Hello Southern Hemispherites!!

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  • I’m so sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted here. It’s been very difficult with my husband suffering from Alzheimer’s/dementia for the past 3+ years and caring for him at home. He’s in the later stages now and I have to help him with just about everything. I am determined to keep him at home. Thank goodness for my sister living here since he’s a fall risk and we have to watch him all the time. I don’t think I’ve ever suffered from depression before, but I’ve always been a fixer and this is something I cannot fix. I can only try to make things better for him.

    I’ve decided that I need to get back to the 5:2 way of eating again as I’ve put back all the weight I lost when I started here. My knees are older now and are really not liking all this extra weight. And this is the only way I’ve ever lost weight and kept it off for a long time.

    One of the first things I read here yesterday was about the death of Dr. M. I hadn’t heard about him before since I try to avoid watching the news with all the crazy political stuff dominating the airwaves. That is so incredibly sad. He helped so many people and was the nicest person to listen to on his shows and videos. He took the complex subject of weight loss and made it simple to understand. And if it hadn’t been for him, I would never have met all of you lot. I think about all of you often. I need to be back here. We go to bed late every night after watching streamed movies and tv series. He’s soundly asleep once he’s in bed and I can find time to be here again. I am in the process of catching up on at least your latest posts.

    So, I’ve lost a little over a kg in the past 6 days since I’ve started. (I’ve kept my scales in kg all these years.) It’s been very hot here, around 37 – 45 during the day for over two weeks straight. The weather forecasters keep promising cooler temps in a few days and then those days keep getting pushed further out. We usually have cooler nights but there have been too many warm ones lately. The weather seems to be so crazy all over the world.

    I’ve missed you all and I’m glad you’re still here.

    Oh Cali, thank goodness you are back with us! We missed you terribly and worried whether you were ok. I am so very sorry to hear that your husband has is in the later stages of Alzheimer’s and I am thankful you have your sister to help to look after him

    It was such a shock when we heard about Dr M and I feel for his poor family

    Looking forward to catching up more

    CalifD, a BIG welcome back. I was actually thinking of you specifically when I posted the last two Amazon viewing recommendations (Clarkson’s Farm and Daisy Jones and The Six). Are you still Amazon’s biggest fan? I have your email address and could/should have contacted you directly but I knew you had your plate full and were probably absorbed with caring for your OH. I’m so sorry that things have been so hard for you all. I bet your sister has been a wonderful support for you mentally and physically.

    I have a little bit of an idea of what you may be experiencing as my step-mother is in rapid decline from Alzheimer’s and her poor husband is really taking a battering. He is such a kind man and wants to care for her at home but she accuses him of all sorts of awful things and, to make it all worse for him, our step-brother has come in for the kill trying to syphon off money. That’s another story.

    I can understand wanting to avoid the political scene there too – I had to laugh at the Russian and Chinese responses to the presidential debate. The Russians said it was like a pensioners’ reality TV show and the Chinese enjoyed the bickering over their golf prowess. What an embarrassment that a great country like the USA can’t put up a single decent candidate.

    I’m so pleased that you’re back fasting – yay! – it’s music to my ears to hear of more fasters here. I look forward to hearing how those kgs are disappearing. Which are your FDs – if you have regular days? I’m continuing with 6:1 and Sunday has always been one of my fast days. I’m considering changing it to Saturday permanently as our DD now works a 3 day work week and has often been staying on the boat on Sundays/Mondays with us.

    Yes, it was a tragedy to lose Dr M. under such bizarre circumstances. Everyone has expressed shock. There’s a tribute page at the top right if you feel inclined/have time to post a message.

    Anzac, yes, I’m back and finished my first fast day this week. Going back to the original 5:2. It’ll be good to get rid of a few kg’s. I’m still going back and reading some of the posts from the past couple of months.
    Thin, We watched both of those movies and loved both of them. We’re starting to run out of things to watch. Recently finished the series Your Honor. That was a good one, on Netflix. I have to go back and look up some of the titles of ones that we liked. Are you still on the boat?

    Afternoon all

    I had a disastrous week this week. One of my workmates fell over in his garden a couple of weeks back and broke 4 ribs, so he has been away from work, another workmate is on leave, and another is off for the school holidays. It was stressful enough being understaffed, but then my boss “volunteered” us to do some testing, which we have to get done on top of our normal workload. To cap it off, we had some unexpected repairs needed on our car to the tune of $700, which we didn’t have, so we spent a couple of days trying to chase up some funding to pay for it. I’m in full stress mode and just stress eating as I always do. My weight was back up over a kilo from my last weigh-in. I’m so over this week, I’ve just been working, crawling home from work, eating, curling up on the couch, eating some more, then going to bed to repeat the same thing the next day.

    cali, it’s great to hear from you, even to hear things have been tough for you.

    I hope you’re all good, have a great one everyone

    Good evening everyone.

    FD for me today. I just had a warm salad for dinner – mostly baby spinach leaves and a little grilled chicken.

    Neil, So sorry to hear that the stressful event continue to pile up. I will be hoping for a better week ahead for you.

    Cali, I’m sorry to hear that the unrelenting stress of being a full time carer has had such an impact on your weight. It’s been such a difficult few years for you and your husband and sister. I am pleased to see you posting here though. I think an online support group might be good for you. Even when you don’t have time to post, if you can grab a few moments to read some posts it may still help you feel connected.
    Sending you a very big hug.

    Thin, your weekend away in the Peak District with your daughter sounds lovely. It’s so nice that you are able to catch up with her so often now. I’ve never visited that area, but remember the landscape from UK tv shows (I think Peak Practice was set there – that was many years ago).

    I had a family birthday cake to make today. The birthday girl requested carrot & walnut cake with cream cheese frosting. A nice easy one – yay! Her son turns one later this month and she decided I didn’t need to bake anything for him this year as he’s not used to eating much sugar yet. I did make it clear that while I’m happy to bake him something, I don’t do kids birthday party cakes. The current expectations with social media means it’s well outside my skill set.

    The day began very wet and gloomy here, but there was finally a dry spell and even some sun this afternoon, so I managed to go out for a walk. I’m hoping the fine weather continues into tomorrow morning as I have the nurse coming to do my infusion in the afternoon.

    Take care everyone.

    Hello everyone,
    I have been busy with grandchildren, enough to make me so exhausted, but so glad I have been able to help with them, and enjoy their wonderful company. Miss 7yo even stayed the night, and that went well.
    I made the spanikopita (only one left now!).

    Cali, I am SO SO happy to see your post. I have my fingers crossed that 5:2 goes well for you and that it works to pop in here and tell us how it is going (bad days as well as good days!).

    Life is so hard being a carer, hooray that you have your sister to help, but I bet the both of you need a lot more respite than you are getting.

    I am so glad that you are managing to keep Mr Cali at home, it will be so much easier for him.

    We can’t do much, but maybe having a little support group online in the middle of the night might make a good difference.

    Especially if we can cheer you on with those tricky fast days. And those tricky non-fast days. You will feel so much better if you can get some of that excess weight off.

    Cheering you now.

    (Off to get a cuppa, I am still tired so I will post in small installments).

    2.

    I realised there was some blue sky between clouds, and took the opportunity to open up my home to some ‘fresh’ air (‘fresh’ as in Melbourne style 😉 ) and nick out for a few minutes with a pair of scissors to cut weeds off at ground level. Yes, my garden is small enough that this is fairly practical, and keeping their roots helps the soil.

    Anyway, back inside with a hot cup of chai and pale sunlight coming through the door. When my fingers get too cold to type I will shut up again and turn the heater back on.

    Anzac, it was only a tiny burn, all better now. Thankyou.

    Congratulations for keeping on keeping on. Slow weight loss is such a good strategy, and especially when it gets so slow that the behaviours become our new normal and our brain gradually changes its idea of what is normal too. Yes! 93kg is better than 95kg! Cheers and medals for you. I hope that jacket does up easily soon.

    I’m also watching Masterchef and Have You Been Paying Attention (the week’s news with a panel of comedians, Thin). But then I am still a free-to-air TV watcher, except I was so delighted to watch ‘Deadloch’ on Prime thanks to my daughter.

