Thin, I’d strongly suggest you do take some suitable foods with you if driving on country roads.
Some members of my family just spent a week at the Victorian snow fields. On the drive over through rural Victoria they assumed that they’d be able to buy food on the way, but in town after town the shops and even pubs were either closed or up for sale. They prepared better for the drive home. As they had a 4 and 6 year old in the car having access to food to stop the complaining was pretty important.

Hi again everyone!

Thank you CateAus and welcome, and also Thin for your lovely comments – please join me in our big group hug.

There has been some very interesting and informative posts in the last couple of days with lots of comments coming from our hearts! This is an extremely supportive forum, and not just for 5:2, but for many of life’s challenges. I feel for you LJoyce and wish you much happiness as you now turn the corner after your huge move – you are a very inspiring lady and I have appreciated, and acknowledge, what you have recently been through – thank you so much for sharing your story, and thank you to all those who responded to you with excellent advice. I do feel we are all like an extended family – just wish we could all meet for a cuppa!

Must go, time to prepare dinner (6.08pm Friday) Enjoy your weekend whatever you all have planned – will be thinking of you all xx

Arel, we were posting at the same time.
There was some talk of a SH group get together a year or so ago. I don’t think we managed to agree on a state that were all prepared to fly to.

Good morning everyone,
Hugs Arelkade, it IS time to look after yourself. You want to be living this precious life to the fullest. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could all get together for a cuppa!

Hugs to Cate too, I hope yesterday was a gentle day, remembering your dear sister.

Thin, slim person, far away, hooking up a car, I hope all is going well. And yes, who’d have thought! Me doing B2B!
My heart goes out to you as a little one, trying to cope with the death of your brother.

LJoyce I did 6:1 for a while when I got to the lower end of my healthy weight and surprised my doctor so much she told me not to lose any more. But I felt I needed the rhythm of the two fast days a week. It is also since then that I have been a lot hungrier, I presume it is my brain thinking I need to get back to being obese. Crazy brain.

I am like Cate, feeling that it is a long time between fast days when doing them B2B. I think I will manage it by making Sunday a light eating day too. Still deciding how light.

I had a really good day yesterday. Partly it’s being properly hydrated, and that ‘imagining the day’s food on the table’ does work for me. Well, so far. So I think I have turned a corner too. Your corner is bigger LJoyce, so I am really hoping things are easier for you too. I am like you, and work things out best by talking or writing them out, especially with people who can shed insight.

Cali, hello to your robin and her baby. Cheers for keeping in maintenance mode and managing all those steps. I do so hope you can do more and more now. Not steps maybe, you seem to be doing plenty of them! Yoga or gym or whatever you like to do. (And haha re the kefir)

LJoyce, did you say one time that you were hoping to set up a gym area in your new home?

Fingers crossed Telstra comes through today!

Well, after my good day yesterday I have started today well, but I am off to be with the grandtots and keeping myself hydrated while I am babysitting is a challenge. I have my big waterbottle ready and will make plenty of cuppas. They do know grandma needs cuppas!

Best wishes to everyone, enjoy this precious day!

It sounds like everyone had a good day and is emerging from their respective foggy patches and finding their way.

How uplifting to discover a new robin, CalifD. That is indeed a lot of steps. Hoping it’s up and down your stairs and not to and from the fridge, he he!

We successfully retrieved DD after work and OH is now delivering her to her Saturday job. I hadn’t seen your message, LJ, but did take along a large carrot, a large apple, a piece of Jarlsberg cheese and a bottle of water each. It was very green and a pleasant drive down. After collecting DD and chatting to the car mechanic, we had dinner in a country pub. We did have to walk the length of the town to find something suitable (and open). It had been decades since we’ve been in a pub and we could feel all eyes on us as we entered, being the strangers in town. The food was rather expensive but surprisingly good. I had a very tasty lentil and tofu curry with a greasy pappadam, leaving the rice. OH made the right decision about leaving the car behind as the weather was truly horrendous driving back. We’ll have to rent a car carrier and repeat the whole exercise but in daylight and hopefully with no torrential rain.

