Hi everyone,

Hope you’re all going well.

Mr M and I are back from the wedding in the US. All went well and was a lovely wedding. m Mr M and I doing well with the travel a,d now getting through jet lag. Having a little techie challenge at the moment so doing this on a borrowed one.

Very brief check-in:
62.4kgs, exactly what I was when I left 3 weeks ago.

Intesha, sorry I wasn’t able to get back to you before I left. We have some urgent extended family stuff to attend to in the short term, but I’m available from in a few days if you want to catch up at yours or mine.

Onwards and downwards,
Merry

Neil, looks like you are back into your routine already with the gym session. Once back on your usual eating plan, that 2kg will be gone in no time.

Merry, so glad to hear the wedding went well, and that your weight was stable on holiday – that’s quite an achievement.

Klondi, enjoy the new car. If you get wanderlust again, you can always hook up the van and head west and visit me!

Accountability for my 800cal day:
– 2 pots of tea
– a banana with 1 tblsp peanut butter
– a large smoothie of almond milk, frozen raspberries, kefir, psyllium, kefir, stevia and lots of ice
– 25g cheddar cheese
– a large bowl of salad with half a grilled chicken breast, dressed with 2 tsp apple cider vinegar and 1 tsp lemon infused olive oil.
– a hot drink made with almond-coconut milk and vanilla (haven’t had this yet, but I will in about an hour)

I am not weighing myself but can already see that the restricted calories has had an effect on my body. This afternoon I wore the same trousers as I put on Friday morning – the ones that had me panicking about how tight my clothes were – not tight today. Still room for improvement but I’m glad to see progress already.
I’m off to the hospital for another allergy test tomorrow afternoon. I’ll have to control myself this time – no more sweet treats at one of the hospital cafes.

Good morning all, apologies for my absence but busy doesn’t begin to describe it

We had friends over for the weekend so of course we ate and drank too much on Saturday but I had a very low calorie day yesterday that has thankfully offset it and the scales were actually a little down this morning

Linsday, so sorry to hear about your flu and about your eyes. I can only imagine how frustrating and terrifying it must be to have blurry vision. I do hope the next lot of surgery rectifies everything. It sounds like you are having a lovely time in Vietnam, I’m so glad.

Betsy, it sounds like you had a nice birthday with some celebration meals and I echo your thoughts about how hard it is to be mindful about food when life is crazy busy. I have a full-time stay-at-home hubby and I still find myself constantly in a tizz about how much I have to do. Our wonderful dog school is a volunteer one so it only costs $25 per year to join (first year is $25 then it is only $15 for subsequent years) then a $3 donation is requested for the days you turn up. This pays for hiring the grounds.

Cinque, glad you are a little better. Will you be able to make the catch up on Wednesday? I hope so!

LJ, I am finding some inspiration with your accountability posts and hearing about how many steps you are getting in. We have 7 weeks to go and I have a new mini goal to get into the 70’s before we go. I need to lose 3.5 kilos in 7 weeks so that is very do-able.

Very glad you didn’t end up with your electricity cut off Cali. Our ‘Spring’ weather is rather cool here at the moment. Unseasonably so.

The new jacket arrived and yep, you guessed it. IT IS TOO BIG! GAH! I went up 2 sizes to be safe and it is a different style so they obviously make that style bigger. I am not good at sewing but I’m going to try and fold the bottom of it on the sides and put a couple of small stiches in to try and bring it in closer to my legs as it currently sticks out like I have a hoola hoop (if that makes sense). I’m worried about tearing it but I need to do something. If anyone has any good ideas?…..

Welcome back Neil, and whoo hoo for the new red car Klondi! You do know that red cars go faster don’t you?

Hi everyone else, I must get back to work. Take care

Morning all.

Betsy, I missed wishing you the very happiest of birthdays. Good times, moving in a new phase and a new decade.

Neil hope your first day back at work doesn’t entirely dull the holiday memories, and that you get back into your routine quickly. Did you get your renovations finished before you went away?

Minka I know low carb works for me – my blood sugar drops to around 5, instead of sitting between 6 and 6.5, which it was …not diabetes, but certainly prediabetic. Actually I’ve found 16:8 also keeps my BS at a respectable 5.5, even with carbs. Ditto my blood pressure which was 110 over 55 when I saw the doctor just before I came away. Almost too low, and that’s at just a half of the smallest dose of my blood pressure tablet, which I’d already halved when I first lost the 15 kilos.