    Neil, I am so glad all the tests came back without anything to worry you. How are you going now? I’d have gone for a week with no gluten and no added sugar and then made another strategy depending on how that went. I find a NO is easier than a as-little-as-possible.

    (Just realised your answer might be in your next post that I will get to soon, haha).

    Yes, yum that spinach and feta combo! And hooray for a glasshouse for that tamarillo tree.

    3. LJoyce, clever laptop manipulation. Haha. I hope emails are all sorted for another year.

    Your pie plate spanikopitas sound so easy. I have a recipe done like that on a smaller scale with muffin tins. There is a cauliflower filling and another choice. I keep planning to try them, but I haven’t got around to it yet.

    My daughter is giving me her 3 in 1 microwave oven. The airfryer function isn’t fantastic but I will like trying the airfryer and oven options rather than having my big oven on to cook one spanakopita etc. Chicken skewers sound good! Please tell me other things you find it useful for!

    Well I have got to the end of the page (apart from the bots) so I will finish up here and get my little meal. I’ll tackle the next page tomorrow lovely people.

    Sending out good wishes to everybody

    Hello all in the Southern Hemisphere… Im not in Aus or NZ but in South Africa – any other Saffas here ? Just started this at the beginning of July – so 4 fast days only so far and doing OK.
    I am looking for dinner recipes that are family friendly – something I can make for the 3 of us and portion out so that I get my allocation of +/- 300cal, So far , I have chicken stir fry and chickpea & cauliflower curry. But I need a few more suggestions. So any thoughts will be greatly appreciated. Have a super weekend !

    Thank you all, for the warm welcome back. I feel like I’m back home. I spent years talking to all of you here. When things got so overwhelming in 2021 my eating and my posting both went off. I spent some time on the Alzheimer’s forums getting information and help on what things we could do. Nice people there, but everyone is depressed and at their wits end dealing with caregiving issues. And friends IRL tend to drop away after a while because they don’t know what to say. It’s good to know all of you are still here. Being back here to a familiar place with people I care about is a good place to be. And there are other things to think about besides caregiving. He sleeps soundly once he is in bed and I’ve always been a night owl so that works.

    So today was my second FD for this week. My first was on Tuesday instead of Monday like I always did before. But next week it will go back to Monday I think. It will be interesting to see if I lost anything today. I weigh myself every day.

    I’m still reading past posts and trying to catch up. Cinque, I am so sorry to hear about Miso. She had such a good life with you and she seemed like such a character. Losing a pet is like losing a family member. It is so difficult. You took such good care of her.

    LJ, I watched some of the videos you posted from your travels.mYou had emailed several pictures to me but I don’t think you sent the Penguin video. It’s so beautiful there. I’m so glad that you went as it was one of your lifelong dreams, and truly an adventure. I’m glad to hear that you are still making your beautiful cakes. It was always fun to see the photos of them.

    Thin, I read about your foot and all the challenges with getting that fixed. I hope getting into a specialist is easier there than here. It can take many months just to get an appointment. Being on the boat with all that going on sounds like a real challenge. I’m still catching up on the posts. Your one year canal boat adventure has certainly stretched out!

    Anzac, are you still working all those hours or have you found a job that is less demanding? (I will probably find out in all the old posts.)

    Neil, I’m sorry you had such an awful week. Everything seems to hit at once, having to work so many hours because coworkers are out, and then having to fix the car. Stress eating is a common response, but I hope you can get it back under control before too much damage is done.

    It was 42C today at its hottest point and tomorrow may be even hotter. I hate to see what our electric bill will be for the air conditioner. The last couple nights have been too warm to open windows and use the attic fan to bring in cooler air. We normally have comfortably cool nights. This extremely hot weather has been going on for more than 2 weeks. There have been several wild fires. But they seem to get them knocked down quickly except for a few in the mountains and forests. I know you have to worry about fires there in the summer too.

    Hi Suzy, no other saffas on here that I know about, but you’re most welcome, as long as you don’t mention the rugby world cup final 😉

    I used to cook up a meal, take out my portion, then bulk out the rest of my family’s meals with a carb source. Make a Bolognese, eat a cup or so of the meat sauce with some veggies, them serve the rest of the family with spaghetti. Make a lamb Rogan Josh, take out some, then serve the rest of the family with rice or naan. Lentil Dahl is a great dish to give you protein and fibre while being low calorie, and again you can bulk out your family’s portions with rice. Omelettes are quick and easy. Chili beans are great for protein and fibre. Cook up a batch and eat yours with extra veggies, then bulk out the family’s with tortillas, tacos, corn chips, etc.

    SuzyQ, Welcome! Where in SA do you live? Ours was a family of three when I started 5:2 ten years ago. Now it’s just me and OH and I do more or less what Neil described above except that I am very precise about my portion size and the calories it contains. I don’t count calories now because I’ve been using the same recipes on FDs for years. They mostly come from the Hairy Bikers’ dieter books. Years ago, we started a recipe page here. I hope you will find some inspiration from it. Here’s the link:
    https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/southern-hemispherites-fd-recipes/

    Cinque, that was a marathon post. How nice to get all your news. ‘Have You Been Paying Attention?’ sounds like something here called ‘Mock The Week’. Or is it ‘Have I Got News For you?’. There is so much interest in airfryers here. We can’t have one on the boat of course. I’m not much of a kitchen gadget person (grateful for a stick mixer) but I am curious – is there much washing up involved and do they save loads of calories or do they simply encourage you to indulge in foods like chips in the knowledge that it’s so much healthier than deep frying would be? Sorry for the poorly constructed sentence, it’s late and I’ve been watching Wimbledon for hours.

    CalifD, so good to hear from you. I don’t remember temperatures like that in California. You have been busy catching up! But that’s great if it gets your mind off challenging caring. You are obviously a really kind, caring person as is your sister. I bet it takes so much out of you. I know how frustrated I can become just talking to my step-mother on the phone and having to cover the same ground repeatedly. So 24/7 must be very challenging. I expect you have strategies. I’m so glad you’re going to start looking after yourself again now. How much weight do you hope to lose?

    Yes, as you’ve read, we’re still floating. I did get my foot issues sorted the second time around, thank you. The NHS is now the International Health Service and is completely broken. But even trying to pay for services privately was hopeless. It’s behind me now.

    Neil, ha ha, your welcome message. Sorry you had such a horrid week.

    LJ, glad your FDs are going well. It’s kind of you to make the family birthday cakes still. Yes, the Peak District is really pretty and because of the high terrain, we have super views from all angles.

    Well, it’s still raining. Flipping 13C the HIGH! Summer is a washout. Still lighting the fire every morning – mid-July! (SuzyQ, if you’re still reading, I live on a narrow boat in England but started the 5:2 in Perth, Oz).

    Welcome SuzyQ! I’m not even in the Southern Hemisphere, but found my way over here in May of 2017 when thin and I got into a discussion about cockatoos in another part of the forum and she invited me over here. I lost about 13kg on the 5:2 with the help of everyone here and kept it off for a few years. I’ve been away for a while, caring for my OH who has Alzheimer’s/dementia, but I realized I need to be back here with my friends again. Over the past 3 or 4 years years the weight has crept up and I realized tonight that I am I’m starting again at just 100 grams less than back in 2017. My knees hurt and standing up from a seated position requires help from both hands. Some of that is lack of exercise, but mostly I think it’s the extra 13kg. SuzyQ, I think you will like the 5:2 way of losing. It’s the easiest diet I’ve ever lost weight on.

    Cinque, great to see you again and thank you for the warm welcome back. I do need to be here. I used to spend hours here talking to you lot, far more time than I did with anyone else in my daily life. I think we all got to know each other very well. It’s good to look forward to posting here after everyone else is asleep.
    I never heard of a combo microwave and air fryer before You’ll have to report back on how well it works. Air fryers have certainly become popular these past few years. I know LJ had been using hers for lots of different things.
    You can send some of that rain and cold weather over here anytime you like. We had another day of 41 or 42C temps again today. These high temps have been going on for at least a couple of weeks. Thank goodness for air conditioning, but I am dreading this month’s bill. It is supposed to “cool down” to 37 tomorrow. Thin, no, these kinds of temps so many days in a row aren’t normal for Northern California. I hope it doesn’t become the new normal due to global warming.

