This topic contains 27,917 replies, has 832 voices, and was last updated by thinatlast 4 hours, 33 minutes ago.
Thank you for the ideas, Cinque! I associate kippers with B&B accommodation cooked breakfasts in England. But we did have them growing up too. You mentioned using them on FDs and I have yet to decypher the microscopic calorie count to see if that’s an option for me. Happy to be fasting with you too!
Cinque, I need to wait for help from my niece and her husband to make and install the dining room storage – her husband works on a FIFO schedule and it’s nearly 2 weeks before he’s home again. Whether I’ll have all of the contents sorted that quickly is more doubtful. I suspect I’ll put things where I think they’ll work, then realise it’s not functional enough and move things around. The biggest change will be to pantry storage. I’m planning to move most of the food to the dining room storage as it’s a better shaped cupboard for these items. Then I have to decide what to store in the deep pantry cupboard in the kitchen – I’m thinking saucepans, stockpots, roasting pans etc.
I’m trying to decide whether to risk the gym today. My back has been quite sore again since Tuesday, but I think I need to see how it goes at the gym before my next physio appointment on Friday. I might go for a walk and see how I feel after that.
I’ve decided on just walking today, no gym. I’m worried about making my back worse. This morning’s walk was fine but my back is still painful. I’ll try another walk this afternoon.
I’ve also decided that neither of the lunch options appeal, what I feel like is cereal. So I’ve changed today’s food plan.
https://imgur.com/a/YMayX4y
So today’s NFD food will be muesli with kefir for lunch, a banana and a tub of yoghurt for snacks and baked veggies with a cup of beef & veg ragu for dinner, probably with a sprinkle of parmesan on the ragu once it heated.
LJoyce, your kitchen looks beautiful! I can’t imagine why they didn’t put that strip at the top of the cupboards to begin with, since it doesn’t look like enough space to be used for anything other than maybe storing large platters. It would be difficult to clean. It looks very nice and finished now. We have a soffit above our cupboards and it always gathers dust and is a pain to clean. It’s definitely wasted space. There are what used to be fluorescent lighting fixtures that we rewired and switched to LED about a year ago that sit on it and reflect up off the wall and ceiling. Weird design. It would be great to get rid of the soffit and add more cabinets or a bulkhead, but we’d have to install different lighting which isn’t easy (or cheap) with a second story above it.
What do kippers taste like? Similar to a sardines? The only fish I can remember eating in flat tins are sardines and anchovies. I see that they pack the kippers in brine, different oils, tomato sauce, smoked, etc. I’ve seen them in some stores but never tried them. Amazon sells them, even in your John West brand, Cinque. Has anyone else tried them?
Cinque, I think we should definitely have a virtual housewarming for LJoyce. What a fun (and low calorie) idea!
I forgot to mention that on Sunday I walked 11,100 steps, Monday 10,200 steps and today 11,100 steps according to my Garmin tracking bracelet. It definitely makes me feel better and has lowered my blood pressure to where I’m adjusting the meds (with my doctor’s ok). It does seem to cause some aches and pains. I guess that’s just aging.
It’s hard to describe kippers, CalifD. I’ve only ever had smoked herring so it’s the smoked part that remains in my memory. Very distinctive though. I’ll bring them along to the virtual house-warming so that you can have a taste. At 110cals per 100gms, it’s low in cals when compared to other forms of protein (leg ham, chicken breast, scotch fillet steak or salmon, for example).
Good morning, it is a clear sunny day with happy birds singing. Second fast day for me. Having a cup of tea.
Thin, I did suggest kippers would be great for fast days, but maybe too impulsively as I didn’t have a clue what calories they contain. Embarrassed Cinque. However, I winged it ok 😉
Cali, The smoking gives them extra savouriness I think. So delicious.
But they do have a fairly strong presence, ie smelling them on my hands and in the kitchen, so if fishy smells worry you, they might not be for you.
LJoyce we can wait til your niece and her hubby are able to do their bit, and then we can call the virtual housewarming!
The kitchen does look great, and no dusting up high!
Well, I was super hungry a minute ago and fine now. Aren’t hunger waves interesting.
Planning to cruise through this second fast day!
Hoping it is a good day for each of you with lots of lovely and sensible decisions about what you eat today. (Soup for me!) Cheers.
Good Morning everyone 🙂
Quick check in as I am at work. this morning I have broken my weight record since starting 5:2. I am down to 69.8kg on the new scales which would have been 67.6kg on my old scales!! I almost burst into tears. I am so very happy that I have finally found a way of life that I know I can sustain.
This week I did my B2B FDs although I think I may have gone a bit over on my tuesday calories. So yesterday I decided I would just have a very controlled eating day. I actually found it very easy yesterday and I ended up only eating dinner (which was a chilli con carne made with turkey mince, kidney beans and lots and lots of veggies)
Today I am having fruit, veggie sticks with hommous and I also have a new konjac noodle meal (in case I am hungry). It is a vegan napoli with shirataki noodles that they are now selling in coles in a microwave pouch. The brand is ‘keep it cleaner’. I haven’t tried any of their foods yet but I bought the three varieties that they had. They were very pricey though ( $5.20 on special) but I don’t really mind as long as it’s nice. For dinner I am planning an asian dumpling soup which I have never made before.
