Morning all

Well good day yesterday. I managed to stick to around 1500 calories, had no sugar, no starchy carbs, and only one coffee, and I had a good session at the gym where I managed to burn around 700 calories. Today is good so far, I’ve just had a bit of biltong and cup of soup so far, and I have a chickpea curry for lunch and prawns planned for dinner tonight.

Well done on the alcohol free week Thin. My wife and I don’t drink much, we usually just have 2 each on Friday night and Saturday night. We’ve got a little bit left in the current rum bottle that we’ve been working through that we’ll probably finish Friday night, then I might skip the alcohol for a few weeks until my birthday on the 29th.

Lindsay, scary about Rosy, I hope she’s feeling all better now.

Cinque, I don’t know why people are so opposed to wearing masks. I haven’t had to wear them over here because we only need them on public transport, but I’ve worn them for hours on end in the past while sanding down furniture or stripping paint.

The weather here is supposed to improve for the weekend, and the long range forecast is for a long hot summer, so my wife is flat out getting the garden planted. She’s already set me several tasks so hopefully I can get in and do some this weekend.

Well have a great day everyone

Good evening everyone!

I’m away a few days, and there’s so much to which to respond (trying not to finish with a dangling preposition – LindsayL, is that the right terminology? When a preposition is at the end of a sentence?).

Haven’t managed a FD yet, but not overeating either, and currently about the same weight as October 1st. Sorry Anzac65, not leading you very positively at the moment – you will have to lead ME into better habits! 🙂
Glad you were able to enjoy a relax with a book, and in the pool. It’s been cold and wet here again over the past few days, so I’m looking forward to this time next week, when it will be warm. But then the Covidiots will all be doing the wrong thing at the beaches, and we’ll be stuck in lockdown for another how many weeks???

Saw my doctor today following routine blood tests and mammogram etc. – all good. My cholesterol is still up a bit, but not as much, so no mention of statins, yay! I think my tiredness at the moment may be hayfever – have had a runny nose and post-nasal drip recently. Had yet another Covid-19 test Tuesday (negative, of course) so I could tell the surgery that yes I have symptoms but no, I don’t have Covid-19. The frustrating thing for me is that I’ve had a few tests over the years and have never come up as allergic to any allergen. But just let the weather be windy, and I’m symptomatic. Sigh! Claratyne helps a bit, so I’ve been taking that over the past few days.

The next couple of days won’t be great days for eating – if I can keep to TDEEs, I’ll be happy. My birthday is Saturday, a friend is visiting tomorrow (“single” cluster), and I’ll visit the friends I often give some care to on Saturday. So, I’m giving myself a “pass” for the next two days. THEN, I will finally be free to knuckle down to proper FDs. From there, it will be “optimistic October”. Will also be trying to get longer hours of sleep, which will be a major help with the eating control. Noted your comment about that, too, Cinque.

Thin, sympathise with the what to do re maintenance, but really? Just wish I were in your shoes! You do so brilliantly with your eating control. Of course, on track can very quickly become “off track”. Which reminds me – Neilithicman, hope the “on quickly, off quickly” rule works for you.

LindsayL, what a scare re Rosy. So glad she was okay. And glad that OH is doing so much better with his foot. Yay for good myotherapy and other health professionals. Hope the plumbing problem has been promptly and efficiently fixed.

LJoyce, congrats on reaching your 2020 walking goal already – well done you! And great that with a controlled few days of eating, your jeans are back to being loose again. It’s a nice feeling, and one I’m looking forward to in the next few weeks.

CalifDreamer, noted that Trump is back at the White House again, and downplaying Covid-19 yet again as being not as serious as the flu (noticed that his tweet was censored, though! 🙂 ). Not many people are given such an urgent cocktail of drugs as he was given. It will be interesting to see how he and his many close associates are over the next week or so, as it seems that the more severe symptoms tend to arise around days 7-11.
Are you still safe from the fires? It seems from the news that the fires just keep burning.

Penguin, hope you’re doing well with your current chemo, and enjoying the flowers that Cinque manages to find online so brilliantly.

Okay, goodnight and stay well all.

Good morning,
I am having my slow coffee and catching up on posts instead of smartly getting ready to be at the veggie shop at 9am. Ah well, hopefully I will get there before ten.

I didn’t overeat yeasterday (now why is that one of the misspellings I do all the time?), I had a better night’s sleep. Tick, tick. Now for another good eating day.

Neil, congratulations on your good day yesterday. And you will love getting those tasks done on the weekend, and so will Mrs Neil!

Masks, sigh. People here seem to either have embraced them from the start, and worn them properly… or not.
Anyone wearing the disposable masks have a problem because once they pull them down, they just don’t fit back over the nose properly. So they either need to put on a new one, or put up with one that keeps slipping down. Most seem to go for letting them sit under their nose (Saving the environment? Saving money? Saving themselves from having to lift it up every 25 seconds? Hoping one blow hole covered is enough?). Another Sigh.