My pooch needs to be collected from the breeder in Melbourne, which I will do when we get back. Very excited about her. I have a mental image of taking her to the dog park for a run (to wear her out) before walking to a favourite local cafe for our morning coffee. Now that makes retirement sound fun!

Cinque how are you this morning? Still continuing to improve? I do hope so.

LJ I am not surprised you have no energy left after 2.5 hours digging in a garden, including breaking up a layer of concrete slurry. I don’t know where you get your energy to do that.

I had a funny surprise when I opened my work email last night. My boss has included me in the roster distribution for the week. No consultations, because he knows I am overseas, but odd that he hasn’t really taken on board that I will not work for the pay/conditions they are proposing. Or perhaps the union has actually been able to stop the changes from going ahead, which was the state of play when I left. Watch this space, I guess.

It’s time for breakfast and I am well and truly ready for it. It’s a terrific time of the day, where we sit for a very long time with our mates, talking about all manner of things. Our hotel has a big open garden where we sit for a drink before we go out in the evening, and we meet all manner of people, whom we see again at breakfast. Very social. Sunday night it was a British geographer, here delivering a program about farming in Vietnam and Cambodia. Yesterday it was a Dutch film maker and her sister, on holidays but looking for program ideas.

Enjoy your week all.

Hi all, just checking in from wet, cold and extremely windy Auckland.

My whale watching trip was cancelled on Sunday due to mechanical problems but I’ve just had any email to say it has been rescheduled for Thursday. Sunday did a sail boat cruise around the harbour, it was a beautiful day so very enjoyable.

Today did a winery tour to Waiheke Island. It is a 40 minute ferry trip from Auckland. Visited 4 vineyards and sampled at each one. Unfortunately because of the weather it wasn’t as enjoyable but still had a good day.

FD’s are not part of this trip but doing lots of walking.

Great to read all your news, bye for now.

Hi all,

LJoyce – having tight clothes become not so tight is a great way to monitor your weight rather than what you see on the scales.

Cinque – hope you continue to get better

Anzac – I hope your workload eases soon. News on that front for me, my workmate that has had the stroke has sadly handed in her resignation, We’ll miss her, but that does mean that our manager can now advertise for a permanent replacement.

Quacka – great to see you again

Lindsay – looking forward to pooch pics 😉

Intestate – hopefully we can turn on some decent weather for you, the last two weeks have been worse than anything we’ve had over winter. It seems like we just had a 6 month autumn and a late winter 😉

My weight gain was definitely mostly water weight. I jumped on the scales at the gym this afternoon and I was down over a kilo from last night. Another fast day and gym session tomorrow and I should hopefully be back to my pre-holiday weight.

Have a great day everyone

Hi all

Merry. Wonderful that the wedding went so well, congratulations to the newlyweds. Well done on maintaining your weight in what must have been challenging circumstances knowing U.S. food. Hope your energy levels are ok and you are both doing well.

Neil My body has coped ok with my running so far but I think any further than 10k would be asking too much from my joints and they might rebel. Saying that, I hope to continue doing the odd fun run just to make sure I don’t let all this good work go to ‘waist’. I’ll definitely keep up the 5k Parkruns as they are enjoyable and I have a great reward breakfast afterwards. How is your training going, looking forward to your challenge?

LJ If I end up in Adelaide one day I will definitely end up on your doorstep. I hope to drive the Nullarbor in the not too distant future so there is quite a possibility we may meet. Great that your strategies are working, never doubted that they would.

Cinque We can wave across the cafe, if you want, as long as you are well enough. Remember I can pick you up if driving is too much. New car is itching to go places.

Anzac. That’s exactly why I chose red. The other colours are a bit boring, however they used to have two reds and now there is only one which is called Merlot so not very red at all. Suits OH but he prefers Cab Sav. That’s a great deal with your dog school, how is he going. Have you weaned him off using all your beds yet. Weather report looked pretty bleak for your area, did you get all the rain predicted.

Lindsay. Bad luck with your eyes. I hope the next procedure fixes the problem but another reason to ease up. Hope your job situation resolves itself soon and you come out of it with what you want. So you are coming to Melbourne, will you be here long or is it a FIFO visit. You know we would love to say hi if you can make it. Where in Melbourne is the new boss of your family situated. Your holiday sounds wonderful, so often we don’t meet new people when we travel and we are poorer for it.

