Hello Southern Hemispherites!!

This topic contains 27,869 replies, has 831 voices, and was last updated by  thinatlast 1 day, 8 hours ago.

Viewing 50 posts - 16,851 through 16,900 (of 27,973 total)

  • Merry, I also found the one in that documentary who had limited her nutritional intake to a handful of items interesting. Particularly, the fact that her food behaviours had been indulged as a child. I understand that parents have to pick their food battles but that seemed extreme. I also appreciated hearing what binge-eating actually meant in terms of quantities consumed because I’d often wondered whether I’d been a binge-eater. I now know I never was.

    I recall the discussion you mentioned that we had here all that time ago about our childhood influences wrt food. It was so interesting that many of us had similar issues.

    LJ, your tarts look divine. So pleased that they and I are separated by the Nullarbor Plain because I might be able to scoff quite a few. Then again, reading what you said about the sugar, perhaps not. Vials of insulin would be hilarious.

    The neighbour who enjoys baking but not eating has just invited a few of us round for soup and crusty bread on Sunday. I’m relieved to be able to fast tomorrow therefore. DD, OH and I had the hearty ‘surfers’ breakfast’ at a restaurant overlooking the ocean this morning & I still feel full. Although it’s technically the big breakfast, I love it occasionally because there’s only one of everything – so the plate size doesn’t put me off. Not sure how I’ll make it from Saturday to the following Sunday without fasting though.

    Thin – ithe restricted food thing is called ARFID – Avoidant/ Restrictive Food Intake Disorder. The young lady said ARFID at the beginning but it was easy to miss and not generally known. It’s in DSM V as a genuine food disorder. It usually starts very young, as young as 1, and can apply to the colour, taste, texture, smell, and various other parameters. It can have causes, such as difficulty in swallowing, an episode of choking, or no observable cause. The parents, despite doing everything they can to get the little ones to eat a varied diet, cannot get past the child’s refusal to eat anything not on the few foods they will eat. Letting them go hungry by not giving them the few foods doesn’t work. They simply don’t eat. It’s a horrible insidious thing.

    Good luck tomorrow.

    Ok, I have to get in on the photo posting here. My FD vary a little, but these are usually the staples. https://imgur.com/a/v6tMTgr I like that I can keep them stocked in the pantry. The fruit varies by season, about 100 calories or so. The soup is 180 calories for the whole can and I often have it for dinner. The salmon is 160 calories and I usually have it for lunch with a little lemon juice sprinkled on, because it fills me without making me feel hungry for the rest of the afternoon. I sometimes have miso soup instead, depending on what vegetables I have in the frig. I also sometimes have a .454 gram bag or .340 gram bag of frozen broccoli or some other green vegetable. (Or a fresh vegetable.) I also sometimes have fresh Salmon or another fish if I’m cooking a meal for OFM (other family members). But my FD are often Subway sandwich days for DS and DH.

    BTW, my DS did 2 FD this week, Tues and Thurs! She didn’t weigh herself before starting (She’s much less obsessed with the scale than I am) but she thinks she lost. I’m holding my breath hoping that she’ll like it and stick with it. She doesn’t have as much to lose as I did, but she’s about 7.5 cm shorter than I am so it shows up a little more. I know she would be successful with much less stress than counting calories or only eating certain food groups. I’m trying to get her over here because each of you have been such a help to me in sticking with it and figuring out what to eat.

    Good morning from a very wet and rainy Melbourne. My garden is so happy!

    Thin, I should have a signal so the the people upstairs have start their shower a couple of minutes before I want hot water!

    Merry, I relate so much to what you wrote about childhood and eating.
    I became overweight as a teenager, so pleased that I finally had some control about food. Not really! Oh the conflict of control and no control!

    I saw such a good documentary called “The Secret Lives of Fussy Eaters” that dealt with a variety of ARFID people. It helped me understand the condition so much better, and I had read about it previously.
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11895424

    Cate, you are doing brilliantly. So handy to have that “I can always have that tomorrow” safely up your sleeve, and it is wonderful that your brain is enjoying this new lifestyle and that you are finding it easier to eat well. Clear indicators that even if you don’t lose weight (but you will) this way of eating is good for your health.

    LJoyce what great quotes your electrician has with his signature.
    Those tiny tarts look delightful! And so nice that an enjoyable standing afternoon helped your back.

    Cali, good to see your photo and to hear your sister has done another fast day. Wouldn’t it be fun to have her here too.
    Has your BP been behaving itself? I hope so.

    I’m having another go at making adai for breakfast. I am best making a new recipe several times to know that I have got the hang of it. This time I have added finely grated carrot.

    I impulse bought some tofu yesterday as I haven’t had it for ages, and I had a yummy stir fry last night. But I have frozen the rest in portions to have in my Fast Day soups as I like the thawed sponginess of it in a tasty soup.

    I’m going to have a nice cooking day I hope, a big lasagne that has spinach and mushrooms as well as a meat sauce. that will keep me going for a while!

    Hoping you have a great day, everyone. Rug up South-Easterners.

    Sybs, I meant to compliment you on your hair and then missed it. I love the color, kind of an aqua. It reminds me of the ocean and beaches, perfect for where you live. 🌴 It looks very soft and pretty. I was expecting something dark and wild. 😁

    LJ, your desserts turned out beautiful and I’m sure they’ll taste wonderful. Good idea to keep the portion sizes small so guests can pace themselves. Hope there will be a lot of people there!

    Cinque, my BP has been mostly behaving lately. I’ve had to cut back a little on the evening medication because it’s been getting low enough that I feel lightheaded. I expect my body will adapt. I’ve been walking more and maybe that exercise is making a difference. I saw from some posts that I was able to get off the blood pressure meds for a while last November when I was almost down to my goal weight. I’m trying to remember now when I had to go back. My weight is close to the same but there was a lot more stress due to work in December. Stress can make a huge difference.

