Good morning everyone.

Thankyou for your concern, it’s been a frustratingly slow recovery. I’m not there yet, but feeling much closer to normal now. I am still having to sleep on the lounge as it’s easier to build a nest of pillows there that allow me to sleep in an almost sitting position. If I try to lay down the lung congestion makes me feel like I’m suffocating and then the endless coughing starts.
Still haven’t left the house, but I might try that briefly tomorrow. I’m hoping to be well by Wednesday as I moved a lot of appointments when I was sick and those new appointments start Wednesday.
My brain actually feels able to construct sentences today, so I’ll attempt a proper post.

I did actually stick to my FDs while I was sick. Unfortunately my diet has consisted of whatever comfort food I felt like (lots of toast, bread, eggs and baked custard). As I have done absolutely no exercise I think there is a little extra padding around my hips – hard to tell until I put fitted clothing on again. I have been lounging around the house in comfy track suits for the last week or so.

My neighbours have been very kind with shopping for me and dealing with my garbage bins. I’m very lucky to live next to such thoughtful people.

Cinque, thankyou for the flowers. That last arrangement of roses was especially pretty. Enjoy your babysitting today, hope it doesn’t tire you out too much.

Neil, NZ really does have some lovely lakes and bays. Looks like a great place to spend some time kayaking with your boys.

Quacka, sometimes the planned healthy meals are just not what we feel like. I’m fasting with you today and I hoping it’s a bit of a reset from my self-indulgent food decisions last week.
The tiles we like are always the most expensive and your chosen feature is beautiful! Sometimes it’s worth going with a beautiful, but pricey feature but teaming it with other tiles that are simple and economical and allow the feature to shine (that should be quite achievable with a plain white wall tile). Your eye will always be drawn by the feature tiles and it’s good design to not have too many special things vying for attention.
One other option is to consider putting the feature tiles on just one wall (the bath wall usually looks best) – then use plain economical tiles on the floor and other walls. To save money it really depends on whether your floor or one wall is the larger area.

Cali, are you feeling ok now. Now that your sister’s bathroom is almost finished I hope you can stop worrying so much. Most of the decisions are made now and you just need to let the trades do their jobs. If they have done a good job with your sister’s bathroom then you can be fairly sure they will do the same with yours.

Anzac, congratulations on the new great-nephew. Sounds like you had a lively but busy weekend. Good to take your mind off work though.

Hello to Klondi, Lindsay, Intesha, Crazy and anyone else who’s lurking.

I’ve been using up my frozen meals while I was sick and I’ve pulled my very last container of soup for the freezer for tonight.
FD for me today. Good luck to anyone who is also fasting.

Morning all

CD – the yellow eyed penguins are a reasonable size, they get to be a couple of feet tall. They live on New Zealand and some of the smaller islands in between NZ and Antarctica.

LJ – great that you’re feeling a little more human, I hop your recovery continues well and you can get out for your appointments tomorrow.

Quacka – Those tiles look like a similar design to the ones we have on our bathroom floor, except ours have a bit more white and grey on them.

The fast day went well yesterday, despite making a cheesecake for my nieces birthday today, I managed to restrain myself from food. I had 2 cups of tea, one cup of coffee and 2 cups of miso soup and I didn’t feel hungry, and I still had energy for my gym session and a couple of hours of tennis in the evening. It shows that I was only eating through habit on my fast days, and I really didn’t need to be eating as many calories as I was. Watching the docco from Michael Mosley reminded me that fasting wasn’t just about weight loss, it also helps your body switch into repair mode.

I hope everyone has a great day and I’ll check back in tomorrow with my regular Wednesday weigh-in

Good morning from a hot, smoky Sydney. 32 today and the smoke from a bushfire in the Hawkesbury is just awful

LJ, so glad to hear you are feeling a little better. I do hope you don’t get any bushfires near you when your temperature goes through the roof tomorrow (42 in Adelaide!). That will not be good for your lung infection. How are you feeling this morning? I’m so glad you have good neighbours who took care of you while you were so unwell.

