This topic contains 27,907 replies, has 831 voices, and was last updated by thinatlast 4 days, 17 hours ago.
Hi everyone. Just checking in!
After 3 1/2 weeks, finally feeling a lot better. Apparently my ‘food poisoning’ became diverticulitis – not nice at all! Hopefully, no more episodes.
Enjoying reading all your post. Nothing to add!
I hope you are all enjoying your day, be you fasting or not fasting! Have fun with whatever you are getting up to and bye for now!
Good afternoon everyone,
Cate, nice to hear from you again. I’m really pleased that you have found the FDs easy to incorporate – it looks like you’ve the same approach as Quacka and Penguin with the B2B FDs. I personally always found that really difficult and tended to binge when it was done. So you have my admiration for B2B, I think I’m a wimp when it comes to how many days I can restrict my food. Looks like you regular golf is also helping to keep you fit – is it also improving your handicap?
Cali, I’m wondering if the plant based food info was in relation to your husband’s gastric reflux. I get reflux if I’m not careful to moderate my fat intake, and it’s always worse when lying down. It sounds like you make be able to include a few more plant based meals if your husband is open to his docor’s suggestions.
Thin, accessing from ethically raised animals really varies depending on where you live. I could do this easily when I lived in the hills, but there is nothing like that near me now. I actually have to go back to the hills to access those things.
It sounds like your daughter had a very grim day with a tragic end. It’s good that she can talk it out with you though, I always think that helps when dealing with trauma.
I’m on a normal NFD but don’t have much appetite. My final errand was to Ikea (again) so I had their salmon & veg as a late lunch – my first food for the day.
I think dinner may be very light unless I start to feel hungry – I’m planning 2 boiled eggs with kibbled rye toast.
Hope everyone is having an easy day.
thin- I have felt very determined to stick with 5:2, but even more so when I read my notes from when I did it back in 2016. It got be back to my GW & I had forgotten that!
We do have lots of ethical food choices & also the advantage of everything being so close & available at Farmers markets where you get to buy direct from the small producers. I would imagine the price for the same produce in almost every city would be way more expensive. I still buy from the supermarket occasionally, but am currently trying not to go in there at all. You have made me feel even stronger about not buying any more meat from Woolies. You just don’t feel that you could trust them.
Cali- like you, I have never had a doctor suggest a plant based diet, but they all seem to love to get you on statins & keep you on them. I must admit that I do love meat, but you have me thinking I really must try tofu again. I have had it out plenty of times, but never seem to make it nice at home.
I am really enjoying my NFD today, without even thinking of over-eating. I like this change
Thin your escape in Namibia sounds much more exciting than my brief encounter in Monkey Forest in Ubud. Awful experience for your DD last night. Hearing stories like this have made me think more carefully about our consumption of meat. Like you Cate, we only buy free range and from a small local butcher who knows exactly where his products come from….he likes to say the animals he sells only had one bad day in their lives … but we still find pulses and vegetables are replacing a lot of the meat we once ate.
LJ and Calif I have tried hard to enjoy the holiday and the different food experiences while avoiding the temptations of the hotel buffet. Actually it hasn’t been all that tempting, especially after the first couple of days. I’m hoping you’re all right about the scales. I’ll be back on to a disciplined routine once I’m home. I am working Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday next week, so want to try 800 calories daily over the 3 days, and assess where I am at on Friday morning. I have to work til 5 (usually 4 pm) on those 3 days, which will be a great help because I will be able to start preparing dinner pretty much as soon as I get in, thus avoiding the ‘munchies’ hour.
Quacka I love the dress and shoes – you must already be so slim…it looks quite tiny. Shame you can’t find someone who can adjust it for you – the only downside of losing weight is growing out of things we love.
Hello, I have been so busy today, but just time to catch up now.
I’ve had a great ‘day after Fast Day’ and done lots of gardening and house work, cooked the pumpkin (and some chicken) and lots of planning so I feel quite triumphant, but might need a gentle day tomorrow.
It is gardening weather LJoyce 🙂 it must be lovely to be getting into yours. I have cut things back and mulched and repotted. I thought that the next time I saw a self sown tomato I would let it grow, and then saw two coming up in the Vietnamese mint. I have transplanted them, fingers crossed they survive.
Thin, Oh dear, awful to hear even the little you passed on, about the abattoirs. How I wish we did better.
Cate you have impressed me too. I do generally buy meat from my lovely local butcher, rather than from the supermarket, but it is possible to get more ethical meat, and I had better look into it, there are Farmers markets near me (unless I go back to a non meat diet along with Cali’s OH).
How awful for DD to be at the death of the little dog that was hit by a car, but I am glad for everyone else there, because it must have been a great relief to have someone who knew what they were doing and who was kind and compassionate.
I am glad she has you to debrief with and to care for her, it was a hard day.
Miso has taken advantage of the last two warm nights and not come home for tea. instead she has woken me up at around 1am to let her in. (And since my insomnia is not of the kind where I get a good night after a bad one, I particularly resent this behaviour!). So the new routine is to put up her food at 9am (instead of noon) and not feed her until 7pm. It worked tonight! I just opened the door and called her and she jumped down from somewhere and ran in.
She is on my lap now, purring.
I’ll need a new TShirt Cali, if I get to be boss. 🙂
Cate, lovely to see your post, and how nice that a week without wine led to such a result on the scales. Good luck with the tests, I really hope they show up something clear and easily fixable. (I hate it when they don’t show anything, even though I know that is so much better than something awful).
Great news that your hunger signals are being nice and quiet. Even on golf day! It must feel so nice and normal. May it continue!
Cali, it is interesting research that recommends a vegan diet for gastric reflux. I read up on it. Interestingly, half the articles talked about a vegan diet, and another half talked abut a Mediterranean style diet eg https://www.feinsteininstitute.org/2017/09/mediterranean-style-diet-may-eliminate-need-reflux-medications/ The point being that a plant based diet seems to be the go!
I am lucky to be able to buy beautiful fresh tahini and would like to stick up for it as a wonderful ingredient, while agreeing that sesame oil is a brilliant substitute.
Lindsay enjoy your last days in Bali. It is rather nice to be looking forward to getting home too. Ooh our familiar home and routines are so precious.
Quacka what an interesting problem you have of getting too small for your good clothes before you manage to wear them! At least you know you’ll catch up eventually, and start getting a wardrobe that can last. I am another one who loves your shoes, and how lovely and light your dress and jacket are.
I do hope you are happily camping right now. Ooh I am envious. Have extra fun for my sake!
Arelkade, divericulitis is awful! Could you avoid being hospitalised? So glad you are at the end of it now. I think it is about time you had a good, gentle run of luck. Sending good wishes.
Hello to everyone else. Minka your beet kvass recipe is perfect. I have a decanter of it now and it is just beautiful. Intesha are you still reading? Merry, where are you? And hello to everyone else too, special wishes.
Hi all, a quick post before I head into the garden.
Arel, I think our posts must have crossed last night as yours wasn’t there when I wrote my post. I hope you have no more episodes of diverticulitis. Does this mean you have to avoid everything with seeds in it?
Lindsay, have a safe trip home. I hope it’s not too much of a jolt to get back into work again.
Cinque, enjoy your gentle day. It sounds like you accomplished a lot yesterday.
I have made a start on digging over the patch of backyard where I intend to plant veggies and herbs. It’s heavy soil laced with builders gravel and a little bit of rubble from when the old house was demolished. It’s hard work so I’m digging one 30cm trench at a time and then mixing in gypsum, compost and straw mulch before filling the trench again (with the stones, glass, bits of tile & brick removed). It’s going to be slow as it takes some time to do one trench and I need to pace myself or I’ll hurt my back again. So far I’m only onto my second trench. https://imgur.com/a/d3hDaII The whole patch is 2.4 x 4.7 metres. That’s quite a lot of space to work with. It should give me the luxury of dividing the bed into sections with some straw paths, so I can get to the plants more easily without treading on the growing area.
Today and tomorrow are both NFDs although my plan for today is a controlled NFD with lower than normal calories – to make up for my Monday FD which I think was over 500cals. I have high hopes that the extra work in the garden will help me get well within the 70-75kg range. I’ve been hovering at the top of that range for a while but I feel more comfortable with a buffer.
Have a good day everyone.
Good morning all,
Hope you are all well and will catch up(yet again) over the next couple of days.
Spring-cleaning going on here, kitchen benches covered, ladder in the lounge room, stuff on the floor, cleaning stuff everywhere, you get the picture, missed 1 FD last week after getting out of sinc- had put off Mons FD to Tues, did that OK, put off Thurs FD to Fri as I prefer 2 days between FDs, then messed up Fri’s FD when tired late evening. Trying to get certain things done while OH is away and everything can just be left where it finishes for the day. Trying not to do too much.