    LJ- those tarts look scrumptious! GladI’m not fasting today 🙂
    Thin- what a great neighbour. It’s good that dinner does not have to be the big 3 courses thing & can just be soup & crusty bread.
    Cali- I hope your DS has success with 5:2 too & likes it. It is a lot less restrictive than most “diets” & better for us mentally I think.
    Cinque- thank you. I do feel much better on 5:2. I still felt guilty about having dessert last night at my BIL’s place after dinner but must remember that it is ok occasionally. I am hoping for a loss this week but feel some more exercise would help. I’m going to play golf today with my OH & again on Wed if it’s not raining. Your lasagne sounds good. We add zucchini, carrot & celery to our meat sauce too, to veg it up.
    Hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

    @calif – thank you, but unfortunately the colour is almost gone after just 1 week – next time I’ll try spray on colour

    @cate – I thought part of 5:2 is that we don’t feel guilty if/when we indulge every now and then :-))

    @lj – I wish I was close to you your place – just to pinch some of these tarts

    @cinque – are you going to post the adai recipe once it’s to your liking?

    wishing everyone a wonderful 5:2 weekend

    Fasting Saturday! I was ticking along nicely between 59.2 & 59.4kgs until yesterday’s big breakfast put a huge spanner in the scales and messed it all up. Restaurant meals are the kiss of death for me. That and half a glass of cider that I shared with DD last evening, the first alcoholic drink since well before we went on holiday. Just not worth the blow out. 60.6kg. I’ll probably fast on Wednesday to compensate.

    Cinque, maybe you can raise a mop in front of your upstairs neighbour’s window to signal shower time, sharing the 15ltr cold water waste between you!

    Thanks for putting a name to that eating disorder, Merry, and for the article, Cinque. It only earned a name recently, nevertheless, if my child was exhibiting such extreme eating habits, I’d be seeking professional help. Indulging that behaviour, or not, would have devastating effects on the entire family. My friend, whose daughter was diagnosed with anorexia when our girls were young teens, did seek professional treatment immediately. Even with excellent professional help, her daughter’s food issues continued to consume and dominate every aspect of their family life for some years. She’s functioning now but will always have that in her life.

    One interesting aspect that my friend discovered is that mental health treatment is quite accessible and comprehensive in WA for children until they reach 16. After that age, you have to be quite creative to find the right, or any, help even if you can afford it or have insurance.

    Thanks for the photo CalifD. It does make a FD so easy if you have everything to hand. Mine’s similar to last week – a frozen portion of cauliflower soup, a frozen almond & coconut milk ration & a frozen serving of hearty root & barley soup. With a brisk walk, I hope to be back under 60kg tomorrow. I hope your sister continues with 5:2. How nice for her to have you to guide her and not have to bother with the initial calorie counting chore. I wouldn’t have stuck with this if calorie counting had been an ongoing part of it.

    Good morning all.

    I’ve got today’s food organised early for a change. https://imgur.com/eRtUixu
    There’s 2 photo’s – the second one is my brand new kitchen scales which I tried out for the first time yesterday – very happy with them. https://imgur.com/r6d5M3U
    Anyway, today’s food is a large bowl of cereal for brunch/lunch (a mixture of oats, bran, a buckwheat & coconut cereal, dried cranberries with almond milk). If I need an afternoon snack then I’ll have an apple. Early dinner is a cup of butternut-lemon soup with a slice of toasted wholemeal sourdough. As I don’t know what I’ll eat at the party I decided to set parameters. The small empty side plate is the quantity of food I’m restricting myself to and the bottle of water indicates that all I’ll be drinking there is water. I’m hoping that by including these visual reminders on what my limits should be tonight will help me to not overeat.

    Cali, I’m so pleased to hear your sister had a good first week with fasting.

    Cinque & Cate, It looks like we are all secret hiders of veggies into meals. I always add veggies to pasta sauces and lasagne, moussaka, shepherds pie etc. I like to add enough vegies that I can sometimes have a serve of the meal without having to make veggies as a side dish, and I still know it’s a balanced meal. My goal with bolognese sauce is 75% veg and 25% beef. My main cheat in bolognese is minced mushrooms as they add a similar amount of flavour as minced beef and when cooked they look the same (although, depending on what’s in season I also use eggplant, zucchini, capsicum, celery, onion, carrot or sweet potato). The only time I can’t get away with it is with certain family members who hate mushrooms.

    Cali, thanks for posting the pic. We don’t get tinned soups that look that interesting here.

    Merry & Thin, the discussion about ARFID is a good reminder that some people have far more serious issues with food than I do.

    Time to have a cup of tea and then get on with some more baking.

    Sybs- It will take me some time to get used to the idea of not feeling guilty about some food choices, that most people would feel are just part of everyday life. If 5:2 starts working for me again (ie losing weight) then it will be a welcome change to my mindset. I eat a very healthy well-balanced diet but have been putting on weight consistently for the last couple of years. It has been really disheartening.
    LJ- I feel you can never have enough veggies 🙂 We played golf today & are having a frittata for dinner that is chock a block with veggies. Yum!

    Good morning,
    A cool grey day to wake up to,

    Cali, I am just so glad that your BP is settling down. I hope you can keep relatively stressless. Fingers crossed.

    Cate, good luck with the occasional dessert. It is so annoying when guilt stops us from enjoying every mouthful, and then remembering it with pleasure.

    It is disheartening when you (and so many of us) work hard to eat well, and yet keep getting fatter. Yay for 5:2 cutting out those 2 days a week. Onward and downward, as Merry says.

    I hope it was a great golf day.