I hope everyone is doing well and I just want to remind all of us that weigh ourselves every day – Weight does fluctuate so much so please don’t let that number get you down if it is higher than you want it to be. Keep doing your FDs, try to eat mindfully on the other days and stay positive.
Take care everyone x
Congratulations Quacka,
A wonderful milestone to be under that 70KG mark. http://68.media.tumblr.com/032af01d4821aef24cb947cdb086603e/tumblr_oo4p6luSS51steui8o1_500.gif
Onwards and downwards!
Thin, I have a tin of sardines to use up first. Then more kippers 🙂
But both of them will wait til for another day.
It is all happening in Aussie politics today. Good grief!
Good morning everyone.
Quacka, congratulations on that milestone. I often do the same thing on a controlled day – just have dinner but with more freedom of meal choice than a FD.
I think I saw those pouches at Coles, they had a display of them in the isle and they were $5.20. I walked on by when I saw the price. I didn’t realise it was a complete meal I though it was just the noodles.
Cinque, I didn’t realise that you could even get kippers in a tin. I’ve seen then on British cooking shows, but they are always the freshly smoked ones. I wondered if the smokiness would take away some of the fishy taste (which is the aspect of eating fish that I don’t like). I hate raw oysters, but smoked are nice.
Thin, glad to hear you have a tasty alternative to cauliflower soup. Capsicum and ginger sounds like it might even work as a chilled soup for summer.
Cali, well done on all that exercise. I hope you have cleaner air now and don’t still have to get those steps by doing laps of the house. One of the things I really like about walking is the fresh air and having the time to really notice things as I walk past – you miss so much in a car, especially when you are the driver.
Is this virtual housewarming going to involve party food or FD food?
I have to bit the bullet and bake the macaron shells today. Good thing I read the recipe last night – you need to leave the egg whites out overnight “to thicken up” – I didn’t know they did that! So last thing before bed I was separating and measuring eggs. I don’t know what I’m going to do with the 7 egg yolks. I should just throw them out but haven’t been able to bring myself to do that yet. (I still have issues when it comes to wasting food.)
I am on my fourth NFD in a row. I don’t think I’ve ever done 4 in a row before and it feels very weird, although the controlled day helped it feel less scary.
I have 2 photos today https://imgur.com/a/kO1XRpW
The first is all the elements for today’s baking gathered together. The second is today’s food. Lunch is 2 slices of sourdough spelt bread with 2 boiled eggs. Dinner is the last of the baked veggies, to which I’ll add about 1/3 of that pouch of Nigerian bean stew (once it’s thawed). I’ve included a banana as a snack and I may have a tub of yoghurt if I need it – this doesn’t feel like a hungry day to me. Baking can increase my appetite but I actually don’t like macarons (or meringue or pavlova) so I doubt will have much effect on my appetite.
Hopefully I can report later that the macarons are bake and actually look like they should. I hope I don’t end up with a big mess – always a risk when you try something for the first time.
Have a good day all.
So far so good.
I’ve made the lime and raspberry macaron mixtures. https://imgur.com/a/dWmut6u
Although despite weighing every ingredient to make sure they were identical to the gram, the pink mixture is thicker than the green. Consequently the green discs are spreading out a little more.
Now I need to leave them for a while to develop a “skin” before I can bake them.
Then I’ll know whether they’ve worked and if it’s worth making any more trays.
Time for a walk while they develop that skin.
Thank you very much for your congratulations ladies 🙂 🙂
I started on my old scales at 80kg, so I have lost 12.4kg. I forgot to tell you that last weekend I donated my size 15 jeans (2 pairs) to Vinnies. They were just way too big. Yay!! So I have several pairs of size 14 jeans that I have been persevering with wearing through this winter. I have spent most of the winter pulling them up as they are also so loose now. I bit the bullet and decided to buy two pairs of jeans online in size 12. I thought if they didn’t fit I could just hold on to them as I know that they will very soon. Well guess what! They fit perfectly. So I think you know where my size 14s are going….
LJoyce your macarons look amazing. I have never tried one as I don’t have a sweet tooth but your baking skills definitely shine through 🙂
Mmmm kippers. Well, I am not sure if I have actually tried a kipper (are they Herrings?) but I love fish of all kinds, fresh or canned. I love anchovies ( we use them on pizza) and I love even more so just to eat them straight out of the jar and then watch OH face as I try and get a kiss from him. Ha ha ha ha ha
Got to go
x
Quacka, you’ve confirmed my belief that you can always trust the fit of your jeans to tell you how your weight is going. It’s gentler in its feedback than my scales ever are.
I do have a sweet tooth, but I don’t like really sugary things like these macarons. As a child I think I was the only kid who refused to eat fairy floss (candy floss) because it was too sweet. To give you an idea of just how sweet they are – I used a total of 690grams of ingredients, 520grams of that is sugar!
I prefer desserts that include lemon or lime to give them a sweet-tart flavour balance.