Looking forward to fasting tomorrow. I have the Hairy Bikers’ Healthy Cottage Pie and Cauliflower Soup defrosting.

It will be fun to meet up one day. It’s been ages since I’ve seen anyone from this thread but I’ve been lucky to meet seven others. I don’t know what’s happened to all the Perth losers.

Good morning SHs, welcome to the weekend.

Thin, I’m very pleased to hear you had a safe trip to collect your daughter – always a risk in heavy rain as the oil on the roads can make them slippery. I think it was very wise to not try and tow the car in that weather.

Cali, yes very funny! Champagne is more normal here too, although I’ve not heard of anyone spraying it around their kitchen – not deliberately anyway.

Penguin, I hope you aren’t heading back to Portugal soon, I see it’s forecast to be 47C there this weekend. That sounds like too much heat for a seasoned Aussie, I suspect it would be an even bigger shock to a Brit.

Sybs, to upload pics I think most of us use imgur https://imgur.com/upload
Once you’ve uploaded the pics there will be a url code which you can copy and then paste into the 5:2 text box as part of your post. I will admit it took me a couple of tries to make it work for me – I always double check by copying the link and then pasting it into a new window and see if it takes me to my pictures – that way I know it works.

Cinque, No it definitely wasn’t me who wanted a home gym. I think GDSA was planning that at one time. There is a gym in the Adelaide foothills that is only a 10-15 minute drive from here. They have all the usual gym equipment and a heated pool but are not fancy like the trendy and pricey gyms. Their normal price is $150 per year and they often have specials as low as $100. Much cheaper than spending $1000s on equipment. Because of the low prices they are very popular with students and pensioners.
I too hope Telstra show up. I was told I had to be here from 8-12 and was up by 7:30 just in case they showed up early. It’s now nearly 10am here and still no sign.

Cate, it’s lovely that you had such a nice remembrance dinner for your sister. It’s so nice when you get to the point where memories of the loved ones that we’ve lost bring a gentle smile to our face rather than the sadness that is ever present in the early days of grief.
Congratulations on the new niece.

This is my third NFD today, not sure if tomorrow will be a FD or not as Monday might fit my schedule more easily. The last two FDs have gone exceptionally well. I have had a rough plan for all of my food choices for the day ahead of time and then on the day I’ve made the final decisions about what I really feel like – without changing the overall volume or approx calorie content of what I’m eating. My body is feeling a bit better – less bloated. My resolve to make a permanent change is also holding strong – I feel reassured by this.

Woohoo, just had a call from the Telstra technician. He’ll be here in 20 minutes.

Cali, I also freeze tofu occasionally. Mostly when I buy a big block (because it’s better value) but only need a small portion of it fresh. I also find the texture changes when frozen. With the blocks that have been frozen I find, once thawed, I can squeeze them like a sponge to remove the water and them crumble them. I treat this crumbly tofu pile like vegetarian mince meat and use it as a substitute in recipes requiring minced (ground) meat. To remove some of the water from the fresh tofu block I seem to spend hours putting the slices onto many layers of paper towel and then frequently having to change the paper as it quickly becomes sodden. It’s the only way I can get it dry enough to absorb marinades and sauces.

It funny how changing some simple things can make a difference to how much is eaten and the enjoyment you get from it.
I noticed that I seemed to be using milk much faster living here than in my previous house. I’ve had more frequent guests, but that doesn’t account for much of the extra, as many of my rellies don’t drink tea & coffee. I realised that in this house I wasn’t putting the cup, milk jug and teapot onto a tray anymore, because the kitchen & living is one area, so it’s only a few steps over to the kitchen bench to pour myself a second cup from the pot. In my previous house I would take the tea tray into the living room. The difference is that I used to add milk to my cup from a small milk jug and now I’m trying to tip if from a heavy 3L container into my cup. As I don’t have much strength in my wrists, upending 3L of milk is a fairly uncontrolled movement and I’m ending up with more milk in my cup. This increased the amount of milk from about one cup a day to nearly two. I have now reverted to the milk jug system. Hopefully this simple change will get that extra 100 calories out of my day. I’ve been doing it for a couple of days and I’m definitely just using one cup now.
The other thing I noticed is that by taking time to eat a smaller amount I do enjoy every mouthful. I notice what I eat and am more satisfied by it. With last night’s cup of soup I had one small slice of toasted wholemeal sourdough. I savoured it slowly and it was so nice. It’s funny how I appreciate this small amount so much when a week ago I was sometimes eating 6 slices in a day and was still looking for snacks. It seems perverse that less is more satisfying than more – but oddly, it is.