    My lasagne went really well. It has four components apart from the lasagne sheets. Last time I made it, I made one each day for three days and then got it all done on the fourth. I did it all in one day yesterday and you should have seen the amount of saucepans!

    The meat sauce was cooked separately from the mushrooms, then there was the spinach and then the cheese sauce. It does make it rather elegant, but next time I will put the mushrooms in with the meat as, when eating it, you can’t really appreciate that they were cooked separately at the cost of at least 20 minutes and more washing up!

    My higher brain is really getting into gear with imagining my food table ahead. I kept telling myself there were 8 serves in the tray, and resisted the picture of a cheap and cheerful restaurant with a huge slice of lasagne on the plate.

    This is working for me because (after 5 years of no sugar? after 3 years of 5:2?) my hunger satiation message is getting to my brain after about 20 minutes, like it is supposed to, instead of two hours, or never. (Touch wood and whistle). Oh, it makes life SO much easier.

    Thin, I hope your Saturday fast addressed your restaurant breakfast, and that cheeky glass of alcohol. And the mop idea is a great one, I’ll suggest it to Katherine next time I see her! 🙂 🙂

    LJoyce, what beautiful kitchen scales! I hope the lumberjack cake came out well!

    I’m cooking the last of the adai mixture for breakfast this morning. Sybs, I’ll make a batch with onion instead of hing next time and see how that goes, and then I will see if I can write a recipe. But it will be one of those ‘start with some legumes and rice, whatever you have, and soak them well, then add anything out of this list of things, blend it til it is pretty smooth and then stir in any of these things….’ recipe. Which is why I love it so.

    Happy Sunday everyone

    Thanks, Cinque. Golf was enjoyable but a hard slog in the cold & the mud. I’m glad I played though, even though I am very sore today, after a month off.
    Your lasagne sounds so good. We must buy some mince tomorrow. I’m happy to do the dishes as my OH does the cooking. Happy Sunday to you & all the SH’s!

    Good morning Southern Hemispherites.

    Cate, I’m having a giggle imagining anyone playing golf in the mud – doesn’t sound like fun, and I can’t imagine finding a lost ball that sinks into the mud. Wet grass I’ve done, but never mud.

    Thin, I hope that big restaurant breakfast was worth it. Although given how much you’ve said you miss the second fast day, it may not feel too much like a sacrifice to do 5:2 this week.

    Cinque, I don’t do lasagne often for that very reason – too many elements and cleaning up. Still, you now have many serves ready for the freezer and quick delicious meals from all your efforts. I know what you mean about the size of the serve, it’s hard not to be generous with things like this. As you said you are cooking adai this morning I assume that means no Sunday fasting now that you are doing B2B.

    Sybs, if you ever get down this way I’ll bake you some.
    I actually got to try them last night – just a small piece broken off of tarts that others were eating. Although I’m not a chocolate flavoured dessert fan, in this instance I preferred them as the bitterness from the dark chocolate made them taste less sweet than the plain butter tarts. Everyone seemed to like the tarts and also the cake. Personally I preferred the cake to the tarts and can imagine using the cake recipe as a muffin batter in the future.

    I did manage to keep my food intake fairly modest last night although it was mostly cheeses and crackers. I wore my smallest, quite tight jeans as they force me to restrict my eating – no expansion room for my tummy.

    I’m fasting today. https://imgur.com/9VUmkiD Food today is a cup of butternut-lemon soup, a slice of toasted wholemeal sourdough, a boiled egg and an apple. I normally wouldn’t have bread on a FD, but I was trying to make do with the food that was in the fridge rather than defrosting more. As I only had a small amount of soup left I knew it would require some padding to make it look like dinner.

    I need to be home today as Ikea are meant to be delivering furniture which I ordered online. Normally I’d do the usual trek to the store and fold down the seats in my car and cart it all home myself. But there were 17 boxes weighing well over 100kg and I didn’t think my little car would cope (or me). So I ordered it all online and paid them a modest fee to collect up all the boxes and deliver it to me. This is the new storage cabinets for the dining room wall and also the new dining table.

    Have a nice Sunday everyone.

    LJ- I’m glad I made you giggle! There was flying mud in places. If it hadn’t been a Memorial Day for a friend’s husband I think I would have stayed at home. Glad I played though.
    Just reading about buying furniture in flat packs gives me the horrors. I wouldn’t even attempt it.

    @lj – how exciting to get an IKEA delivery. I have put together sideboards, side tables, bookshelves, lamps, etc from IKEA many times, usually it worked first time around. Unfortunately our nearest store is in Townsville, about 300km away. But there is a “collection point” in one of the Cairns suburbs, so it’s possible to order online and pick the delivery up. It costs $40, and is only worthwhile when ordering more that 1 or 2 items. Good Luck with another huge project :-))

    Oh dear. My Ikea delivery has arrived- right number of boxes, unfortunately not the right items. I’ve received the table top and extension leaf for the table, but the box containing the legs is missing – they sent me part of a bed instead. Not sure what they expect me to do with that- have a nap during dinner perhaps?
    They have been advised of the issue and have promised to send me the right box (and collect the bed) on Tuesday. The poor delivery driver (who was not at fault) was getting a bit stressed as I wouldn’t sign his delivery docket until we’d contacted Ikea and had the replacement sorted.

    Sybs – the cost of them picking the items and delivery was only $69, which I found very reasonable. Now I know why, they don’t double check they’ve picked the right boxes! Where I lived before they wouln’t deliver anything other than small items that could be posted.
    I will have help with building the furniture- my niece and her husband are helping me build these things. I find it difficult to manage the larger pieces alone as I usually don’ have enough hands to holds in place while turning the screwdriver or allen key.

    Time for a cuppa after all that drama.

    @lj – I know exactly what you mean with “…not having enough hands..” the worst piece I have ever put together on my own was a double bed! lucky htat I live on my own, so the language I used was quite private!!