I watched the news this morning where they said the smoke in Sydney was dire. We live in the Southern suburbs and we didn’t have any smoke at all; however now I am in the City and it really is terrible. It has triggered a very bad hayfever reaction and I can feel a bad headache coming on and it’s only 7.55am. I might have to head home early

HI Cali, sorry to hear you have been feeling off and yes it could be renovation stress. I know that feeling so well. How are the bathroom renovations going? Yep less than two weeks now until the trip. I regret not losing more weight (I’m still in the mid 83’s) but it’s done now. I also don’t feel ready as I normally research every place we are going to the enth degree but I’ve done barely any. Poor OH has done 95% of everything and he really is over it. From finances to bookings to researching tours and restaurants as well as making sure we have direct debits set up to pay our bills while we are away. Poor bloke but boy are we looking forward to this! I showed my sister a youtube of what our first class cabin looks like and she was very impressed. I’m actually embarrassed as it is so opulent and we just aren’t impressed by things like that at all. But we had the points so why not use them and be pampered and arrive relatively fresh.

Sorry to hear how unwell you have been too Crazy. Please take care and when you feel better we would love to see some photos of your pictures. The dragon one sounds awesome. Thanks for your encouraging words – I don’t feel strong most of the time but you just have to put your best foot forward right?

Quacka, those tiles are gorgeous. Here is my 10c worth of advice and I don’t mean to encourage you but…..we did our kitchen and bathroom at the same time around 10 years ago. We spent an eye-watering fortune on the kitchen and did the bathroom cheaply. We do not regret spending what we spent on the kitchen and have loved it every day as it is perfect. We have pull-out pantry shelves, the corner cupboards all have spin around shelving and we bought quality appliances and gorgeous tiles. Contrarily every time I clean the bath I get cranky because we bought a factory floor one with just a couple of scratches and they really stand out and it never looks clean. The tiles are ‘meh’ and I just hate them! Of course don’t go into some terrible debt but also don’t let yourself be regretful either.

I love your final thought yesterday ‘Look around and enjoy what you have’. This is so true

Cinque how did babysitting go yesterday? You are such a good neighbour to look after Mr 2 during the work overlap time.

Neil, every time I read one of your posts my head spins at your energy, enthusiasm and very long list of activities! Good for you and what a great Dad you are.

I’m a bit cranky at the weather. We wanted to have a pool party on Sunday with the family as my little great-niece loves to splash around in the water. We had the water temperature up to 30 degrees thanks to the solar heating but the day was just too cold and gloomy. It would have been freezing when you got out so nobody swam. And now here we are scorching again. Boo. We had a great day anyway except for Maxx the menace. We had to baby gate him just inside the back door and I get it – it is his home, he normally has run of the house so he thought he was being punished and didn’t understand why. But my great niece had her toys strewn all over the lounge room floor and she is now mobile and he could have accidentally knocked her over. Apart from the fact that he is still jumping up at people when he gets excited (and the onslaught of 8 adults and one tiny tot was too much for his furry head). So of course he started barking and then Ava (great niece) started crying every time he barked because he is LOUD. I was so stressed but eventually he did calm down and lay quietly. We did have one nice moment; my sister is afraid of big dogs and she wandered out into the garden to look at the pool and he eagerly trotted after her of course. But I was able to sit him down and calm him with the LAT (look at that) method and then he sat like a lamb and let her pat him.

Stay safe all and get well everyone who are under the weather. Have a great day

Good Morning friends

I had a very successful FD yesterday despite being ‘starving’ when I got home and then having to wait almost two hours until OH finished destroying the rest of the ensuite! I picked at a bit of lamb and then I made some zoodles to go with the beef mince mixture, so I ate the middles of the zucchinis with some salt sprinkled on them. That got me through to dinner time. Just.