    LJ, you are right about this being a good support group. With so much stress and all the problems and unpredictability of OH’s illness, it felt like I had nothing positive to say. The sadness, the fear and anger at the universe about why this was happening to us becomes overwhelming. But there are always some good things even on the most challenging days. And getting rid of this excess weight and being among friends is so important. I realize going back over the older posts that I’m not the only one with family health problems. It seems like nobody here has been untouched over the years. I’m just glad to see that you are all still here.

    Thin, I don’t know if you get AppleTV+ for a streaming option over there, but they had a three season series called Ted Lasso that was so good. I thought of you right away when we started watching it. It was about an American college football coach, who is unexpectedly recruited to coach a fictional English Premier League soccer team, He’s the sweetest guy, but knows nothing about soccer and the fans are relentless, yelling “Wanker! wanker wanker!” from the stands whenever they don’t agree with something he does. It’s hilarious. Is it steamed anywhere in Aus? Highly recommend viewing if available.

    Well yesterday’s FD resulted in a .3kg loss. Not as much as I had hoped, but along with the one on Tuesday that’s .6kg so far this week. I think last time I averaged about .7kg per week. I hope my knees start to appreciate it soon and it’s not just arthritis that’s making them hurt.

    CalifD, that’s just so hard to read. You’ve been going through a living hell. I’m so sorry. Is your OH still able to walk so that you could get him in the car for little outings or out into the garden? I know you’ve said that have you have to do everything for him. I can’t even imagine how frustrating and exhausting it must be for you. I think you’re right though – you’re just so much better placed to deal with it all when you’re in good shape yourself. Being overweight is so depressing in itself. Let alone all the physical issues it brings with it – such as joint pain, risk of diabetes, stroke and so on.

    So, good job with the loss so far. That 13kg will be gone in no time. I remember losing 2kg a month for the first year so you’ve done well. Is your sister also doing IF? She did it for a while with you but wasn’t so keen on posting here.

    Thanks for the streaming recommendation. I’m not sure about Apple TV but I bet it’s available. Our signal isn’t always the best. I became fed up with Netflix as I could never seem to find any good movies that we hadn’t already seen. And Prime is getting on my nerves with the increased monthly fee, extra charge for this and that, plus ads that suddenly come screaming at you from nowhere. We’re currently watching a new show called The Turkish Detective on BBC iplayer (I know you can’t get that outside the UK but it may be available elsewhere). It’s just a little bit different from the usual stuff. Did you enjoy Clarkson’s Farm? I was never a fan of Jeremy Clarkson in Top Gear but now I can’t get enough of him. He’s a very funny, articulate man and not afraid to speak his mind which is refreshing these days. UK farmers absolutely love him as the series did so much to highlight their issues.

    A glimmer of sunshine this evening. It makes me laugh when the forecast says it will finally become sunny at 8pm. Most other places I’ve lived, it’s been dark well before then.

    How about you SuzyQ? Still got the load shedding happening? For the rest of you, this is not a weight loss term but a power cut.

    FD for me tomorrow. Chicken Something as usual.

    Good morning everyone,

    Welcome SuzyQ, about time we had someone from South Africa here! How is it going?

    Well I have given up on the microwave-combo already. It has an annoying fan that blows for 3 minutes every time you microwave something for 2 minutes or more. I can’t bear it! So I am back to my old microwave, but when it carks it I will try a combo again.

    Neil, such a hard week. Well done for getting through it. I hope your boss has enough leader capability to make it up to you now, and make sure that sort of week doesn’t happen again. (Really hoping he could at least give you a $700 bonus). Good luck getting yourself centered again.

    LJoyce that carrot and walnut cake sounds so delicious. Ha yes, aren’t social expectations of children’s birthday cakes extraordinary these days.

    Cali, thankyou re Miso. There are still times I think I see her out of the corner of my eye (I have a little black cd player that sits on a small stool).

    I have quite bad LPR (Laryngopharyngeal reflux) now and I must have small meals so I am not doing much 5:2. It is keeping me so mindful and frugal in my eating that no-one has sent me off this forum (yet! Haha).

    Sympathy with that brutal hot weather. It is SO hard when the nights are hot too. I do hope a cool change comes soon.

    Congratulations on that loss. Half a kilogram a week is normal, if I remember rightly… or maybe that was normal for me. Doesn’t matter, it gets your excess weight off!

    Thin, you are right that ‘Have You Been Paying Attention’ is a Mock the Week type of show. It is from the Working Dog company (The Castle, Thank God You’re Here, Frontline etc) so it is homegrown and quite an institution now.

    It turns out an airfryer is just a very small efficient oven with a good fan.So I am sorry I am too annoyed to have fun figuring out what can be done in it.

    And yay, .5 a week, 2kg a month. perfect weightloss timeline.

    Cali, they now have 7 in 1 microwave-combos, how can we keep up?!

    Sending good wishes to your poor knees, I do hope the pain can lessen.

    I’m a bit distracted, I am cooking a chicken dish, chatting to my granddaughter on my ipad (luckily she is also distracted, drawing and telling me what she is drawing) and trying to finish off this. Sorry if I have missed some things or said things twice!

    Bye now

    PS At least the microwave mix up meant I got to clean the space (it was disgusting under it) and also discover the build up of fluff on the ventilation panel at the back of my microwave (it is amazing it could still work!).

    Good morning and thank you Cinque, Neil and Calidreaming for connecting 🙂

    Im on a FD today. Its either Monday/ Wed or Tues/ Thurs depending on if I am having my Dad over for dinner on a Tueday. My mom has her Rotary Club dinner meetings every 2nd week and so Dad comes for dinner to save him cooking for 1.

    Trying tofu scramble for breakfast with mushrooms and tomato. I like to do a 200 breakie and 300 dinner. Not sure how everone else does their FD. So far this is working best , but this is only day 5 LOL.

    @neil – how was the Aus rugby this weekend – sadly we lost to Ireland 🙁 Very close game though.

    I wish everyone a super week. Stay strong and positive x

    Good evening everyone.

    I’m trying to type while eating my FD dinner. Probably not the most sensible choice, but I don’t want to run out of time to post like last night. Tonight is a warm spinach salad with greek chicken and a yoghurt-lemon dressing.

    SuzyQ, hello, it’s wonderful to finally have someone from South Africa on the forum. We are normally Aussies with a kiwi or two (at the moment that’s just Neil) and a couple of others in the northern hemisphere who are very much at home with us.
    I don’t know if anyone else eats breakfast on FDs, but you need to do what gets you through the days and is sustainable over the long term. I do the opposite, and eat as late as possible on FDs. For a 500 cal FD I allow up to 100cal for milk in hot drinks (mostly cups of tea), 50 calories for a piece of fruit in the afternoon and 350 calories for dinner. At the moment the weather is very cold here and I’m finding it easier to do 3 x 800cal FDs instead of the usual 2 x 500cal FDs. The only change for me on FDs is that instead of the piece of fruit I’m having a hot lunch – mostly either veggie soup or porridge. (This doesn’t usually amount to 800 calories, but as it’s more than 500, I feel safer adding a third fast day.)
    I’ve never tried scrambling tofu, although with the egg shortage here at present, it might become necessary.
    As to what I cook for FD dinners. I use warm salads – a big bowl of leaves with tomato and cucumber. Then a marinate a small half chicken breast or lamb steak and pan fry it. I add greek yoghurt, lemon juice and a little olive oil to the pan juices to make a dressing and finely slice the meat. When tossed through the salad it warms it up enough to be palatable in cold weather. I also do similar things to Neil – make a normal dish such as curry, chilli, bolognese etc but have a small portion with low cal veg rather than rice or pasta.

    Cali, I hope 5:2 is feeling comfortable again. Well done on the weight loss, half a kilo sounds realistic to me.
    The heat sounds awful, I hope the fires leave you alone this summer.
    I will hunt out those missing penguin videos – I will try to text them. I think I had trouble with attachment size when trying to use email.