    LJoyce, I’ve had a couple of Ikea things delivered, and my daughter has had more, without any problems, so you might have just been unlucky.

    On the other hand, I’ve sat on the loungeroom floor crying, trying to put them together, many times!

    Nice food today LJoyce! I think I will fast Tuesday and Sunday next week. I wonder if I will manage a photo!

    Just joined. I am in Christchurch NZ. Likely to need some support on my first few weeks on fasting days. Makes heaps of sense & looking forward to the new me,,

    Hi, Sekgwa & welcome to the 5:2 forum. I’m only into my 4th week & appreciating the support. I will be “fasting” mostly on Tue & Thu, but it’s so adaptable & I don’t feel that I’m on a diet. All the best with it!

    Hello all. It’s cold and westerly windy here in the north, which is always a recipe for misery! We have had a weekend of noisy neighbours – it started Friday night and continued most of Saturday, with my OH going out at 1 am today and shouting for them to quieten down. Then they kicked off again at around 9am this morning – just as I rounded the corner into the front garden a young man on the verandah switched the music on full blast. Timing is everything – I caught his eye and told him to turn it down which he did .. for a short while. I don’t know what the solution is.
    Fortunately we were out yesterday afternoon for Mr 4’s birthday party. I had my first carbs in weeks …. I couldn’t not have some dinosaur cake, but I also had a party pie and sausage roll and an anzac biscuit. The scales were not kind today but I am back on track, and will probably try 3 FDs this week. Wednesday is a public holiday, so I’ll fast on my work days – Tuesday, Thurdsay and Friday.
    I’ve just come up from the bottom garden, investigating why the sprinkler system doesn’t seem to be working, and an shocked how dry everything is. I’ve lost so many plants. I have a chap coming tomorrow to fix the sprinklers. I posted the job on a website that provides trade services and I’ve had half a dozen responses already. I ust can’t imagine how the poor farmers are coping, when a few dead plants sends me into a spin.
    Sorry I sound like such a misery today – I’ll go and do a bit of ironing I think – seeing the bottom of my laundry basket always cheers me up. Have a good night all.

    now on SBS “Vitamania”

    Welcome Sekgwa, lovely to have you here!
    Congratulations on your 4th week of 5:2.
    Yes, I think of it as a change in the way I eat, rather than a short term diet.

    Hi everyone else too,
    Will write more later. (Neighbour coming down for coffee, and the cat got off my knee so I can now get ready!)

    Welcome Sek, we haven’t had any kiwi representation for a while.

    Cinque, I think I’ll be joining you for Tues/Sun fasting this week. I really want to do Wednesday but I have supplementary bridge classes and I’m not sure if I can concentrate with the FD brain fog. I usually fast in advance of a food event but this week I’m coming up from behind which isn’t a good feeling. The Sunday neighbourly gathering was a truly fantastic day but I think I ate more than all the year’s other Sundays put together.

    Lindsay, commiserations. I empathise completely. I cannot understand why people seem to have absolutely no regard for others. I dread the summer and curse the day the then neighbours put in a swimming pool which changed our lives forever. This has been our family home for 24 years but living here has become untenable. I don’t feel it’s right that we should have to endure prolonged shrieking when we’re holed up inside our own home. It’s a real shame because we have strong friendships with so many lovely people in our street.

    Good morning SH’s.

    Sekgwa welcome. If you have questions there’s sure to be someone here who can help. Good luck on those first fast days.

    Sybs, I recorded it and went to be early, I’ll watch it today.

    Lindsay, sorry to hear you are still having issues with noisy neighbours. I hope last weekend was a one-off.
    I agree about the dinosaur cake – I hope it was good.

    Cate, you’ve slipped into a routine that your are comfortable with so quickly. I’m really glad to hear that you are finding it easy now.

    Cinque, good morning enjoy coffee with your neighbour.

    No photo today. I’ve taken one, but my email is not recieving mail at present and emailing it from my phone to my email so that I can open it on the laptop is the only process I know. I’ll just have to describe today’s NFD food:
    – a 1/2 glass of kefir with some inulin powder stirred through
    – a mug of veg soup, 2 small pieces of wholemeal spelt toast and a boiled egg
    – a banana
    – a small serve of chilli con carne with garlicky greens on the side
    – as many glasses of water and cups of tea as I feel like

    Have a good day everyone.

    Thin, our posts crossed. Good morning.

    Morning all. What a misery I was yesterday! Everything seemed to get on top of me. Everywhere I looked, things needed to be done. My daughter even asked me if we should think about relocating. But this is my home, and I love it, despite the noisy neighbours, who are all off at work/uni or whatever they do when they are not getting goat-faced, as my friend says, and shouting into the night. So things are looking up today. I’ve fixed the screws in the gate so it opens properly, I’ve planted a very pretty little plant near the front steps. I’m awaiting the sprinkler man, I’ve just phoned a painter to oil the verandah and steps (too high for me…as is anything over a foot off the ground and my OH has poor sight, so having him up a ladder is just not on), and I’ve called my friend’s tiler for the bathroom renovation, after waiting since January for our builder from our renovation to fit us in between jobs..very satisfying…and it’s only 10.30
    welcome Sek – this is a great forum.
    LJ my dil had an Ikea malfunction too this weekend. She bought outdoor furniture and a cabinet for the baby’s clothes, for the new house. Everything turned up except the cabinet, which is the item needed the most.
    I have happily put Saturday’s party behind me, and am 16:8 ing, with some poached eggs in an hour.
    Sybs loved the gentle colour of your hair.
    Thin, that prolonged shrieking is dreadful, as is being holed up inside during summer. We have decided on some direct action, because the agents won’t deal with the noise. Every time it kicks off, we are going to tell them quite assertively to pipe down. It’s all that’s left. Politeness just doesn’t work. I don’t understand the shrieking in the pool. We have one (30 years old now) and the little (and big) ones play happily without shrieking.
    Calif how is your little bird family? Penguin yours coming along too?
    Enjoy your coffee Cinque
    Arel are you doing okay?
    happy day all.