OH isn’t really ‘destroying’ the ensuite – I am exaggerating just a little bit. Ha ha ha! He was just doing the last of the demolitions and then he cleaned it all up and now it’s just wall frames and a floor. The bathroom renovator is going to come and check out what we need doing on Thursday afternoon so it’s all ready for him. Then I can talk to him about the tiles for our main bathroom. I did some more research on line yesterday and I have found a few other tiles that are very similar and only about $90 square metre instead of $215! I’ll see what our tiler recommends.
I am definitely going to keep the rest of the bathroom very plain. The feature will be the floor and maybe just the face of the bath. Everything else will be white. I contemplated black taps and shower heads etc but the girl at the bathroom place said that it shows up every little thing, even water splashes. The whole idea of a new bathroom is that it looks new and clean, not like these old ones where I clean and clean and they still look terrible! So I think I am going to stick with chrome.
Anzac, I agree with you. We like to do the job once and do it properly. We won’t be getting into debt to do it but of course we still need to keep to some sort of budget. As the floor is the feature I really want it to be right. If we have to pay the $215/ metre then we will, but checking out the net yesterday, I think we will be able to get them cheaper.

The kitchen is next! Yay!

Crazy, I just wanted to add my congratulations at losing three dress sizes! That’s awesome. Keep up the good work 🙂

I did my jog this morning even though I was awake for about three hours in the middle of the night and when the alarm went off, I may have sworn at it! I felt so tired but I knew I would feel much better if I just got up and did it. I’m down to 37 minutes so I am getting a tiny bit faster each time.
The sun rise was really red this morning. It was very pretty although I suspect it had something to do with the fires, poor people. Stay safe everyone.

Have a lovely day all x
Make the most of today because who knows what tomorrow brings.

So glad you are feeling well enough to venture out of the house LJ. Take it easy though. Our trip is actually 7 weeks and we do have a small hope of snow in Paris for Christmas. Only small though because it is a bit too early for snow normally but there have been the odd year where it has happened.

I gave myself a fright yesterday. Our first port of call is Lisbon so I googled ’10 day forecast Lisbon’. And up it came: -3 degrees and snow! What? I had no idea it got that cold there. Ha ha ha – it turned out it was Lisbon OHIO, not Portugal. The real forecast is 11-18 which is much better thank you

Glad you had a good FD Quacka and your reno is well underway now. Will it be done for Christmas do you think? I’m not doing FD’s until after we get home now, I just don’t have the right head-space. I’m glad I’m able to maintain without any real effort which shows that my behaviour/brain has changed doing this WOL. Both OH and I have decided that we will have very light breakfasts on the trips, even when it is included in the price of the hotel. We don’t want to come home with stacks of weight on; it will be bad enough eating lunch and dinner out every day. I just hope that the huge number of steps will counterbalance.

I forgot to say hi to those who are not able to post much at the moment. I hope everyone is ok and doing well

Weigh-in this morning and thanks to my liquids only fast on Monday and control day yesterday I’m down to my lowest recorded weight. Sitting at 88.1 kilos. Down 1.2 kilos from last week 😀

Good Morning SH’s

Nice work on your new low weight Neil! Well done.

LJ, I hope you have a lovely catch up lunch. It’s always nice to be out doing things after you have been sick. Enjoy!

Today is my Wednesday FD and I’m feeling very positive about it, which is always a good start for me. I woke up this morning about a minute before the alarm and after it went off I went back to sleep and woke up another couple times and each time I dreamed of food! Lol. I was really tired when I woke up properly and didn’t feel like going for my jog but I just said to myself “get out of bed lazy *** and just go for a walk instead”. So I did. I managed a couple of minutes of jogging but mainly just walked around and so I still feel good.

Last night I made a watermelon, feta, mint and red onion salad. It was so nice on a hot day and I could have eaten the whole bowl (I didn’t). I dressed it simply with salt and pepper, EVOO and malt vinegar, not to much of any of these. I have the other half of the watermelon wedge so I might make that tomorrow again,as the weather is going to be hot. Today is a lot cooler and I have a chicken stir fry planned for dinner but may even make it into miso soup, depending in how we feel tonight.

Well, it’s almost coffee time. Wishing you all a happy day x

Morena

Betsy, I think we’ve all been there in the past. All you can do is hit the reset button, forget the past and start again. Ignore the last 4 months and start today as day 1.

Quacka, good work on the exercise motivation. I always find that when I struggle with motivation to exercise, if I force myself to do it, I feel a lot better. Exercise certainly helps to improve your mental state.