    Cinque, you perfectly summed up an airfyer. I think the name confuses people, it is a little oven with a very powerful fan. I use mine more for baking/roasting than I do for “frying”. I have accumulated a collection of small oven safe trays dishes and ramekins that fit into my airfryer basket that allow me to use it like an oven. I cook everything from a single serve roast dinner to shepherds pie in it. As someone who lives alone, being able to bake a single serve without using the large oven is enormously useful and efficient – much faster too. Things also taste better when freshly baked rather than reheating leftovers in the microwave.

    Neil, I hope you are having a better week. When it’s too cold, I keep reminding myself of what it must be like for you in Dunedin.

    Thin, your 13C summer days sound a bit bleak, I’m annoyed with similar winter temperatures here – because of the rain. I wouldn’t mind if it was sunny.

    The cat is pestering me for her evening treat – a little tube of fishy flavoured mousse. I’d better go and get her one – patience is not her strong point.

    Take care all.

    Well, we finally got a break on the scorching weather, if you can call 37C and 38 a break. But it usually cools to about 17-22 latest night so we can use the whole house fan (attic fan) at night.

    LJ, your cat sounds like she’s gettin spoiled with little tubes of fish flavoured mousse. Lol. Your warm salads with chicken sound great for FD’s. Doing three 800 cal FD’s sounds like a good idea. Is it just as effective as the two 500?

    Cinque, I had to laugh at your comments about all the disgusting fluff and dirt under your old microwave. Moving our refrigerator to get behind it almost requires a face mask, which we have a great supply of, thanks to Covid. I dread going behind there!

    Suzy, I sometimes make tofu scrambles but never thought to do it for a FD. Great choice because you can add tomatoes and all kinds of low calorie vegetables for very few points. I often will eat a whole bag of frozen Brussels sprouts or broccoli, about 454 grams because the bulk fills me up for few calories. And I like both.

    Thin, I thought we had watched Clarkson’s Farm, but only watched part of an episode a long while back. Not sure why we stopped, but started watching again yesterday. Ithink we got through 3 or 4 episodes. It’s very good! I can’t believe how many things go wrong for him, trying to take on farming on a large scale with little to no experience. The sheep farming was hysterical with all the sheep jumping over the fence. Seems like a sheep dog is a necessity. We started watching another series, a new one, on AppleTV called Sunny. Sci-fi with a household robot. I tend to like stories with friendly robots.

    Well back to my Monday FD’s. I had almost forgotten the feelings of fasting and making it through the day on such a small amount of food. Hope I lose more than I did last week. .6kg.

    SuzyQ,

    I like to wait until about 5pm and have all my calories together on a FD but then, at my new weight, there are precious few! It’s the only downside of being slim that I can think of. When I was allocated 500 cals, I would eat cauliflower soup at 2pm and the rest of the cals for dinner (minus the equivalent cals of whatever milk I’d had in tea/coffee). Like many people here, I find that, once I start eating, it awakens the ‘hunger dragon’.

    You asked for family friendly recipe ideas – I think you may have overlooked my welcome post above (10:58 pm, 12 Jul 24) in which I gave you the link to our recipe page. You will find many recipes there. Feel free to add to add to them. We tried to keep that thread chat-free so that the recipes are easy to find and in the same format with calories provided.

    CalifD, I loved your synopsis of Clarkson’s Farm. The rapport he develops with young farmer Kaleb Cooper is priceless. Kaleb is a celebrity in his own right now! We were moored very close to Diddly Squat Farm this past winter so it seemed all the more relatable.

    Cinque, years ago a friend was lending me her furniture ‘dolly’. When I asked if she was sure she wouldn’t need it over the weekend, she replied, “Oh no, I only ever use it about once a month to move the fridge so I can clean behind it”. I realised then what a disgusting housekeeper I must be – I only clean behind the fridge when moving house (or buying a new fridge)!

    LJ/Cinque, thanks for the info on airfryers.

    Hello everyone else. Anzac, where did you go?

    Thin, I must be a disgusting housekeeper too. Moving house or buying a new frig is also about the only reason I move mine. Well, occasionally when it’s “making a funny noise” we’ll move it out and vacuum the coils in back. It’s never pretty! I always think of you when discovering something forgotten in the back of the refrigerator too, or in the pantry, never opened, with an expiration date of 2005. I remembering comparing to see who had the oldest stuff. Lol! Living on the boat must have cured you of that though, having so little storage space.

    Well, I lost absolutely nothing on my FD yesterday. And I ate only 465 calories. I know that happens sometimes, but I don’t recall it happening this early on. Oh well, maybe it’ll show up tomorrow.

    Morning all

    Well this week has been better than last week. We’re back to full quota at work (although the guy with busted ribs is popping vast quantities of painkillers) I’ve managed to take my bike the last few days, which always helps raise my mood. My weigh-in this morning I was down 1.2 kilograms, so I wiped off the weight I gained the previous week, I hope I can keep things going.

    Suzy, I don’t know about the Aussie rugby, I’m from New Zealand and we had a couple of tight wins over England the last couple of weeks, which I’m always pleased about. I believe Aussie are back on winning ways again as well. Are you vegan if you’re going for a tofu scramble over eggs, or is it purely a calorie thing?

    Thin, we have to clean behind our fridge occasionally. We sometimes get mice in our house and they seem to love living behind our fridge, so it really does need to be pulled out and cleaned every time we see our cat crouching down and staring behind it.

    Cali, there is sometimes a delay with fasting and loss, I guess it’s if you’re holding on to a bit of extra water, but since I only weigh once a week, I guess I wouldn’t know.

    Ljoyce, I tend to eat breakfast on fasts these days, but because my fasts are 800 calories it’s usually a 200, 300, 300 split of food. Breakfast is a couple of eggs, or blueberries and yoghurt. Lunch is a bit of grilled meat and salad, then dinner is a bit more meat and veggies.

    Well, back to work. I’m busy this week planning my October bike trip and getting my younger son sorted for sitting his learner’s licence. It did surprise me when he was filling out the application form and asked “Dad, how do you spell my middle name?” when I stared at him incredulously, he followed it up with “Well I never use my middle name”. Sure, but you should at least know how to spell it. His middle name is Lachlan. I said to my wife that we should have given him a 3-letter middle name like his first name “Jay” so he might remember how to spell it.

    Have a great one everyone

    It is just so wonderful to have you back with us Cali. I agree with Neil that the weight sometimes drops a day or two later. Same with overindulging can hit you later too

    So busy at work so just a quick post. I mentioned that I was hoping to get into the brand new jacket I bought back in 2019 but I tried it on the other day with a zip up fleece on and couldn’t get my arm in the sleeve so I have given up as it was causing too much stress. I found another on online and it has arrived and is too big! No probs, I can get someone to run it in a bit. It fits well up top but looks ridiculous at the bottom. It was originally $150 and reduced to $60 so I can’t complain

    Our fridge gets moved only if we have a lizard sneak in the back door and run under it. It is quite disgusting but…..I just don’t care!

    Welcome SuzyQ, this is such a lovely and friendly forum. Good luck with 5:2. I lost 15 kilos in 2019 and sadly put most of it back on but I am never going to stop trying

    Sorry your summer is pretty bleak Thin, that must be so frustrating given the short summer England has anyway

    LJ we use our air-fryer in a similar way to you. I thought we would use it a lot more but it is handy for when we do use it

    Must run, promise to try harder to post more

    Happy Wednesday and Fast day to those busy with one.

    I have discovered a few things to avoid on a Fast day …. shopping for groceries is a BIG NO and the cooking channel with any jamie Oliver shows , Bake-off , Tournament of Champions or basically any cooking series. But how does one avoid their 10 year old who is permanently hungry and eating? Pick uo from school – wants a snack, finishes ballet , wants a snack… and the “what time is dinner?” question 2 hours before dinner time. Heaven help me. But I love her to bits and bless her , she is as skinny as a rake ! (like i was once LOl)

    So about the tofu Neil… I use it as an egg substitute – I cannot eat egg. I just cannot stomach them since a child. As an adult I can manage French toast and Quiche , but only if I cannot smell or taste egg. Definitly not vegan. My love for bacon, lamb and biltong (SA dried meat) is too strong.