Well, the first batch is out of the oven and they worked, although some of the green ones are a bit large. https://imgur.com/kEiGFQb
They have come out of the oven with the two essential traits of a french macaron – a smooth surface and a “foot”, which is the frilly edge. I have piped out two more trays, and paid better attention to making the next batch of green ones a bit smaller.
Hi everyone,
Lj – you are a baking genius! You certainly could have had a career as a pastry chef in an alternate universe.
Talking of alternate universes, put my head up yesterday to discover the children aren’t playing nicely in the sandpit – again!
Finally, finally, I think I can be more consistent on here. Sorry to be so haphazard recently. I’ve only read LJ’s post so far.
Check-in: 64.8kg a couple days ago,
Starting FD today at 65.3kgs after OH and I celebrating with a couple of dishes we don’t usually eat. Not hugely over the top. 64.8 was a new low, and my goal is to be 62kg before Christmas.
Will have hot milk drink soon, then miso soup with 100gms low cal hoki fish and a few low cal vegies for dinner, a few strawberries after.
Onwards and Downwards,
Merry
Merry, glad to hear you will be back with us more often.
As to whether I could be a baker as a career – my mother used to say the same thing to me when I was teen. What I said to her is that I’d rather do it for fun, because I worried I’d grow to hate it if it was a job. I still think that’s the case – having to stay up all night making hundreds of something for a rude demanding client, just so my business could survive, would spell the end of my pleasure in baking. Far too many many people lose their joy in something they love because of the demands of running a business.
It’s still quite a few months until christmas, I think 62kg sounds very achievable, just keep your lasso around that horse!
Cali, my new island bench is an absolute joy for baking. I’ve never had this much free bench space to work on – it makes all of my cooking easier. In other kitchens I used to have to spread things over the kitchen table too, but don’t have to do that here.
I’ll be joining you tomorrow for your FD. After 4 NFDs it feels overdue.
I will be very glad to be fasting tomorrow.
morning all. I’ve been reading but not posting for a week or so. We have been over on our island where our internet is restricted to phones – I thought I had it sorted but my internet provider sent a dongle, but forgot the sim card. I know I should have checked.
FDs over for the week and they went well. I am still stuck on a bit of a plateau, but my jeans are telling me I’m doing ok. Another 7 kilos, I think, then I’ll reassess. I’ll still be in the overweight category according to the BMI, but I don’t think it’s a perfect measure, and i am mindful that because I am older, my skin may not be as resilient. That’s the plan, anyway. Maybe it’s just this dreadful dry winter that’s affecting my skin.
How is your back LJ? Does the walking help?
Calif good to clock up those steps. We went over our 10000 each day we were on the island, and some good steep cliffs too, but now I’m home at at work I sit on my backside more than I should. It is hard sometimes to stay moving. I am sure the exercise contributes if not to weight loss then certainly wellbeing.
Quacka getting into size 12 jeans is a whoot whoot moment, as Cinque would say. Congratulations.
Merry that’s a great target to reach by Christmas. I was hoping for another 2 kilos down by Bali (Wednesday) but it’s not to be. Those damned plateaus! Still, I am at my lowest – well, I was there once before a couple of weeks ago, but it has gone between that and .5 up. (could it be the gelato I had at the Italian icecream shop on the island?). I am going to have to rethink my FDs. I am okay doing 16:8 and have mixed veges with a little protein for lunch at around 11.30, but am starving when I get home from work and that’s the real danger zone.
It’s housework for me this morning – I hate the thought but I’ll be happy when it’s done. Have a good day everyone
Quacka, you will have so much pleasure wearing those size 12 jeans! Woot woot indeed!
LJoyce, I was buying a tin of sardines when I noticed the kippers next to them and figured I would give them a try. Now they have overtaken the sardines in my tinned fish ratings!
Your macarons are so beautiful! They’ll delight everyone at the party.
Merry, hi. So glad you might be able to be here more often.
The sandpit is in disarray. I think we need more sand! I wonder if we will have a new PM after high noon.
Congratulations on your fast day.
Lindsay, 2 weeks on an island with restricted internet ability, sounds like bliss. Yes, you are doing ok. I think your busy lifestyle makes it hard for 5:2 to be easy and sustainable, which is the best scenario. It is a good idea to reassess when you get to that milestone.
You have routines and habits that will keep you at that lighter weight, then you can bring 5:2 back in, at any time it will be do-able, to bring you even closer to your healthy weight (and a good excuse to stay here with us).
Oh dear, isn’t it a shocker how our skin loses elasticity. What can we do but drink lots of water, keep up those steps, and be relieved that it still holds our bodies together.
Re that danger time when you get home from work, I hope you can think up some good solutions. Food ready to heat up in the microwave (even if it is 5:30)? A healthy snack with a cup of tea and then get cooking? Good luck working it out.
Anyway, you have done brilliantly for Bali, you will have a much better time than you would have if you carrying those extra kilos, and you need to take the Douglas Adams view of headlines: “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”
Enjoy that housework 🙂 I need to do some too. And start making dolmades!