    Hi LJ, I forgot to say that I hope your IKEA issues get sorted quickly. There’s probably an IKEA Support Group forum somewhere! Currently, I’m doing battle with paypal – they must be the most frustrating organisation on the planet!

    P.S. Lindsay, here’s to a better day for you! I can’t understand it either – I think it might be the games/accessories they have with it. There’s a slide, for example, which requires a scream every time it’s used. I have other neighbours who have pools next door and hear their children playing & laughing happily with the occasional reminder from mum or dad to ‘shhh’ when things get a bit loud. I think the transient renters have no vested interest in our neighbourhood so they just don’t care.

    My photo finally turned up in my Outlook, so here it is https://imgur.com/kvZoLnq although I realised I forgot to include my glass of kefir. Also the still frozen pouch of chilli con carne and the bowl of garlicky green veg is actually 2 serves, so I’ll only have half of that tonight.

    Lindsay, what amazed me most about your description of the noise, is that after a late night partying they were actually up at 9am on a Sunday playing music again! I remember how late I slept at that age after a late night – definitely no 9am starts.

    Thin, the Ikea fix is all booked in. I wouldn’t let the courier leave (by refusing to sign his docket) until he got them on the phone and I had a guaranteed fix in place. They are sending another courier tomorrow morning to collect the box contain the bed and bring me the legs to my dining table. I actually felt more amused than upset – I kept imaging what weird things I could build from half a table and half a bed!

    Sybs, I’m just watching Vitamania now.
    I’m not shocked by the vitamin deficiencies given the poor diets some people eat. What did shock me, is how easily foods lose their vitamin content. They said that an apple left at room temperature for just a week (ie in my fruit bowl) will lose 75% of its vitamin C. I assume that loss starts when the apple is picked and who knows how long ago that was, given how long apples (and pears) are kept in cold storage so they can be sold all year round.
    I just did a search for information and found this. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/health/28real.html and http://www.fruitandvegetable.ucdavis.edu/files/197179.pdf It appears that refrigeration does not help vitamin loss but freezing does. So my fruit and veg just needs to be very fresh or frozen. Unless you grow your own, it’s getting harder to find fruit and veg that you know is very fresh. It was easier where I used to live because there were market gardens in my area and their produce was sold locally. Living in the suburbs I have to rely on the green grocer buying often from the wholesale growers market.

    ‘transient renters’. Nailed in one phrase Thin. They think that paying their $160 a week each gives them carte blanche to behave in very unsocial ways. I also blame the council for allowing a six bedroom redevelopment in a traditional house, on quite a busy street, and not enough parking for every young man to have either a car or a ute. The downside is they park with their tails over our drive, making exiting backwards up a long drive a bit of an art. One ute with a tailbar was parked over the drive the other night – my OH went to ask him to move. He came out of the house, beer in hand, and offered to guide me out. No, I said, just move your damn car and don’t park here. My OH said I was rude. Good.
    LJ I am not sure they’d been to bed! (and nice pic – it made me quite hungry).
    Sprinkler man has been – I was expecting a whacking great bill, but he fixed the pump, reconnected a pipe the scrub turkeys had ripped asunder, checked the other sprinklers, and charged $88 for labour and $30 for the part. Will be lovely to hear that automatic pump start at 6 tomorrow – better than an alarm.

    Hello again,
    Yes thanks, lovely cuppa with my neighbour. He always amazes me with something he has done. This time it was his Phd studying tiny native bees that make their home in fallen treefern fronds! They make a little tunnel from the end of the frond where it was attached to the tree and live in there.

    Lindsay, I am glad today is a better day. You will surely outlast those awful neighbours! Keep complaining! I’ll put my witchiest magic to work to make them go away and some new, quiet, lovely neighbours to move in. I will make it such a subtle, powerful and far reaching magic that it will work on Thin’s neighbours too. Here is a picture of me at work! http://animationextentions.weebly.com/uploads/7/7/3/0/7730430/9912824.gif

    Happy Birthday to Mr 4! In a few days my eldest granddaughter will be turning 4 too! (Octonauts cake to be made).

    I hope the sprinklers are fixed okay today and your garden revives.

    I’m glad I posted that bit before discussing Vitamania, because new posts have come in!

    I watched it last night. So interesting. Like you, LJoyce, I was shocked at how fruit loses its vitamin C. Also I was fascinated by the making of the synthetic vitamins, and got the point about the unregulated industry, even here where there are good rules, but not enforced.
    Now I know why ‘made from lanolin’ is written on my bottle of vitamin D supplements. Which were prescribed by my doctor!

    Fast day for me tomorrow. I wonder if I will manage a pic.

    Good grief, the day is half over already. Cheers everyone.

    Cinque, glad you had such a nice morning.

    I’ve noticed that when I feel driven to eat a lot, nothing I consume satisfies me. Yet when I’m aware of my food choices and servings, very simple things can be a real joy. I enjoyed my FD dinner last night so much I decided to repeat it for lunch today. I got so much pleasure from a simple boiled egg and buttered spelt toast. It’s very ordinary food but felt like a treat. It probably helped that this is one of my favourite breads and I have to travel back to the hills where I used to live to buy it. I’ve decided it’s worth the trip.

    Hi everyone,
    Doing some catchup reading.

    Welcome kiwi!

    Clearly I’ve been going down waterslides all wrong.
    And I laughed out loud at that picture Cinque

    Back later tonight…..