It’s been a goal to be able to add some stachy carbs back into my food regime for nutritional reasons, so this week I’ve done a GF carb test. 4 times more water needed in liver processing with starchy carbs apparantly so my weight went up for a few days and is now down again post test.
During my weight loss phase I discovered I had a more than normal challenge of losing while eating starchy carbs and had to dis healthy things like GF and grain free flours, all dried beans, pulses, lentils, chickpeas, potatoes, pumpkin, sweet potato, bananas, peas, corn (the only grain I can eat totally reaction free). But, I always wanted to add them back in eventually. While there are other people who have to dis starches, I’ve not found anyone on the forum who has had to stay off so much to lose weight. All these foods brought my weight loss to zero regardless of calories being kept the same.
Experiment 1.
So this time I wanted to test how much water weight I put on eating those things, but calories staying roughly the same. Answer : 1.5 kgs
I’m reasoning that if I want to add them in but still weigh 62kgs, I’ll have to get my weight down to 60.5kgs to maintain at 62kgs.
Experiment 2.
Given –
1. I’ve had fairly sparse amounts of these foods during my 3yrs 10minths on 5:2,
2. I’ve a couple of kgs above my goal weight atm
– I’ll be attempting to lose these last kgs while gradualling adding some of these back in, to see if they still stop my weight loss or not.
I particularly want to add back in bananas (where the microwaved banana came in ), sweet potato, potato, pulses, dried beans lentils, chickpeas.
Check- in: 64.4kgs after jumping up to 66 during the water weight challenge. Creeping slowly down.
Off to exercise physiologist now.
Onwards and Downwards,
Merry
Arel- A few friends have had Diverticulitis & really suffered. I hope it’s not a recurring thing for you.
Lindsay- I think we may start replacing some of our meat with pulses too. It just feels like the right thing to do. Does anyone make their own baked beans? It’s great that you managed to eat sensibly on your holiday. It sounds like you have a sound plan to get back on track when you get home & you are probably moving more while away.
Cinque- Thanks for being so welcoming & positive. The week without wine has been a good exercise for me. I am going to keep it restricted to 3 days a week after this week as I do think it will help with the scales.
LJ- Thank you. It’s funny about the B2B’s being easier for me really.I can’t explain why. If I’m playing golf the next day it wouldn’t matter so much if I felt like eating more, but so far I haven’t. Touch wood. My golf is woeful at the moment, but I still enjoy it. Your gardening sounds like very hard work, but it will be very productive by the sounds of it. I think I will start adding CFD’s when I go close to the 500 on FD’s. Is that what some of you do? Do you throw in an extra every now & then? I’ve been too nervous to play around with 5:2 in case I sabotage myself.
Merry- I really have trouble processing starchy carbs! I went on this diet(Cohens) in 2007 where I lost 36 kg in 28 weeks, but during that time I basically didn’t eat ANY starchy carbs- not a grain of rice, no bread, pasta, potatoes, sweet potatoes etc. When I reintroduced bread I bloated up like a blimp & gained water weight instantly. I started eating GF, but in moderation. Earlier this year my doctor had me eating gluten for weeks to have a test that might indicate if I am Coeliac & whammo I put on 4 kilos & just couldn’t shake them. That’s why I started back on 5:2. I want to eat the same foods you mention, but feel that my body just can’t tolerate them after having been on that too strict diet.
I keep going back & finding I have missed something, so apologies if I have. We’re heading to Hobart for the next couple of days & I willeat mindfully
Cinque, I missed your post yesterday morning! So it was great to see your long catch-up today (from last night) and to know that your absence was due to being so productive; I feared you might be sick as I have come to rely on your morning post as I’m sure have many others. Naughty Miso. But I think you will win the stand-off.
Cate, Merry, I am another who gave up carbs along the way. I wasn’t at all receptive to it when it was first mentioned on these pages. But later, I found that giving up bread, rice and pasta made a huge difference to me. Before losing all that weight, I consumed so much that I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference anyway. But now, when I occasionally have half a bread roll with soup, I can immediately tell the difference in the bloating. Or if I don’t lose weight after a FD, I can immediately think back to the offending carb I thought I could get away with. I don’t restrict all carbs, but I really don’t miss simple carbs at all. Last night, I had zucchini spirals when the OFMs had pasta and I loved it so much more.
Merry, I hope you can get back the required nutrients without too much weight/water damage. You are so vigilant, I bet you’ll be fine. It would be hard to eliminate all the foods that you have.
Arel, best wishes to you. I hope things start to look up for you very soon.
CalifD, isn’t it interesting what your OH’s GP had to say – and how your OH takes notice of him? I laughed reading that you pointed out that you already owned the books. My OH would be the same. If my neighbours mention anything about nutrition, OH sits up and takes note because they’re both doctors. He’d previously thought I was mad for saying that sugar is addictive but when the neighbour confirmed it, it became true!
LJ, you are having a productive time in the garden – interspersed with frequent trips to IKEA. It sounds like you have settled in nicely and found your 5:2 rhythm for your new environs.
Cate, I think it would be nice to live in a small community with Farmers’ Markets nearby. My neighbours and I have been discussing this today and we have unfortunately ruled out our local butcher as a potential source of ethically farmed meat. We would have been prepared to pay his high prices if he’d answered our questions correctly. One of my neighbours is going to make an effort to feed her family more kangaroo. This has started me up again so I have decided to put the rest in a separate post and then, if anyone feels the content is inappropriate, they can ask for it to be removed.
Lindsay, I hope you have a safe trip home. How many hours of flying is it for you on the east coast? How strong you’ve been to avoid that breakfast buffet all this time!
I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend. And that Quacka has a roaring fire going somewhere with some freshly caught fish to put on the coals later.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments everyone. It’s so heartening to think that people here are open to re-assessing their meat consumption and/or sources. I have a lovely clean house because yesterday I woke up so consumed with this, I couldn’t go to bridge, instead channelling all my energy into housework! I do feel it’s relevant to our forum though because we are all about food. Everyone is disturbed by the live sheep export images we saw recently but the ritualistic slaughtering of animals is well concealed.
Two years ago, DD wrote a scientific review at uni on halal slaughter. It was a brave topic but this is science, not politics and, interestingly, she won a prize sponsored by Meat and Livestock, Australia for her work. (Think about that for a moment). It concluded that the non-penetrative captive bolt method places unnecessary risk to the suffering of animals because they can regain consciousness before they bleed out.
This was one of many welfare issues the students witnessed the other day. Sheep, in particular, have a very keen sense of smell so they’re already highly stressed as they approach the facility – without the trauma of being forced to skip around amongst the carnage of their friends inside because they hadn’t been humanely stunned before their own throats were slit.
I will spare you the other details and what went on at the cattle abattoir but we must not be fearful of having a grown-up discussion on Australia’s trend towards adopting the non-penetrative captive bolt method. In fact, all meat-eating Australians should be made aware of it because, until recently, it was our humane methods that set us apart from other countries.
Even more alarmingly, there are now 11 abattoirs in Australia that have managed to obtain special permission from their state government to allow religious slaughter without any prior stunning. Barbaric, cruel and primitive methods have no place in modern Australian society.
Thin- I think I’ll continue to cut down on my carbs, especially bread, pasta & rice.
I think it’s really important that we all are made more aware of these disgusting practices & knowledge like this will spur us all on to ask the right questions about the way animals are cared for & treated in death. Thanks for sharing, thin.
Cate, Merry & Thin, I think there are some foods with a high proportion of starchy carbs that add calories but little nutrition to our diet. White bread, white pasta and white rice are top of my list, along with cakes and biscuits and anything else that gets a lot of calories from either added sugar or white flour.
Despite the fact that I have made no attempt to ban carbs I actually don’t have white bread, white rice or white pasta in my house, but will on occasion eat these things when out. As I have mentioned several times, I need a high fibre diet to manage IBS symptoms and foods like this have virtually no fibre. I want my grain based foods to work hard for their place in my meal plan. If they don’t have a high fibre content they don’t get included on a regular basis. If they add a lot of micro-nutrients and other gut flora benefits than they move even higher up the list.
I consider pulses/legumes, quality rye sourdough and high fibre “whole” grains to give me calories, micro-nutrients and fibre. That gives them a welcome but restrained place in my diet. I do try not to eat large quantities of grainy foods on a daily basis – most of the time I succeed. I also try to have some grain free days, just to focus my attention on other options – grains are so easy that it’s tempting to rely on them too often. I don’t personally feel comfortable with blanket bans of a macro-nutrient, but I think being selective is sensible and I hope my choices are better for my health than the bland white options are.
