Good morning SHs,

I had a very leisurely start to the day with a bit of news watching, a mid-morning bowl of cereal and a pot of tea. I’m about to go and do a little grocery shopping then this afternoon I get back to the packing. That task is much quicker than I though so I don’t expect it to be a long job.

Joffy, as you’ve probably already realised, one of the symptoms of RA is extreme fatigue. I remember plenty of working days where I went straight from work to home and bed. It’s difficult to manage when you are still working and have to get up early.
Did I mention that I’ve found the timing of FDs in relation to RA treatment helps manage the side effects of the drugs? I always do a FD the day before treatment and it’s substantially reduced the side effects. (There was some British research that I read some time ago, where they used calorie restriction prior to chemo to reduce side effects. As your drug (methotrexate) is actually a chemo drug too it might be helpful.

Thin, enjoy the picnic and the remaining days of sunshine. The only good thing I can say about our weather is that I don’t have to water the garden at the moment.

Cali, our tv commentators mentioned that the wedding ran over time, which is unheard of for a royal wedding apparently – they suggested it was because the bishop’s enthusiasm for his subject took him off script with his sermon.
I’m sure most people sang along to Stand By Me, but I enjoyed the hymns most – my dad was a church organist and I’d heard him play those hymns hundreds of time – nice memories – and yes I did sing along to those.

Penguin, I learned cake decorating in my 20s. I even decorated my own wedding cake (I didn’t bake it though, mum wanted to do that). This was in the days of fondant icing, sugar flowers and intricate and delicate piped lace work. The fashion in wedding cakes has moved on from then and people rarely still have a traditional fruit cake. It seems to be flavoured butter cakes and soft icing these days. Fresh flowers rather than sugar ones that took days to make also seem to be the preference.
I think the grandchildren solution to testing out that cake is a good one. I usually use the excuse of visitors to do some baking that I wouldn’t be game to have in the house when it’s just me eating it.

Addendum – Cinque your post popped up with mine. I was thinking your drink sounded nice until I got to the star anise. I hate all things aniseed, but I know I’m in the minority. I hope it helps your throat.

LJ. I was lucky. I played my first game at 11 years and my last at 48 yrs without sustaining any real damage. At one time I occasionally played in a Dutch social league where the rules included:

No beer on the field of play.
Anyone trying too hard will be sent off to cool down.

It is very easy to like the Dutch.

Hi to each and everyone of you!
Just enjoying these crisp mornings, the lovely sunny days and gorgeous Autumn leaves – Autumn is delightful! Waiting for our first frost!

I feel for you Cinque – please get better real soon!

Penguin, the Tile Farm is a B&B, over 500 years old and breeds special cattle: Freesian mixed with ? to make beef cattle! – after 10 years, still remember the beauty of the Gloucester /Stroud area – much like where I live in Gloucester Australia!

LJoyce, your packing sounds to be coming along nicely – only 10 days till end of May and your new abode! Enjoy! I like it that my Dad’s happenings give you happy memories – thank you for sharing.

FD for me today so hoping to stay focused, be accountable and succeed! With my Brother still very unwell, it’s easy to have comfort food as his health is all so very much ‘up in the air’ with unknown outcomes! I so wish for answers real soon.

Must go and enjoy the sunshine – might learn to play with our whipper snipper! I enjoy the look of good edges around the lawn. Been in lazy mode for too long!

Enjoy whatever you are getting up to and bye for now!

Good morning all.

Arel I’ll be joining you in a FD. I really need it too. For some reason I bought things I normally wouldn’t when I did the shopping yesterday (biscuits, apricot balls and yeast bun). I then proceeded to eat far too many of them throughout the afternoon. I guess it’s just the upheaval of packing and moving that’s led me to poor behaviour.

Cinque it sounds like you’ve had an awful night. I really hope it does mean you’ve turned a corner and will start getting better. That sounds lie a very unusual porridge.

Thin, glad you enjoyed the picnic.

Must go and have a cup of tea as I have to head out to do some errands shortly.

Thin, what fun! Great pic and I hope she found the dog was whirring properly.
It sounds like a wonderful day yesterday. I hope the payback from the buns is wearing off.

Arelkade what a beautiful Autumn you are having. I hope it is an excellent fast day today. The ongoing stress of worrying about and helping your brother takes a big toll on life, and you need an almost military precision to keep yourself healthy and organised, but you need your own good health more than ever, so all power to you today, and every fast day.

LJoyce, I guess it was about time you broke out and did silly food things. You didn’t go too overboard so I hope you recover quickly.
My unusual porridge is delicious. Probably not that unusual in an African and Southern US way. I’d add a little sugar for anyone else. The corn takes an overnight soak and 35 minutes in the pressure cooker, just for starters, but I made enough for 7 servings and they are portioned out in fridge and freezer.