Cali, you are right, that it is something to be worried about, but most of the time my homehelp is not in my sight, and she thinks she couldn’t possibly be infectious so just plays lip service to the rules. When my little home is completely open, the air moves through it well, but even with that, and our low numbers, I have to behave as if the air is full of infected aerosol and that surfaces are covered with it. And I do.

I do feel bad talking about covid here, but Betsy is right, we have all had enough and there are new clusters, so it looks like it will be a long tail.
We just do have it so much easier than your poor country where the huge numbers are not going down, and then the UK where numbers are growing so quickly. So deep breath, we will hold the line.

So glad to hear the fires are 50% contained, I heard the big one is now the biggest on record, and my heart breaks for all affected.

Betsy well done with those test results. And with other things ruled out, even though that makes it hard if you are still fatigued. Hayfever is exhausting, I do hope it passes soon.
Ha, let that preposition dangle! Perfectly good traditional English being squashed into dead Latin rules. Stuff and nonsense!

Well my coffee is finished and it is after nine. Off I go to buy a lovely box of vegetables. Cheers all, Have a great, sensible eating day. Enjoy every bite!

Hi all, just a quick one to let you know I’m still here 🙂

Betsy, I too have let the side down due to being….unmindful? I honestly don’t know what the opposite of mindful is….anyway weight has crept up again and, like you Lindsay, I am going up and down, down and up, up and down. Work is driving me nuts but I just have to push through. The new joy is we have to work with London and that means meetings once or twice a week (for now, more regularly later) at 6.00pm or 7.00pm and as I am an early birdie, often up as early as 5.00am that does not suit. Once again, as a contractor I just have to suck it up. I feel sorry for the perms who get paid a LOT less than I do and have to do the same work.

Happy birthday for tomorrow Betsy!

We are visiting some friends in Wollongong tomorrow but otherwise a quiet weekend is planned. I have no motivation for housework but it needs to be done. Badly. OH just vacuumed up enough hair for a whole new labrador.

Cinque, hope you are ok. Neil, hope the gain comes off as quick as it went on. Cali, glad the fires are better and those extreme temps are cooling. Thin, LJ, HK, Quacka, Merry, Penguin and everyone else – hello and hope you are all ok

Good morning,
Hee hee Lindsay (Latin grammar) and to think they let me be in charge of primary school children.

Hooray for live music. Especially a blues band.

Much sympathy for being out of the groove. I do think one of the best things about this thread is that we have a reality check on how tricky 5:2 can be in real life. Even Thin has struggles!

So many people join and then disappear, and I think it is rarely because they are so successful they don’t need to hang around. We see people coming back to the forum after a while because they want to try again. And we see people talking honestly about how, with the best will in the world, they can’t manage 5:2 the way they want to. Given that 5:2 is possibly the most user friendly way of eating for health and weight loss, it just goes to show what a tricky and intractable issue healthy eating, and being a healthy weight, is in our society.

HelenKate, block your ears! You might never be in this predicament!

But Lindsay, Betsy, Anzac (Cinque) and anyone having a rough patch, I bet you are kilos and kilos lighter than you would be if you weren’t trying at all. Just as eating an extra 100g a week puts on a kilo every 10 weeks, not eating a 100g a week, keeps a kilo off (Pollyanna here!)

It really is like dealing with a chronic illness, acting as if there is no problem is not an option. It makes things much much worse very quickly. (Unless you are Donald Trump apparently 😉 )

5:2 is beautifully simple, but our lives are terribly complex, our bodies are complex, and we are in a society that makes overeating the constant. Fitting 5:2 in among our stress, our habits, our need for comfort, our longing for a quick fix… in one meal we can undo the hard work of last week’s fast days! Yikes.

To try each day to take advantage of a good wave when it comes, to pick ourselves up after a rogue wave dumps us and get back on the surfboard, and to notice when our habits change even one increment towards healthier habits, that is success.

Yesterday I did particularly well until I ate dinner. Hunger dragon! I was starving to death! Intolerable. But fortunately I had nothing to nibble on and after about half an hour the feeling passed. Is the solution to have empty cupboards?
I’ve made a beautiful loaf of rye bread now so I won’t have the same situation tonight. Plus it is day before fast day, so I will be able to argue that it is okay to eat more so I am not as hungry tomorrow. Oh yikes. How will I avoid it. Check out the next exciting installment tomorrow!

I was sighing yesterday, but I am fine and rather regretting talking about that mask problem. If I complained to the council my worker would bear the brunt, and I know what a conscientious and hard worker she is, and that the problem is with education and training, and no checking or following up procedures. What I should do is ring Virginia Trioli (best radio talkback) and find out if it is common across councils and other organisations and publicise the issue.