LJ, I’m thinking of aiming for mid 80s (probably around 83-84 kilos) because I really want to have a decent buffer in between me and 90 kilos, but I’m not going to hurry it, I’m just going to make sure that my fast days are actually fast days rather than control days, keep my exercise regime, and let my body naturally head down that way. I hope you had a good lunch with your team yesterday.

I had a complete blowout yesterday. It started well, I had a bowl of the nice low carb muesli and frozen fruit for breakfast, then my customary post-weigh in sausage roll and some nuts, coleslaw and boiled eggs for lunch, but then I had to drop my car out to get a windscreen chip repaired and I had an hour to kill so I wandered through the shops. I felt like something sweet so I bought a bag of party mix lollies. I was planning on having a couple and then putting the rest of the bag at the “free food” spot at work, but I ended up eating the whole bag, all 700 calories of it. But I didn’t stop there, I had a decent dinner of fish, broccoli cheese and mushrooms, but then I made a black currant and apple pie and I had a big slice of that along with a bowl of ice-cream, a couple of my home-made protein bars and finished it off with a hot chocolate in the evening. I probably went at least 1000 calories over my TDEE. Just as well today is my regular fast day because I’m definitely going to need it 🙁

Thursday morning,
So hot and nasty here, but a cool change coming. Scary if fires start, (with the wind change) but so welcome temperature wise.
Poor Sydney – poor NSW, and fingers crossed for SA.

I’m crook again, coughing and feverish. Sigh.

Neil what an impressive blow out. Hopefully you will have a great fast today and a normal eating day tomorrow.

Quacka, I hope your fast day ended as well as it began, and o my goodness what a delicious salad!

Betsy it sounds as if you are covering rough ground with the pressures of the research. Hooray for leaving the stress cloud and being able to do all the things that are good for your longterm health. It will be great to have you posting more regularly.

I’m off to take it easy.

Good morning from a choked, smoky Sydney

Firstly, Cinque, I can’t believe and am so sorry you are unwell again. I hope you don’t get any bushfires starting up in the terrible heat today because the smoke will make your cough worse for sure. Please take care of yourself

LJ, Crazy, how are you both feeling today?

Neil, nice to see a human side of the weigh-loss, muscle building machine LOL. We all have our break-outs and they should be looked upon as learning experiences to understand the triggers. I walked past a vending machine here at work yesterday and before I knew what I was doing I inserted coins and extracted a packet of pretzels (a particular fave of mine). I told myself I would open it and have a handful then clip it back up to keep for a couple of days. Well. The whole packet was gone in about 10 nano seconds. Sigh. I wasn’t even hungry! But I was very stressed so no points for guessing what triggered it.

Quacka, your bathroom reno’s sound awesome and I love the thought of an emerald green floor – just like the ocean. I have an intolerance to all creamy salad dressings such as mayo or Caesar dressing and they make my stomach erupt like mount Vesuvius. The same reaction I get to lactose so I know how you felt

I will make this a short post as I have been trying to get it done all morning and now I have meetings. Take care everyone

Hi everyone. Another NFD, but not too bad overall. Only about 25 minimum temperature overnight, so sleeping was difficult, and then I had to be up at 6:30 a.m., so quite tired (which explains the NFD).

Cinque, so sorry to read that you’ve been feeling ill again. I hope it is something you can throw off fairly quickly.

Thank you to Cinque and LJoyce for asking about my study progress – 25 interviews done in all, and the final one was done last Sunday, so they’re all finished. Haven’t even begun to think of transcripts, which will then have to be analysed. Need to focus first on some of the results showing from my survey data, as I have a 15-minute presentation to do next Thursday. Also haven’t even started on my PPt yet, so… just refusing to panic, they’ll get what they get. It shouldn’t take me more than a few hours to put something together, but it would be nice to have a few more actual results to share. I’ll see what I can do tomorrow re some more data analysis, now I’ve been shown some of the things I can do with the program. Oh, re interviews, the minimum number I wanted was 20, but I sent out emails or text messages to those who volunteered, and 25 were willing to follow through and be interviewed, so that’s the number I did. Major relaxation of tension now the data collection phase is complete. I can work on the rest as I feel, any time of day or evening, with no more running myself ragged going hither and yon. Yay!