By the way, for those of you following my seeming endless Telstra saga – I now have a working home phone, after 9 weeks of trying to get it connected. Now they just have to sort out the billing mess and everything will be good.

Ha Penguin, that is exactly the sort of thing I do all the time.

Speaking of which, that is a good article you put up on the ‘related science articles’ thread LJoyce. Interesting that 5:2 has the most data backing it up.
Also interesting what they say about eating protein and fat on fast days. My instinct is towards eating greens with legumes, tofu, fish or chicken (and mushrooms). And especially soup. Probably because I think of monks food, or peasants food, for fasting.

Cheers that you are finding your 5:2 mojo again, AND that Telstra came. Good luck with the billing issues.
I think you are right that it was Gday with the gym plan. Well I bet you will have lots of options for physical activities or classes or whatever you decide.

I use a little milk jug everyday, so much easier than getting the big container of milk in and out of the fridge all the time. 🙂

Cate, you made it such a special day, and fancy that little grand niece being born on the day. Congratulations graunty!

Thin, you did make it a great trip.
I am so annoyed that I forgot about your Hairy Bikers healthy cottage pie when I experimented with making a healthier one last month. I’ve just checked the recipe, and I came up with pretty much the same adjustments (helped by suggestions on the YamDaisy facebook page).

Penguin, can builders never predict how long things will take them? Seven days to four weeks! Sheesh!

Well, it is Sunday morning here and I am going to experiment with an inbetweeny day. I haven’t felt that successful when I have tried before, but I will keep to my peasant/monks food and I will see how I go. Life is an interesting experiment!

It is my daughter’s birthday, but my input is minding kids this evening while she heads off to have drinks and something to eat with friends so I will have my soup when I get home (with 2 littlies she isn’t into late nights).

Goodness I have been about an hour writing this, lucky it is a slow Sunday. best wishes all.

Good morning SHs, I trust you all have nice plans for your Sunday.

Thin, I laughed at you celebrating a FD. Thanks for the FD photo and for clarifying about the banana – I was trying to figure out whether it was a peeled banana or a pork sausage. But I couldn’t remember you ever mentioning eating sausages on FDs.
I haven’t given up on the idea of taking a photo and posting it, I just have to figure out how. I’m fairly new to an iphone and I’ve figured out how to include photos in a text message but nothing beyond that yet. I need to get them from my iphone to my laptop to be able to post them (or figure out how to include them in a post that I write on my iphone). I’m thinking I might be able to email them to myself and that will get them to my laptop. To figure out anything beyond that I’ll need another tutorial from my niece on how to make my iphone do things I didn’t know it could.
Enjoy that FD.

Penguin, I hope the end result of the never ending building project is worth it.

Cali, have those fires near you eased off yet?

Cinque, I hope you have a good time with your grand daughters and they don’t leave you too exhausted.

I have a friend visiting this afternoon but I plan to fast today anyway. She’s used to me just having a cuppa with her sometimes. I will offer her a microwaved frozen muffin.

Now that my NFDs feel much more sensible I feel very comfortable with the 5:2 routine and am not debating about adding extra FDs.
Have a good day all.