Happy Birthday Betsy! https://www.blossomwithlove.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/IMG_0195-scaled.jpg

Best wishes all

Happy birthday Betsy. I’m so pleased to see you will actually have some company today. Hope you have a lovely day.

Hello all

I am still here! And after a week off, due to the Kangaroo Island time and some unavoidable social things, I am back on my schedule and just coming to the end of a Fast Day.

It feels good to be back. I realised today that the Fast Days remind me that I can be hungry without having to eat, and that I can use will-power. They also remind me about calories. It’s funny how after just a week I could feel that awareness fading and was merrily eating heaps more than I needed as if there would be no consequences. I only count calories on FDs, but it does keep me in touch with reality and aware of the choices I’m making – like you, Thin, knowing that you can have the cream tea or the rum and the cheese snacks. I think I enjoy food even more when I have this awareness.

The time on Kangaroo Island with the family was really good. There was a lot of rain, and while we still had our pizzas we weren’t able to sit outside and enjoy them. My sister and her husband stood outside in all the rain gear cooking the pizzas in the oven they have built, while the rest of us inside constructed the pizzas and took them out for baking and then ate them. So good!

I had some long walks on the beach and in the bush and saw sea eagles and kangaroos. It was good to be out in the wild – not another house anywhere in sight – and to go to sleep to the sound of the ocean.

There is so much in all the posts that I’ve enjoyed reading and would love to comment on, but I can only manage a bit.

Lindsay, your Rosy is such a beautiful dog. I really felt for you with the scary chicken-bone episode. Thank goodness she came through it.

LJoyce, congratulations on your great achievement in doing all that walking.

Calif, I am glad you can finally open the windows. Well, I hope you can. It’s been such a terrible summer for you all.

Anzac and G’day, I too love cherry ripes, and if we had to share one of those party packs of assorted chocolates there could be nasty scenes!

Anzac, I feel for you with your old father having to undergo that surgery for the skin cancer on his leg. It just seems so unfair that someone should have to go through this sort of thing at that age. My old Dad, who turns 96 next month, had to have a skin cancer on his leg removed a year or so ago, with skin graft and all. We were very worried about it but it all went smoothly and it healed well. I hope the same for your father.

Cinque, I was happy to read of your family reunion. And I loved reading your email about the beautiful simplicity of 5:2 and the complexity of our lives and the trickiness of the society we live in, and how we need to forgive ourselves our lapses and just get on with it – and enjoy life – you seem to be good at that!

OK that’s all.
Warm wishes to everyone and happy fasting and eating
HK

Good afternoon everyone.

I’m having a day at home today. Trying to get some cleaning etc done. I have finally gotten all the winter bedding washed and drying and have finally put my spring-summer bedding on. (The winter doona is now in storage and I have the layers of cotton blankets topped with a patchwork cotton quilt that I find works better in warmer weather.

HK, it sounds like you have a great time at KI, despite the rain. Glad you slipped back into 5:2 so easily.

Cinque, snap! https://imgur.com/a/I2JrwXI My broad bean crop is very abundant too. What amazes me though, is that I bring this enormous mound of beans into the house and by the time I have shelled, blanched and peeled them I have little more than a handful of lovely broad beans to eat. Yummy though. I’m hoping to let the last of the crop become fairly large pods that I can shell, peel and then freeze. They’ll be lovely in winter.
Would you mind posting the beef & rhubarb recipe Cinque. I also have an abundant crop of rhubarb which I usually just stew with apples or strawberries. I have never thought to use them in a savoury dish.

Cali, I am relived to hear that the fires seem to be under control and that our air quality is improving. What a tough time you have had there this summer/autumn.

GDSA, I keep portions of cooked grains and pasta in the freezer too. Not only does mean resistant starch, it’s much more efficient to cook the whole bag at once.
I agree with Cinque – keeping the worm farm alive in the heat is a challenge. Finding a spot in full shade helps, but when I had a worm farm I found there were other things I needed to do too. My worm farm had 3 layers a bottom tray with a tap to catch the liquid. A middle tray for the worms and their castings to live and a top lidded tray where you put the veggie scraps that the worms can go into and out of when they want to. I always kept a thick layer of folded newspaper on top of the food scraps and kept them wet in hotter weather. If it got to 40+ I also put one or two blocks of ice among the food scraps and under the wet newspaper – this works a bit like an old fashioned ice box, but the blocks of ice need to be large (about 2 litres) so they don’t thaw too quickly.

Thin, what a dilemma, scones or a cheese board – I’m rather fond of both!

Anzac, If you have to work that late for international meetings, could you take a longer lunch for walking those days?