Merry, I do know people who have had to maintain a low carb diet (with no starchy carbs) to lose weight, although not from this forum. They were people in my support group in 2014-5, when I did the VLCD program (very low cal diet). What they all had in common was being being insulin resistant, with most taking “metformin” tablets. (Several of them also had PCOS. Not sure if there is a connection with this or not.) Even after substantial weight loss, some found it much more difficult to keep their weight stable unless they continued to limit carbs. It seemed to be an ongoing issue for those with a predisposition to insulin resistance. I felt very blessed that this wasn’t an issue for me. Facing maintenance is challenging enough without so many food exclusions. I feel sorry that this has been a continuing issue for you. I hope your experiments allow you some more food choices without too many consequences.
If you want to eat bananas I’d recommend eating them as under ripe as you can manage and try to buy very small bananas for portion control – or large ones and cut them in half. I eat a small banana most days, even FDs and they never trigger the need for more food unless I ignore these parameters. As they are one of the very few fruits that actually contain complex carbohydrates they take longer to digest than other fruit, so should sustain you for longer. I sometimes spread a little nut paste on them (on NFDs) – this gives me a balance of carbs, protein and fat that can sustain me for hours.
I would recommend that you allow some time if moving in or out of a low carb eating program, before you panic about the scales. It isn’t just added fluid that can be affected. If your diet has been very low carb for a while, then you are likely to have depleted your body’s glycogen stores. As soon as you start eating carbs again, your body will try to replace these glycogen stores. As the body stores extra water with the glycogen your weight may increase, but I think it’s important to remember that it isn’t your body fat that’s increasing. It’s just a natural body mechanism to provide you with a quick energy reserve when you need it.
I now have over a third of the veggie patch dug and the soil improved. I actually went down 30cm then put it back together like a layer cake with mulch, gypsum, fertiliser and compost between layers of the clay soil.
I did 5 hours of digging today, divided into two sessions. So much for my intention to pace myself and not overdo it! I just see a section I want to finish and keep going until I drop. I could barely drag myself into the shower when I was done. Not surprisingly, I’ve needed to take several strong pain killers and an anti-inflammatory tonight. I’m not going to do any digging tomorrow, I’ll give my body a day off and do some more gardening on Sunday. I certainly feel tired tonight, which I hope means a good night’s sleep.
Good night all, talk tomorrow.
LJ-that was a really informative post.I eat oat sourdough most days & love it & love an under-ripe banana on golf days. It gets me around 18-holes of golf well. I had decided to keep adding pulses & I’m going to concentrate on increasing my fibre intake.
Have a great weekend everyone. We’re off to Hobart. It’s raining & we’re meant to play golf tomorrow, but I don’t mind if we don’t as it would give me a chance to catch up more with our son.
Thin, yes, OH seems to be more convinced about the value of a plant based diet when his doctor puts his seal of approval on it, although we’ve actually eaten vegan for long periods many times over the years. But after a while he starts to grumble about “too many vegetables.” Actually, I always think we’re eating too many grains and legumes and not enough green stuff. Eating a plant based diet is easy when eating at home. It’s more difficult when entertaining or going to someone else’s house, and eating out. But I’m considering going that direction again. Thin’s DD’s grim day at the slaughterhouse and OH’s doctor’s seem to have come together at the right time for some serious consideration on my part.
Has anyone ever heard of making coconut yogurt? For some reason I seem to remember someone mentioning it, but not sure if it was here or somewhere else. At any rate, this looks interesting: https://minimalistbaker.com/easy-2-ingredient-coconut-yogurt/ I feel comfortable with fermenting things, but using a manufactured probiotic capsule gives me a bit of pause. I’m not sure why. What do you think? It sounds fast and easy. And here’s a recipe for tzatziki that uses it: https://minimalistbaker.com/6-ingredient-vegan-tzatziki/ This website has quite a few good recipe ideas and I haven’t even had a chance to really go through it yet.
LJ, you are unstoppable with all your home projects, both indoors and out. You’re going to have a great basis for a garden. Your soil sounds as difficult as ours. We have red clay and a gazillion stones and rocks. Even planting a few things is a project if something hasn’t been planted in the spot before. It sounds like you’re getting some great exercise (again). I’m glad to hear you’re giving your body a day or two to heal before digging in again. Your garden is going to be beautiful!
I’m back at 59.2 kg after yesterday’s FD. DS (the one who never seems to post here) is at her lowest since starting 5:2, 54.3kg. She wants to get down to about 52 so these last kg’s are always the toughest. But she’s sticking to the 2 FD’s per week, usually the same as mine. I just wish she’d come here and post. 😏
Cate, you are welcome. I’m happy to share anything I think might help. Some of my information comes from experience, monitored experiments on myself and also from conversations with the dietitian who I still see 2-3 times a year.
I think you asked about controlled days in an earlier post. There was a time when I’d add a third FD in a week, if I had some high cal meals to deal with on my NFDs. However I noticed that that third FD made me feel deprived and I found myself overeating on NFDs. I discovered that when I needed to “save” some more calories, I was better off sticking with 2FDs but trying to show some restraint on one or two NFDs. Generally this means I try to avoid snacks and have modest portions of mostly plant foods and dairy. Although I’m not counting calories I’m usually aiming to be in the 800-1000 range on a CD. One of the reasons I feel I need this option is the modest gap between my TDEE (1400cals) and a FD of up to 500. This means that I’ve only “saved 1800cals over the 2 FDs and there are some social occasions that will use that up and more. (For example the high tea that I went to a couple of weeks ago.)
There are a few reasons why I add a CD. The main one is social occasions that I know will involve many calories and I’m not confident that 2 FDs are enough to offset it. Sometimes it is a response to a NFD where I’ve snacked all day and I want to get back in control of my eating before it becomes a bad pattern. It’s particularly at times of year such as Christmas.
I do find that the controlled NFD doesn’t feel like a FD, so it doesn’t trigger the same deprivation feelings that too many FDs close together can. I know some people don’t have an issue with this, but binge eating is a very old and long-standing issue that it’s taken me years to slowly manage. I’m always wary of the triggers.
Cali, I haven’t seen a recipe for making coconut yoghurt but I have seen a lot more of it available in the supermarket recently – which tells me it’s become much more popular.
You are right about the red clay. I’ve hit a few dark red areas with the shovel, that I think are house bricks – they aren’t bricks, just a lump of very dense clay. It rained all last night so the soil will probably be easier to dig now. I actually feel remarkably good today, not stiff and sore, so I might even to a modest hour of digging this afternoon.
You and your sister are both doing so well. You are right that it’s that last couple of kilos that are so difficult – I think our body fights back.
Hope everyone is having a nice Saturday.
I forgot to add that I found an interesting recipe for Vegan Lentil Salisbury Steak on this website: https://www.rabbitandwolves.com/vegan-lentil-salisbury-steak/ I haven’t tried it, but was interested in one of the ingredients. Remember a couple weeks ago when I was mentioning making stuffed peppers and trying to think of something to make the lentils stick together better? Vital wheat gluten that she uses in this recipe would likely work. I haven’t used vital wheat gluten in ages. I’ve added it to bread recipes a few times in the ast when using heavy grains that didn’t want to rise. I also tried making seitan with it a few times but wasn’t all that impressed with the results. But using it as a binder with the lentils might make a very nice minced beef substitute. Of course it wouldn’t work for anyone on a gluten free diet.
CalifD, that photo of the coconut yoghurt looks delicious. I’m with you though, not sure about that probiotic pill or the assumption that I ‘probably already have one in my cupboard’. But there’s no reason the milk kefir couldn’t be made with coconut milk for those of us using the grains. Mine’s going crazy at the moment, that’s despite dividing it twice in recent weeks to give grains to bridge mates.
You’re doing so well with your weight and thanks for posting on behalf of your DS to let us know how well she’s also managing. It’s fine if she doesn’t want to post, you can give us updates. A few people manage completely well without us such as Minka, Intesha, Merry, etc. And they’re the ones we know of.
Cinque, I hope you are OK and Miso hasn’t started training you in a new regime because I do like (and miss) those morning posts of yours.
Cate, I hope you’re having fun in Hobart and that it rains enough that you can spend the time with your son.
20C today, sunshine, DD at work, OH at the airport and I’m heading outside for some gardening after a good long walk earlier. About five households of my neighbours went out for dinner last night at our local, all very impromptu. We’d already had ours when it was arranged so we were asked to go along anyway and just have dessert. Something I never have in a restaurant. OH and I shared two different dessert things. In a way, I’m glad I had them because they were nothing like as good as I’d been imagining all these years; I’m never tempted but I had thought I’d been missing out and I wasn’t. It’s amazing how my tastes have changed since embarking on this fasty way of life.
Looking forward to tomorrow’s FD.
Good morning everyone,
I needed a couple of days recovery after my big housework day. My health wasn’t as improved as I thought.
And I am definitely in with the group of you that needs to avoid white flour, as I realised, to my cost (again), when I made some ‘2 ingredient flatbread’ to have with my dinner and, stupidly, when it set off the munchies, I made more. The only symptom was intolerable munchies.