Neilithicman, Anzac65 and LJoyce, I’m glad you also succumb to the siren call of the sweet (or savoury) treats. I made the mistake of buying a lemon meringue pie from Coles on Tuesday, intending to have a slice each day. No, half the pie disappeared on Tuesday and the rest yesterday – 852 calories each day! Yes, I will be avoiding it in future. Ultra-ultra-sweet. But that’s what I mean about a better NFD today – no major indulgences like that.

Quakka, hope you’re feeling better. Occasionally not pushing too hard with exercise is what a person’s body needs. It can be better to have an easier day or even a rest day if you’re feeling exhausted (as opposed to just plain reluctant to get moving, which it doesn’t sound like was the case).

Califdrreamer, interesting that celebs are finally getting onto the bandwagon re intermittent fasting, so its value (if they do it properly) should be even more widely promoted.

Anyway, trying to push the reset button by actually getting a run of proper nights’ sleeps, which will do wonders for my self-control, and I really need it!!! Five unanticipated eating out occasions have cropped up over the past week, for the next 2 weeks, so I will really need some self-control. One is a 40th birthday, and another is a friend from overseas briefly in Melbourne for a visit and wanting to catch up – both unavoidable. Two others are church functions I’m expected to attend, and the final one is with a friend who’s been going through a challenging time. Don’t feel I can say no to any of them, so … self control!

Okay, sleep well everyone.

Good morning all. Checking in, after two FD’s and controlled eating 68.5 this morning. Hoping to get back to my lowest of 65 by Xmas although I did fleetingly see 64.5.

Cinque sorry to hear you are struggling with being unwell. I think you try to do too much and although you love your little granddaughters they could be taking there toll on your health.

LJoyce hope you are now on the road to recovery and anyone I’ve missed who has been feeling sick.

Neilithicman whoever said you get over your sweet cravings wasn’t really a sweet person. I still love chocolate, sweets and cakes although if I overindulge I feel sick afterwards but I still do it from time to time.

Anzac not long now I feel excited for you. When you get on that plane shut your mind off to everything except the anticipation of what is ahead.

Hi Quacka, Califdreamer and anyone else reading.

For the next three days I am decorating my Xmas cookies plus doing some for a friend’s 70th. No housework will get done and only stopping to get meals for Dad. The kitchen is all set up so I am going to make myself a cuppa and get stuck into it. I have nearly 400 but this year trying to keep the designs simple as I put too much pressure on myself with too many colours.

Bye for now.

Good morning all.

Cinque, so sorry to hear you are unwell. Take care, hope you feel better soon. http://laccaso.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/pictures-of-flower-bouquets-birthday-header-image-wildflower-bridal-free-images-beautiful-download-bouquet.jpg

Intesha, enjoy your cookie decorating. I hope we see some pics of your work when you are done.

Quacka, have a lovely day off and lunch out.
When you have a moment could you let me know where online you bought the kelp noodles from. I have paid $12 for a packet of them from a health food store and balked at the price. But I prefer the texture and smell (or lack of it) to konjac noodles.

Betsy, glad to hear that your data collection phase is now done and you can concentrate on analysis and writing. Good luck with the presentation.
I find the only way I can achieve portion control with a large sweet treat that I’ve brought home or made, is to cut it into portions as soon as it enters the house and freeze them – and that only works on things that aren’t easily microwaved!

Anzac, I hope you are getting excited. I’m sure the trip will be a wonderful experience. Hopefully the weather doesn’t pose too many difficulties.
Where are you spending christmas?

Neil, I agree with Intesha – if you sweet things appeal to you that never really goes away. I do find I don’t look for those things as often as I used to though. I am able to placate my sweet tooth with fresh fruit or fruit yoghurt most of the time. I even manage to stick to moderate portions of treats – sometimes!

Cali, thanks for the video. I admire their courage weighing themselves on live television.

Each day I feel much better. Still coughing and tireder than usual but other than that I’m back to normal.

I managed to survive babysitting last night. I spent an hour with Miss 6, working on phonics as she’s not confident with her reading. She’s actually really good at putting sounds together to form words but is much less confidence with books. We also spent some time working through homophones – words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings (to, too, two etc). I think I need to keep doing this on Thursdays until her confidence levels with reading improve.