Betsy, hope you’ve had a lovely birthday weekend.

I got a shock last week. I hadn’t weighed myself since I got to the top of my target weight range. I had assumed I was still up the top of that range but was pleasantly surprised to find myself at the bottom of my 3kg target range. Although after having fried chicken at a Korean restaurant on Friday I may not still be there! My best friend was at the same lunch so we tried to walk off some of the calories yesterday and did a 2 hour walk (with some short breaks) to the beach and along the esplanade.

Hello to everyone else.

Time I got back to the housework and stopped looking for excuses to avoid it!

LJ, great job on the scales, what a relief. Don’t let it go to your head, (or stomach rather)!

Cinque, what a lot of activity at your place. You are so adventurous with your cooking. I hope your FD has been brilliant. Governments encouraging irresponsible breeding is a big pyramid scheme to create little tax payers. The world doesn’t need more babies. Or politicians. Thinking back 30 years, I think we must have paid for the Australian spousal visa too.

HK, so glad you had a lovely break at KI. You’ve embraced the 5:2 WOL so well. I agree that every FD resets your portion control and puts you back on track. Once committed, no will power is required, you just do it. Then there are the other five days to grapple with.

Anzac, I’m sharing your determination. Having only one alcoholic drink last week helped me drop 300g in between FDs. It makes such a difference to me. Chicken Provencal for dinner. Hairy Bikers’ style.

Good morning,
I had an excellent fasty fast day yesterday, I do hope I am on a long roll.
Hoping today will be delicious and frugal. Having good food in the fridge means a nice reward for four hours without eating.

Ha LJoyce, the pile for the compost is much bigger than the pile for the stove with broad beans. Mine are so abundant I pick them so small their skins are still tender and sweet. Luxury.

I have had an interesting lesson in bean selection. I had a bean come up self sown in my garden. I recognised it was a bean, but couldn’t work out what sort until it flowered, it was so delicate. https://imgur.com/n9ChXlB

Meanwhile, my farmer BIL sent me a dozen broadbean seeds that grew several stalks from each seed, and several flowers on each flowering spot, so that it is this enormously abundant little jungle. https://imgur.com/ECWIXQj

I have an impulse to collect and grow the delicate one’s seeds, even though it is against my own interest. Maybe more in the interests of the other plants trying to grow in my garden, though!

What a good system for keeping your worms alive!

And best of all, woot! woot! well done in counteracting that weight gain, so beautifully you didn’t even notice until you got on the scales! Way to go.

Anzac, yes! Hooray for dermination. Carry it proudly through the day!

You too Thin, with your exotic Chicken Provencal instead of my exotic Chicken Bordeaux! Haha. But well done with that one alcoholic drink in the week. I hope that is sustainable ongoing (or close to sustainable).

Cheers everyone, I do hope you are having a great day today and come on here and tell us about it, or come for comfort and support if the day conspires against you.

Cinque, that’s a great recipe thank you. We’d given up lamb a couple of years ago because of the appalling slaughter conditions in Australia but I will try it if I can find some at one of the farm shops. It sounds like a perfect dish for cooking on the diesel stove. I love rhubarb so it will be great to try a recipe without the need for buckets of sugar. Drat, I just discarded my mint growing on the roof as I never used it and it was taking up too much planter space. I’ve also given up on my vine tomatoes, they never ripened despite bringing them inside. I’m deciding whether to bother doing something with the crop of green tomatoes that are now hanging from the houdini hatch. Lettuce and chilis successful. Now I’m looking for pretty, colourful flowers again.

LJ, enjoy your quiet week. We’ve just spent a whole week at one location, the hamlet of Far Coton. It comprises two farms and six houses. I’ve loved watching a healthy, herd of Limousin cows eating the greenest grass I’ve ever seen. So relaxing. Sadly, we need water so must move on a little today. Closer to the scones, jam & cream place though ….

I lost a measly 500g yesterday. Yes, I definitely need to be vigilant this week.

Morena everyone

Thanks for the recipe Cinque, I may have to try it sometime. We have huge rhubarb in our garden. A couple of years back I built a 1 metre square box a couple of feet high, filled it with horse manure and planted our rhubarb in that and now we get rhubarb stalks almost as thick as my wife’s wrist at the base and a couple of feet long. I’m thinking of making some rhubarb cordial this year though after trying some rhubarb soda at a local cafe that tasted awesome.

Betsy, happy birthday for a few days ago, mine is coming up soon too so we share a birth month, yay for the October babies. I don’t think it’s sabotage, I think some people just enjoy watching others enjoy the food they’ve prepared. I know that I do that. I enjoy making food and watching people enjoy it, even if I don’t eat much of it myself anymore.