I have wondered if I am extremely insulin resistant, and that even losing all this weight hasn’t made it any better, and that’s why I have a reaction to sugar and processed carbs. But maybe it is ghrelin and gut microbes.
Anyway, I am now having an easy B2B fasting weekend and my reward (not cause and effect unfortunately) has been to have a particularly good nights sleep, a rarity for me and so appreciated.
Merry, good luck with your Spring Cleaning, Oh dear, isn’t it hard to pace ourselves. Very interesting to read about your issues with starchy carbs, I do so hope you can manage to reintroduce some of the good ones successfully.
Cate, I have read of people who became intolerant of wheat, I think it was, after having none for weeks or months on a diet. Oh dear, our bodies, how can we keep up with them!
I do hope your laptop is working properly again, it is so frustrating when screens freeze!
LJoyce, you are so right: that sugars and processed carbs add so little nutrition to our diet.
What a great garden you are building, getting the soil right is such a wonderful foundation. I hope the pain payback hasn’t been too bad. (That problem with pacing again).
Cali, that coconut yoghurt looks interesting. I am fine with dairy and glad to have it for the calcium etc, so have never considered coconut yoghurt.
I really like the idea of making it with kefir though, Thin.
Crickets, is Cali hassling you in to posting? 😉 It is lovely to see your success though! A nice milestone.
I made beetroot soup yesterday using the beetroot left over from making the kvass. I think it is going to be very yummy, I will have some for my evening meal tonight (I had my lovely miso soup last night).
Cat update: the weather has turned cold again so no trouble getting her inside, but I am continuing my strict, sensible feeding of her so we will be ready for the next warm night.
Best wishes all.
Good morning SHs, hope you are all enjoying your weekend.
Cali, in am organic market that was close to where I used to live they sold quite a few different types of ready made kefir – including coconut kefir. So it must be possible to make it. I’m not sure if you’d need special grains that contain different microbes or not, because most kefir grains rely on the lactose in the milk as their food, but coconut milk doesn’t contain lactose.
Thin, enjoy your FD, sounds like you have dinner already prepared. I too have soup planned for my FD dinner.
Crickets, I’m afraid your sister stole some of your thunder and already announced your weight loss success! Congratulations, I’m so pleased that 5:2 had worked so well for you.
Cali, I have seen recipes for vital wheat gluten as a vegetarian protein (in Australia this is marketed as gluten flour), but have not tried them. Like you I just use it in bread baking when using the high fibre, but low gluten, flours that I prefer.
I’m not familiar with Salisbury Steak as a recipe, so it was harder to imagine what the vegan lady was trying to replicate with lentils & gluten (although the recipe does sound nice – anything with lentils and mushrooms appeals to me). Is the original a crumbed steak or a crumbed pattie made from minced beef, or something else entirely?
Cate, enjoy your trip to Hobart, and time with our son.
Cinque, it looks like soup is happening al round with FD meals today as Thin and I are having soup to. Enjoy your beetroot soup. I’ve never made it as I have generally not liked cooked beetroot. I like the small young leaves as a salad leaf or the larger leaf as a substitute to silverbeet. But I only like the actual beets raw and grated into a salad or juiced. I suspect I could cope with beetroot soup as long as I added enough greek yoghurt as it’s the excessive sweetness of cooked beetroot that puts me off.
It is normal for our bodies to convert white flour into sugars fairly quickly as it doesn’t have the fibre to slow the process down. So your reaction to white flatbread is not surprising. I know I’m not insulin resistant but I also get the munchies on the rare occasions that I eat white bread (including roti etc made from white flour). When I make them at home I use a wholemeal atta flour and don’t have the same reaction.
You have mentioned before that most fruit has a similar effect on you so you avoid them, so this might indicate that you are getting a high insulin spike from some sugars. I find I’m ok with fruit but I do tend to have small portions.
Time I went back out to the garden, my break is over.
Hi everyone,
Crickets wwwww waving hullo and well done on you new numbers! None of us thought getting our weight to normal would be as easy as we thought it would be.
Thin – your dinner conversations are hilarious if rather food unfriendly. You must never know what’s going to be next.
PS. You are the maintainence Queen👑
Cate – have a great time in Tassie, and enjoy the golfing. Golf courses are such green lovely looking places. It must be lovely walking around them all the time.
Cinque – you are the maintainence queen too👑. You keep me on my toes looking up the definition of ingredients and dishes. Interesting you can do the b2b fasting. The 3rd week my body/brain decided they didn’t like them. Pats for Miso.
LJ- your house is cruising along, well done, and it sounds very LJ-ish getting out there digging up soil again. I bet you have a lovely and fruitful garden this time next year.
Lj – Thanks for all the information re the low carb eaters. Interesting. I’ll have to check up on the insulin resistance and PCOS. It’s been an ongoing challenge for decades as I’ve been diagnosed with grain intolerance and allergic to rye and barley. Oats do nasty things if I eat them, and I get hives, and itchy rashes from skin care or soap products with oats in them. Typical me, lol. For other people oats are soothing to the skin, and the basis of skin care products as well as food – porridge (which I like) and various other oaty food staples, but not for this little bunny who even has a few Scottish genes. I even like haggis! Go figure. Had the allergy tests, gastroscopy, and stomach biopsy in case I was ceoliac – I’m not. My gut though does not like grains at all! Except corn. That’s it. 1 and only grain. I spent over a year with a dietition, scrapping everyfood except for 5 things people don’t have reactions to, then slowly, methodically testing every food only adding back in anything I didn’t react to. This included testing for naturally occuring chemicals – salicylates and amines, then methodically going through additives, preservatives, colours, flavours etc. Now, I always test new grain and seeds that come along from other cultures or old foods coming back eg spelt wheat, quinao, acai, amaranth etc but no go every time. The only consolation is my negative response to rice and quinao have a better threshold level i.e. I can tolerate a small quantity without reaction.
I only looked on the forum to see how others went with grains and other starchy carbs, and I seemed to be the worst in it’s effect on weight loss. But, I don’t want to end up deficient in B vitamins, and bananas are a good easy source of potassium. I prefer the small ones, and less ripe, but riper for a cooked one.
CaliD – you are another great maintainer, and you also keep me on my toes looking up new things – the vital gluten and still to look up “Salisbury steak”, but I had a look at the lentil SS recipe and there’s another amazing ingredient – liquid smoke! I’m presuming it’s an ingredient that makes vegetarian recipes taste more like cooked or BBQd meat? Seitan? Another one to look up.
Lindsay – well done on avoiding the buffet temptations! Once the light dawns the breakfast buffet looses it’s attractions. Interested to hear your next report on your 3 800cal work days.
Thin’s escape in Namibia, Lindsay – Monkey Forest in Ubud, Quacka’s clothes – I really need to catch up.
Thank you all for your comments on my carb situation. It is a challenge to take so many things out of normal eating. I’ve had to do it for decades, so I guess I’m used to it. Unfortunately my mouth likes the textures of grains, and my tastebuds like the taste, which is the challenge I face the most. At the moment I’m working on getting the occasional small amount of banana, sweet potato and corn in there, but keeping the quantity small for now.
Time to get back to some more spring cleaning. Had the day off yesterday, and a few twinges in a few places but keeping it paced. I’ll be glad to finish in the kitchen so I can get away from where the food is kept.
1 question: does anyone have a can opener that opens those dratted slope sided canned salmon cans, with the slightly deeper indent on the top. I have tried everything! This morning tried DFILaw’s electric can opener we inherited which I found lurking at the back of the appliance cupboard. Nup, nope, nada, zilch works on those blasted cans. OH likes the red salmon ones from Aldi, but the only thing that opens them relatively easily is one of those lttle tiny ‘use in the field’ army type thinggies, which I can’t use. Ours disappeared years ago so we’ve both been swearing at those cans and a passing parade of can openers for years. Getting another little army thinggy would be too simple of course.🙃
Onwards and Downwards,
If you fall off the horse get back on,
Merry
So many interesting posts which I will catch up on and answer when I get my head together.
We arrived home late and I slept really really badly, so the full on clean up we’d planned for today is going to be a bit more gentle. We will get there.
In the meantime, I just wanted to put a line in the sand, post holiday. I put on 2.7 kilos in the 18 days I was away. My 3 x 800 days this week should sort most of it. I’ll check in on Friday. I started the day with a 17 hour fast from 5pm local time yesterday, eating a poached egg and a slice of toast late morning. My OH could teach the breakfast cooks at our hotels something about poaching an egg!
We had a nice welcome from a local (!) when we looked over the verandah this morning. I will post a pic in another post, in case I lose this one.
Thin you might not want to open it.
Hello again,
Lovely to find your big, interesting posts here.
Welcome home Lindsay. I hope your gentle day goes well, and that just pottering around gets a lot done, and a great, refreshing sleep is yours tonight.
How nice to have an OH that cooks an excellent poached egg!