Enjoy your fast day LJoyce, and anyone else fasting.
Enjoy your normal day everyone else, and ooh it is lovely day after fast day for me. Breakfast has been delightful.
Just a quick report. Didn’t do my 2nd FD yesterday as woke up really hungry, tired & grumpy after my Wed golf. I thought I would be really testing my resolve so am doing it today instead. I love that flexibility.
I enjoy reading all of your posts but can’t keep up as you all seem to do. I’m loving this forum though!
Lindsay, have a great trip. I’m with Cinque, screen-free time sounds fabulous; I always leave my devices at home when travelling. It sounds like you’ve done very well with your weight loss.
Quacka, isn’t it great to get rid of the larger sizes? It was ages after losing weight before I had the confidence to do this and would only get rid of the clothes that were two sizes too big ‘just in case’. Yes, kippers are smoked herring.
LJ, your macaroons look perfect. I, too, find them very sweet and grossly overpriced. Providing food on a commercial level would be my idea of ultimate stress. I find coming up with a constant variety of dinners for family is work enough.
Cinque, enjoy your fast-free day. You seem to have taken well to B2B fasting.
Merry, you’re at a great weight and you have set an achievable goal. I know you’ll do it.
Hi Cinque. I hadn’t meant to imply 5:2 was not sustainable for me. I think it’s the only thing that has worked to this point in my life, apart from a liquid replacement diet on which I lost all my weight (and a lot of hair and gall bladder) but subsequently regained more than I’d lost. I have to accept that I am a slow loser, but am very happy with my 13.5 kilos so far, and will not give up til I’ve shed the next 8. That will mean my weight will start with a different number (okay, it will start with a 6 🙂 and then I’ll re-assess. I just meant that I need to rethink my food on fast days. And yes, I should plan for that moment I walk in the door, starving. I get home in time for The Drum, so kick off my shoes and my OH makes a cuppa – but that can be my downfall if I’m hungry. Maybe I’ll try some soup instead of tea. And I am going to try to have some more calories at lunch, to see if it staves off the pangs. I am really excited about Bali – I have a new swimsuit which looks quite elegant. It is cut well, and has good support so I’ll happily swim away.
thanks for the reassurance Cinque.
Ah, I misunderstood, Lindsay. Oh well, if you are in the slow losers group you are in good company! 🙂 (Me!)
Soup and The Drum sounds like a good combo.
Your new swimsuit sounds gorgeous.
Thin, yesterday was a hard fast day. So much for cruising. It was a gripey irritable day. Interestingly, some days I just know it will be easy (and it is). Yesterday I was hoping positive affirmations would work (it did a little bit maybe). I wonder if the fasts are better for us on easy days or difficult days? Glad to have had a 48 hour reset though.
Now for the fun of eating well and mindfully on Non Fast days!
Cinque, sorry to hear that but you made it through anyway! Still a bridge too far for me despite rarely feeling hungry the morning after a fast.
Lindsay, wow, 13.5kgs! Yippee. And now in the 60s! Isn’t that a great feeling? It sounds like you might have started about where I did, around 83kg. It is so good to know that we will never be that weight again.
I’m still trying to get back comfortably under 60kg instead of teetering on the line. But these days, I am so conscious of that trigger weight. Just one or two kgs can spell the beginning of a slippery slope and I know I must remain forever vigilant.
We are taking DD to a restaurant and movie to celebrate the end of the doctorate component of her degree tonight. The uni kept pushing back the deadline for that two year research project which meant DD used every extra day given to keep on tweaking it into the small hours until the last possible minute. It is due at 5pm today so that will be IT. But wait! This is all about me! And how I will manage the restaurant meal! It is Japanese so hopefully there won’t be enough to eat….
Lindsay – Congratulations! size 12 and 13.5 kgs gone is awesome! Well done you. You’ve been consistent and handled challenges well.
Along with Thin, I also started at 83 kgs. Like Cinque, it was a slow process, and it took me 2 years with an 8month deliberate plateau in there for personal reasons. Take that out and it was 16months to lose 21kgs. My stress/food response isn’t great and there was significant stress in my life back then, so my goal then is to stay stable. It will be 4yrs in mid-November, and I’m a very happy comfortable size 12, even though I’m still a bit over my goal weight now.
Check in: 64.7kgs. Slowly going down on my weekly graph in the tracker.
Dontcha just love day after FD😃
Onwards and Downwards,
Merry
Holding on to that horse Lj
Lindsay, congrats on the 13.5 kg loss and doing over 10000 steps each day on the island. I had a few plateaus on my way down to 59. I thank everyone here for getting me through those times without getting too discouraged. Thin, like you, I keep teetering at 60. NFDs are my problem. I need to get back into the 58’s so I have a little leeway. Luckily, my skinny jeans have fit throughout. I was 60.4 this morning and hopefully today’s FD will get me below 60.
Merry and Cate, good to see you here. It isn’t necessary to reply to each comment. With the forum being so active lately, that can be a challenge.