Well emailing the photo to myself worked. I have now loaded it into imgur.
https://imgur.com/PqyUEJQ
Today’s FD food is: several pots of tea with low fat milk, some strawberies and cherries and a 600ml serve of creamy cauliflower, carrot & sweet potato soup to which I will add 1 tblsp parmesan once it’s heated. Sorry I forgot to include the parmesan in the photo.
As it’s a FD there isn’t much there and I was able to fit in into one photo. But if I put my NFD food on the bench I’d have to stand on a ladder to get high enough above it to fit in one framed shot!

I thought of you all last night as I indulged in my own Piegate. OH and I went to our favourite pub. She ate the baked cod with light summer veg and a seafood sauce, followed by a peach. I had the chicken, leek and ham hock pie, light veg and chips (fries to Cali). I ate them with a knife and fork! I followed that with sticky toffee pudding and ice cream. Sticky toffee pudding gate doesn’t have the same ring to it and I feel no shame or guilt. This is a way of life, not a life sentence.

All well and good but where are the photos? 😆

@thin – my friend has not emailed them yet – also, slight change of plan, not multi coloured, just bright blue/green

Good morning all.

Last week, when I realised how much I’d let my NFD eating slide, it wasn’t just the binge eating afternoon that alerted me. My usually loose jeans were fitting firmly and my new smaller size jeans, wouldn’t do up at all. I’m pleased to report that just a week of being very careful has made a difference. I can now actually do the smaller sized jeans up fairly easily and although I wouldn’t describe the others as loose, they are definitely very roomy, even when sitting down. I know most people rely on their scales to inform them of progress, but I seem to react badly to anything the scales tell me, so I rely on the fit of my jeans to tell me how my weight is going.

I will weigh again at some point. The trouble is, if the number isn’t what I’m expecting (up or down) it usually sends me to the fridge looking for food to either console myself with or to celebrate. To say I have some deep-seated and unhealthy patterns associated with the bathroom scales is an understatement. I haven’t quite gotten to the same point as Cinque and decided not to have any in the house. They do however live in the vanity of the spare bathroom that I don’t use.

I will take a photo of today’s NFD food later, once I’ve prepared my first meal. I think being accountable for the NFD food is probably more important for me than the FDs – they don’t change much. Mostly it’s cups of tea, a piece of fruit and a big bowl of soup (or sometimes a veggie stir fry if I can be bothered cooking). I wonder if that’s one of the reasons that FDs are easier – I don’t give myself a lot of choices and the food requires little preparation as I always have soups in the freezer and fruit on the kitchen bench. (I probably don’t need to add that there is also always a cupboard full of tins of tea!)

NFDs involve choice, and it’s the many more decisions that gets me into trouble. I’m also wondering whether the the various words that we associate with NFDs add to the issues I sometimes have with controlling my eating. The terms I particularly hate are “feast day” or “feed day”. To me I just think binge when I hear either of those terms. Even “normal day” is difficult – what is normal, whose version of normal is the right one? Because I spent so much of my younger life morbidly obese I can’t use my past eating to give me a guide for “normal” I know exactly where that will lead. Even watching thin people and trying to copy them isn’t always helpful as some of them have a much higher TDEE than I do.

My sister’s meal choices are probably the best guide for me, as I think her portions are about right for me too. She has a piece of fruit for breakfast (usually an orange unless it’s summer time when she’ll have apricots or rockmelon) and sometimes vegemite toast as well. Lunch is her main meal of the day and will always contain some protein (usually meat) and several veg and would fill a smaller entree plate but not the large main course plate. Her dinner for most of the year is soup and toast. Sometimes she adds an egg or cheese to the toast. Like me, she drinks many cups of tea throughout the day and if she wants a snack she mostly chooses fruit. She has never liked desserts (definitely not like me) and even as a kid she would be the only one at the dinner table eating a piece of fresh fruit for dessert when the rest of us were tucking into pudding with custard. Although that doesn’t mean she avoided sugar – she used to drink her sugar. She doesn’t like water so drinks soft drinks and cordial and used to have 2 teaspoons of sugar in every cup of tea. This is probably the only aspect of my diet that’s always been better. I don’t like soft drinks or cordial, I prefer water and I never have sugar in my tea. As my sister has gotten older and her calorie needs have dropped, it’s the sugar in drinks that she’s changed. She now also has her tea very weak and black without sugar.
I suppose the helpful things I’ve learned from observing her over my lifetime is that her portions are appropriate, her diet is high in fruit & veg, she doesn’t snack very much and those snacks are usually fresh fruit, she has also adapted her choices as she’s aged to avoid gaining a lot of weight as her calorie needs have reduced. She’s in her 60s and has gained some weight over the last 20-30 years, but not a lot. I’ve never asked her what she weights but I’d guess she’s gone from the lower end of her healthy weight range to being at the very top now.