LJoyce I’ve tried making borscht several times, and never felt I got it right, but I am interested in how this soup will have some of the fermented flavour, which may be the traditional taste (rather than adding vinegar as so many recipes do). I’ll see what I think when I have had a big bowl.
I do love cooked beetroot, especially roasted, Oh Yum. But its sweet and earthy taste is unlike anything else.
And isn’t it interesting that flatbreads with added bran etc works, but eating them with a big bowl of fibre filled veggies doesn’t.
Merry I am learning that I love B2B fasting , but only if I am in the mood. Also, I make them much less fasty than my usual ones. I haven’t added up the calories but I must get up closer to 800 calories (instead of my usual 350ish) and that makes them easy days. They feel really good though (when the time is right 😉 )
Your explanation of carb issues set me wondering about buckwheat, and the difference between grasses and grains: which I have never understood, but I do keep reading that buckwheat is a grass, not a grain. I had a feeling that quinoa was too, and wondered if the difference meant you might tolerate them differently. Google, google…
I found this: http://www.differencebetween.net/science/difference-between-seeds-and-grains/ (interesting but still not a very helpful distinction). So you see, you send me looking up things too.
Re the salmon can, I was stuck my tin shed school in remote NT with a can and no canopener, and one of the smart kids looked at my distress, shook her head and got a pointy knife. She inserted the point at the top edge of the can and with an up and down motion she opened it quickly and efficiently. I’ve used the technique a few times since, although never as expertly. Worth a try if you are stuck. This shows it, (sorry, it is an awful video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QBGyhvQtPw
I’ll give Miso the cat your pats.
Merry, You have my sympathies having to deal with so many intolerances. I hope you have some success adding back a few starchy foods.
Did you read Cinque’s post about buckwheat and quinoa? I’d forgotten that there were substitutes that aren’t actually grains. Have you tested these – they may give you some viable options. I use buckwheat groats and quinoa as cooked grains interchangeably with rice & couscous. Normally I choose buckwheat if I want it hot to go with a cooked meal, but I prefer quinoa in a cold salad. You can also get quinoa rolled – I have made porridge from it – ends up quite smooth and similar in texture to a semolina porridge. In one of those bulk stores I have also found a cereal made from buckwheat groats, shaved coconut, almonds and cacao – very nice with cold milk (cows or almond).
Can’t help on the opener question. I use a hand held twist opener that has rubber coated handles and so far it has opened everything.
Lindsay, welcome back. I hope the holiday weight disappears quickly.
I’m assuming that your verandah was sporting either a snake or a dead animal if Thin won’t want to see it.
When I lived in the hills the feral foxes used to leave me the remains of their meals on the front lawn – usually just the tail and pelvis of possums.
Cinque, I’m wondering if the difference in adding fibre through veg or bran is down to our gut bugs. I imagine it’s different strains of microbes that digest these different foods.
Ta Da! 😀 I have finished preparing my veggie garden beds – apart from some dolomite lime that I still need to apply to the areas where I’m planting legumes. It’s been hard work and I’m sporting the inevitable blister to prove it (and a bin full of rocks). I also had to be careful in some areas as there were water pipes and an electrical cable going to the water tank and these were only 30cm underground. I’m hoping all that digging has burned a few calories. I showed you a photo of the area I was planning to dig up and I now have before and after shots, although taken from different directions:
https://imgur.com/a/1dDPYuC
The little strips of compacted clay and stones are my paths, so I can avoid walking on the planting area. Although some growing beds look narrower, that’s just the camera perspective – they are roughly the same size. The reason the beds are different colours is because I did different soil preparation depending on the planting plan – those with lots of compost are darker.
I have no idea how to post a spreadsheet online (I think it can be done through google, but don’t know how). So, I’ve taken some photos of my laptop screen to show you my planting plan. https://imgur.com/a/1HJ0jfm It remains to be seen whether I can also post a photo in a few months that actually conforms to the plan. There always seems to be one or two plants each year that do so poorly I pull them out in disgust and plant something else.
I think I’ve earned a long hot shower and a cup of tea.
LJ – you are the organisational queen – a crown for you too👑. Who knew a statistician would prepare gardening as well as that, but I should have guessed. You will have wonderful veggie garden. I usually find things that don’t do well have 4 causes.
1. Too much sun
2. Not enough sun
3. Not being fed
4. I forget to water them
When we organise ourselves to do it, OH and I try to use automatic watering systems where we can. Easier to choof off for a week or so to help with grandkids.
Re the grains and other food stuff.
Intolerances, as I understand it, occur when molecules of the particular food won’t go through the intestinal wall, as they should, though that’s probably very simplistic. I always think I’m boring people with this stuff, but
– I’ve read the grain/seed info Cinque, and for me it seems there’s not always a clear reason why I react to something and not something else, without having a dietitions depth of knowledge. But, there must be something fundamentally different in corn because no challenges with that all. Back to grains and seeds: I gave up being concerned about the grain/seed question after a while and just concentrated on what I reacted to or didn’t.
rice – can have a small amount before reactions start. It was one of the original 5 foods no-one reacts to – except me, who reacted to any more than about a 1/4 cup of cooked rice. Now I can go up to 1cup without reactions.
buckwheat- yep, it’s seed, and I react to it
Millet – ditto
These 2 people with grain intolerance can often eat, but not me. I had high hopes for these 2 but no go.
Quinoa – small amount, 1/4 cup cooked, OK, more than that and a reaction starts
Acai – seed – reaction
Amaranth – reaction
Spelt – old style of wheat – reaction
Teff – I’ve had a teff pancake/crepe made by an Ethiopean food cart, and it was light, fluffy, yummy, and I don’t recall a reaction, but it was a 1 off – Australia day, and I ate all sorts of things that day, not in a controlled situation.
Couscous, atta, various other things like pearl couscous are all various forms of wheat, so no good.
Other seeds like sesame, sunflower, poppy, pumpkn are good – no reaction.
For fibre I add what works best for me, which is psyllium husk, which is pure fibre so no protein molecule to attempt to go through the gut wall.
I’ve used gluten free flours such as chichpea, corn/maize, rice, potato, and a couple of others, and commercial GF flours. There’s 1 brand of corn cornflour – the rest are wheat in Australia, but still called cornflour – the ones you use for thickening.
Take out nitrates, nitrites, sulphate preservative and there go all the deli meats, a lot of dried fruit (easier now than it used to be with sundried fruit, but I still have to check) some juice, wine – but champagne and gin are fine usually, not having sulphate preservative in them. I rarely buy GF packaged things from a supermarket because they can be full of sugar, saturated and trans fats, and a few nasties, junk ingredients, in other words, and of course, GF isn’t the same as grain free.
Then there’s amines, yep, react to them too, but fortunately I don’t react to salicylates. These are naturally occuring chemicals, and the dietitian gave me a booklet with every food being rated – not every food category every food. So, every food gets classified into 4 lists – no amines, low, medium or high in amines, and ditto for salicylates. So I eat the “no “ category, and the “low” category get added for special occasions and you keep the quantity low. Some people, like a relative of mine, react to both – that is truly hard.
So, amines – in things like chicken skin, so chicken skin always comes off, meat, fish caught more than 24 hrs previously (amines develop over time), toast, so that makes GF breads interesting because years ago they were so cakey and unpleasant to eat many people only ate them toasted! Yay! At least GF breads are easier today. My dream is to one day be able to make a quality GF, fibre filled, sourdough bread, if it’s possible. I have been known to ask to speak to chefs about whete they got something from, and it used to be commn practice for me to ring factories that produced packsged and canned foods to get the nitty gritty that wasn’t on the label, and talked to their food scientist.
Some fruits and vegies have naturally occuring amines so some of them wete off limits for about 20 yrs. now I canceat very small qusntities of them which makes life easier. So – at least GF breads are more pleasant today.
This next week I’m going 15 mins up to a suburb where a totally GF cafe/shop has just opened – and they not only have sourced many good ingredients, but have things like pues and sausage rolls, etc, that have quality ingredients. The article announcing it in the local paper quoted the owner as saying there have been grown men who have walked in and literally had tears in their eyes.
There has been 1 of these shops in Newcastle, in Hamilton, and it is awesome to walk into a shop and you can just choose anything wiyhout having to work out lots of things.
For someone who only has 1 cooking gene, lol, I’ve had to be very involved with foo and especially, sourcing ingredients. I once spent literally all day every day for 3 weeks Monvto Fri, going through every food available where lived. I had 2 of my kids with allergies and intolerances, different ones of course, so that made 3 of us, 1 had a problem with sallicylates, so I had to work around those. Add to that a strict diet for OH for medical reasons and it was fun, fun, fun in our house. 1 child could eat everything but had to be careful of too much sugar. The rest if us had different coloured containers in the fridge with things in there we could eat – I was the box with red lid, someone else was a blue lid etc. I had a fortnightly menu that had to be strictly adheted to, and of course, there was the budget to stick to, so I made lots of things from scratch.