I’m taking it easy but catching up on cleaning and opening the house to blow all the coldy germs away. Lovely. What a delight it is to be able to do normal things.

Sybs, the crust is always my favourite part too.

Good morning everyone,

I have a day at home to continue packing today.

NFD for me, and I’ve started with my usual pot of tea and a banana dabbed with peanut paste. I’ve taken a sweet potato, spinach and feta pastie out of the freezer for lunch and chilli con carne for dinner. There are so few tings left in the freezer now that I have one shelf completely empty. I can’t recall that happening before. According to my calculations the only thing that should be left there by moving day is a 1 litre container of pumpkin soup. I figured that would be a good thing to take with me on moving day as I can put it in the esky to keep the milk, cheese, yoghurt etc cold. Then I’ll have thawed soup ready for the next day.

I hope everyone is having a good day and those who’ve been unwell are improving.

LJ I always thought I was an organised person – until I read your last post. All that renovation, all that presentation, selling and buying a home, packing and getting ready for the move … and now even planning your last meal so that it keeps the milk etc cold on the move. What a woman you are!

Wow I didn’t know that FDs are now 800 calories! I wouldn’t lose weight on that …. by I would probably find it easier to do three days of 800, that two days of 500. Sometimes those 500 cals just aren’t quite enough.
And LJ, you are a woman after my own heart! I love lists, plans and Excel. My OH sound like your ex. But he tolerates me because he knows that I am better at writing lists than doing what’s on them. When I was doing research, my son used to call me Rimmer (from Red Dwarf), who (from memory) made note after note revising for his engineer’s exam, spending so much time on writing the notes that he didn’t actually get to do anything.

Sybs, my OH had just texted to say he was on final approach for Cairns. And then your post appeared.

Lyndsay, have you thought of making a nice sign to put on your desk reading, ‘Nil By Mouth’ for FDs? Perhaps you prefer not to take the focus of the consultation away from your clients, in which case I’d express my great delight on sighting the coffee immediately followed up with extreme disappointment that I’m unable to drink it, while offering a quick white lie like I’d just finished a huge one or I have to fast for a later procedure, but later on I shall enjoy it immensely. I have read somewhere that large commercial coffees can contain vast numbers of calories. But good for you if you only ended up with 570 cals for the day.

LJ, I’m similar in that I organise fridge/freezer food down to the last item like that when we’re heading overseas. I like to find ways to make use of everything (it goes way back to my upbringing of not wasting anything) and often freeze items when we’re self-catering on holiday for use as icepacks. I do it all in my head (usually at about 2am while unable to sleep). My OH is the list maker but rarely do the items get crossed off.

DD and I are having spilt pea and roasted pepper patties for dinner. It’s not a FD but it sounded healthy. OH will be heading to the nearest steak house in Cairns no doubt. Commercial flight home tomorrow.

Good afternoon,
Lindsay, here is an article about the revised 5:2: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/12/good-news-dieters-52-relaxes-rules-allows-800-calories-day/
It does mean that you can still call yourself successful after a day like yours! 🙂

And thanks, I am feeling a lot better.

Sybs, do you eat 800 cals on a Fast day? I know that whatever you are doing works well, but I ask because I began with about that many, but naturally cut back to what suits me, which is generally around 350. (Although on maintenance I let myself have less fasty fast days, if I need to, that get to more like 600).

Thin, your weather over there is phenomenal. Cold nights just make the warm days even better! It is Central Australian weather for sure.

LJoyce you are a phenomenal planner. I am slapdash and freewheeling by nature, but age and illness have taught me the value of planning, and I only appreciate it more and more.

And Lindsay, Rimmer! Haha. Our kids are dreadful.

Hi Cinque – I try to stick to around 500-600 on FD, and 800-1000 or so on NFD. Plus I am walking every morning, 7 days/week, rain or shine :-)) I don’t mind that it takes a bit longer to lose weight. After all, it took 18 months to put it on.

Sybs, that is so impressive. And such a healthy attitude.

I came back to see posts before and after mine!

Haha wouldn’t that be fun for Sybs to nick out and collect Mr Thin.

I was all ready to fast on Thursday, but since I am running out of food and can’t easily shop tomorrow, maybe I should fast Wednesday instead. I’ll have a think.

Birds are chirping madly to each other, getting ready for bed. It is only 5:20. Winter is coming!

Sybs, that website looks packed full of nutritional information. I, too, took a slow and steady approach to my weight loss. Although, at the time, I was always delighted with my half kg weekly loss. Who else is fasting today?

sorry about the spelling, of course it should be “weigh-in” :-))

Thin – no problem at all – actually I find the rhythm very comfortable – one day on / one day off is just so easy to follow. A pair of jegins I bought last winter are the longest they have been, I now have to roll the legs up! I am planning to do the 3 FDs for as long as they feel comfortable – I can always change back to 2 FDs. That’s what I enjoy about 5:2 – it can so easily be adapted to individual likes / dislikes, as long as the basic stipulations are met – thank you MM!