Thin, green tomatoes should ripen up off the vine if you pick them and leave them in a warm place, especially if you put a ripe banana or apple nearby. The gas they give off helps ripen other fruit.

Ljoyce, Congrats on the big drop in weight and I hope you enjoy your quieter week. I’m the opposite this week. The kids are back at school so I’m back to running around taking them to all their after school activities.

Anzac, have a great optimistic October and may it roll into never-failing November and dedicated December 😉

That sounds like a great break Helen-Kate!

Gday, A worm farm is one of the things I haven’t got for the garden, we’ve got tons of worms in our compost heap, but the worm farms you can use the worm wee as well as the compost can’t you?

Well I had a good day with eating on Saturday, had a little bit of bad food on Sunday but managed to stay within my calorie limit, did well yesterday to stick to only 1500 calories, I’ll have slightly more today and then weigh in tomorrow. I took my bike out for a couple of hours on Saturday and it was a beautiful day to ride. Yesterday was beautiful in the morning so I took the bike to work, but the weather turned bad in the afternoon and I ended up having to ride home in the grey drizzle. Hopefully the weather improves because I want to rekindle my cycling goal that I put on hold over winter (I did plenty of cycling on the exercise bike but I don’t count that towards my goal) So far I’m sitting on 2400 kilometres for the year and I’m aiming for hitting double my 2020 kilometre goal in 2020 so I have around 1600-1700 kilometres to do in the next 11 weeks (yes it is only 11 weeks until the end of the year!)

Well have a great day everyone and I’ll check in tomorrow to let you know how my weigh-in went.

Good morning, and Wominjeka, which means Hello/Welcome

Day before Fast Day for me. Embracing it!

Yesterday I was out in the sun, shorts and bare feet, soaking up vitamin D, getting gardening done, stirring the compost heap under that big callistemon tree, when OUCH! Looked under my foot to see a poor dying bee. I’m allergic enough to bees that when bitten on a finger my hand swelled so much I couldn’t bend my fingers for about 5 days.
This time I took an antihistamine and did ice and elevation and I only have a relatively small swelling, but it isn’t fun walking around. Grr I did not need that! (Neither did the poor bee.)

Whingeing out of the way, I am glad LJoyce, Thin and Neil, you like the look of that stew. I will take some out of the freezer for my day-after-fast-day.
My sister is growing rhubarb and has mentioned that it goes surprisingly well on pizza! (I’d like to try rhubarb kvass)

Ha Thin, how the universe laughs at us, supplying a minty recipe just after you gave up on it. Have fun planting flowers. I hope you find something good to do with the green tomatoes.

I had salad yesterday made with garden produce: mizuna leaves, lettuce, broad bean tips, baby spinach and marigold petals. Lovely. I was able to add some (medium expensive) diced avocado to it.

LJoyce, what a clever idea to alternate 500 fast days with a run of 800’s as you feel.

Betsy, sympathy re the piles of food left with you to celebrate your birthday. Hoping you have a lovely lean rest of October. It sounds like you had a companionable birthday weekend given the lockdown limitations, I am so glad.

Anzac, your post just came through. Happy fast day! May it be a good one! You will just love waking up tomorrow morning.
It sounds like your workplace is very good at squeezing as much as possible out of its employees. Hope you can find ways to stop yourself from getting squashed completely. Yay for the good things about your job.

Cheers all, off to limp around the kitchen and get it spick and span. Frugal, mindful and saying ‘goodbye tummy’.

Morning everyone

Managed to shed most of the holiday weight. I was down 1.4 kilograms to sit at 90.0 kilograms on the dot. Hopefully I can drop the last little bit next week and get back down to the mid 89s where I’ve been hovering for a while.

Have a good one everyone

*Crickets Chirping*

Hello? Is everyone asleep?

Good evening all. I’m home from babysitting and just finishing an 800cal FD – the first of four in a row. I find that when I’m managing to stick to my TDEE on the NFDs two FD500s in the week is perfect. But when I’m routinely struggling for control on my NFDs then the best circuit breaker for me is to do several FD800s in a row (usually 3 or 4).

Neil well done getting the holiday kilos off so quickly.

Cinque, glad to hear the bee sting has healed so quickly. I remember the old remedy from childhood – rub a cut onion on the stung area. I have no idea whether it does anything useful as I’m not allergic, although I did seem to be routinely stung in warmer weather as I preferred to be barefoot.

Anzac, excellent that you are managing to fit some swimming into your busy days. I hope the weather continues to make that an inviting prospect.

Betsy, my family (me included) tend to show that they care for people by cooking for them. It’s quite a challenge when you are trying to lose weight and being very careful with food choices. When I lost the bulk of my weight I remember having to have a very direct conversation with an aunt who cooks to show she loves you and would take it as a serious rejection if you refused the food.