Anyway now Zi’ve really vented, totally over myself, and if you got to the end, thank you for reading🤪
Merry
Oh, forgot to say, I saw kippers somewhere, but wasn’t going home straight away and no cold bag so had to give them a miss. Now I can’t remember where it was.
Also, yesterday I went to Shellharbour fish market, which has an amazing array of seafood from fresh sardines to huge wild caught barramundi. And the had sea cucumbers! Looked like giant slugs.
Merry, I’m sorry that you can’t have some of the seed alternatives, but it’s good to see than small quantities of some things can be ok for you. It sounds even more complicated with so many family allergies – although I think there is an inherited disposition to allergies. You are right that things have changed a lot in recent years. All cafes seem to have GF meals on their menus and the range of gluten free breads has certainly grown. There is one I used to buy, not because it was GF, I just liked the taste and texture.
I have bought and used teff flour. I find it can’t be made into a bread dough, but needs to be a pancake batter pouring consistency. I did find it hard to lift as it tears easily. I did better when I mixed with with some legume flours and a little spelt flour. If you can tolerate the legume flours and replace the spelt with cornflour this may work as a flatbread.
I can just picture that grown man you described, walking into that GF shop and being able to have a pie with sauce for the first time in years.
I seem to remember you’ve mentioned making your own GF sourdough substitute. I thought it had lots of psyllium in the recipe, which should make it high fibre. I assume that you can’t just buy a loaf on GF bread and know it will be ok, because it sounds like it’s grains rather than the actual gluten that’s the problem for you – making everything that much more complicated.
I think working through things so methodically with a dietitan is the right way to approach it. Otherwise it’s guessing and you may end up excluding something that you don’t need to.
Lj – thanks for the info re cooking teff. It sounds like the Ethiopian pancake I had. I’d be happy to use it for pancakes. I’d got as far as sourcing some teff, which they have at a bulk food/bring your own container store in town but I hadn’t thought of adding other flours. Chickpea flour and corn cornflour would both work I think. Yes, I talked about wanting to try GF sourdough some time back but didn’t actually try it. I’ll be more motivated in another few months.
Yes, there’s food/ gut issues throughout my family over several generations, and it was quite a challenge for a few years there, working it all out and setting up systems of sourcing food, buying, cooking that made it easier to do for 4 different diets. But we got through it, and so glad I put all that effort in, as it really paid off. I love how it’s so much easier now to eat out.
I can buy several of the GF breads now available , but I still have to check the ingredients each time. And it’s both the grains and gluten as well that are a problem.; so none of the gluten binder product in CalieD’s lentil steaks would be useable. I quite like glutinous rice products but they’re out too.
Anyhoo, enough of all my silly food stuff. There is enough variety to keep me happy😃
Hope all the Sunday fasters have had a good day, and goodnight from me.
Good morning,
It is a very pretty morning and the sun is flooding through my kitchen window and I am cooking Indian style mung bean pancakes to break my fast. Life is good.
Merry, you are so right about gardens, just one thing I’d add: SNAILS! (It’s a pity I don’t eat them).
Oh those pesky proteins and everything else. I am glad you can at least have corn, and I just so respect the way you have been able to build up a tolerance to some things. What a pleasure it must be to be able to eat even a small amount. Oh things I take for granted!
My beetroot soup is a success. A lot of the beetroot flavour went into the kvass, but there was enough flavour and colour left to make a glorious soup. I used the bits and pieces I had left in the fridge, so it had a small amount of lentil and red pepper, plenty of onion, garlic and parsley, and I added finely sliced kim chi at the end, so it had plenty of spark.
I have just about eaten up that huge bag of veggies I bought last week so I have the pleasure of deciding what I will cook next, and go shopping for those recipes.
Cheers to everyone this morning, I hope it is good where you are, and that FD or NFD it is an excellent day for you with good food (or whatever quantity, but excellent quality) and good people around you.
Good morning all.
I had hoped for a bit of a sleep in this morning, but a full bladder work me at 7am. My FD was easy as I was busy digging. I didn’t have my soup until after 7pm – very late for me on a FD. Just having a pot of tea while I think about today’s food plan. I might finally try the kippers today – maybe a small portion for lunch. I’m a bit worried about how I’ll react to those bones.
Merry, I’m sure it was difficult to cater for 4 different diets but I suspect it was worth all that effort – rather than eliminating all the problem foods from everyone’s diet. This way everyone had the widest range of foods that each could tolerate – better for your nutrition and your gut bugs.
I hope you can source some teff flour. This is the brand that I found in a local health food shop: https://imgur.com/cySc30z I found the taste of teff very pleasant – although when I tried to follow a traditional Ethiopian recipe that requires the batter to sit on the bench and ferment for a few days I didn’t like the taste. I expected a sourdough bread flavour but the taste was just excessively sour. I suppose if I tried to make bread from a sourdough starter without just adding a small portion of it to fresh dough it would also be too sour, so perhaps applying the same principle to the teff pancake would work.
Cinque, good morning, sounds like your FD soup was a success.
I am also expecting a snail invasion once the seedlings go in. I always cover the planted beds with straw, which deters them a bit, but I usually also have to put a trail of snail pellets around the perimeter of each planting bed to protect things until they get large enough to be unattractive to the snails and slugs. Thankfully I don’t have a pet that might eat them.
I have someone coming to do a quote for the verandah blinds this morning. I’m hoping it’s a bit less shocking that the first quote I had.
Have a good day everyone.
I’m enjoying that light feeling after a FD. It was an easy day followed by a reward on the scales today.
Please send your snails* this way, they’re our bobtail lizards’ favourite meal. Pretty disgusting to watch but they get a lot of pleasure from it and find one so filling that they usually have a fast day afterwards.
Lindsay, welcome home. I won’t open your photo, thanks for the warning. I bet most of the 2.7kgs will have disappeared by Friday.
Merry, I’m sorry that life is so complicated for you. You are tenacious. I’m grateful that I only have one thing to worry about wrt food – that being how much of it I put in the tank.
LJ, that will be a fabulous vegetable plot. Will it be fully reticulated? (Penguin, CalifD, that’s Australian for automatic sprinklers). P.S. Our posts crossed. *Not the poisoned ones.
Good morning Thin. The veggie patch definitely won’t have an automatic watering system. It will be me with a hose. I haven’t figured out how to put in a watering system without having the pipes trailing across the concrete paths (a trip hazard) as both of my outdoor taps in the back yard are actually attached to the sides of the house and I’d need to go several metres on top of the concrete paths before I get to any soil. Normally garden taps are actually in the garden not attached to the house. Apart from the veg, I am planning to have just a few low maintenance shrubs which should require only moderate watering once they are established, so probably not a big hand watering job. I have the same issue out the front with the only tap attached to the side of the house, however because the water meter is in the front lawn, I could get a plumber to install a new garden tap within the planting area.
Enjoy your NFD.
I did actually cook the kippers for lunch. https://imgur.com/Gf6dBTV
The oak smoke flavour was very nice and made an oily fish taste very nice. However I did struggle with the bones. I don’t think I would buy these again, because of the bones. However this shop had quite a few different fish that they smoke the same way so I would be happy to buy other fish where I don’t have to eat the bones. Perhaps trout or salmon.
Ours is plumbed underground, LJ. It takes me forever to hand water everything in summer when it’s not one of our two allocated ‘watering days’. But the best thing about it is not having to worry quite so much when we’re away. I really wish we could have a standardised allocation of water, after which we’re price-penalised. We use mostly water-wise shrubs so I can’t understand why I can’t sustain a green, cooling garden when all four of my immediate neighbours can indulge in a swimming pool. We’d like to have our sprinklers programmed on every day but for a shorter period. Ours is a sandy soil so leaving them on for long periods is wasteful. Heaven forbid, we should be allowed to think for ourselves.
Thin, I have heard about the issues of gardening in Perth’s sandy soil from friends who used to live there. I have heavy clay soil, so the water shouldn’t drain through as quickly, but it’s still daily watering of a veggie patch in summer.
However, after a couple of decades of trying to keep 1/3 acre of garden alive over summer, my tiny veggie patch feels like a doddle. After a few years in this place, my perspective might change on that.
I’m not sure how many years I’l continue to do the veggie patch – as long as it provides enjoyment that’s worth the time and money. So far I’ve spent approx $250 on compost, fertiliser, mulch, lime, stakes, seedlings and seeds. By the time I add the cost of water over the hotter months, the veggie patch will be lucky to pay for itself. But creating it and maintaining it gives me pleasure, and for the moment I’m prepared to pay for that. Not to mention that there’s nothing quite like the flavour of freshly picked veg & herbs.