Tomorrow morning I go for an EKG in preparation for cateract surgery on my right eye on Sept. 6. It was supposed to be May 5th but after my little hospital episode my old primary care doc wouldn’t ok it for a couple months because of my fluctuations in BP. Then I had to wait for a new opening as my opthamologist is a very popular one. I really need this done now because although my day vision is passable with glasses or contacts, my night vision is pretty bad. And as the days get shorter here that’s going to limit my driving.
Have a great day everyone!
Good morning SHs
FD for me, so food is an easy choice. https://imgur.com/BDJDWE9
Cups of tea, water, a small banana, a cup of pumpkin-lemon soup, a slice of spelt sourdough and a boiled egg. I’m in the mood for a FD, so I don’t expect trouble.
Cali and Cate, hope your FDs are going well too.
Lindsay, time on the island sounds like a joy. The Bali trip has come around quickly, I’m sure you’ll have a lovely time.
I hadn’t realised you’d done a meal replacement diet. I spent about a year on one of those. I didn’t lose my gall bladder as I’d had that removed when I was 22. I did lose a great deal of weight and it was regaining a a few of those kilos that brought me to 5:2 to halt that before it got out of hand.
Cinque, I’m not sure whether hard or easy FDs are better for us. I sometimes use a FD to keep my eating under control on one of those difficult days, as it forces me to not give in to those drivers to eat uncontrollably.
Thin, hope the movie, Japanese restaurant and celebration with your daughter are wonderful.
Merry, glad to hear you have a downward trend again.
I finally got back to the gym this morning. I was extremely careful and decided to skip some things that I thought might aggravate my back. It felt ok. The last few days my back has felt reasonably good through the day but has become stiff and painful overnight, making it difficult to get out of bed and taking a couple of hours in the morning to loosen up and move easily.I have a physio appointment in a couple of hours so hopefully I’ll feel good after that.
Time for my second pot of tea for the day.
Cate, for success stories, you can drop in to the Maintenance Chatbox thread where they’ve been maintaining for up to 4 years. Some of those posters started out here with the SHs and were my ‘gurus’ when I arrived. Gradually they moved over to the MC thread. I’d received so much help and support from this thread that I thought I should stick around here and try to encourage others. However, it later became apparent to me that I was getting every bit as much out of sticking around as I was giving, if not more. The value of having like-minded people to chat with can’t be understated – even if we aren’t always talking about fasting, we know we all ‘get it’. You’ll be the guru one day!
I like that simple FD photo, LJ. The importance of the tea ceremony shines through. I do love pumpkin soup and would like your recipe if you feel like posting it – I would substitute limes.
Due to movie timing, we’ve decided to see the movie tonight and go to the Japanese restaurant tomorrow night. This suits me better too as I know I’ll have a FD the very next day. I agree with you that some are harder than others, for me it often depends on what I ate the day before. Making it a FD after an over-indulgence ensures that I won’t break any rules, thereby also breaking the naughty cycle. I think you, me and CalifD might need to put our heads together and develop some loose NFD rules. If non-cal counting rules are possible?
CalifD, sometimes I go down to our en-suite with my ‘TV watching’ glasses still on and get a nasty shock!
Physio treatment helped, my lower back feels quite good now.
Cali, you can always use my mother’s line when it comes to cleaning. She was short, and couldn’t see the top of tall cupboards, fridges etc. When her brother complained once about the dust on top the fridge she handed him a cleaning cloth and said “if you can see it, you clean it”.
Thin, the pumpkin soup is pretty simple, it’s a “fluid” recipe without specific quantities. The amount of the various veggies can be adjusted depending on what you have on hand.
Although it doesn’t contain sweet potato, I have used some when I’ve been short of either carrots or pumpkin and it still works just fine. It contains:
pumpkin (1 butternut or an equivalent amount of jap pumpkin)
2-3 carrots
2-3 onions (depending on size)
garlic to taste
chicken or veggie stock (I use massel salt-reduced chicken stock powder)
pepper, and salt if you need it
1-2 tsp oil or butter
1/4-1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 lemon (or lime works too)
Peel and cut the veggies into large chunks. Soften the onion and garlic in the oil, over a moderate heat. Then add the remaining veggies and the stock – just enough stock to cover the veg. Simmer until everything is soft. Add the nutmeg, the zest of the lemon and as much of the juice as you want to use. Puree.
Taste and adjust the seasonings to suit your palate.
The soup will be quite thick at this stage and I usually freeze portions without diluting it further (takes up less freezer space), but often add a little more water before reheating.
If you want a lower cal soup use more carrots and less pumpkin – I have occasionally made it entirely with just carrots & onion.
Thin – I find the traditional cream laden pumpkin soups a bit rich. As I adore citrus flavours I knew this one would be good for me. I got the recipe from my sister in law nearly 30 years ago and have never tired of it.
I always made it with butternut until recently when I tried it with jap pumpkin. I was surprised that I liked it even better. Also, to keep the calories moderate I am usually heavy handed with the carrots. The original recipe just calls for the zest of a lemon, but I have always included the juice as well as things are never too sour for me. I sometimes use lime – depends what’s sitting in the fruit bowl. I tried orange zest and juice once but it was less successful – I think you need the sour element to balance the sweetness of the pumpkin.