Thin, the location for your quiet week sounds very restful. Definitely no grazing cows around here, although I do occasionally pass Alfie the alpaca on his afternoon walk, grazing on any grass or flowers that he fancies.

I am braving a trip to Ikea tomorrow to finally buy furniture for my craft room/study. I looked at and eliminated dozens of options a couple of weeks ago on my previous visit but needed thinking time to make sure I made the best choices. I think I’ve worked out the right solution now. I have a sewing table but needed a tall chest of drawers for craft storage and another cabinet for papers. I had considered getting these delivered but it’s “contact free” these days, which means they dump it on the front lawn and I have to drag all the boxes inside. I figure if I have to do that I might as well save the delivery fee and collect it myself. At the last visit I was horrified to go to the restaurant looking for a cup of tea to help me mull over my options – only to find they don’t sell tea and coffee there anymore. I won’t make that mistake again – I’m taking a thermos with me!

Have good evening all.

LJ, you jinxed me! Yesterday sunny and 27. Today cloudy, cool and a very gusty cold wind…

Glad you are feeling better Cinque and yay to your excellent FD. Thanks for the encouragement for no stress eating. It is the 9th anniversary of my lovely Mum leaving us and I was looking for a nice photo to put on FB. I found one of myself at about 21 and I look slim and HOT (LOL). I’ve put it near my laptop for encouragement

Have a great day all

Good evening all.

Sorry, this really has to be brief. It took a few days to eat all the cake and ice-cream cake, but I’m finally ready to “begin again”. It wasn’t things people cooked, though, they bought stuff just to give me, to share with me for my birthday, then leaving the rest with me. And then, to be completely honest (oops, ouch!), I also bought a half a black forest cake for myself – cut it into several slices, froze it, and have eaten it over the past 4-5 days. I am really, truly, finally ready to start anew, from tomorrow, so yay!

Neilithicman, good that you’re back at the 90 mark, and I’m sure you’ll get under it right smart. Pre-happy birthday wishes! 🙂

LindsayL, I sympathise with your correcting of the reference list – it’s a hard line to draw re how much to edit, and how much to make the writer fix their own mistakes.

Anzac65, finally, finally, I am truly willing and ready to join you for optimistic October. I don’t know what the damage might be, but weigh-in tomorrow, then on we go, DOWNWARDS!

Cinque, your poor foot, the poor bee, ouch, ouch! So glad the swelling wasn’t too severe – you obviously gave your foot the TLC it needed.

LJoyce, hope you find the furniture you want at Ikea. We are still unable to do retail shopping here. It’s all online or click and collect. I’m still waiting on a couple of parcels from around 21st of September.

Penguin, hope you’re doing okay – you deserve the lovely flowers from Cinque for your fortitude! Any nibbles on the house-selling yet?

Cinque, sounds like this weekend will still not mean retail is open again, even with the low numbers for the past couple of days. I hope the 5 km radius for travel at least is lifted, but I’ve realised that the restrictions have also been affecting me with my eating (which didn’t happen earlier this year) so it’s time that stopped.

Feel very sorry for folk in the UK, with their horrific virus numbers – stay safe and well, Thin!

Had a shave biopsy of a lesion on my face on Wednesday – result Thursday of next week. May be just sun damage, may be pre-cancerous, which will mean using a cream on my face for 4 weeks, or may be a skin cancer, which would mean surgery, skin grafts, etc. Oh well. The blessing/ curse of having very fair skin! It will be fine, just something to deal with. But, that’s okay, life is, and it doesn’t stop because of a virus. We just have to keep on keeping on, and be happy in the process.

Goodnight and stay safe everyone!

Hello all

This is week 14 of the FD way of life for me, though I did have one week off so perhaps it is really week 13.

I haven’t been to the chemist to weigh myself for 3 weeks. I don’t think I have changed much, because of the week off, and some fairly substantial eating on some of my NFDs.

Anyway here is what I am noticing:

I feel fitter and more energetic without the 5K I’ve lost
I still have a bit of a stomach – maybe I always will – but it’s flatter and I feel better in my clothes.
I am now usually able to pause when I’ve embarked on mindless munching, and to halt – not always but most of the time
I’m drinking a lot more water every day and it feels good
I’m not spending as much on food – not going through avocados and nuts and cheese etc at the same rate!
I’m enjoying food more than ever
Raw carrots with just a little bit of hummus are actually delicious
Keeping some rice biscuits in the car means I can get a quick crunchy energy boost during a long drive, without succumbing to the potato crisps
I feel generally more positive – it’s the feeling of having more control I think

Anyway that’s enough. I appreciate very much reading the news from everyone and learning from the different ways people approach the 5:2.

Cinque, I thought your description of waking up feeling like a grasshopper that had hit the windscreen was brilliant. Hope you are feeling like a lively grasshopper now. And LJoyce, good luck with the worm farm.