The quote that I received for outdoor blinds this morning was excellent. Still a lot of money, but $1400 lower than the other quote. As both companies came with personal recommendations from people I know, I obviously went with the cheaper quote. They should be installed in 4 weeks. Just in time for the western sun to start hitting rear wall of my house, which is all glass.
Hi everyone
Thank you all for your lovely compliments about my race day outfit. Thank you also to LJoyce and Cali for the tofu suggestions.
Camping was fun even though we didn’t catch a single fish!! We did have a roaring fire but on Saturday it was a total fire ban due to 55-60 kms winds, so no fire that day! We did see whales and also some ocean dolphins rounding up a school of bait fish. Also towing the boat was fine after I actually started driving, I think it was more the anticipation. We ate very healthy lunches and some yummy dinners. We went to an Italian restaurant one night and I had pasta with prawns bacon and avocado. The portion wasn’t too big which was great as we also shared an entree (octopus in Arrabiata sauce).
Weight this morning was only 400g heavier than last week. Very surprising as I expected 1-2 kg at least. I really think not eating breakfast and eating healthily most of the time worked this time round.
Merry you must live close to me! Shellharbour fish market is about 40 minutes north of me.
thin your posts about meat (abattoirs) have been sticking in my mind. I think it is something I will definitely be researching in the near future. Meat has always been an integral part of our diets as OH thinks dinner is not right without some kind of meat, actually even lunch needs to have meat (fish, bacon, eggs etc or cold meats)
Since starting 5:2 we are slowly changing things around. We eat much more legumes and pulses and less meat. I would be happy to go vego but I know OH would never be happy. I am content with adding more healthy things into our diet for now.
LJoyce we have our veggie garden fully planted. We have already lost some tomatoes and a cucumber and the snails are out after a tiny bit of rain. The worst thing is that the weather is so changeable at the moment and we are still getting cold nights sometimes! Last night was 3 degrees, and I think it’s been the frosts that have done the damage. We live on the coast and yet have had several frosts this winter.
Hope everyone is doing well. I’m sorry if I’ve missed anyone x Catch up with you all soon x
Quacka, it sounds like a great trip and a healthy one too. I looked up Shellharbour Fish Market when Merry mentioned it in her post and made a mental note that it was quite near Wollongong, a town that’s always been associated with the place I purchased my bicycle over 26 years ago. We had just arrived in Australia and were ‘travelling round’ in a campervan. The bike shop didn’t have the colour I wanted but the man insisted that the colour I was less keen on would look ‘magnificent’ in the sun. I remember it cost over $600 and we were still getting used to everything being so much more expensive than in California. I still have that bike! Wollongong sounded like such a funny name to us back then. I think Monty Python had mentioned a place sounding like it in one of their sketches. Anyway, I hope you and Merry can arrange a coffee date if you’re close enough. Merry is good at that.
LJ, that garden will give you lots of pleasure for many years I’m sure. My OH likes to grow vegetables. He spends far more on the exercise than it would cost to buy the veg in the shops. But, as you say, it’s very satisfying to grow your own and great to know where they’ve come from. Not many cherry tomatoes seem to make it inside the house. Pretty sure OH eats them all on the way down the side passage.
Good Morning SH
Just a few quick lines. I saw eye surgeon a few days ago and must have surgery next week. This week doing pre-op tests. Before I leave for doctor I’ll try to comment quickly.
Re: Gardening in sandy soil. Sandy soil is our terrain here in warm coastal central Florida USA. Our “winter” is our main growing season for heat sensitive plants like tomatoes, leafy greens like lettuce, radishes, cucumbers, squash, etc. He is planting those now.
My hubby enjoys gardening, but after we moved down here he had to learn some new techniques from local gardeners and from the local university agriculture departments staff. Our entire neighborhood has sprinklers so we all have nice lawns and landscaping. The ongoing challenge is to keep the unwanted vegetation out of the landscaping. It happily grows on top of the mulch! Weeding those areas is the source of all the debris that is tracked inside.
But for veggies, he also hand waters some plants each morning before the sun gets hot, or in the evening. Some veggies will not produce much in sandy soil, but there is a common solution used here. The gardeners first lay their row with newspaper or perforated black plastic. Next they mound up the row with good composted soil. Finally they cover the row with perforated black plastic. Even the commercial strawberry farms use a similar process with great results. This gives you good soil just where you need it, reduces weeds and controls evaporation. His second solution has been huge pots filled with good soil. This also keeps the rabbits and some other critters from eating the plants and veggies. He still loses a fair amount to the birds–and we have lots of butterflies and birds(including some big tropical birds) that love to eat his fruits and vegetables. So he plants extra and we still have plenty for ourselves and some neighbors.
My schedule is pretty full for the next couple weeks with this surgery so I may not write, but I will be back.
Have a good week.
Quacka, Glad you had a mostly enjoyable camping trip, despite the lack of fish – hope you had something else to cook on that fire! Good news about the tiny weight gain while away. It will be very easy to get back into your normal food regime from there. The weather is changeable here too, one day sunny the next cold and wet – it even hailed on Saturday. The seedlings I purchased today won’t go in until later this week.
Rainbow, I have seen the same method you describe for growing strawberries here too in the Adelaide Hills. Growers also like it because it keeps the fruit very clean.
I hope your eye surgery goes well.
Thin, Cherry tomatoes are a favourite snack of mine too and in fact they are the only tomatoes I will grow at home. I have a bit of a thing about the fruit bowl never running out of bananas and the fridge never running out of cherry tomatoes. An immediate trip to the green grocer is required when either of those things happen.
I also use a careful selection of veg & herbs to grow – choosing only the styles or varieties that remain expensive even when in season. So I grow things that are commonly $10-20 per kilo: cherry and grape tomatoes, snow peas, baby spinach and baby beetroot leaves, podded green peas, sorrel, yellow button squash. Even the more common veg like zucchini and eggplant, I’ve bought seedlings of the rarer varieties. I don’t see the point of growing the things that are plentiful and cheap at the greengrocer. It also manages the supply of veg a bit as these more obscure varieties tend to produce smaller crops. As I’m only feeding myself, that’s not a bad thing.
Getting late here so time for bed. NFD for me tomorrow and I’m heading to the city for lunch with someone I used to work with.
Happy Tuesday morning all. OH and I are driving the 3.5 hours home from Adelaide at the mo after flying back to South Australia from Queensland. It was a lovely week and a half away and the wedding we attended was beautiful. We spent a lot of time at the beach and eating way too much food.
I was a little disappointed as I was expecting lots of local seafood on the menus but the choices were extremely limited. Most fish was labelled as ‘reef fish’ or just ‘fish of the day’ and when I asked staff exactly what type of fish it was they didn’t know. So I suspect nothing was locally caught and was just purchased frozen from a wholesaler- origin and species unknown.
2 dishes of note which I absolutely adored were an entree and main from a lovely little restaurant in Tannum Sands. Mushrooms stuffed with 3 cheeses and gnocchi with kale, sundried tomatoes, Persian feta and lots of other delicious ingredients. Yummo.
Looking forward to getting home and sliding back into my healthy eating routine. I’ve missed my daily dose of kefir, sauerkraut and all the other foods I enjoy so much now.
Ljoyce I’m so excited for you and your new vegie patch. How wonderful it is to walk into the garden and pick your own produce. Unfortunately for me with all the renovations and changes going on in my back yard at the moment I can’t see my vegie garden getting back on track until early next year.
Reading your post GDSA, makes me so grateful to live close to the int’l airport. It would be hard to contemplate several hours’ of driving after some of the long-haul flights we make. The issue of the unknown origin and species of fish served in restaurants is common nationwide.
OH grows most of our herbs and veg in pots so we can control the soil content. I’ve been composting for 22 years at this location but it’s still a challenge. Rainbow, all the best with the surgery.
I lost 100gms after yesterday’s NFD. Still hovering above and below 60kgs. Have a great day all.
Good morning everyone,
Cloudy today but it looks like a good day. I have an afternoon full of sisters coming up. Lovely! And then dinner out to farewell my nephew who is heading off to Canberra to further his IT career. We are very proud of him because he has battled with serious mental illness, particularly social anxiety, for all his adult life and it has taken a lot of work and bravery to get to this point.
LJoyce, cheers that the kippers might lead to some other smoked fish. I would like to find something more local too.
Re snails, I tried to deal with them without buying pellets years ago and went out at night with a bucket and torch. One night I counted 300 snails (I had a big back yard at the time) before I gave up counting. Hooray for pellets.
Nice to have the blinds organised before the sun comes round.
Thin, aren’t you glad I am not sending your bobtails 300 snails!
And did your bike look magnificent in the sun? I bet it did 🙂
Quacka, so glad you had a good time camping. Nice to have you back again! Good scales report!
Re meals for people that like their meat, I am enjoying finding recipes where a little bit of meat flavours the whole dish. I know it doesn’t work for people who like a hunk of steak, but it is impressive how 200g of meat can flavour a whole stew.