    Thinatlast,thank you for the link and welcome. I did miss it , but I have been having issues with my server and emails and all sorts of IT fun for a few days. I find a protein breakfast at 10:30ish kind of keeps me going until dinner time at about 7. The carb heavy breakfast wasnt as good.

    Good Luck to those doing the “behind/ under” fridge cleaning. We try to do ours at the change of seasons or when spring cleaning the fridge or when forced to because the pen from the shopping list has rolled under the fridge.

    Hugs all and stay positive x

    I loved all the fridge stories! Especially the lizards, Anzac. CalifD, eew, did I really have something in the fridge from 2005? I am quite particular about cleaning the inside but there could have been jars of who knows what. You’re right, there’s no chance of hoarding with this bar fridge that I have to use now.

    SuzyQ, yes, it can be tricky at first to watch family members eating – at least yours is a little ten year old ballet dancer. Spare a thought for Neil with his two hungry teenage lads. You’ll get to a point where nothing bothers you on a FD – in fact, it’s quite a smug feeling to be in control of food rather than the other way around as most of us have been in the past. If I am ever feeling that I’m missing out, I just politely explain that it’s a fast day and that I’d love to save it until tomorrow. Straight into the fridge or freezer. I never feel obligated to eat.

    Neil, that was such a funny story about your boy not knowing how to spell his middle name.

    We’re stuck on the Peak Forest Canal near Manchester for a day or two due to a downed tree. At last, three warm days without rain.

    Feed them at that age when they’re asking for food, they usually need it. As thin says, my younger boy is 16, going through a growth spurt, and trains and coaches parkour several times a week and is constantly eating. There’s been times when I’me made a whole roasting dish full of pasta bake. My wife, older son (18), and I have eaten half of it between us. Then my younger boy has come home from work, eaten the other half by himself, and then stuck his nose in the fridge to see if there’s anything for dessert. This is the same boy that when he was 10, asked me how long dinner was going to be, I told him it would be ready in 10 minutes, he paused, then asked if he could have a sandwich while he waited.

    Thin, I think that 2005 expiration date was actually in my pantry when we were trying to outdo each other with old food items. Jars and bottles of condiments are the things most likely to grow old in my fridge, especially more unusual items that I bought for a specific recipe.

    Neil, I had to laugh at your son forgetting the spelling of his middle name, but he’s right, they are usually written as just an initial. I love the name Lachlan. Where does it come from? You’re right about weight loss or gain sometimes showing up many days later. Yesterday wasn’t a FD for me, but my weight was exactly the same as the day before, after the FD, even though I was eating normally. I even had a small amount of ice cream last night. And my jeans feel slightly looser. Still, it would be nice to see some movement on the scales.

    Anzac, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a lizard behind our fridge. We used to have a lot of little lizards in our back garden but we had a few cats from the neighborhood hanging out and I think they probably chased them away. I noticed a few lizards with part of their tails missing. I think they may grow back. We would occasionally find a lizard on the kitchen floor.

    Suzy, I use tofu quite often. I’ve made chocolate pudding with the silken tofu. Just add cocoa and whatever sweetener you like, and put it in the food processor til it’s completely blended. I’ve also made onion dip with it. Just add a packet of dry onion soup mix and blend it. It’s hard to tell the difference between the version with sour cream an cream cheese. Tofu is so bland that it takes on the flavor of stronger flavors that you mix it with. Silken tofu can even be mixed into mashed potatoes to up the protein content. But I usually eat the firm tofu, cut into cubes with soy sauce, garlic and a bit of lemon pepper spice.

    LJ, I’ve been looking at the penguin videos you sent. It was funny when you said that visitors were required to stay 3 meters away from them, but it was sometimes difficult when they were walking all around in different directions.

    Intesha, I’m happy to hear that you are getting the chance to travel, but so sorry to hear about your father. Turkey must be a fascinating place to visit. I haven’t gone back and read all the posts yet, but hope you are having a wonderful time. You deserve it. When you get back and find a place to live, I will be looking forward to seeing more or your fabulous cake and cookie decorating.

    Morning Cali,

    Lachlan is an old Scottish name, and unsurprisingly means “from the land of lakes”

    I like it because it’s usually shortened to “Lachie (Locky)” which is cute

    Good morning everyone,

    SuzyQ that 200 breakfast and 300 dinner sounds so good.

    As LJoyce said, the trick is to make it as easy and sustainable as possible. Nearly everyone needs enough in the evening to make sure they sleep at night so it makes sense to have the 300 then.

    It is so good that we can just try different things, different days, different meals until we figure out what works for us.

    My classic fast day last meal was always miso soup with veggies and yuba (dried tofu skin).

    And my favourite part of doing 5:2: waking up the morning after a fast day and feeling so empty and light!

    Here is the link to the recipes thread again: https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/southern-hemispherites-fd-recipes/

    LJoyce, lucky Sylvie the cat with that mousse!

    Cali, wo you can tell it has been rough when 37c is a welcome change.
    Yikes, who knows what is going on behind my fridge! :O
    All power to your fast days. It might not pay off on your daily weighing, but it always pays off long term.

    Thin,
    You have reminded me how having pretty much the same thing every fast day was not only easy, and saved a lot of trying to add up calories each time, but it made fast days a little set marker in the week with no anxiety about managing kitchen stuff, because it was all already sorted.

    I am super impressed with your friend who cleaned behind the fridge every month. I rather wish I was that sort of person. (But I am not.)

    Hooray for warm days, and Peak Forest Canal sounds beautiful.

    Neil, I am so glad to hear about your better week. Hooray. (Sympathy to broken-rib man though).
    Haha re Lachlan. It does sound like it should be spelt with an ‘o’ and maybe a ‘k’ in there too. And then if you think of O’Loughlin surname it can get even more confusing.

    And another haha with teenage eating! Aren’t they powerhouses.

    Hi Anzac, O that jacket! I am glad you didn’t pay full price.
    Keep on keeping on, you do so well considering how high pressured your work life is.
    Did you manage fast days this week?

    Haha SuzyQ, I am up to your ‘things not to do on a fast day’ post. Wasn’t I clever to start 5:2 after my daughter left home!
    I am also someone who watches a lot of cooking shows and reads a lot of recipe books (my favourite books to get from the library) and yes, best avoided on fast days!
    I think I was lucky though that I found it fairly easy just to know I wasn’t eating that day, and be firm. I could go out with friends and happily sit on a coffee while they ate.
    Mind you, I did a lot of thinking about what I might eat the next day!

    I am so glad you worked out you can have tofu instead of eggs. What a versatile food it is!

    Cali, glad to see your call out to Intesha. Intesha, time we had an update! I am so keen to hear how you are going, and hoping you have found a good place to live.

    Well, it is still wintery here but the sun is out!
    Sending best wishes to everyone

    Welcome back Cali and hello Suzy. Just a quick check in.

    Still struggling with the cold gloomy weather here. I’ve never known a time where the sun has been awol for so long, it’s unheard of in these parts. I been using the dryer so much the last month as it’s impossible to get the clothes dry on the line, overcast, drizzly rain on and off, not enough to put water in the tanks unfortunately.

    Weight remaining steady as I missed my last planned extended fast so no loss to report in the last few weeks.

    Sleeping really well, struggling to stay awake past 8.30 pm lately which is not a bad thing as I’m up at 5.30 am everyday so very happy with an average of 9 hours most nights. I’ve cut back on how late I have cups of tea, nothing after 5pm to try to avoid too many middle of the night loo visits 😂😂

    G’day, it’s great to see you! I’ll trade you some of that cold gloomy weather for the dry, scorching sun forecasted at about 38 today. We had several days in the low to mid 30’s this week, so that was a break. Glad to hear that you’re sleeping well and that your weight is holding steady.

    Cinque, I sometimes wonder what is going on behind my fridge too. Who knows what comes out in the darkness of night? I hope it isn’t anything like the huge bug my sister saw when she was taking the dogs out late last night. I think it was some type of beetle with long antennae. I’m sure it was over 5cm. It was just sitting there. I’m pretty sure they can fly so we went back it the house and left it alone.