Red Baron collected and of course, we went for a short drive. Very nice, it has so much more tech than our old one and we will have fun working everything out. It’s been quite a busy couple of days https://imgur.com/a/sBu8oYY

Good morning all

Klondi, huge congrats to you and Mr Klondi for the 10km run! That is totally awesome. I ran the entire length of the rugby/Cricket park on the weekend and was pretty chuffed (about 300m LOL). We have had a lot of rain but now it seems to be over. I’m just waiting for it to warm up as we still had the heater on last night. Bizarre for this time of the year. It is our wedding anniversary in 11 days and it was in the high 30’s in 1992. At the moment we are struggling to get into the 20’s – although that is starting to rise this week.

Glad that your workload might start to settle down soon Neil, now that you can get another person in. Our workload is steadily going to rise this week as we are going live this coming weekend (GAH). It irks me that our little team – the ‘Core team’ seem to be on the receiving end of every other team’s scope to fix up when they muck it up. Migration of loans and client static data is NOT in our remit. But they migrated into a pre-production environment last weekend ready to load into production next weekend and it is a complete [bad word]-up. So this week our little team of 9 have to trudge out to the training centre at Redfern where we can get a room big enough for us and the business people to go through thousands of lines of data and remediate it. Goodness knows what the migration team have been doing for 2 years. They must have sore thumbs

Today is my first FD for 2 weeks so I know it will be challenging. I’m mentally steeled for it. It’s 8.10am and I’m already very hungry but it will wane. I’m here at the training centre this morning then have to trudge into the City for a meeting so I will get lots of walking in today with my heavy bad with my mobile office in it.

Hi Intesha, glad you are having a nice time in Auckland despite the rain. I have bitter-sweet memories of Waiheke island. Hubby’s uncle (his Mum’s twin) used to live there and we would visit every time we went over to visit his family. He had a gorgeous house with 360 degree sea views. The silly man didn’t have a will and when he died two siblings who hadn’t spoken to him for 40 years came out of the woodwork and insisted on their share. So we had to sell the house for a song (about 300k) and we did see it about 2 years later advertised at 1.5 million NZD. Families!

Maxx is sleeping less and less on the bed so that’s good. If he really wants to we let him but encourage him into his own other beds. He was an absolute nightmare on Saturday when our friends arrived. He has always had a ‘thing’ for my friend with Cystic Fibrosis – not sure if it is her laboured breathing or he just realises that she is an awesome person. But he jumped on her, would sneak under the dining room table where we were playing board games and nibble her fingers/toes/leg/arm or just suddenly appear beside her and try to jump on her lap. I ended up putting him outside but of course then all we could hear was ‘bark bark bark’…pause…’bark bark bark….intertwined with volleys of yelping howls that sounded like we were removing limbs with a blunt knife. I cooked two authentic Indian curries with all the side dishes and my friend took one bite and stopped eating. GAH. It turns out she has terrible reflux (a side condition of CF) and isn’t supposed to eat spicy food. She knew what I was cooking but didn’t say anything because she is on new medication for it and thought she would be ok. She wasn’t and could only eat the cucumber raita and some rice in the end. I was losing the will to live at this stage but thank goodness for wine. Anyway, Maxx finally calmed down and sat himself at her side quietly so she could pat him.

Wow, sorry, what a rant. I hope I haven’t bored you all!

Thanks Crazy, LJ, I think I will take your advice and get the jacket professionally altered. Much safer.

Hope your FD continued ok Quacka and you are enjoying a post FD brekkie.

Lindsay, I am so excited about your new pooch and can’t wait to see some photos. Will you drive all the way to Melbourne of catch a plane? Gosh your holiday sounds so amazing – meeting all those interesting people and enjoying a nice big relaxing time. I’m so excited about ours I can barely contain myself.

Ok work time. I will lurk whilst telling myself ‘the hunger will wane’ and ‘it’s just one day’

Take care

For those wanting more veg in their day, I thought this was appealing. As the name suggests, the emphasis is on combining multiple veg (and some fruit) with different colours to achieve a wide range of vitamins/minerals.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/collections/eat_the_rainbow
For those avoiding grains, this also contains a few recipes that use cauliflower rice as a substitute for grains in various salads and hot dishes.

Good evening all.