I finally went for a walk this morning. I was very slow and only managed 2.7km, but it’s a start and it’s the first walk I’ve done in a fortnight.

Have a nice day everyone.

Hi all. Just checking in after 10 days of being poorly. No matter – it seems quite a few of us aren’t too well at the moment. Cali, Cinque, LJ, Crazy and anyone else I missed. Better days coming, I hope.

I also had some laser eye surgery. Sigh. After the cataract op I developed something called posterior capsule opacity which was causing blurriness. So that’s done, and we now wait 3 months to see if I need more laser surgery to correct the induced astigmatism. Roll on 2020!

Neil you are a powerhouse, despite a day given over to things you’d largely removed from your diet. One day won’t make a difference, and we all need a blowout occasionally to remind us why we love this WOL.

How are you going Betsy? Getting your data analysed? I hope you are enjoying the process too, despite the high stress.

Anzac not long now….when do you fly? I loved Portugal. Actually I brought home some exquisitely beautiful but soooo large and heavy ceramic bowls from Evora. I thought OH was going to pop a vein when he saw me walk out of the shop…..that will teach him for opting to hover outside the shops.

Intesha you are amazing with your Christmas decorating. Hope you post pictures again this year.

Cali the fires are a way from where we live, but we have had dreadful smoky days with odd weird light with the sun struggling through. It is eerie. What a season it’s been, and so early too. No rain in sight either.

I have my DD’s 15 week old springer spaniel here for the weekend. He is definitely not housetrained! YIKES! Rosy has never been inside – and when she’s on the back verandah overnight she only goes on the lower part section, far far away from her bed and water. I heard my OH say to the visitor this morning, ‘Davy, you are a very sweet dog. But Jesus Christ you stink’. (with apologies for the blasphemy … did I mention OH is Glaswegian?)

Dietwise, I’m doing well. Back on 16-8, 5:2 low carb, and it is working well and I actually seem to be back in the swing. Having a girlfriend who’s doing the same helps. We had joint birthday lunches during the week – both had salmon and salads – and she said because she was with me, she decided to pass on the sweet potato fries. It’s good to help each other.

A question for other low-carbers. Do you suffer from leg/feet cramps at night, when you take carbs from your diet. I am taking magnesium but am still troubled and man, they are painful.

OK I’ll try to get something done before the pups wake up and it’s on for young and old.

Take care all – and happy weekend.

Good morning, FD today. Two intensive days of cookie decorating, effort so far. The hearts and champagne flutes are for my friends birthday. Not happy with the flutes not one of my best efforts.

https://imgur.com/a/wOqPWSC

Good morning

Intesha, you are a harsh critic of your work, I think the decorations are lovely.

Lindsay, funny that your new pup is already territorial. It seems they identify their new pack quickly. Waking at 4:30 sounds a bit extreme – is that when Ruby normally wakes you or is it just while the two of them are together?

The play was fun and we went out for gelati afterward. I managed to get through with minimal coughing, although I used the ventolin inhaler and the bottle of water that I’d taken to help control things.

The lung infection is still there but thankfully no worse this morning. I was meant to have my next infusion on Tuesday, but I’ll have to postpone it because I can’t have it while I’m fighting an infection.

Although I feel a bit sluggish this morning my best friend is coming here shortly and we’ll go for a walk. I need to move more this week as I managed a grand total of 24000 steps last week. Even if I’m not in full health I should be able to manage 50000.

Have a nice Sunday.

Intesha, your cookies are beautiful! Why don’t you like the flutes? I think they’re really pretty and look nice with the others. You’re so talented.

LJ, glad you were feeling good enough to get through the play. Walking is probably a good thing, but try not to overdo it. Listen to your body and take a rest if you feel tired. I think you mentioned it before, but I can’t remember now, do the infusions cause or in some way promote the lung infections? I know that sometimes drugs affect the immune system. I hope you continue to feel better.