I’m actually just having my cup of pumpkin soup as I write this!
Good morning everyone
It’s Saturday morning and we have had some rain yesterday and during the night. I woke to the rain this morning which was lovely although I feel sad that the rest of the state is not getting any. We live on the coast and are lucky like that.
I had a very weird NFD yesterday. I had a day off from work and as it was raining I didn’t have much planned. I usually use the day to shop and clean the house but the house was fairly clean already and I couldn’t do the laundry. I guess I was bored.
Well, that was the beginning of my ‘hunger’. I ate some fruit for breakfast, including a banana which I don’t usually eat. Still hungry so had a Salada (cracker) with vegemite and a slice of cheese. Half hour later still ‘hungry’ (I write it like that because I don’t believe I was actually truly hungry). I ate some pistachios, not a tonne but just a nice small amount. Half hour later still ‘hungry’. I had started drinking a bottle of water during this time also. I finally realised that if I didn’t go and do something that I would sit at home and eat all day even though I wasn’t hungry. I grabbed my bottle of water and went into town to go grocery shopping. On the way home I finished drinking the water which was 1 litre bottle. As I had topped it up before I left I had probably had about 1.5 litres of water. On the drive home I realised that I was actually quite full. I think I was thirsty and bored in the morning and that is why I just wanted to eat. I haven’t felt like that for a long time so I was quite surprised.
The wanting to eat continued in the afternoon as I was still bored. I did have an unhealthy snack of ‘shapes’ but I took a portion out of the packet and only ate that amount. Today I am in a totally different mind set and know that I won’t be repeating yesterday’s behaviour
I’m going to make some eggplant rolls, filled with ricotta and spinach and baked in a tomato sauce. I’ve looked up several recipes but I am going to wing it and just make my own style. I think I will substitute some fetta cheese as it will give it more flavour. I wish it was the season for fresh basil….
I have planted basil seeds and I hope this rain will make them come up. I think I have put half a packet of seeds in as I rarely have success with them and am lucky if I get two or three plants.
I hope your surgery goes well Cali
Hope everyone else is doing well also x
Quacka, I made eggplant rollups last week. A family favourite. I find it quite time-consuming but it lasts for two nights so that’s a bonus. I hope you have a graze-free day.
Movie recommendation: ‘Mission Impossible’. I’ve never been a big Tom Cruise fan, I don’t think he can act, but it’s an exciting movie with lots of action and OH really enjoyed all the chopper scenes. We ran into our neighbours who were there to see ‘Book Club’. The poor husband. I can’t imagine dragging my OH to see something like that. Have you seen the size of the popcorn container? I could fit my week’s groceries in it. Our cinema was offering a special on a combo of a chocolate bomb, a soft drink AND a giant container of popcorn. Really?
Good morning everyone,
Quacka, I can completely relate to what you wrote. Boredom and slight dehydration! Terrible combination!
You did well to counter it. Best wishes for today.
Enjoy the rain, I bet the basil seeds will, I can imagine them swelling with pleasure!
Thin, I hope DD made her deadline easily and proudly. Congratulations to her! I hope the movie was fun.
83kg must be a magic number as that is what I was at my heaviest. Actually, I plucked the number out of the air as I didn’t have scales, but I knew I was a few kilos above 80kg. However I lost 20kg pre 5:2 by cutting out sugar, I was nearly down to 60kg and then I started going up again, I was about 65kg when I began 5:2. Staying around 50kg now.
Merry, congratulations on your nice steady downwards trajectory.
All good wishes for your fast day Cali, I hope it is a good one and that the scales reward you. What a relief to be in good condition for the cataract surgery now, and have it in process.
LJoyce, I am so glad your back is improved. Hooray for physios.
I am copying down your pumpkin soup recipe. I made a recipe that has roasted capsicum and split red lentils in it, which makes it velvety and very filling (and a glorious colour), but I like your light lemony one as a contrast.
Yes, I agree that a difficult Fast Day often follows a wicked-food day, and is an excellent reset. But mine followed another fast day! Ah it is a fascinating business.
Hello to Cate and everyone else.
I’m off to my granddaughter’s party. It will be a nice lowkey one. I will try to take a photo of the food. I have had the dolmades on the stove for the last hour and a half, and all the talk of vegan balls inspired my daughter and she asked me for felafel too, which the convenient middle eastern shop sells as frozen mix I can just thaw and shallow fry at the place. Tahini sauce (no dairy) to go with them.
Btw she bought some egg substitute to make a non egg cake and it is full of various flours from non wheat grains and legumes and seeds and a few laboratory ingredients added in.
Ooh the time. Must go. Bye all.
Cinque, have fun at your granddaughter’s party. The food all sounds wonderful. Dolmades are one of my favorite foods. I really need to make another batch. I use rice, lots of lemon juice, a little garlic, oregano and salt. And the grape leaves of course. If I do one with meat I add a little ground lamb. I hope you can get some pictures.