Anzac, Quacka, Betsy and anyone else attempting FDs I hope yours has been ok. I found today a struggle – mainly because the weather was so cold. Last week this would have turned into one of those days with continual snacking all afternoon.

Klondi, the new car looks lovely – like the red bow! Did the dealer put that on?

Neil, I’m not surprised it was mainly water weight, nor that it’s shifting quickly.
I agree with Cinque, initially it’s easy to fall into old habits and tuck into all the things you’ve been denying yourself. Eventually you learn to moderate that a bit on holiday. Although as my recent behaviour will attest – old habits can come back to bite you again any time.

Crazy – the idea of creating a waist in that jacket with elastic is good one.

Cinque – is it tomorrow you are out to lunch? Have fun – hope you are feeling well and enjoy yourself.

Accountability for today’s aim of 800cals:
– 2 pots of tea
– one banana
– bowl of thai sweet potato and carrot soup
– carrot sticks and hummus
– stirfry (25g cashews, 1/2 packet konjac noodles, onion, broccolini, carrot, baby spinach, tamari, garlic, sweet chilli sauce, lime – cooked with a little oil spray in a non-stick pan)
– will also have a cup of hot almond milk with vanilla later this evening

As I mentioned earlier, this afternoon was challenging because it was cold and the hunger wouldn’t go away. It showed me just how much weather plays a part in my eating and why I gained weight easily over winter. I’m hungrier when it’s cold and I specifically crave starchy comfort foods. On the weekend it was mid-20s here and doing 800cal days was really easy – such a contrast to how today felt. I had thought the soup for lunch would help me deal with the cold. Initially it was fine until I went for a 1 hour walk early afternoon. By the time I got home I was cold and damp and I really wanted a pile of buttered toasted raisin bread and a hot drink. I had to settle for raw carrot and hummus with a cup of tea. (That didn’t quite hit the spot in the same way!) Interestingly, now that I’ve had a filling, tasty and hot dinner I feel good. I ate a lot earlier tonight than I have the previous few days, so I think that will be important to remember on other days when I’m struggling – eat dinner early and make sure it’s something satisfying.

I noticed that on on SBS tonight there is a program about Britain’s canals. As Thin is currently sailing down one of those, I thought I’d watch to get an idea of what life is like for her at the moment. Until she gives us real updates, I’ll need to use my imagination.

Morning all. First official post holiday weigh-in on my home scales after my guideline weigh in on the gym scales indicated I was up about 2.5 kilos after the holiday. I weighed in at 91.4 kilos so I was up 500 grams on my pre holiday weight. Hopefully after another week back in my regular routine I’ll shake the rest of the weight and then be able to attack that last kilo to get to my goal.

Good Morning SH’s

I’m feeling really good this morning. B2B FD’s completed, Monday at under 300 calories and yesterday 500 calories. Also only 31 grams of carbs total for the two days.
I’m curious about Keto, Neil, and I was surprised when you mentioned that your are going through Keto flu (again). I think I need to do a bit more research as I thought you only go through Keto flu the first time you go into Ketosis. I didn’t realise it happens every time! On Monday I didn’t eat until dinner time and I felt light headed and a little dizzy (not sure if that is the best description but I just felt strange!). I ate dinner which was only 12 grams carbs (in veggies) and then I felt better. Surely it couldn’t have been keto flu already? I was thinking it was just low blood sugar but I’m not too sure. Yesterday I ate salad and a boiled egg at about 3pm and didn’t get that feeling again. I have bought the keto strips so I guess I might test tonight and see how I go….

I had a much better sleep the last two nights. Sunday night before Monday fast I literally only had 2 hours sleep! I don’t know what was wrong with me but I felt awful on Monday morning. There was no way I was giving up on my FD though so I just put my “stubborn as hell” hat on and got through it. Surprisingly I found it quite easy and I think that it was because I didn’t give myself the opportunity to pull out of it. It was a NNNNFD no matter what. I really like when my stubborness works FOR me instead of against me.

LJ and Betsy, I hope your next FD’s go much better for you.