Hi everyone. Just checking in and keeping in touch. I read your posts everyday – haven’t had a chance to reply though.
I hope:
– all those that are not well, get better soon!
– all those fasting today, enjoy same!
Thank you to all those with lovely comments re: my Brother.

Enjoy whatever you are getting up to and bye for now!

Well, since I got to 11:30 without even thinking about food today, I did decide to make it a fast day. I’ve just had my miso soup (used up the last of the miso and the last of the yuba. Must shop before Sunday!)

I was well enough to go shopping, and bought things to make a most wonderful chicken and veggie soup tomorrow with some home made chicken stock my sister will bring over.

Hope your soup tonight was lovely LJoyce, even without the parmesan. And did you have your cauliflower soup Thin?

Hi Arelkade, cheers to you!

I see the weather pattern is finally moving! We will get some clear sky, and Perth looks like it is in for a downpour!

Special cheers to you Cali, you are missing from this page! And Merry, you haven’t even popped in to say you got to the UK ok. Hope all is well.

Good evening everyone

Thin, I didn’t go off the VLCD for any social events. I really couldn’t let myself deviate as I worried I’d never want to go back on it. I was always allowed up to 4 cups of low cal veg and a tsp oil each day, in addition to the 3 meal replacement products. I also chose sometimes to skip one meal replacement product to have some solid protein instead. It meant for instance that I could order grilled chicken or fish and a salad and still be fairly close to my plan for the day if I had 2 of the meal replacements.
For any afternoon event where I could take a plate of food I would do something with veggies. I actually had several dip recipes that only contained veggies and allowable condiments and I’d put them on a platter with raw veg and crackers (for the rest of the guests) – it meant I had something I could nibble on.
For dinners I always offered to take a veggie dish and there was usually some other things that I could fit into a sensible meal.
For morning teas or anything that involved flour or sugar I just had a cup of tea.
I actually had to sit down and talk to two members of my family whose actions were likely to sabotage me. Their behaviour wasn’t vindictive – these are women who have always showed they care about people by feeding them – especially baking for them. When you reject those efforts I think they interpret it as their love being rejected. Essentially what I said what that I know it’s the way you show you care, but I do know you care without it. I don’t need you to bake, I just want your company and a cup of tea. They also knew that I was working toward a deadline for my knee surgery and getting lighter for that was very important. After the discussions the situation improved a lot and people stopped trying to force feed me. I now find it quite comfortable to do a fast day with these rellies as they no longer have any issue with me rejecting food and just having a cuppa at our regular Sunday brunch.
Although these can be difficult conversations to initiate, it’s worth being brave. I think that often people aren’t as reflective of what is driving their behaviour patterns as perhaps I am. I took some time to think carefully about what I should say, and I was very careful with my words, but it really had a positive result.

Thin, the meal replacement range I used had shakes, “muesli” bars, soups and mousse desserts. I never tried the soups as I don’t like packet soups so I just assumed the same would apply to these products. I used the coffee shakes and lots of ice to make iced coffee. I used the bars a lot – they were good for meals out of the house. I also used both of the dessert flavours. My normal pattern when I was staying under 800 cal, was to have a bar mid-morning, half a dessert mousse for lunch and an iced coffee shake mid-afternoon. Then I’d make a hot evening meal from veg and follow it with the rest of the dessert mousse. One thing that this repetitive food regime does, is it makes you look forward to the veggies that you also need to eat each day. You get extremely inventive with the limited range of low cal veg – it’s where I discovered konjac noodles which were allowed as a vegetable.
After three months of this I moved onto the 800-1000cal program, which meant dropping one product and replacing it with a meal of 200-400cal. I dropped the lunch product and moved my veggies to lunch time (as soup or salad). Then I cooked a normal low cal dinner (something similar to what I’d have now for a FD dinner) – lots of veg and a little lean protein.

I look back on that time now and it doesn’t feel real. I just can’t imagine being able to do that again, and nor do I ever want to have to.

I agree that food and alcohol are too often the way we think we need to celebrate. While I was on the program I didn’t eat any birthday cake. I do now if it’s not a FD. The alcohol wasn’t an issue for me as I don’t drink – I had to give up alcohol over a decade ago as the rheumatoid treatment puts a lot of strain on my liver.
I actually find it quite liberating to go out to Sunday brunch on a FD and just order a pot of tea while everyone one else is eating. There was a time that wold have made me (and them) uncomfortable, but thankfully not anymore.

LJ, the meal replacements sound hard to me because it’s all over in a couple of swallows. I suppose it’s a foolproof method of removing any ambiguity over calorie intake.