Well that’s the end of my reflections for the morning, I imagine a few more posts will have arrived while I’ve been typing my essay!

Sybs, the important thing, is: do you like your new blue/green hair? Will you have to buy a new wardrobe to match? (This is when it’s nice to have a lot of neutral color outfits.! 😁)

LJ, that looks really good! What a pretty plate! My scales can easily show a whole kg up or down overnight, usually depending on what I did or didn’t eat. My walking seems to be helping. Even after pizza last night my weight was 59.8. My clothes usually don’t feel a kg either way. But 2 or more and I would definitely be able to tell with clothing.

LJoyce, I read your comment above about your plateau and thinking that you needed to accept that your body was happy where it was. I’m interested to know if you continued the 5:2 approach across the month despite coming to that understanding? I’ve read that once you get to where you want to be, you could move more to a 6:1 approach. Trying to learn as much as I can!

Hi everyone,
And welcome Tassie Jane, lots of experience on here so ask as many questions as you want.

Photo of FD food (what a mission, because mine is made fresh at each evening meal, so ingredients all weighed and calories worked out. Photos done and I’ll work out how to get them up on the forum. All food is 1 meal after 6pm except psyllium husk.

My practice is to get as much food in quantity and variety for as little calories as I can.

1. Fish and vegie soup – ling a 6 vegies – 184 cals

2. Kefir and psyllium husk – for my sluggish innards – 32 cals

3. Fruit – 2 – 45 cals

4. Drinks – 49 cals

5. Seaweed Snack – 10cals

Total 320 cals.
If I go to the movies I would add 1 small coffee – 68 cals, or tea 3 cals.

It looks like I’m preparing for a cooking show!

Check in: 65.5kgs at start of todays FD, 3.5kgs above goal weight.

Onwards and Downwards,
Merry

Wow, active community.

Hi everyone!

My fifth week, curtailed a college at work to join me last week but it was a pretty lonely venture before that. Fast days, I think its referred to as FD(?), are Mon and Thursday which is standard by what I have read so far.

Any forum rules or general advice and manners followed, like not writing about certain foods on FD?

Cheers,
Bruce

I promised pics for a NFD. https://imgur.com/a/qFfhGs8
Today I had a banana late morning then a very large smoothie for lunch (blueberries, kefir, yoghurt, almond milk, inulin powder, psyllium, vanilla and ice). I planned an orange for mid-afternoon but I’m not hungry so I’ll probably skip that. Dinner is leftovers – one cup of chilli con carne with roasted potato, carrot and kale sprouts. I also included the teapot and the amount of water I’m trying to drink in the photo.

Some time ago I tried to explain how I stored single serves of meals in flat ziploc bags to make the most of the limited storage in my freezer compartment. As I was in a photo mood today, I took a shot of the many meal bags in my freezer door. https://imgur.com/TwcLbr9 I lay the bags flat on a shelf to freeze them, then stack them in the door once they are frozen solid. If I just have meal bags in the door (and not the other things that are there at the moment) I can easily fit 24 bags. I like the flat bag system not just because it’s space efficient but because things defrost much more quickly than in a plastic tub. Many of these meals can be used as a FD meal if I don’t feel like my usual soup. On a NFD I usually put either extra veg or grains with them.