Lindsay, PCO after cataract surgery is pretty common according to my eye doc. I have a bit in my left eye which is the one with the reading lens. It doesn’t affect my vision really, but I have kind of a slanted line of glare in the dark when looking at a bright light. It’s not bad enough to do the laser at this point. I read about the induced astigmatism. I hope that can be corrected with the laser. When you mention waiting 3 months it sounds like maybe there’s still some healing going on.

Cinque, I hope you’re feeling better. I can’t help but think there may be smoke in the air even though the fires are a ways away. That could affect your breathing too.

There must be so many displaced animals as ar result of all the bushfires. I read that a lot of koalas had to be rescued. So many beautiful birds and other animals are having their habitats destroyed. I hope that they make it to other safer areas. This is a very scary fire season that is starting too early.

They are predicting rain this coming week. The fires are mostly either out or contained now for the northern part of the state. It’s getting cooler, especially at night. But it still doesn’t seem like Autumn without the rain. It’s hard to get in the Christmas spirit without cold and rainy weather. 😁 Just the opposite of there. It’s hard to imagine cooking Christmas dinner on the BBQ.

Neil, I’m with you on sweets. I can lose my desire for salt or fats over time by eating less of them, but I think I’m hardwired for sweets. I can’t imagine not desiring sugar. Maybe that’s because our first food is milk which contains lactose, a type of sugar.

Quacka, those coconut wraps sound interesting but way too expensive from what I can see. I had never heard of them before reading your post. I see they have a few brands on Amazon. Do they tear easily? It seems like there’s not much holding them together. Are they more like a crepe?

Betsy, freezing meringue doesn’t sound like it would work very well. Something like lemon bars might be a good substitute that would probably freeze easily.

Hope you are all enjoying your day. Time for me to sleep. Please keep a watch on the world.

Morning all.

LJ Hope you are feeling better this morning. Gentle exercise sounds good – but not too much too soon.

Rosy usually wakes at 5.30. Sometimes we drive to a nearby oval where she can run free without too many distractions, but often OH walks her, while I whip around for a quick tidy up/vacuum. The floors had to be seen to be believed this morning, so it was a floor wash too. We’d had a good day gardening yesterday, and the pups were unbelievable excited by the great outdoors and of course hoses. Even the courtyard ended up filthy with muddy paw prints. But they loved helping.
https://imgur.com/ei4APcl

Neil how lovely to have that old timber to recycle. During a huge storm here in 2011 we lost two grey gums (the timber is red, ironically). We needed a crane to lift them out of the pool, but then we had a mobile miller come (very exciting to watch). We used the outside pieces for a garden bench, and then after the timber had cured, the chaps who did our polished concrete kitchen benches created an amazing timber and concrete breakfast room table. They also made some beautiful suspended shelves for our living room. So much better than just turning them into wood chips (if a rather expensive process).

Calif PCO happens in about 20% of cataract surgery, apparently, but the blurring was making my vision very cloudy and I was losing confidence driving. Can I ask…when you say you have a lens for reading, do you mean you have one for long sight, and one for short?

I’ve had a good 16:8 low carb weekend, although the scales are up marginally. I made muffins for the family yesterday …banana and blueberry, with just a little sugar. I wasn’t tempted to have any, but there are two left in the freezer and oh, how I wish they weren’t there.

OK time to get moving. Have a good day all.

Good morning.

Anzac, that countdown is getting so close.
Good news on the skinny tops. I think we get to a point during weight loss when fitted clothing starts to look better than the “hide it all” loose clothing. It looks like you’ve reached that point, yay!
One good element of your long flight to Europe is that being in first class should mean a bed and the opportunity to actually get some sleep.

Lindsay, those dogs are so cute. I can just imagine the fun they had with water and mud.

I’m heading off to the GP shortly to see whether he thinks I need to get a cortisone injection for my lower back (now that I actually have cortisone options I can safely use – rather happy about that). I’ll also get some more antibiotics for this lung infection too.
This afternoon I’m at the hospital again as the allergy specialist wants to test a prednisolone tablet. That’s the final test that he’s doing on my allergic reaction to cortisone treatments.

Have a nice day.

Oh Cinque, I needed a chuckle and you provided it! Thank you

So glad you are feeling better

Hi Cali, they are giving Lewis the Koala a 50/50 chance. He is around 14 years old and has quite bad burns. I cried too 🙁

https://imgur.com/a/K27dWsi

Morning all.