Even after all this time it surprises me when I have a difficult FD and I wish they could all be like the two I have had this week. For me, I know it has so much to do with my attitude towards it. Cali and thin always said to make FD’s non negotiable and when I do that it works for me. Thank you for that advice ladies. Sometimes they are still a struggle though and I really can’t relate it to anything in particular (like what I have eaten the day before or lack of sleep or feeling unwell), it’s just that I think I haven’t put my mind to it enough. That’s just my personal experience friends, I’m not trying to push my ideas onto anyone 🙂

Anyway I have to go, I’m still catching up on work. I hope you all have a very lovely day, especially the birthday girls! All the best xx

Good morning all,

Klondi, Cinque & Betsy, hope you have a lovely time today.

Neil, I sympathise with the keto flu – I remember it as a headache, tiredness and constant cravings.
A few years ago I did many months on a VLCD 800cal meal replacement program that had a carb level of 50-80 grams (depending on the meal replacements and veg you chose). I do clearly remember how bad those 3 days of transition felt, both in the beginning and also if you strayed from the program and had to go through it again. A few of the others on the program had a saying – if you are going to cheat, cheat with meat – because it allowed you to stay in ketosis. However, I was always pleasantly surprised by how well mild ketosis managed my appetite once I got through those 3 days.

Quacka, so glad you got through your B2B FDs – despite how you felt. The stubborn hat – I have one of those too – I think I wear it a bit too often. I sometimes thing it’s permanently glued in place!

Betsy, my food postings are an eating management tool for me, you don’t have to follow suit. Public accountability is something that seems to help me stay on track. I don’t like feeling embarrassed, so knowing I’m going to post everything I ate has me thinking twice when I feel like snacking. I’ve done this a few times here over the years – I posted a photo of my food every day for a few weeks last year when I was trying to get my portion sizes under control.

I finally got around to measuring myself this morning. My measurements are now back to what they were in August, but waist, bust and hips are each still 2-3cm more than they were in June (which is the last time I fitted easily into my smallest clothes). When I looked at older records I can see that I had a similar weight gain last winter and didn’t get back to where I wanted to be until November. This reinforces that it’s a winter problem. I guess I need to decide whether I’m willing to accept this as a natural fluctuation or whether I should keep trying to avoid the winter weight gain. I think as long as the winter gain is within the weight range I’m comfortable with it is ok, but I still need to be careful as it’s easy to go beyond this. I think stressing about it is unhelpful and small fluctuations are ok, however I still need to manage the situation as it’s all too easy to gain 6-7 kilos rather than just 2-3.

I have lunch in the city with people I used to work with today. I’ve looked at the menu and chosen three things I like the sound of that should be reasonable calorie choices. I’ll decide which of them I feel like when I get there. We are going to Argo in Victoria Square – they make particularly good burgers but I won’t be having one of those today. I was planning a salad, but it’s cold and wet here today so I’m thinking something hot would be better. It’s likely that today might be more like 1000cals, but I can live with that.

Have a nice day all.

Hi Friends

Just a quick post to say hi.

LJ your trip to the city sounds nice and that toasted sandwich devine. If I could only ever eat one food for the rest of my life it would be toasted sandwiches! The Ezekiel bread sounds interesting

My FD was not great yesterday. I ended up having to work 12 hours and gave in to temptation at the end. Today no better so I need to get my head back on straight. Somehow

Glad your B2B FD’s were so great Quacka. You are giving me inspiration for sure

I can’t wait to hear all about the catchup Klondi, Betsy and Cinque!

Must go, still working and I want to get to the end of it soon

Anzac, sorry to hear your FDs aren’t going well. I agree with the comment about “I need to get my head back on straight”. I too find I need to be mentally in the zone, otherwise everything is so difficult.

Thin, lovely to hear from you. You have wasted no time finding a barge that suited. I hope home on the water is everything you imagined.

Accountability for today:
– 3 pots of tea with milk
– 2 thin slices ezekiel bread, large slice grilled haloumi, 5 asparagus spears, rocket
– a small banana and 2 tsp peanut butter
– 5 medium mushrooms cooked in 1 tsp butter with lots of parsley & 2 poached eggs
– diet raspberry jelly
– hot drink made from 1 tsp “natures cuppa” and 1 tblsp skim milk powder

I’m babysitting tomorrow night and the kids asked me to have tacos with them. Difficult to accommodate on 800cals. However I’ve solution is to have a little of the meat filling, a big pile of the salad and a sprinkle of grated cheese. I hope they consider that close enough to eating tacos with them.

Thin! Hello my friend. I have missed you terribly but I’m so glad you are happy and at peace.