    I agree with all of you that keeping FD’s simple. Last time I almost always ate a tin of salmon that was 160 calories for lunch and a can of Lite soup, cheese enchilada and vegetable or something like that which was under 200 calories. I made up the difference with vegetables or fruit. They no longer make that soup but I’ve been trying a couple of others. I like having everything I need stocked in the pantry so I don’t have to make any decisions for those 2 days per week.

    Today is a FD. Yesterday I ate a fair amount of food, even some ice cream after dinner. I felt really full when I went to sleep and figured I would show a gain in the morning. But this morning I was 100grams less! Go figure.

    Have a good day everyone.

    My FD yesterday resulted in a .5kg loss. Finally! Maybe now my weight will continue downward.

    Hope everyone is doing well and losing or maintaining. It’s about 39C here today, so staying indoors in the air conditioning, trying not to think what the bill will be. It’s been so hot this month!

    Good morning all.
    It’s been been a cold wet and windy spell here. Still showers today, but I just managed a short walk with only a brief shower to dampen me.
    Yesterday I had a day in the hills planned with a friend, which included her birthday present – high tea at Karkoo Nursery in Oakbank. (Yes Thin, I remember that “high tea” means something entirely different in Britain.) It was a terrible weather day for the hills. Especially as I wanted to go to several nurseries to look for camellias and gardenias (for a hedge along the back fence). The afternoon tea was lovely though – and too much food of course. Needless to say, today is a FD.

    Cali, what a relief that the scales are finally behaving appropriately.
    If you can’t find a suitable tinned soup, is making your own an option? (I reliase finding the alone time to cook can be difficult.) I make a stockpot full of soup and freeze lots of portions from it. There are some soup recipes on our recipe site https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/southern-hemispherites-fd-recipes/. I also have recipes for chilli bean soup and broccoli cheese soup that are both filling and delicious – I can work out the calories and post them if you are interested.
    I’m finding it hard to get my head around the temperatures you are experiencing. It’s been so cold and wet here.

    GDSA, glad to hear your weight is stable despite a missed fast. Good to be sleeping well too – I hope that means you have fewer stressful things in your life now.

    Neil, I got a bit of a shock when you said your sons were 16 and 18. I have clear memories of you describing them as much younger boys when you first joined us here.

    Cinque, yes my cat is exceedingly spoiled, although you wouldn’t know it from her behaviour. When it comes to begging for treats she’s a bit like Anzac’s Maxx – Does a good impression of a poor deprived animal who isn’t fed properly and desperately needs treats. Despite the treats, I do manage her overall daily calorie intake to account for those extras. I do a better job of keeping her within the weight range the vet advises, than I do with my own weight.

    Time to go and make my second pot of tea for the day. I’m not hungry yet, so I might even manage a 500cal day.

    Take care all.

    Good morning everyone from cold cold Melbourne.
    Although much better today than it has been (it has been ‘feels like 4c’ for several days, even when it got up to 11c).
    Cali, can I take 5 degrees from inside your house, to put through mine? It would make a lovely difference for both of us.

    Gday, yay for such good sleeping. It is such a precious thing to have. I have complex sleeping problems since I got ME/CFS and am amazed I didn’t appreciate a good nights sleep previously. And haha, doesn’t a late cup of tea irritate the bladder! So annoying.

    Same as you with the washing here, although I have an excellent clothes horse so my heater dries the clothes while it keeps me warm. Yay.

    Cali, what a nice surprise your post icecream weighing was. I bet it has shown up now but also gone away again thanks to fast day.

    LJoyce, gardenia is one of my very favourite scents, and I love its beautiful white flower too. I must get one again.

    I see the soups you added to the recipes thread. Lovely. Oh isn’t soup yummy. I have a delicious one on the go at the moment made with all the bits and pieces I could find, but the main ingredient – black-eyed beans.

    I had a bad day on Friday. Luckily I had no car and it was too cold and far to walk to the shops, but I was super hungry in a binge way. I did the best I could with my poor self but I ate a lot more than I needed and felt crook yesterday as a result. Back to normal today thank goodness and I don’t think my esophagus is too inflamed either.

    Sending out best wishes to everyone and all the cats and dogs and to any wonderful wildlife about too (but maybe not to the creatures behind our fridges 😉 )

    I am tidying the kitchen with my ‘just 3 things’ and looking at the weak sun coming through the window and thinking to go and check on my little garden.

    Sending best wishes for a good day and special cheers for those who are fasting today.

    G’day everyone. Yesterday I gained back those .5kg that I lost on Thurs FD and the scales stuck there again today. But I’ve been eating sensibly so I’m hoping to lose it on my FD tomorrow.

    LJ, I’m sorry you had such crummy weather for your high tea with your friend. I wish I could trade some of that with our hot dry temps. We got a little break today, only about 36C highs today but they’re forecasting around 39 for the next two days. I could make my own soups, it’s not just caring for OH, DS can watch him, but everything else to do with the house like repairs or finding someone to do them, paying bills, etc are my job now since he is unable. Then there’s also the lack of freezer space to store a week or more worth of soups. We have so many frozen vegetables and meat in our freezer. The canned soups are easy. I found a Manhattan clam chowder that’s pretty good, But I will try some of those soups you posted for regular family meals. Thank you for posting them.

    Cinque, what is it about cold weather, especially cold rainy weather that fires up the hunger dragons? I guess that’s one good thing about this hot weather. I’m glad you’re feeling better now. I would gladly trade 5 degrees with you! I think that would keep us both comfortable!

    Afternoon all

    My younger boy managed to pass his learner’s licence test on Friday so now I have to face the daunting prospect of teaching him to drive. First port of call was calling up our insurance company to boost the cover on our car.

    Our inspirational leader (the one who volunteered us for extra testing a couple of weeks ago) led our stand-up meeting this morning, and announced he had heard that many people in the department were feeling a bit run down at the moment. His recommendation was that everyone should go somewhere in the weekend to unwind, and suggested the Cardrona ski-field where he had been the previous weekend…as if the rest of us can afford to just drop everything and swan off for a skiing trip whenever we feel like it. The guy is completely out of touch.

    Cali, it really is stressful when you have to deal with everything yourself. They talk about the mental load in relationships, not just the physical work, but dealing with all the stuff you’re talking about as well. Hopefully you get a break sometimes to help decompress.

    Well I hope everyone had a good weekend, I’ll catch up with you all later.

    Day after FD for me and I dropped a kg. But I woke up hungry in the night so it wasn’t the best effort – worth it on the scales though.

    Neil, fine if the company would like to send you guys on that skiing trip, expenses paid. What a wally. Congrats to Jay for passing his written test. Sounds like Australia then where parents are encouraged to teach their children to drive – passing down all the bad driver habits acquired over decades and creating tension in the home! Good luck.

    CalifD, so sorry that you’re not getting instant results from your IF efforts. Have you gone back to the beginning and started strict calorie counting just to be sure? When we came back from Cuba, I reverted to 5:2 and was only losing 400g after a FD for weeks. I normally drop 900g. I finally discovered that I’d been using FF coconut milk in a recipe that I’d depended on repeatedly. The difference in calories was astounding. I only use FF products so i’ve dropped that as a FD meal.

    Cinque, how is the ‘just three things’ kitchen clean-up coming along?

    We’ve had a challenging few days. Firstly, cruising on the Ashton canal known for gangs of young thugs boarding your boat and helping themselves to whatever they want as you pass through locks or throwing rocks at your solar panels to smash them. It’s a lot of locks (18) to get through in a day as you can’t stay anywhere overnight safely. Operating the anti-vandal mechanisms on the locks makes double the work.

    We had no incidents but it was a tense day cruising through what is essentially a floating garbage dump. We helped some German hire boaters who’d run over an entire mattress and got the coils caught in their prop. We were already exhausted but you can’t pass another boater in trouble. We gave them a tow.

    Sometimes England feels so alien to me. I just want to be amongst people who dress, speak and look like me and share my values. I want my tribe. We moored on a pontoon where no one could get to the boat – but we couldn’t get off it either which was fine with us. We had two G&Ts and went to bed.

    The second day, we left central Manchester at daybreak to start on the Rochdale canal. I had to step over sleeping homeless people to operate the locks and by 9am had already been abused by drunks climbing on our boat. OH had to go down the weed hatch every few hundred yards to clear the fouled propeller. He pulled out an entire tyre, dog leads, ropes, clothing, fishing line, plastic, metal. We had to dodge shopping trolleys, motor bikes and who knows what else. It could have been the Mekong.