My EKG test came out fine today. But when they first took my BP the top number was 185. White coat syndrome. After the test and chatting with the technician, she took it again and it was 130. It’s amazing how much stress can affect those numbers. I wish I was better at relaxing 😌. But I’m cleared for the cataract surgery on 9/6, still about 2 weeks away.
Thin and Quacka, when you make the eggplant roolups, do you partially cook the eggplant before assembling, or just slice it thin enough that it’s easy to roll?
LJ, that pumpkin soup sounds wonderful. I love sour things too, so I think the lemon or lime juice would work well. I never thought of that. I usually add plain soy milk or nut milk to cream soups and that works well too. It can be difficult sometimes to find nut or soy milks that don’t have vanilla added to them or ones that aren’t overly sweet. There’s almost always some sweetener to make them taste similar to cow’s milk which has natural lactose, but I don’t like it when they add too much.
Cate, I have days like that where I eat one thing after another out of boredom. Or ‘just because’. I think your idea of leaving the house was a good one. Sometimes a change of scenery completely changes your mindset. Or taking everything out of a few drawers to go through reorganizing and purging. Anything to get your mind in a different direction, but something you can’t do while eating.😁
Good morning SHs
Two photos today. One of the final results of my baking – melting moments and macarons (I have plenty of spares that I’ll take to top up the trays.) To make the trays I just used some little packaging boxes that were destined for the recycling, I covered them in wrapping paper.
https://imgur.com/a/31UPLuU
The photo of today’s food is the second edition. I didn’t plan on having vegemite toast for breakfast, but I really felt like it and I knew if kept saying no to myself all morning I would probably not behave well when confronted with an array of party food on an almost empty stomach. I haven’t had vegemite toast in ages and I really enjoyed it with my breakfast cuppa. I feel really satisfied and no longer hungry now, which is a relief.
Dinner tonight is Nigerian bean stew with freekah. I have just presented a side plate to represent the amount of food I plan to restrict my party eating to. I’m hoping there will be some healthier options, but there may not be.
Cali, glad you have the go ahead for your surgery.
Thin and Quacka, I used to make eggplant rollups, haven’t done that in ages. I always used to fill the baked eggplant slices with herbed ricotta and pack them into a baking dish then pour over a tomato pasta sauce and then either just cheese or bechamel and cheese. (Similar process to making a tray of cannelloni.) Good when cooking for crowd as it feeds a lot of people. Quacka, I also just “wing it” when putting these things together. They usually work.
Quacka, your description of a day when you couldn’t stop snacking was so familiar. It can be a shock when it hasn’t happened in a while. I’m really glad you found some ways to break the cycle and that it hasn’t continued over to today.
Cinque, enjoy your grand-daughter’s birthday party. My great-niece’s party starts at 12noon so I’ll head off within the hour too.
CalifD, I first bake the eggplant, sliced thinly & sparingly drizzled with oil, in the oven for about 20 minutes. Eggplant of course absorbs huge quantities of oil. When I have to fry it (for other recipes), I measure out a small quantity of oil for the first batch, turn it and then use a system of squashing each uncooked slice onto a cooked slice before removing the latter from the pan. The oil gets transferred. It’s a bit time-consuming but it saves adding extra oil for each batch. I also make eggplant curries using no oil at all. A pan with a tightly fitting lid and a tin of tomatoes added softens chopped eggplant perfectly. All the best for your cataract surgery.
Cinque, have a lovely day with the family. And two fasts under your belt means you can enjoy it fully.
P.S. You too, LJ. What’s in the package?
Wow LJ that’s pretty impressive baking.
I am so glad I read the posts this morning while waiting for my 16 hour fast to finish, because I am hungry and a bit down with my plateau, but after all the encouragement, I am going to choose the healthy option, in the knowledge that what went up will come down! Thank you Cinque, Merry, Calif, Thin and LJ.
Good luck with the cateract surgery Calif. My friend’s colleague said following her surgery that she hadn’t realised her house was so dirty and her friends so old.
I had to see my GP yesterday, and he was mightily impressed with my weight loss, and commented how fine my facial features look (maybe he’s the one who needs the eye surgery lol). He asked how I’d done it, and was very supportive of the fasting approach, which made me feel quite relieved he shared that belief. He did suggest that instead of being so rigid with it, I should give myself one day a week off, for some wine or a meal out. I might too, but not until I have shed the next 7-8 kilos. I know that having a trigger point will be the only option for me too. Otherwise it’s just a kilo, that becomes 2 and then 3, and before you know it, your (my) jeans won’t do up.
After I saw the doctor yesterday I drifted past one of my favourite dress shops (Rodney Clark) and saw a jacket I’d previously admired but didn’t buy, because it was $229. And there itwas – in my smaller size, reduced to $49. So I bought two – one black and one red. Double breasted, quite fitted, and mostly wool. Will be great for the tail end of winter, but also Scotland in January. I love a bargain, and so useful.
Ok such a long post. Enjoy the little one’s party Cinque.
Thin congratulations to DD… You must feel so proud, and rightly so.