Back in full time training but I’ve brought a bagful of healthy food and WILL IGNORE the catering

Have a great day everyone

Hello,
It was a lovely catch up with Betsy and Klond yesterday. We got to see the big red car, and realised that, as well as being in the Melbourne subgroup we are also in the red Toyota club!
Klondi is looking so wonderfully lean and healthy after her break, and it was so good to meet Betsy for the first time (looking good too!).
We got photos taken and used my ph camera but I can’t easily upload the images from it, so I have sent them to Klondi, and hope she can. Otherwise I can work it out (sending them to my daughter and her sending them back to my computer).

I am tired today so I will put off my responsive post AGAIN except to say HI THIN! So good to hear from you. Your canal boat sounds wonderful, and so good you are feeling trim and terrific. What a pity you can’t browse and read my message to you!

Anyway I will be back in the swing of posting very very soon. Cheers everyone!

Good afternoon,

I have just spent some time getting the house mostly clean – just need to sweep the floors again & wash them on Saturday. The family are coming to dinner Sunday night and that always spurs me to get everything clean and tidy.

Cinque, Klondi & Betsy (the red car club), I look forward to the photos. Good to hear you had a nice time yesterday.

Anzac, the temptation of catering is difficult, but bringing plenty of your own food is a good start – good luck.

Neil, yes, I love haloumi and asparagus too. I had a chuckle about the usual post weigh-in sausage roll.

Quacka, I’ve been eating plenty of eggs too lately – not 36 though!
It is possible to get an appetite suppressing effect from mild ketosis, it doesn’t need to be the strong ketosis that a full keto approach achieves. The added benefit is that it requires less carb restriction than a true keto approach. This allows a much wider range of foods which is easier to accommodate in daily life. Managing appetite with mild ketosis is at the core of most of the 800cal per day meal replacement programs that are used for fast weight loss for those or are seriously obese. (My keto strips were never at the full ketosis end of the scale but always somewhere in the middle. But it still suppressed my appetite and allowed me to stick to that strict program for months on end.) The other thing that I noticed also, was that spreading the carbs out across the day usually allowed you a higher daily total than having them all in one hit – probably related to the rate of insulin release.

My appetite has been missing for the last 2 days, despite the unseasonably cold weather. I strongly suspect it’s because I’m in mild ketosis – that’s what it feels like to me. I’m eating plenty of veg, fruit and dairy (all of which get most of their calories from carbs) but I’ve mostly avoided grains. I’ve been eating low fat to minimise calories but have made sure I’m maintaining my protein levels. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, the carb level that achieves ketosis is different for everybody. From all those I’ve known who’ve tried it, it usually sits anywhere from 40-100g per day (although I know someone at the lower end of that scale who needs to also take Metformin as well for it to work). I know being around 80g keeps me in mild ketosis, but I haven’t tested it beyond this. I find I can achieve this level without counting carbs if I remove most grains and virtually anything with added sugar. On any given day I can swap the fruit for a small serve of grains but usually can’t accommodate both without some serious counting and measuring. It’s not a way of eating that I want to deal with long term, but when the hunger dragon won’t leave you alone, doing something for a while that gives you a break from constant appetite can be really helpful – it’s like it takes the pressure off for a while and you can stop stressing about food. I suspected this week would be really challenging but there was only one day that was.

I’m now considering whether I keep going for a little while until I’m back to my preferred weight/measurements, or whether I just go back to 5:2 now that I’ve broken the snacking pattern and see how it goes. The real sticking point is Sunday dinner, which will definitely make it a NFD with plenty of carbs. I need to think on this a bit more.

Time to go now. I have to leave for babysitting shortly.

Cinque, thank you for posting the photo of you, Klondi, Betsy and the Red Baron. BTW, I love your red boots. Klondi, your car is lovely and seems worth the wait. Betsy, it’s good to “see” you!
Klondi, I do know what LPG is because that’s what we heat our house. In fact they just changed out a 947 liter tank for an 1,893 liter one on Monday so we wouldn’t run short between deliveries in the colder months. They had to bring in a crane to move them. We’re too far out to get natural gas so it’s either propane or electricity. (Or solar) Electric heat is very expensive out here. We also use LPG for the barbie and bought another small tank for a small generator we bought last week in case we have more power shutdowns because of wind. Klondi, I had never heard of cars fueled with propane until you mentioned it but OH said they do sell a few of them in the US. Finding a gas station that sells propane I think is the reason they don’t sell more.