    At one lock, we couldn’t open the gate because a couch had been dumped in front of it. It took us 11.5 hours to complete 17 locks to get to a safe-ish place to moor. Yesterday we covered five locks in five hours due to low water levels. Vandals had opened the paddles letting out all the water so OH had to walk ahead and let some water through so we could float. We’re now in the countryside and OK but the canal is closed at the other end due to low water – and we really don’t want to repeat that exercise.

    The less glamorous aspects of narrow boating!

    Thin that sounds like the ultimate, absolute nightmare. Apart from the physical drudge work the fear of being robbed or worse made my blood run cold. I hope everything works out from here

    Isn’t it funny Neil when you come across people who are so incredibly out of touch. Congrats for your son passing his learners – good luck with the lessons (yikes)

    Oops dinner is ready, must run! More tomorrow

    Yesterday wasn’t a FD, today is. But this morning I had a .6kg weight loss over yesterday, which makes it .7kg lost since last Monday morning. Finally! I was ready to give those scales a good kick! I will hopefully lose some more on today’s FD. Thin, I count calories strictly on FD’s, but the rest of the week I eat what I want, just not too much of it. That’s what worked last time. I do get a lot less exercise now since I spend about 5 hours hand feeding OH. But it’s the only way to get food into him. And he’s been losing weight anyway, not a good thing because he isn’t overweight. I often sit and type on the iPad while he’s chewing.
    Thin, that trip through the Rochdale Canal sounds awful. Certainly not for the faint of heart! There was no way to avoid it? I hope you’re in a safer spot now.

    Neil, congrats to your son on passing his learners permit test. Was the additional auto insurance for him to drive expensive? Car insurance over here has been increasing quickly, especially in California. Everything seems to be going up quickly.
    Have all of you noticed big increases in food? Here, my grocery bill has gone up at least 30-40% over the past couple of years. Restaurants are even more expensive. We only do take out, but not very often anymore.

    More hot weather today and for the next couple of days. Highs are around 38 to 40. I don’t remember such a hot summer in the past. I’m still waiting for some of that cool Aussie weather!

    I hope you are all going well and keeping the hunger dragons under control. It’s so good to be back here again. I missed each and every one of you.

    Anzac, it’s always good to see you posting. Hurry back.

    CalifD, I felt so sad for you when I read that just one aspect of your OH’s care takes 5 hours a day. Are there no local organisations that can send in help to relieve you of some of this? Would some high calorie liquid products lessen the process somewhat? Your care is exceptional but you must consider your own health too.

    Yes, the price of food has increased a lot since we first came here. And our friends in Perth reported the same over the five years. Restaurant meals have gone up too. We could get a very good pub meal for £10 when we first arrived, now you’re hard-pressed to find anything under £16 – and that would be for a basic burger and chips which I don’t eat. First it was blamed on covid, then Putin’s war. People got paid for sitting on their bums during covid and now they don’t want to work. Many pubs closed down for good.

    Australia wouldn’t give OH a pension (after 30 years of paying taxes) so we are living on his US pension, accessed with a credit card meaning that every single penny spent attracts a foreign exchange rate and a cc fee. We both worked long and hard in the US in our younger days, so we qualify for a decent rate – whether there will be any US social security left by the time I start to claim is the question.

    The network is a spaghetti maze of canals so, in order to cruise the beautiful parts, it’s necessary to pass through some bigger cities. Of course, many of them grew in prosperity because of the development of the canal network enabling goods like coal, stone and cotton to be moved. Many have very interesting canal side histories. Birmingham, for example, has the brilliant Black Country Living Museum – an entire village set in the 1800s where we can moor to explore over several days. The outer suburbs seem to be where the problems lie. We’re crossing the Pennines now and the scenery is spectacular. A lot of double wide locks though. We have seen two boats in four days which is telling of the challenges.

    I forgot to say that while we were negotiating those dodgy areas, we missed summer. It warmed up to 27C and stopped raining for three days. I hope your temperatures cool soon. Thinking of you and hope life gets easier.

    Hello All. Hope you are all well ?

    Just a quick ‘pop-in” to say Hi and thank goodness for herbal teas. As a non water and coffee drinker these are definitly coming to the rescue. I have found a Tetleys green apple one that is very nice and a Lipton ginger and lemon. I am strictly a black tea with milk and sugar girl. Can quite happily drink 6-8 cups a day especially in winter , so I needed to find something that didnt use up my precious calories . Ta Da ! Herbal teas for the win.

    Just wondering… does anyone else get little headaches in the morning after a FD or even during a FD ? Nothing serious enough to take a pill , but a little niggle?

    SuzyQ, I used herbal teas on FDs while I was losing weight. I’d stock up on some expensive ones and it would seem like a real treat to choose one. 3 calories I think they were. Yes, I sometimes get the beginnings of a migraine on a FD but a big glass of water usually ends it before it amounts to anything (of no use to you if you don’t drink water). How is your weight loss going?

    Morning all, I got a bit of a shock to the system this morning, up 1.5 kilograms from last week. It’s been a real rollercoaster for the last month, bouncing up and down the same 1.5 kilos.

    Thin, you can do either teaching the kids, or professional lessons, or a combination of both. Since lessons are $85 each, we’re going to go for a mixture of both. I’ll take him out and show him the basics, then we’ll get some professional lessons for him in a few weeks (they have a 6 week waiting list for lessons), then he can practice with family members until his test.

    Cali, I had cheap insurance because I’m the only one that drives our car, so I had myself listed as the only named driver. I had to get him actually named on our insurance, which has increased the cost. Our insurance has skyrocketed in the last decade, but that is because of the incidents that insurance companies have had to shell out for. The Christchurch and Kaikoura earthquakes caused billions of dollars of damage, then cyclone Gabrielle last year caused billions more in damage that the insurance companies had to pay out for, which means everyone’s insurance bills go up. Our food bills have also been high because Cyclone Gabrielle that hit one of our main food producing areas and there was a shortage of fresh produce, but it has been coming back down again recently.

    Suzy, the headache could be a few things, a bit of dehydration as Thin says, a big glass of water could solve that (or not since you say you don’t drink water). It could also be sugar or caffeine withdrawal. If you’re going from 6 cups of tea with milk and sugar a day to nothing, that’s quite a drop in both sugar and caffeine consumption. You could try reducing your tea consumption on non-fast days by swapping out every second cup with herbal tea, and see if that helps you feel better after fast days. It could also be the beginnings of keto flu. If you go really low-carb on your fast days but usually eat plenty of carbs, you can slip into what’s called keto-flu where your body uses up your stored glycogen and then starts switching to burning fat you can get hot flushed skin, headaches, nausea, dizziness, etc.

    Well happy fasting everyone, and have a great day

    Gosh how quickly and easily the weight jumps back on if you take your eye off the ball. A couple of hundred grams escaped from captivity and jumped on so I need to refocus

    Sorry to hear about the 1.5kg Neil, possibly all that stress from your job. Glad that is all settling down again

    Mr A and I seem to spend a large amount of time saying ‘can you believe how much xxx has gone up”. From insurance to utilities to food to petrol – everything. Our trip this time is costing so much more than our 2019 one but we expected it and budgeted accordingly.