I’ve been working in my little back garden all afternoon, and will go out now to look with pleasure at the results – old gone-to-seed plants cleared out and pea straw spread, so the all the green flourishing plants – parsley and erigeron daisies and miniature pomegranate etc – look better than ever!

Best wishes to everyone – happy fasting and happy eating

Helen Kate

A quick PS because I know that last post was pretty self-absorbed.
Cinque and Betsy, that is such a long long time of lockdown that you have endured, and I hope it eases very soon. The numbers are looking good.
LJoyce, I know what you mean about how one sometimes needs a flurry of treats before settling into stricter eating. I also know what you mean about the mighty step count in Ikea. Good luck with the flat packs!
Thin, I’m wondering what your canal-house-boat is like. Will it keep you warm through the winter. I do love to think of you living and travelling in this way. Wonderful to combine having a home and having an adventure.
Betsy, hope things go well with the skin lesion. How we all sunbaked back in the 60s and 70s – well I certainly did! – and it is catching up with us now.
Oh so many more people and bits of news to respond to, but no time – also right now I feel too hungry to think!
Warm wishes
HK

Betsy, a belated Happy Birthday to you! It sounds like it was a nice one, at least in terms of food and treats. Sometimes we need to splurge a little, especially with the lockdowns. Your numbers are looking very low these days so hopefully things will loosen up soon. I hope the biopsy for the spot on your face turns out to be nothing.

Cinque, that lamb and rhubarb recipe sounds very appetizing. I’ve never thought of adding rhubarb to meat in a savory dish. I love rhubarb desserts though. I will have to try it. Thank you for posting the recipe and also for posting the links for the Melbourne radio stations. They come through loud and clear here. I can listen on the iPad. I’ll have to see if I can figure out a way to hear them on Alexa.

LJ, it looks like you have your work cut out for you with all those IKEA boxes. The nice thing about Ikea is that the instructions are usually simple and clear. I actually enjoy assembling their furniture. And you’ve put together other pieces in the past.

Thin, your boat sounds like it’s well outfitted and as long as you can keep it cozy through the winter, it shouldn’t be too bad. Hopefully getting groceries will be convenient to the marinas nearby.

HK, I’ve noticed that food tastes a lot better too when eating less of it. When overeating we seem to just shovel in one thing after another without much thought about each bite. Congrats on your weight loss!

The smoke smell is gone most of the time now and the fires are getting more under control every day. The temperatures have been in the high 20’s to low 30’s during the day for this past week, but dropping to the low teens at night. That, and the shorter days certainly helps. But still no rain and none in the forecast for this next week. We surely need it. A couple weeks of rainy weather would take care of them.
Only a little over 2 weeks now in til our elections. I will be SO glad when they’re over! Trump says that if he loses he may leave the country. Perhaps he would prefer the nice warm Australian weather now that winter is coming to the northern hemisphere….

Thin I’m not a fan of Bruce Springsteen or Donald Trump but I certainly hope Bruce wont be moving to Australia in 2 weeks time……or Donald either. Thumbs up for Jacinda in NZ – hope that is the result you were wanting Neil. Election post over…..Ha Ha

Monday morning in a slightly less restricted Melbourne, woot!
And feeling proud as we flattened our corona-wave as quick or quicker than any place has in the whole world. Hoping we continue with the tail of it as comprehensively.

Anzac, I hope it was a gentle day, remembering your mum https://hips.hearstapps.com/toc.h-cdn.co/assets/16/09/1457116174-lily2.jpg
And an excellent photo reminder to yourself, every time you are at your laptop.

Lindsay hooray for such a focus on getting back into the swing of 5:2. I am keen to hear how it is going. I hope Mr Lindsay has had a fine time on the island, is he walking easily on the sand?
Oh dear, as if reference lists aren’t the worst part anyway! I do hope it went well.

Retail (read opshops!) should be open in two weeks, woot! woot! I’m so excited.

Betsy, I hope you are really enjoying your reset, and the pleasurable frugality after the wonderful celebratory feasting. Next feast Christmas? You will be so happily lighter by then.
Yes, another couple of weeks before retail, but it will be here before we can blink. I have a hairdresser appt on Friday morning. So delighted. My hair is basically long and unstyled, but my hairdresser has a wonderful way of cutting out the bulkiness so I will be so light and free feeling, and with the endy bits gone too. I hope there are freedoms you can enjoy too, while waiting for the lovely retail opening.

I agree with you about the background stress affecting us, particularly our eating. I don’t know how I would be if it was at Cali levels. We have a long way to go, sigh. Experts are saying that we are still just at the beginning of the epidemic.

Fingers crossed for that biopsy result.