Cinque, I used that method at a function once and it’s so much easier to have a chat with everyone when you don’t have a drink in one hand, something in the other hand and a half eaten something else in your mouth!

I watch cooking shows where the matriarch expresses her love by fattening up the family. And people often discuss cooking with love. I never experienced that as my mother married very young and wasn’t a great cook; I was a fussy little runt who didn’t like to eat so mealtimes were a battle ground and, later, she never taught me to cook. Cooking for me is a chore, not an expression of love. Oh dear, my poor family. Nevertheless, we have a home cooked meal at the table together every single night which I think they appreciate. My walking buddy has more takeaways than home cooked meals.

Hi Stay – I am doing 4:3 – FDs are Monday, Wednesday, Friday, with NFD Tuesday and Thursday, plus NFDs together = Saturday and Sunday free for “social but mindful eating”. Like you I do a daily walk early in the morning, which I really enjoy.

Thin, I have the same problem with words that just aren’t there when I need them. Luckily I have a reasonably large vocabulary, so there’s usually a substitute to hand – sometimes I even manage to slip it in without anyone noticing. What always annoys me most is that the word seems to pop into my thoughts later that day when it’s no longer needed – proving that it’s not my memory that’s the problem it’s the retrieval system.
I don’t walk as often as you. I aim for 3 times a week. I even managed to get around my new suburb on foot this morning as I had to deliver paperwork etc to a range of different medical services that I’ll need to access there. I just parked and walked to everything, it was actually easier than trying to find the street numbers in the car and finding you’d driven too far.

Stay, you aren’t alone in overdoing the NFD. While I no longer count calories, I did used to monitor these on NFD. It is helpful at showing where the unnecessary calories are being eaten and whether your portion sizes are reasonable. The NFDs continue to be something that I try to improve and I succeed some of the time. But my weight is mostly stable so I figure the FDs are buying the time to make further improvements.

I was out all morning for medical appointments and errands. Since getting home and having lunch I’ve done nothing but sit on the couch. Time to get moving and start packing a few boxes.

Hi everyone
(6.35am Friday)

All your recent posts have been educational and very inspiring! I really enjoy reading fellow 5:2’s ideas, self experiences and results – they all encourage me that it’s all doable, with success as a reward, if I’m prepared to be accountable, mindful and acknowledge that I can be a lot healthier, and weigh a lot less as time goes by – just have to be more disciplined!
I guess I’ve had times where I didn’t feel I’d ever get to a much lower weight – though I can imagine being a healthier, thinner self. Your stories all prove the desired end results are definitely possible – thank you each and everyone of you for sharing, much appreciated!

My Brother remains very unwell and its all so sad. He sees his Specialist at 8.30am this morning – so fingers crossed on his outcome! Thank you for his best wishes.

It’s a FD for me today – yesterday should have been but the local bakery was calling my name and I couldn’t resist! Chunky steak pie followed by a fruit cream bun. Did enjoy same whilst eating but not after – may need to detour around the bakery in future!

I wish you all a wonderful day filled with love, laughter and much happiness! We can do this!

Bye for now!

Good morning, a quick post while my pot of tea is brewing.

Cali, I’m glad to hear you are feeling better. Even well enough to have your appetite back and to do a FD. I hope it goes well.

Cinque, glad to hear you are feeling better too. I think I like the idea of lentils rather than noodles in chicken soup.

Arel, I really hope your brother’s specialist has some useful changes to make to his treatment that will finally help your brother start improving. I have everything crossed for you.

FD for me today, and a day home packing.

Arel I am sure we are all thinking of you, and hoping for good news for your brother.
Have fun unpacking LJ – won’t it be nice, finding places to put your special things.
I’m fasting today – I welcomed just my black coffee this morning, with no toast and Promite (God’s food, and my usual start to the day, on a NFD). I read all the information about the 800 cal FDs (thanks for the link Cinque, and for the info Sybs and LJ), and don’t think it will work for me. I quite like the 500 cal a day, even though sometimes by day’s end I am pretty hungry. Actually it’s that late afternoon to dinner time that is hardest. I have a handful of green beans to eat after work today, which hopefully will keep he wolf from the door until dinner. I am going to try 2 x 500 and 1 x 800 this week, to see if it can get my weight loss on the downward trajectory again….after having stalled for the past little while.
I think one of the best things about losing some weight, is how much easier it is to get dressed in the mornings. This morning for example, I sprayed my black dress with toothpaste while I was trying to brush my teeth and dry my hair at the same time. No problem – I just whipped into the cupboard and got out another. When my weight is up, I agonise over what I will wear – trying on this and that, before I am happy.
Laughed Thin at your suggestion ‘nil by mouth’. I may have to try it, if people don’t stop being kind to me!