    Cinque re your question on my FD’s, I haven’t had a proper one for a couple of weeks and immediately the loss slowed and now is reversing. I am going to have one tomorrow. Sorry to hear about your bad day, we all have them but you hardly ever do so be kind to yourself

    SuzyQ I wish I could drink tea but there is something in it, some tannin or something, that makes me dry-retch. I even tried beautiful fresh tea in Sri Lanka but the same thing happened. I drink a LOT of water, a couple of coffees per day and the occasional glass of diet softdrink. I love diet tonic water with fresh lime. I also love wine but try to be very minimal but sometimes work stress gets the better of me and I over-indulge

    My heart dropped when I read just how much time and effort is required from you to take care of your dear OH Cali. I echo the other comments and hope you can get some time for yourself, perhaps with some home-help. I hope that dreadfully hot weather cools soon. We have had a very cold winter, the coldest I can remember but today is 21 and tomorrow is 23 so we are having a little respite. It is still in single figures in the early morning and at night

    Massive drop 1kg from that FD Thin! Awesome. What was the reason for Australia rejecting a pension for your OH? I’m sorry to hear that and it is totally not fair. Do you know, as I have always been healthy, always worked and not had children until Covid I had never received one cent from the government (and paid more tax than you would think possible) but then we received ‘dine and discover’ vouchers from the NSW government during covid so we very much enjoyed a couple of cafe meals using those

    I hope the weather has improved LJ and I too got a shock when Neil said his boys were 16 and 18. I still had visions of them from so many years ago and forgot that we all get older!

    hi Intesha, G’day and Lindsay, hope you are all well

    Hello everyone,
    Goodness yes, how your boys have grown Neil! (When my daughter had to do her 200 hours driving practice, I was the worst person for her to do it with, she was still in her dreadful teenage mum-irritated stage, and I had my heart in my mouth.)

    Your boss is a #@*% . I wish they would give you that job. I think you would do it well, and you could do with a raise.

    Cali those icecream calories sure showed up! Hooray that they have gone now. Best wishes to Mr Cali, and Grasshopper I think we know your sister as? I do hope Mr Cali is managing to eat well today.

    Thin, what awful days through those nasty canals, hooray for being back in the countryside.

    SuzyQ yay for herbal teas. It is amazing how much we need to drink on fast days! One reason why that big bowl of miso soup was such a good fast day meal for me.

    Those headaches are common, and usually dehydration, but Neil gave such a good comprehensive answer.

    Anzac, true words: “Gosh how quickly and easily the weight jumps back on if you take your eye off the ball.”

    Sending best best wishes for a really good fast day tomorrow.

    And sympathy for that tea reaction, how awful (so glad you can drink coffee okay).

    The weather is nasty here again, after a sweet day yesterday – there was even sun!
    But such a nasty cold wind today and getting worse.

    However, my house is tidy, lovely home help has mopped and vacuumed. I did a bulk cook yesterday: grits and a beef, veg and peanut stew. I like grits and mastered (I hope) pressure cooking them. I even took a picture:
    https://imgur.com/a/x7BRnfC

    Cheers

    oooohhh keto flu . I wonder if i can use that excuse for a sick day ? LOL
    (I work for myself , so Im not sure I would give myself a day off for that 😉

    Thanks so much Neil for that info though. Very interesting. I must say that on my FD, my sugar intake is only from fruit in the morning and on a normal day , I do indulge a wee bit too much I think. I do try to drink water but its not my best. Im sure in summer it will be a lot easier.

    @Thin, I havent actually weighed myself yet since I started at the beginning of the month. I was going to see if much had changed after a month. My goal here is not purely weight loss, although it is a necessity , but i am also trying to just get healthier. I am an “older” mom , only had my daughter at 41 and I think I owe it to her to keep myself healthy and more energised so I can do stuff with her and not feel like just lying on the couch and binge watching movies & tv series. Tomorrow I have Moms and Daughters netball at her school and some of the moms are really fit and feisty. :):):)

    Stay warm all – we have a lovely winters day here in SA so also good for my FD enthusiasm and motivation. Cold weather just makes me want to munch all the bad things.

    Suzy, I think sometimes when I have a mild headache while fasting it is a lack of salt. Hard to say though without a bloodtest to monitor sodium levels. But it seems if I eat something with salt it goes away. I had forgotten about herbal teas. (Maybe because it’s been so darned hot here lately!) I haven’t seen a Tetely Green apple tea anywhere, but it sounds good. I used to drink a lot of Bengal Spice herbal tea. I think Celestial makes it. I like the spicy flavor. Makes me feel like I’ve eaten something even though it’s just tea. I used to drink a lot of caffeinated teas, but I avoid those now. I love T2 teas with all the great flavors. You have great will power not weighing yourself for that long. Like thin, I’m an obsessive weigher . 🙂 I weigh myself first thing every morning.

    Thin, the only local organizations that provide any kind of respite care are private agencies. We have a caregiver that comes 3 times per week, 4 hours each time. That is their minimum amount of time per week. It costs over $400 per week. I use that time for grocery shopping or my own doctors appointments when I have them. There are some daycare places that are more reasonable, but his condition is too advanced for that and he doesn’t like to leave the house. I actually don’t mind feeding him, it just takes a lot of time.
    There was a story on the news on tv yesterday about fast food places becoming a luxury for many families. We don’t often go to McDonalds even though there’s one up near the grocery store, but the last time we went it was at least double the price from a year or two ago. Ridiculous prices! I wonder if they’re losing money or if people are just going anyway?

    Neil, sorry to hear about the 1.5kg bounce. But you know it is probably that, and will be gone in a day or two. I gained 100grams after Monday’s FD but then lost 300grams on the scales this morning. Like you said the other day, sometimes it just shows up a day or two later. Mine sure is inching down slowly, but it’s moving. And the 5:2 is starting to feel normal again. Two days a week isn’t that difficult.

    Cinque, your bulk cook of grits and beef look delicious. How nice it will be to have dinner made ahead of time for so many days. I haven’t eaten grits in ages. I will have to buy some. My favorite was always grits with a pat of butter and salt and pepper. Many years ago on a trip to New Orleans, they seemed to be on every breakfast menu, either like that or with cheese as well.

    Anzac, you’re right about how quickly the weight sneaks up when not fasting. Sure seems to go on easier than it comes off!

    Have a good day everyone.

    SuzyQ, as an obsessive daily weigher, I’m impressed by your strength and resolve not to weigh for a whole month! I was a late-life mum too (39). It has some disadvantages but many advantages. Our DD says she’s happy to have older and wiser parents. Go Get ‘Em at the netball!

    Neil and Cinque, driving lesson comments noted! We bought a manual car for the purpose of ensuring that DD learned to drive one. The first lesson my OH taught her was how to change a tyre. Periodically repeated throughout the process. These days, she’s trying to get him to teach her to fly. Sorry about the weight gain Neil, frustrating.

    Cinque, imgur wouldn’t let me open your photo, drat. I’m not a fan of grits. I haven’t eaten that since living in North Carolina a lifetime ago.

    Anzac, I’m not surprised, you are definitely not rewarded for being fiscally responsible. The reason for the pension refusal is that my OH also has US citizenship. But, in the US, you receive a higher pension the longer you wait to apply for it so, if you’re fit and healthy (and expect to live into your eighties), it’s not really in your interests to apply early on. So, instead he just carried on working for another eight years – and paying even more Aussie taxes. It does make you see red when you watch the government waste and how easy it is for people who’ve contributed absolutely nothing to get all sorts of benefits.

    I didn’t know about Dine and Discover. We had Eat Out To Help Out. Sounds similar. Two for one meals to help businesses get back on their feet after covid.

    CalifD, those caregiver prices! My goodness. I really feel for you. You must be so exhausted mentally and physically.

    Have a good day everyone. Stay strong.

    Good evening everyone.

    The end of a FD for me (my third for the week). Instead of my usual warm salad, I made some mini quiches with the veg in the fridge. I had one with a small side salad for dinner. Some are left over for NFD lunches. (I have posted the recipe.)

    Commiserations Anzac. I don’t know where I’d be without tea, it gets me through every day, especially FDs.

    Neil & Cali, I too have noticed how much grocery prices have been increasing. I find myself checking the unit price, looking for the best deal.
    I have also gone back to a practice I used to use years ago, when I struggling with my mortgage. One week each month I prepare all meals from food already in the fridge, freezer or pantry. Usually I only need to buy milk and a small amount of fresh fruit and veg these weeks. I find it helps me keep on top of the extra “on sale” items that I’ve stashed in the freezer or pantry.

    SuzyQ, I’m the same with water – easy in summer, but in winter I keep reaching for another hot cup of tea.

    Cinque, thanks for the photo. I’ve never really understood what grits are. I assumed it was a bit like polenta, which I do make to go with meals like chilli or osso bucco.

    Hello to anyone else who is reading.

    All this talk of tea has me wanting a pot now. It will have to be decaffeinated at this time of night.

    Take care all.

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