LJ, one of the few breads that I eat is Ezekiel. My favorite is one with sesame, but I buy the regular one too. It is one of the few breads that doesn’t contain a lot of sugar. https://www.foodforlife.com/product/breads/ezekiel-49-sesame-sprouted-whole-grain-bread Congrats on breaking the snacking habit. I’m still a bit out of control.

Thin, so good to see you here again. It’s good to hear that you’re settled on a barge and that DD likes her job. I hope you’ll post some pictures when you get to a spot with better internet.

Crazy, I had the same thought about Anzac sewing a couple pieces of elastic inside her jacket. Anzac, taking in a jacket could be difficult if you haven’t done it before and with an expensive jacket I would be afraid of trying. If you have a professional that could do it, all the better. But elastic on the inside would be a lot less tricky (and not visible) if you do it yourself.

Lindsay, I’m sorry to hear about the problem with your cataract surgery. Is it just one eye that’s the problem or both? I hope the doctor can correct it with another surgery. Please let us know when you’re going back. Your trip sounds delightful. It must be so nice to get away for a while.

Hi to everyone else that I didn’t mention. I have been reading all of your posts, but it’s way past my bedtime. I’ll catch up again soon.

Addendum to yesterdays accountability list – I also had 3 (45g) Jarlsberg low fat swiss cheese slices.

Hope your Friday allows for some nice thoughts of your weekend plans.
Today I am ferrying my aunt to medical appointments and grocery shopping for Sunday family dinner.

Good morning all, another stunning Spring day in Sydney. Sunny and 23

Oh you are all three so very beautiful Klondi, Cinque and Betsy. You are obviously telling massive fibs trying to tell us you are 70 Klondi and Betsy.

Happy Birthday officially to you Klondi for yesterday!!

I have quite crazy news….there are about 400 people on this project and every single one of us knows full-well that we were not ready to go live this weekend. But, as always, no-one was prepared to be the one to put up their hand to senior management to stop it. Then something happened in another area completely unrelated to us that meant a complete change-freeze was declared bank-wide meaning, oh so sadly, that WE HAVE HAD TO CANCEL THE MIGRATION! We have at least one more week now thankfully to iron out the last wrinkles. Yay! If it goes ahead next weekend it will be a bummer because it is our wedding anniversary but we can always celebrate the following weekend.

LJ, congrats on getting back on track with your snacking and sticking to 800 cals. I was interested to heart that your appetite has suppressed. I had a great day yesterday, ignored all of the catering and had my healthy lunch and snacks then had a normal dinner. It should have been a FD but I decided it was too much pressure given what the day entailed so I’m just glad I stuck to approx 900 calories.

Whoo Hoo on the doctors praise Neil. Mine was the same the other day but not to your degree of course (yet). My eyes opened wide at the mention of a spider bite that wasn’t healing then I remembered you don’t have any poisonous ones over there (or do you?).

Thanks for the advice Cali, I am definitely either going to get the coat taken in professionally or just put up with it. It fits well around the shoulders and I can cope with it being big around my waist and hips as I can get a bulky jumper under it. I just hate the way it sticks out right at the bottom

Quacka, 36 eggs in one day surely can’t be good for anyone? That sounds crazy. Moderation is my motto these days. So glad to hear your lovely, positive posts and you really inspire me to try harder

Hi everyone I haven’t mentioned. All, have a great Friday

Morning all, from rainy Nha Trang.

Neil that is such good news from your doctor, and what a great endorsement of your health (apart from the spider bite, of course). My doctor told me there’s very little study of nutrition during medical degrees which is pretty scary really, when you think about the impact poor nutrition has on so many aspects of human health. So good for yours (and mine), that they are so well informed.

Merry welcome back and good to hear the wedding went so well. Hope you are both over your jet lag.

Klondi, just catching up on past messages. Thank you for telling me about your experiences with retirement. In all of your posts you seem to have such a full, rich life, and that’s reassuring for me. (and we have named our pup Rosy, which seems right for a red setter). She’ll fly to us on the Tuesday after we get home …28th. She comes from Tyabb – is that the Mornington Peninsula?. I won’t be coming to Melbourne unfortunately, because I’d love to meet up. And wow! re the 10 km run.