@bruce & Tassie Jane – welcome to 5:2 and the SH Forum
I have only been doing 5:2 since 01 February, so I am still a bit of a newbie. When I started 5:2 I counted calories and weighed stuff – I don’t count calories any longer, as I have gotten used to serving sizes for FDs. But I always check the nutrition panel and list of ingredients on any packaged/canned food I buy.
I also started walking every morning, nothing too strenuous, for about 45 – 60 minutes. I noticed that I changed shape, ie able to get into shorts and blouses which had been too tight, before I noticed my weight dropping.
After about 2-3 month I hit a plateau and started 4:3, 4 NFSs and 3 FDs per week, which did the trick, and I have been dropping weight ever since – between 500g and 1 kg per week, for a total weight loss of 17 kg since 1 February. I only weigh myself once each week, which is recommended by health professionals, mainly because there can be daily weight fluctuations.
The great thing about 5:2 is that it’s so flexible, and you will find that many on this forum have adapted it to suit their individual needs

Day 1 of my two day B2B FDs. Noon. Nothing solid since 6pm yesterday. Two cups of tea and two of coffee this morning. I spent the morning burning calories, digging holes for a post and rail fence i am putting up. I will eat a few lettuce leaves etc now and spend the afternoon mixing concrete by hand and putting up the posts. This evening i will permit myself a kipper.

Penguin, caffeine and lettuce doesn’t sound like much of an energy source for digging holes. Good for fat burning. I hope the 2 day fast goes well.

Cali, I’m very glad to hear that those fires that were close to you are now out.
Last night’s salad sounds good. Your idea for the rest of the kale sounds interesting but I’d be wary on the number of salty flavours (bacon, feta & olives). It might make the salad too salty. I use feta often in salads and I find it adds all the salt I need to the dish. If you want the bacon and olives then I’d suggest a less salty cheese.

I have to quickly drink my cup of tea then deliver my car to the mechanic – major service today.

Cinque, sounds like you’ve had a tiring time. Hope today truly is a recovery day.

I’m getting a bit addicted to taking the daily food photo. Today I needed my 2 step ladder to get higher enough above the bench to get everything in shot!
https://imgur.com/ZUmyLZ6
Today’s planned food is 1/2 of the pictured tub of yoghurt mixed with an equal amount of kefir – which I’ve already eaten. Lunch will be 3 grain porridge (oats, barley and rye) with milk and honey. Snacks are cherries and a banana if I need it. Dinner is the last of the leftover roast veg with a cup of beef and vegetable ragu. Plus the usual cups of tea and water.
Needless to say, that with this much food it’s a NFD.

I’ve been struggling to drink enough water in this cold weather and I tend to have more cups of tea. Yesterday was the first day I included the water bottle in the picture and it was also the only day where I’ve actually drunk it all. SO maybe being accountable in photos does have an influence. I’ll continue to leave it in the photo in the hope that it will continue to influence me to drink more water.

Good luck to all the fasters.

Hello all. Hope everyone is travelling well. Went to Adelaide on the weekend to attend the footy showdown on Saturday night.

There’s good news and bad news from the trip.

Our team won..yay good news.

We ate at some amazing restaurants and i ate way too much yummy but not so healthy food…bad news for the scales.

I went shopping at the health food shops…good and bad news here because i bought so many things i cant buy at home but it cost me a small fortune.

Some of my food purchases were Cassava Flour,Red Miso, Kombucha, Pomegranate Molasses, MCT Oil, Yeast Flakes, Rye Flour and Himalayan Course Salt.

I was also stoked to find Collagen Powder, Pure Shea Butter and Pure Castile Soap.

I was like the kid in the candy store thats for sure. The fresh produce at the Central Market was divine and i am so jealous of those who have access to such a varied array of beautiful foods.

Unfortunately there was no point buying any fresh produce as we are only home for a few days before heading off to the Clare Valley for a long weekend….where we will undoubtedly eat too much and sample a few reds. There’s a pattern emerging here….lol

Were off to Qld for a week in mid September to attend a wedding so the month between this weekend and the Qld trip will be strict eating regimes indeed.

Im off to buy a food dehydrator this arvo, have been wanting one for awhile. It’s my 50th birthday pressy to myself.