    Welcome Sekgwa. Glad you found the 5:2 way of eating and hope it works as well for you as it does for most of us!

    LJ, links for those articles are interesting. I had hoped that our fruits and vegetables retained more vitamins and nutrients, but I guess I’m not surprised. We either seem to keep fruits in the bowl on the counter longer than we probably should. We use Freshpaper in the fruit bowls on the counter https://www.amazon.com/FRESHPAPER-Produce-Vegetables-Perfect-Storage/dp/B00VEFVR8O/ref=sr_1_3?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1534130987&sr=1-3&keywords=fresh+paper+produce+saver+sheets and Blueapples in our frig drawers, and they keep produce looking fresh, but I wonder if it helps to preserve the vitamin content? Vitamania sounds interesting. There are a couple laces to rent a streamed copy here.

    Thin, I thought your new neighbors in the rented house were quiet and nice. Did new people move in?

    Lindsay, I’m sorry you’re still having to put up with all the noise. Would the police ticket them for blocking your driveway?
    You could certainly not pass on the dinosaur cake for Mr. 4’s birthday! MyFitnessPal does not list dinosaur cake so it must be calorie-free. 😛

    Cinque, I didn’t realize you could impose curses and cast spells! 😉 I can see where it could sometimes come it very handy!

    Hi Merry!

    I should know better that to accept a party invite and then ask an open ended question such as, can I bake something to bring.
    I got this picture back from my nephew’s wife:https://imgur.com/J3af5eh
    Oh dear, I’ve never made macarons before (mostly because I don’t like them). But I’ll give it a go. I might have to figure out where I can buy some if it all goes belly up!
    I sent her a text saying I’d never made them but would try and she’s given me a back-up plan – home made melting moment cockles – that I can do – I have my Mum’s recipe for those and have made them many times.

    Hi Cali, I don’t whether fruit looking fresh has anything to do with it retaining its vitamins. I suspect not. I think those freshness aid are more about stopping the fruit from rotting quickly.

    Well I have to head up to Mount Barker now for an appointment with the exercise physiologist.

    Cinque,a very powerful spell. Good work! I would like some nice IT students please, while you’re at it. The last ones were like mice. Thin you’re right about the computer games. My daughter’s neighbours were waking them up at 2, 3 o’clock in the morning with lots of loud shouting. She and SIL popped the babies on hips and knocked on their door to explain how it was waking the little ones. They were mortified – they were international students playing computer games with friends back in China. The noise stopped immediately.
    Calif the council will book them if we complain – but usually only in business hours.
    Hope your GD’s birthday is special Cinque, and the octonauts cake turns out well – and you don’t have to have bright green dinosaur icing. My DIL is an art teacher, so hers was a pretty creative effort (and a very chocolatey cake from her grandmother’s recipe).
    I didn’t watch the vitamins program, but was interested in an article my vegan brother found recently, that said because our soils are so depleted of minerals etc from intensive cultivation, an apple that we eat today has only a fraction of the goodness of one grown a century ago. Scary thought. I try to grow some of our own veges (when I win the war with the birds), and we compost compost compost. We also grow bananas, mangoes and passionfruit. I love all the segments on Gardening Australia about community gardens, and how people come together from all different walks of life and countries to grow and share.

    Lindsay I too love the gardening australia segments on community gardens, and also those where food is grown on the verge. I currently have grass on my verge and am considering ripping it out and planting something more useful. I was thinking of low growing herbs like the various types of thyme. I thought it might be a neighbourly thing to do, as everyone would be free to pick fresh herbs as they wandered by. Although I have wondered whether they would want to, after every neighbourhood dog has lifted it leg on the herb patch.

    Hi there! …Just popping in to say that I’ve had a difficult though successful FD. …Difficult because I’m riding on too little sleep, so the hunger hormones are out of balance. In other words, I’ve had to contend with more hunger than usual. What is good is that I’ve stayed on track, knowing that I can enjoy a nourishing break fast tomorrow! I’m not complaining, just pointing out how important sleep is in the bigger fasting scheme of things! Here’s to everyone having clear sailing easy FDs ahead!

    Hi Minka. Good to see you here and fasting. Today is a FD for me too. So far it’s going ok. I often have trouble sleeping too, so I understand what you’re saying about it affecting your FD. Lack of sleep can impact a lot of things. I often find it more difficult to fall asleep the night of a FD. I guess it’s because we often have more energy when we’re fasting. The good thing is that you’re staying on track.

    Good morning Cali & Minka, I agree about the relationship between lack of sleep and hunger, I find that happens to me too. It’s really good that you managed to stick to your FD anyway Minka. I think it’s the tough FDs that reassure us we can stick with this for the long haul – as you’ve done for years.

    I’m up early today because Ikea are coming sometime between 7-11am to remove the box contain the bed parts and bring me my dining table legs.

    NFD for me, I’ll post a photo later.

    Good morning,
    Oh Minka, I so agree. Not enough sleep makes everything difficult!
    Congratulations for sticking to your fast day, and fingers crossed you have had a better sleep now.

    It’s Fast Day for me, and here is a picture of my food for the day. (Yay, I did it Thin!)
    https://imgur.com/a/AXwozt3
    It is a fasty fast day, with just a jug of milk for my cuppas and the ingredients for my miso soup: miso paste (I just use a tablespoon full), a block of tofu, shiitake mushrooms (that are now soaking), and a couple of veg.
    Often now I add in a small meal of veggies in the middle of the day but I need to go shopping if I am going to have that today, I’ll see how I go over the next couple of hours. I know, I could have a boiled egg if I want something.