And speaking of meeting up …..what a gorgeous photo, Betsy, Cinque and Klondi. Hope you all had wonderful birthdays. Cinque, you could click your heels and go to Kansas in those red boots. Fabulous.

Thin it was terrific to open the page and see you posting. Hope you find another internet link soon and can fill us in on your adventures. What a wonderful, exciting thing to do. And so nice to be near DD.

Cali I only had one eye done. I have to have the other done some time in the future, but it’s not as pressing as the first, and given my experience I’ll put it off until it’s absolutely necessary. I see the doctor on the Monday after I get home, for another review.

Good news Anzac that you have another week. Your project sounds so so stressful.

I’m watching the scales creep up here, but am trying to keep some sort of order. I don’t think I’m putting on ‘real’ weight…time will tell. We aren’t eating breakfast in this new hotel (those buffets!!) …yesterday I had some fresh soup at a local cafe. The others have mango smoothies – I know what’s in them so avoid them like the plague. It was bucketing down as we left to go for dinner last night so we stayed in. I ordered pepper and sesame crusted tuna – oh it was so so delicious, and light too. It came with passionfruit sauce which sounds odd, but wasn’t at all sweet. I will have 8 weeks to Christmas after I get home, but am trying to be sensible here so I don’t spend the first 3 weeks losing holiday weight. Trouble is, although there is a lot of fresh food in Vietnam, the salads are loaded with sugar, which makes food choices a bit challenging.

Sorry to those I’ve missed. Hope you all have a good day and a wonderful weekend.

Good morning,
I’m still a bit poorly and worried that Klondi and Betsy are now both in their beds coughing and sniffling. Oh dear.
And thanks everyone for reading who was who correctly. I should have labelled us in proper order left to right Betsy, Cinque and Klondi. Ooh yes, I love those red boots. And I only noticed in the photo how beautiful Klondi’s shoes are whereas I had been admiring Betsys beautiful jewelry without saying anything while we were having our coffee, such lovely rings she was wearing! Goodness me, aren’t I superficial!

In spite of not being quite right yet, I am minding the grandgirls while DD and SIL do some clothes shopping. They’ll be here soon so I must be short now.

Sending good wishes!

Hi all, whew, what a day. I got all my chores done this morning (shopping, picking up a new bike for my trip and dropping it to be serviced). This afternoon I weeded all our gardens, pruned the fruit trees and bushes, mowed the lawn, moved a few trailer loads of compost, cleaned up the driveway, now I’ve just polished off a plate of curried chicken livers and I’m about to sit down with a drink and (hopefully) watch New Zealand and Australia thrash their northern hemisphere rivals to get to the rugby World Cup semifinals.

Have a great evening everyone

LJ, here’s a great NYTimes article on farro and a few other grains. https://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/11/garden/farro-italy-s-rustic-staple-the-little-grain-that-could.html?pagewanted=all
Apparently there is a difference between spelt and farro. I don’t recall ever trying spelt. This article gives lots of examples of dishes made with farro and some good ideas for you or anyone else here who is interested in some of the ancient grains. One of the packages I bought was labeled “Italian Farro”. I do like the fact that it’s somewhat chewy but doesn’t get gummy, even after it sits overnight in the frig. I made a dish the other night with farro, chopped onions, garlic, cubed eggplant, chickpeas, diced tomatoes! Oregano and fresh basil from the garden. It was one I just threw together as I went along and it turned out really well. Good for leftovers too.

All the different varieties of grains are hard to keep straight. I thought it was someone here who first mentioned farro but it may have been an online recipe that called for it.

Neil and LJ, all your work in your gardens makes me tired just reading about it.

LJ, how was that meatless burger “meat”? It looks from their website like they have a couple versions, one with pea protein like the Beyond Burger and one with soy protein. Did it taste very close to beef? Several restaurants around here are offering the Beyond or Impossible burgers here now. They don’t seem to be catering to vegans since many add cheese on top, but to vegetarians and people who just want to cut down on read meat. OH says he can’t really tell the difference except that the Beyond Burger is more easily digestible and he sees no reason to eat minced beef anymore. I’ll have to try making rissoles with it next.

Neil and LJ, all your work in your gardens makes me tired just reading about it.

Cinque, sorry to hear that cold and lurgy is still hanging on. DS still has a terrible cough too but says she feels better.

Yesterday’s FD resulted in over a kg loss. I hope I can keep most of that off until the next one.