Thin, how excellent that you and Mr Thin are where you can be happy and (comparatively) safe. It is a wonderful life.

I hope you have had a lovely fast day.
Mine was good, but I didn’t manage to cut the milk out of my cuppas. However the big bowls of non-starchy veggies are working a treat. I had my midday bowl with a drizzle of basil oil I made last summer (it has been sitting in the freezer waiting for the opportunity). And my evening bowl I used the oil to fry onion and chili, and also added turmeric and a squeeze of lemon, so very similar vegetables tasted wonderfully different.

HK, so good to read your post. ‘All about you’ was exactly what we needed to hear, and your perspective is inspiring. So many nice results of 5:2ing.

Oh dear, I am a bit grasshoppery-windscreeny this morning, but probably because I overdid it gardening yesterday. And I can’t help feeling it was worth it. I moved selfsown tomatoes and pumpkins to places where they could grow more conveniently, and swept up leaves for my compost (before the man with the leafblower came this morning) and gave the compost a good turn. But it is about time to do some mulching, so that had better be next on the gardening list. Hooray for getting yours done.

LJoyce, what is the state of the Ikea boxes now? I am one of those people who always misses a vital instruction and ends up in tears of frustration. I have a feeling you would be a better constructor than me though!

I hope yesterday’s family brunch was a delight and that you are all set for a lovely couple of fast800’s today and tomorrow.

Cali, so glad to hear from you. Ha, have fun listening to our radio stations. The one I enjoy most is Sammy J first thing in the morning and someone (from Ohio, I think) phones in regularly.

Those big bushfires are such an ongoing disaster, aren’t they. And even when the fires are out, there is so much more to be done. But I do so hope they are all out soon.

I never much liked sweet things in stews (growing up with too many sultanas, and occasionally pineapple, in curries) but am very glad of that rhubarb stew, and the quince tagine, I make.

Hello Gday, I second what you say, even though I am a fan of Bruce Springsteen. I do hope your wormfarm is thriving and that study and 5:2 are both going well.

Neil, don’t you have a lovely list of things going your way. Hooray.
Is today your birthday? https://i.pinimg.com/originals/61/38/1d/61381d5b40e4ff6d2185af30a7624022.gif
A drink of that whiskey would be a wonderful treat at the beginning of next month!

Time to get moving, best wishes all

Cinque, my FD is today due to DD’s visit yesterday. Glad yours was a good one, mostly. I will try to limit the milk in coffee today too. OH is having a large steak that we bought at a farm shop and which I had not fancied at all. I’m having Chicken Provençal (again) as my last recipe served three so there was one lonely portion left. Hurray for gardening, boo to the leaf blowing man. Pleased your covid numbers are more or less dealt with and you’ll soon enjoy more freedoms. Over here, it’s a continuing balancing act between protecting the NHS and economic disaster. Neil’s balloons are smashing.

Cinque, I have thick hair too so it soon looks like a mop. It used to be that hairdressers would say, ‘oh what lovely thick hair’. Now it’s $$$ and an opportunity to charge extra for ‘thinning out’. DD, who has long ringlet hair, can never understand why cutting off six inches should cost more than cutting one inch. She’s thinking of cutting the first 5″ herself next time. Yesterday, she cut mine with the kitchen scissors and a brush – I don’t care if it’s a bit wonky because I no longer have a mullet.

Neil, have a lovely birthday in case I’m not here when it falls. Is it a significant one? (you mentioned a family gathering). My green tomatoes are indeed turning red! I had all but given up but then you sounded so confident in your post last week so I gave them a little extra time.

Hello Monday fasters, your day is nearly done. I shall do my best to carry it on for you.

Penguin, you’d better give us a brief catch up or it will take you all day to get us up to date when you finally get back here. Have you sold up? How is the treatment going for you? A beautiful sunny day today and a lofty 17C tomorrow.

Good morning friends

A quick post to say hello before the frantic work day begins. Thank you so much for the flowers Cinque; it was a sad day but also full of lovely memories. I had a little cry and Maxx came running in all concerned and gave me lots of healing nudges and licks.

So glad you are feeling better today and have fun babysitting Miss 4

It must have been wonderful to see DD again Thin, I’m glad you can get together again. Yay for ripe tomatoes 🙂

Neil – a hole in one – wow! May the magic 80 appear soon for both of us

FD today and I have managed to lose 400g last week and the week before. I crept up to 91.9 with me EFS weekend a couple of weeks ago but Optimistic October is slowly chipping away at the gain. 91.1 this morning

So glad the fires are getting under control Cali, and those horrible high temps are coming down too. I see India has now overtaken the US as having the most new cases but the numbers for both countries are terrifying.

You are a braver woman than I LJ, tackling an Ikea set up. How is it going?

I must run, take care all.