Rainbow, best wishes for your eye operation, I hope it is a quick one with great results.
Your climate is like Queensland’s. Down here in my Melbourne (I know you have a Melbourne in Florida too) it is the season to plant exactly the same things that are going in your garden.
(I am on Melbourne clay but grow everything in pots as big as I can manage.)
I have to hand water my garden as the tap is too far away for a hose. But I generally manage. Sometimes my health isn’t good enough and I just have to wait it out and see what survives. I choose herbs and greens as that means I can always make a meal. So tomatoes and zucchini are pushing it for me.
You have inspired me to look for heirloom zucchini, LJoyce, but really it is the pleasure of being able to pick them small and flavourful, and to be able to use the flowers, that is why I grow them.
I agree about the cherry tomatoes, I have some great seeds I collected last year I must get going. (I think the self sown ones are from them too).
Gday, I hope it is a great trip home. It sounds like the best wedding!
Shocking ignorance about the fish!
Those dishes sound wonderful. You will love getting back to your fermented foods and good routines.
I am finishing each day with a small wineglass of beet kvass (fermented drink). It is such a pleasure and I love that it is that wonderful deep jewel red and it has a good grown up flavour that is also a pleasure. And so good for me!
But it is morning now and the day is hassling me to get going. Best wishes to everyone!
Thank you for the welcome home – it’s nice to be back, although I was jolted his morning getting ready for work. It’s still quite cool here, so the hunt was on to find something suitable to wear. How could I have forgotten winter clothes? I’ve just been gone 3 weeks.
Thin it’s just under 5 hours to get home…but more than 6 to get there. My friend (a pilot) says the time difference is because flights back come in down the centre of Australia before turning into SE Queensland, to take advantage of strong winds.
The ‘visitor’ I was going to post the pic of was a 3 metre python. We’d gone out to the verandah to chase the neighbour’s cat – which was about to investigate the snake. Yikes! Last time my Glaswegian OH will visit the back garden this summer, I suspect. It slithered off into a neighbour’s yard – we estimated its length by watching it move in and out of the pool fence panels which are 2 metres long … and it easily took up 1.5 panels.
It is exhilarating, starting my FDs today. I won’t eat until midday ( I have a leftover easy meal (236 calories) and an apple and fish and steamed green veges for dinner.
Funny, that carb reaction seems to affect so many of us. Cinque I would have thought your insulin intolerance would have disappeared with the weight loss and now you are so super slim it wouldn’t have been a problem.
LJ you are a powerhouse! Good work on the vege patch. Your outlay will be repaid many times over, over the years, with healthy and accessible food. Thin we pay for water up here – we have a large tank which kicks over into town water when it runs low. Using sprinklers is quite an efficient way to maintain our large garden. We have a pool too, and also use the tank water to top it up. I do agonise over using our resources wisely – I’d never put in a pool now but we did so 30 years ago for the little ones, and we still use it a lot. I rationalise it by not having air conditioning.
Cinque enjoy your family day – it sounds such fun.
Rainbow, best wishes for your eye operation. I hope you have a quick recovery and everything goes as expected.
LJ, your vegetable garden preparations look great. Your plants will have a good start. You’ll have to post pictures once you get them planted.
Cinque, we have plants in the ground and in big containers. I really like the containers because they are so much more manageable with good soil and no rocks and stones. We do have to hand water them but the things in the ground are mostly on drip and a few sprinklers. The Thai basil and mint have been very prolific this year.
Lindsay and Gday, welcome home. I hope the small amount of added kg is gone soon. I’m sure any gain was worth it.
Merry, Salisbury steak is very similar to many of the rissoles recipes, although they usually don’t have vegetables mixed it them, only on the side. And they’re served with mushroom gravy. I can’t remember when I’ve had the dish. It’s often served in cafes and casual restaurants. I thought the plant based version was interesting because of the vital wheat gluten added to the lentils. I bought some yesterday to have a try.
We had a couple of Papa Murphy’s take and bake pizzas this weekend with lots of veggies but put our own non-dairy cheese on them, the Daiya brand mozzarella. It was ok, but not the same. I also made some vegan Parmesan cheese: https://minimalistbaker.com/how-to-make-vegan-parmesan-cheese/ It had a decent flavor, but lacked the “bite” of real cheese. I ordered a small container of lactic acid powder (yes thin, from Amazon, they do have everything!) which I read about in another recipe for cheese alternatives. A very small amount is used. I think it may be just the thing to add the acidity without adding another flavor. We’ll see. I love experimenting.
FD today. We went out for sushi last night and DS and I both gained a bit, very likely due to the soy sauce. We will probably still include some fish if we decide to go plant based for a while, because of the beneficial Omega 3’s, especially salmon and cod. I hope the small gains will be gone in the morning.
Have a great day everyone!
Good to know that the CalifD family is single-handedly keeping Amazon in business. CalifD, it’s the rice in sushi that does it for me. I’m sure the correct way to eat it would be about 6 pieces as an appetiser but our family would make a huge platter and then scoff the entire lot for dinner. I’m sure the Japanese wouldn’t approve of that. They’re mostly very slim. Where’s JJulie when you need her? And what’s happened to Sybs?
Lyndsay, I think 30 years ago, we were living in a very different in Australia. We didn’t have much of a population to sustain and no-one was worrying about water restrictions. Swimming pools are still very much a feature of the Aussie back yard. (And front yard in the case of two of our neighbours which is why we have four in close proximity). That’s not for me to judge but I’d just like to be able to do what I want with my own garden too. I know they’re great for cooling off when you don’t have air-con because we once had a pool at a rental property. And those pool panels come in handy to provide the yardstick for measuring pythons. I don’t think I’d venture outside if I lived at your place. I’m just looking at my floor rug and visualising a snake that long. Yikes. Do they freak your husband out? Are cats on the menu?
Cinque, kudos to your nephew for overcoming his fears and venturing off into new territory. I know of two young men both in their late twenties with similar sounding issues and both have been involved in IT since their teen years – spending so much time on the computer has compounded their difficulties with socialisation and venturing out of the house. They’re not coping as well as your nephew. It’s such a struggle so all the best to him. Could we have a photo of your kvass? I bet the colour is magnificent. Drinking it from a wine glass would make it special.
The lady at bridge has lost 2kgs on 4 weeks of 5:2 and is finding it very easy she says. I can already tell that she’s lost that ‘thickness’ just below the chest level. She’s also enjoying the kefir grains I passed on to her. Satisfied customer! The dietician, meanwhile, is keeping quiet about it. Probably did a bit of research since announcing that 5:2 was a very unhealthy way of eating.
Cinque, I forgot to answer your question. The bike is Brunswick Green. I’ve never really taken to the colour but always keep that man’s words in mind that it looks ‘magnificent in the sun’. Hmmm. Not really. As we were on the move, I had to get a bike that day. It’s served me well and it’s not its fault that it’s a bit drab. And ‘Wollongong’ still makes me smile.
I have a funny story to share. We dropped in to pick up the cat which was being cared for by DD and family while we were away. Our 2 year old GD is being weaned (reluctantly) and I think it’s fair to say she’s pretty interested in all things related at the moment.
I was still surprised when out of the blue she asked, ‘Grandma, why do you have breasts?’ Quick as a flash, the 5 year old, who just happened to be skipping by, answered ‘Because she used to be a mother’. I haven’t stopped laughing.
Yes Thin, things are different now. We are so so much more aware, I’m pleased to say, about the impact of climate and our water woes. We often go for a swim late at night, then lightly towel dry and pop into bed under the ceiling fan. As good as air con (mostly). I doubt we’ll go down without a torch for a while. This snake (I’m guessing it’s the same one) has been around for years. It took a kitten from the house in the front in 2006 (we were living overseas … I heard the story from the neighbour) and once dropped out of our mango tree in the front garden. It came for the bats, that came for the mangoes … and so it goes on. I think it is amazing such a wild thing can survive in the suburbs. I doubt it would tackle our neighbour’s cat – it’s a big chap – although they go after chickens (which is why we aren’t keeping any). My husband is pretty nervous of them – he grew up in Glasgow which at the time had its own challenges – but snakes weren’t one.
Would it help to think of your bike as British Racing Green Thin?
British Racing Green it is, Lindsay! (and sorry I keep spelling it with two Ys. I usually do better. It’s because I have a friend called Lyndsay.)
That link – the first photo is OK – I was almost admiring it. Not really. But that second one coiled up in the rafters, OMG, that did me in. Maybe your resident python can be put to good use in some way in connection with your noisy neighbours.
Children are so hilarious with their spontaneity. When my DD was little, we were decorating the Christmas Tree when she asked if she could be lifted up to put ‘Hark’ on the top. “Who’s Hark?” asked dad. “Hark, the herald angel.” came the reply.
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