    Oh, and I took a picture of this weeks loaf of bread (avert your eyes those of you who avoid bread). This is pretty much the only bread I eat, I make it with a very long rise and the ‘no knead’ method. It always looks pretty much the same, but this one was made with added oats and poppy seed.
    https://imgur.com/a/DAA8wPF

    Cali my witchy magic has been very useful, it is extraordinary how often it works when someone has lost something, so call on me if you need. Unfortunately it hasn’t done anything very useful in terms of curing my chronic illness or making me a fortune, sigh, but everything has its limits! 🙂

    So interesting re food. We evolved wonderfully to be able to judge a good healthy piece of fruit, but we are now so clever at making them look good and healthy even if they aren’t, and stop them going off, but at what price. Now trying to genetically modify them to add more vitamins to replace the ones they are losing. Good grief, we are bizarre creatures.

    But Cali, those ones lasting so well in your fridge still do have a fair whack of their ingredients, and if we get our 5 veg and 2 fruit a day (except maybe fast day), we will still be getting all those precious vitamins and minerals in enough quantity. Thank goodness!

    Lindsay how nice to be growing those fruits. At least your soil isn’t depleting! I’m building up mine, and even in my tiny space I get greens and herbs and strawberries.

    The verge idea is wonderful LJoyce. I have rosemary at the front and people do take sprigs, which is great.

    What a cooking challenge! Such fun, I bet you do them beautifully!
    I hope all went well with your exercise physiologist. Is this to work out your new regime?

    Merry, hope you are having some very good days.

    There is sunshine out the window, I hope today is a lovely day for fasters and non fasters alike. Cheers all.

    Glad it’s sunny in Melbourne Cinque. It is freezing up here …. down to 1 degree overnight. I know you southerners laugh at Queenslanders and our suffering during winter, but it is seriously cold and our houses are designed for hot summers not cold winters. With my rush of getting things done, I now have a window man coming to refit blades in some banks of louvres to make them airtight, and to fit sound-reducing glass in my bedroom window, to block out the noisy boys. I had a very nice Vietnamese man come yesterday to quote on oiling the verandah and high battens at the back, and the front gate and timber platform into the house. So nice to talk about where he comes from, and to share a few (very few!) words with him. And I woke this morning to the sound of sprinklers. Despite the cold, I feel spring is on the way! (At this rate I’ll be working until I am 80!)
    Sleep is such a tricky thing…I suffer from insomnia too. Even on FDs I don’t feel hungry when I go to bed, or wake up. I thought it may have been from years of shift work, but maybe it’s just something that happens as we get older. Good work Minka, staying on track despite the challenges.
    How did you go with the exercise physiologist LJ?
    Cinque isn’t it amazing how it is possible, even with limited space, to grow something fresh and wonderful, particularly when you can share it? And I agree, we are bizarre creatures. But perhaps we are all becoming just a little bit more aware of nutrition and knowing that because a banana has a bendier bend than we are used to, it is still every bit as good for us (thank you ABC).

    Good morning Lindsay!
    So glad the sprinklers are working. Ooh what a cold night. Melbourne is so full of tar and cement it is a heat sink and we never get below 4 degrees. Enjoy your hot cuppa!

    Great to read what you wrote as I popped back because I need to keep up with all the nutrition and farming and community food news for my project, and my twitter feed is full of this at the moment: https://www.crawfordfund.org/events/2018-conference/
    Twitter feed https://twitter.com/CrawfordFund
    “Titled ‘Reshaping Agriculture for Better Nutrition: The Agriculture, Food, Nutrition, Health Nexus,’ our 2018 annual conference will be held in Canberra on 13 and 14 August and it will ask: how can we feed the world’s increasing population with a nourishing diet that promotes good health and at the same time minimises further environmental impact? ”
    It looks like lots of good people and groups are involved.

    Ok I’m back and have now taken a photo of today’s food. It’s a bit different to my usual choices for lunch. I have an appointment with the doctor early afternoon, so instead of a very rushed lunch I decided I’d have brunch instead today.
    https://imgur.com/hgdsGQc
    I have just drunk the glass of kefir, which is blended with equal amount of almond milk and into which I’ve stirred some vanilla and some inulin powder. For brunch I’m having a toasted fruit and walnut sourdough roll slathered with 1/2 cup of ricotta cheese (the roll has no added sugar but is sweet from the fruit). Dinner is Nigerian bean stew with the last of my garlicky green veg. If I need a snack when I get home from the doctor I’ll have a banana.

    Cinque, well done taking photos. When you next use bean curd skins can you take a photo so I’ll know what I’m looking for in the Asian grocer.
    That bread looks delicious and professional – do you use a dutch oven to bake it in? I only tried that once and it burned the bottom crust so I went back to bread tins or enameled trays.

    Lindsay, it’s always hard to cope with weather that’s unusual for your area. When your house is built for ventilation and cooling breezes it’s not going to keep you warm in winter.
    Glad those sprinklers are working again. Have you figured out how to stop the scrub turkeys from digging them up again? (Cali & Penguin, some types of native bushland in Australia is colloquially called “scrub”, hence how these birds got their name.)

    Cinque & Lindsay, my session with the exercise physiologist was a follow up appointment to see how I was going with the program he gave me a month ago.
    Some time ago my physiotherapist identified that although my cardio vascular fitness and flexibility was good, my muscle strength was lacking. I decided that after I moved house I would have more time for the gym so I would start some sessions with the exercise physiologist to develop a manageable program to work on muscle strength.
    It had been going well until I hurt my lower back a week ago. I got him to identify the exercises that might aggravate my back so that I could continue go back to some of the other exercises even while my back is slowly getting better. I told him that I’d had to adjust some of the weights I was using as I couldn’t manage the weight level he’d set for some of my upper body exercises.
    At the moment I’m using mostly Nautilus machines and only doing a couple of exercises with free weights. I have another appointment in 6 weeks when the exercise physiologist is going to replace some of the machines with more free weights. I am nervous about this because I always feel like it’s harder to do the exercise incorrectly on a machine (it has very detailed instructions written on it). With free weights it’s much easier to get your body into the wrong position or use the wrong movement and then hurt yourself. However I understand why he wants to do this. He said that it’s important that the exercise can be translated to everyday life. So if I’m picking up a bag of groceries I know how to best use my body because it replicates a movement that I’m used to with a dumbell or kettleball – a bit like muscle memory I guess. It makes it easier to safely do everyday movements that require strength. If my body is used to that movement in the gym then it will be more likely to respond the same way at home without me even having to think about it. I’m going to go back to the gym later in the week and try the modified program and see how my back goes.