Thin, you and I are thinking alike. I’ve been having just tea, coffee and miso during the day on fast days and then eating my calories at dinner time. I don’t know why you say “unfortunately” you’re having a wine a week. If you’re keeping your weight constant then why not enjoy the wine rather than feel guilty about it? I hope you’re managing to find some of the wonderful Australian Shiraz’s over there.

Quacks, those tiles lol awesome, dark green is my favourite colour

The lady saving the Koala was on the news over here too. She really was brave, but it makes you feel sad to think of all the animals that perished in the fires, and I heard that some of them may have been deliberately lit. 😡

My fast day went well yesterday. I had one coffee, one green tea and 2 cups of miso during the day, then dinner I had some chilli beans and vegetables and one of my home made protein bars. I went for my regular gym session and played some tennis in the evening, but for the first time in ages I completely ran out of energy in the evening. I collapsed on the couch after dinner when I got back from tennis and then I struggled to get off the couch when I decided to head off to bed at 10:30. Control day today and weigh-in tomorrow and then I’ll enjoy a nice big non fast day.

Hi Thin, I’m not quite at maintenance, I’ve dropped one of my fast days out so I won’t be dropping as fast, but I’m aiming to eventually get down to the mid-80s that my doctor suggested was probably my ideal weight. I was 88.1 at my last weigh-in so I’ll probably aim for another 4 kilos to get to around 84kg.

Good afternoon everyone.

Quacka, thankyou for the iherb link. The kelp noodles must be popular as they are all listed as out of stock at the moment. That’s ok, I can be patient, especially as they are 1/3 of the local price.
Your green tiles are stunning, they look handmade and antique. I had trouble imagining what you meant when you first mentioned emerald green, but that floor is utterly beautiful. What I find intriguing is that an otherwise white modern bathroom looks so nice with a green floor that looks like an antique.

Thin, glad to hear you are doing well and have settled into canal life. lLso glad to hear that you get to spend some time with your daughter – even if it isn’t as much as you’d like.

Cali & Neil, there have been quite a few native animals (particularly koalas) that have been rescued – most with burns. Some don’t make it but many do. They can succumb to stress as much as to the burns.

I saw my GP and the allergy specialist yesterday. I am now an another course of antibiotics to get rid of this lung infection once and for all. I only started them last night but I feel better already. My GP wants me to get a CT scan of my lower back. From there they can decide whether it’s likely to benefit from a cortisone injection and the scan will only show them the best spots for those injections. The allergy specialist gave me a prednisolone tablet and I thankfully haven’t had an allergic reaction to that either. So my list of steroid based medications that I can safely be prescribed is growing. That should be the last appointed that I need for the allergy clinic.

For the fortnight while I was sick I spent my days on the sofa, getting no exercise and eating comfort food. I have already mentioned that it did my weight no favours, despite my 2 FDs each week. Also, I have had trouble avoiding sweet and starchy foods since my health improved as I got used to eating them when ever I felt like it.
I have decided to restart the B2B2.. program that I had success with a few weeks ago – it was a helpful reset. My goal is to stay around 800cals M-F and around TDEE on weekends. I aim to stay away from most sweet or starchy foods M-F (apart from fruit and yoghurt). On weekends I’m ok with small quantities of those foods. I will be trying to also stick with a 16:8 routine – which is my natural inclination anyway. I’m structuring my eating M-F as I would a normal FD, with the majority of calories allocated to an evening meal. Through the day I’ll have fresh fruit, yoghurt, boiled eggs, fresh ricotta and raw veg available (and cups of tea of course). I can just have a snack or two or make a salad for lunch if I feel like it. By doing it this way I don’t have to find 5 days worth of low cal FD dinners. Most of my normal evening meals will fit easily into this regime without any complicated planning.

Yesterday I did a <500cal FD, but it will be the last one for a while as I find I can’t do 500cal FD in addition to 5 x 800cal days, it’s too much restriction. I’m going to stick to this plan for as long as possible and hopefully shift some of those extra kilos I gained during the cold weather.

Hope you all have a nice day.