Lindsay, I enjoyed your post so much that I read it twice. Minka was the first person to mention Rodney Clark pants here so I actually knew what you were talking about. Congratulations on finding two items on sale in the new size. I already knew you were stylish because of all the shoes (I think I have one pair of shoes – but I do have a few pairs of boots). Wonderful to have the support of your doctor to re-affirm what you’re doing. And thank you (and Cinque) for your kind words about DD.
The party went really well. In fact it was still going when I left – lots of very hyper children. I managed to restrain myself quite well and there was raw veg with dips and a fresh fruit platter which really helped me to have enough lunch without filling up on things like sausage rolls. I did have a sausage roll, and a mini quiche. I restricted myself quite well with the sweet things – half a piece of birthday cake and a chocolate crackle. I feel like I’ve had lots of party food but without going overboard.
What was in the parcel? – that was her birthday present – clothes – boring I know. I’ve always bought them clothing for birthdays and christmas. They get so many toys and I figure with clothing, if I choose things they’ll like then it’s a gift for them and it helps their parents too. If I had my way I would have bought my great-niece a special party dress for each birthday, but a couple of years ago she announced she wanted shorts and jeans like her brother not dresses. However she still likes really pretty things. Thankfully she likes the jeans with flowers embroidered on them and also floral leggings, so I always find a pair of embroidered jeans and the prettiest leggings I can find for her, along with some pretty tops. I usually aim for 3-4 outfits for each gift.
I did take lots of photos, but then worried about posting photos of all the children on the internet without their parents permission. It just didn’t feel right to do that, so I’m afraid you only have photos of the bouncy castle, some of the food and the birthday cake. https://imgur.com/a/hN9wXto It’s a shame, because the funniest photos were of the pinata whacking. My nephew’s wife had the job of blindfolding each kid and spinning them around before they had a go at hitting the pinata, unfortunately she seemed to be getting hit as often as the pinata. They eventually managed to smash it and then it was a free for all as a bunch of 5 years old scrambled for lollies. You forget how good 5 year olds (especially girls) are at squealing loudly until you get a group of them together! I definitely needed earplugs after a couple of hours.
The goodies that I’d baked went over well. The kids loved the macarons and the adults ate all the melting moments. Time for a second cup of tea – I had the first one when I’d barely made it through the front door!
LJ, the macaroons in the trays you made looked so good! It sounds like it was a fun (but noisy) party. The bouncy castle looks fun. Those are very popular here too. It looks like the party was outdoors but looking at the temperatures, it looks like it only got into the high teens. Are the weather reports off or were most of the people wearing warmer clothes? It’s still winter there, after all.
We’ve had a break from the heat the past several days. I don’t think it’s gotten much above 33 in the daytime and around 14 or 15 at night. Beautiful sleeping weather with the windows open. They’re getting a better handle on the fires too, with the cooler temps.
I love party dresses for little girls! It seems like it would be so much more fun to shop for the “girlie” styles. But at least she likes flowery jeans and leggings.
Thin, congrats to DD for submitting her final papers in. She’s worked really hard this year.
You mentioned coming up with some NFD rules. I certainly need to cut back on NFD. This morning was the first time in a long time that I was 60 the morning after a FD. I would like to be back in the 58’s with a little bit of wiggle room. One rule for me should be to not eat anything after 8:00 pm. I often sit and read at night and add a snack here and there. And here again and… Nights after OH and DS have gone to sleep and it’s quiet in the house are when I’m most tempted. I hate to count calories but clearly need some other rules. What are you thinking?
Cinque, I hope your party today was fun. Looking forward to hearing about it.
Lindsay, how nice to get comments from your doctor about your weight loss! I think most people’s faces look better after they’ve lost weight. I think the worries of it causing extra wrinkles are grossly exaggerated. (Of course this is from the woman who has to have her contacts in these days in order to see to apply eye make up. 😁)
I think weight loss in general takes years off a person’s appearance.
CalifD, thanks for your comment about DD. And, hey, if there’s anything you need to know about bobtail ‘flu, we’re on the cutting edge of the science in our house right now!
I haven’t thought of any good NFD rules yet but I definitely endorse your ‘nil by mouth after 8pm’ rule so that can be rule no. 1. I’m not much of a snacker these days and I rarely drink alcohol so I’m trying to work out what’s happened to tip me above my comfortable weight. It happened the week where I had both a restaurant breakfast and the sugar overload at the neighbour’s house two weeks ago which hadn’t been preceded by a normal FD Wednesday. I think I’m also sneaking in bread with my soup which I hadn’t eaten for years. Maybe another rule for me needs to be something about carbs. Are your FDs on the same days while you’re not working? Which days are they, if so?
LJ, that party sounds a success. I hope those squealing 5 y/os appreciated your macaroons.
Cali, temperature wise, the last 2 days here have been in the high teens, but the lack of a cold breeze has made them feel much warmer as long as you are outside in the sun. I have worn short sleeves the last 2 days, it’s felt like spring. The birthday girl was is shorts today!
Thin, I find 2 FDs gives me the leeway for one indulgent event (as long as I don’t go berzerk). Any more than one and my weight goes up. Maybe having multiple things within the week have had a temporary effect. I’m sure you’ll get back to your comfortable weight, you always do.
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22 Aug 18