    So much for being up, showered and dressed by 7am ready for the Ikea delivery – still not here! I don’t much care for early starts in winter. It’s one of the great joys of retirement, I get to chose when I get up.

    Celebrating 4 years of practicing 5:2 today!

    I’m marking the event with an unusual Tuesday FD so I’ll be with you today, Cinque.

    For anyone lurking and contemplating 5:2, I just want to say that this way of eating has changed my life. I am a slim person again. I lost 23kgs in the first year and have maintained that new weight for the past three years, losing two more kgs along the way. I went from size 18 to size 10. I have a waist, a healthy BMI, a steady BP, am no longer at risk for diabetes, have no more knee joint pain, just to name a few of the health benefits.

    This WOL requires almost no effort after the initial planning and some boring calorie counting to get started. I have never felt deprived. I’ve learned to embrace hunger but rarely notice it. It has shaped my portion control and changed my food desires without my even realising.

    I joined this thread on page 42. We’re now on page 338 and I’ve read almost all the entries. So I just want to add an observation about commitment to embracing this for life. I fully acknowledge that others have more challenging lives than I. Everyone is different. There are several inspirational, long-term fasters who are battling chronic illness and have made this work. Some people stop fasting when they reach their goal weight, go on holiday, have relatives staying, get a cold, etc. They also stop posting on these pages. Some return lamenting their weight gain, others we never hear from again. A LOT of people have come and gone since page 42.

    So when people say this is a very forgiving way of eating, it may well be true for them but it’s not the case for me. I attribute my success with this WOE to rigid adherence to FDs regardless of what else is going on in my life. I’ve modified it to accommodate overseas holidays and, at times, in maintenance I’ve reverted to 6:1, sometimes for several months. But as soon as I reach my ‘trigger weight’, I’m back to 5:2 which is what I’m doing today.

    I’ve never missed a FD in four years. I couldn’t trust myself to let it slide. It’s a total commitment but, most of the time, I can eat what I want. I replaced a food addiction with a fast addition.

    So, however you make this work for you, stick with it! It’s a way of life, never a diet. Absolutely nothing tastes as good as being slim feels.

    And, as if that lot wasn’t enough for one day, here’s the chit chat part.

    Cinque, that loaf of bread looks spectacular! I’m glad that you were able to post your FD photo too. It’s easier to interpret than words. Have you decided against B2B or did it just not work out this week? Thanks too for the wizardry.

    Lindsay, your posts made me laugh although it’s no laughing matter.

    CalifD, to answer your question, we got what we asked for when we ended the airbnb activity next door so OH & I agreed that, however noisy the new tenants, we would suck it up. Three days into the tenancy there was a party, followed by an apology the next morning which was encouraging. Two weeks after I left the easter eggs on the fence for the children, there was a thank you note with another apology for prolonged noise which was blamed on visiting rellies. This went a long way to appeasing us as it demonstrated awareness of the impact on us. They’ve continued to be excessively noisy but it’s still a hundred times better than the airbnb turnover so we’ve tried to keep it in perspective. The pool in the back & the trampoline in the front are the biggest issues. The other night the children were on the former after 10pm for about 20 minutes – short-lived but inconsiderate nevertheless, screaming & shouting with no parental guidance. That’s why I say I dread summer. Trying to ‘suck it up’ but Lindsay’s posts brought it all to the forefront.

    Minka, nice to see you popping in and hope to read more from you when you’re able.

    LJ, I hope the missing parts arrive and are assembled without further incident. I thought that was a large scoop of vanilla ice cream until I read your post. (Not that you couldn’t have it should you desire).

    Hello to Quacka, Stay, Sybs, Arel and anyone lurking or not posting right now. Have a great day everyone.

    *corrections, sorry, that’s trampoline not pool after 10pm! And this is page 337, not 338. Such a long ramble, no time to edit properly before the 5 mins expired!

    @all – unusual Tuesday FD for me and I am joining the fun and posting food pic for today. Mandarin was morning snack. Brunch 1/2 avo, 1 hard boiled egg, sardines with plenty of tabasco and lime juice. Apple afternoon snack. Vegie stew, blitzed, some added water and some miso paste will be turned into a soup, that’s for dinner.
    https://imgur.com/a/AkKKWkE

    At the moment I am roasting some red caps, which will be marinated with garlic, and plenty of fresh chilli (which I grow).

    I have spoken to some of my neighbours about starting a compost project, which is a win-win thing. Reduces waste and replenishes the soil so we can grow some more herbs and vegies.

    About very low temperatures in Queensland – I once lived outside a small town where we had 30 consecutive mornings with frost. It was so cold, no heating, that I used to sit in the evenings with my down sleeping bag wrapped around me and a thick pair of socks to keep my feet warm.

    hope everyone is having a good FD or enjoying your NFD treats!

    sorry, forgot to add, that I also had a large mug of black coffe. I also have no idea about the total calories for the day, but it works for me. Last weigh in I snuck in under 70kg which brought my BMI back into the healthy range (I am 169cm tall)

Viewing 50 posts - 16,851 through 16,900 (of 27,973 total)

You must be logged in to reply.