recommended ‘that sugar book’ which was a fascinating and easy read and led me to Robert Lustig and his book ‘fat chance, the hidden truth about sugar, obesity and disease’. As a result, I changed what I bought and ate as an experiment to see if it would make a difference. One of the points that niggled was that if Robert-an endocrinologist was struggling to lose the weight that he had put on as a young man-there must be something else going on. I had fasted and I had stopped to see if it made any difference and then I came across Jason Fung ‘the obesity myth’ and was so inspired that I tried fasting for 24 hours to see if it made any difference to my waistline. It did!

My friend of the 5 stone loss has said that she has no interest in reading anything about losing weight/diet etc, but could I please tell her when I have found something interesting and she will try it. She started with removing those 4 carbs from her life and it was extraordinary to watch her body shape change fast. She was used to losing a huge amount of weight fast on diets and that didn’t happen for her. There were weeks when the scales didn’t move at all and I kept encouraging her to keep going as it was obvious that she was shrinking. There was 1 month when I lost 7 inches but not a smidgen on the scales. She got a bit fed up after months of changing shape and a steady decrease on the scales, so I suggested that she tried fasting(which she had been very resistant too). She has found that fasting and avoiding those 4 carbs most of the time has been responsible for losing that 5 stone. She didn’t tell anyone when she started as she didn’t think it would work, which is what I did too. No she tells anyone who asks!