Super Quick post. Welcome back Quacka.
Today is 7 days since my birthday food binge and I’ve lost 1kg in those 7 days. I might throw in an extended fast over the weekend to really get things moving. Happy Wednesday everyone
This topic contains 28,288 replies, has 835 voices, and was last updated by thinatlast 2 hours, 4 minutes ago.
Good morning everyone,
Windy in Melbourne.
Quacka, what a delight to see your post. I do so hope you can be here regularly again.
How are you? What’s been happening?
Last year I was diagnosed with LPR (Laryngopharyngeal reflux) and, ofcourse, it has affected my life and my eating habits so much! So now I can be in your little sub group of 5:2 reflux sufferers (although I haven’t managed a 5:2 pattern with it so far).
Thin, usually two mugs of coffee in the morning. The happiest day of my life was when I figured out for sure that it didn’t make any of my ME/CFS symptoms worse, even the terrible sleeping.
Everything medical seems to get back to inflammation these days and the latest is that long covid and me/cfs are all about inflammation, including the insomnia symptom. Sigh. But glad to say I had a reasonable night last night. Woot!
I am afraid that I am inherently messy AND I don’t have the energy. A terrible combination, although being so innately bad at something means I have put a lot of effort into strategies that help.
Thanks to Vic the cleaner coming yesterday my kitchen is currently clean and tidy and thanks to a good night I am hoping to not only make a bulk cooking chicken recipe, but also clean up afterward. Wish me luck!
LJoyce, sending so many good wishes that you can work things out.
I hope all the fast days went well for all the fasters.
Neil, haha yes I am innately hare-brained so maybe it is a good thing overall to have become a tortoise brain.
Good work on the weigh in. Sigh, that ability we have to undo weeks of hard work with a binge eating weekend is such a hard fact to live with. I hope you can avoid it. But even if you don’t, all the strategies we learn do help. With any luck the binges get smaller and further apart.
Gday, yay! Big congratulations and good luck with your fast.
Okay, off to see how I go with this day.
Ciao
Good Morning everyone
Thanks for the welcome back Cinque, Gday and Neil 🙂
My fast day went really well on Tuesday (think it was Tuesday, a bit out of whack with the days this week!). I was so ready and in the right frame of mind to start again so I found it easier than I expected. Just goes to show how powerful our mind is!!
I’m looking forward to doing two fast days next week and getting back in the rhythm of things.
Cinque, I have been doing ok thanks. I joined the gym two years ago and haven’t stopped going since. I really love it, which is surprising for me as I never thought I would be gym junkie lol It hasn’t made much difference to my weight (probably kept it from climbing too far though) but I have made a really good friend in there and I think that’s a huge benefit for me. I’m also much fitter than I have ever been in my life.
I’m at that lovely (not) peri menopausal age now so I thought it’s time to start fasting again. I know this works for me so here I am.
I’m sorry that you have reflux too. I hope you have worked out how to manage it as best as you can. I don’t notice mine so much anymore except if I eat a lot of chillies. I had a whole heap of pickled chillies at lunch on Sunday, maybe 10 or so, and boy did I pay for it! I had the worst acid coming up for around two days. Actually the fast helped get rid of it!!
I hope everyone is doing well. Still haven’t read up on all the posts as work is crazy busy and will probably be so for the next couple of months.
Thanks again for welcoming me back to this awesome group, I am super happy to be here
xx
Wow, this is freaky
I was on my walk this morning and thinking about weight loss which inevitably leads me to thinking about you all and a thought popped into my head ‘I miss Quacka, I hope she is ok’
20 mins later logged in and saw at the top of this page from G’day ‘Welcome back Quacka’. The hairs went up on the back of my neck at the coincidence! Welcome back my friend and good luck with your fasting. My weight has skyrocketed in the last years, I still am struggling to get rid of it but I never stop trying
Neil/Cinque, my brain is both hare and tortoise as I so often say/do/forget the most amazing things
congrats on the kilo in 7 days G’day that really is amazing
Hi to everyone else, I can’t go back to the previous page and my emails stopped working so I will come back later and post some more
Hello all 🙂 Hope you are all well ?
I had typed a lovely post yesterday and went back to read some older posts and *poof* it disapppeared. Super annoying. Anyway after sulking for the day, I am trying again.
Good news! 1kg down and a quite a few cm on my waistline , so Im super happy. “Slow and steady wins the race” ! Hopefully by December I will be down to half my goal weight. I only want to loose 10-12kg but in the pre-menopausal phase its not so easy and probably harder during menopause, so Quacka you are so right that we need to start now.
Thank you to all that commented on exercise. I want to do it more for fitness really, but wondered if it assisted the weight loss on 5:2. I have a 10 year old that is super energetic and I would like to be able to do things with her like play netball or jump on the trampoline and not feel like I want to lie down and die afterwards.
We are heading for a cold front here in Johannesburg this weekend, so a good filling but healthy soup is on the cards and maybe even a stew. Im on a FD today , so a I may do the low cal soup for tonight. I have soooo many leeks I need to use. Leek & potato ? Buns or no buns Neil 😉 ? – I believe there is some rugby this weekend Neil that we may both be interested in LOL. Good healthy rugby watching snack options ?
I made some pork fillet kebabs that we had on the BBQ on my Tuesday FD with some salad and corn on the cob. BBQ’ed pineapple is awesome. It was such a fun meal that it didnt even feel like a FD.
My FD are becoming easier and i am trying to watch what I eat on the non FD. I have a teaspoon of sugar in most hot beverages , so I am trying to cut that down to half. I dont have sugar on my FD so surely I can cut down on non FD ? My mind is a tricky thing to convince LOL.
Anyway, my lunch break is over and back to the grindstone for me. Have a super weekend all and happy Fasting . xxx
Quacka, welcome back! Pleased to see you here and especially to know that you’ll be fasting twice a week. We need more fasters here.
Cinque, that’s great that you can enjoy your two coffees without any ill-effects. It had fun reading your answer to my cheeky question – maybe you need to live like me with very few possessions so there would be fewer potential things out of place! I put everything away after use and then I spend a lot of time putting things away that my OH leaves out. We have 57 feet to walk and if I’m going in the direction that the item should go, I take it with me. He on the other hand leaves the item wherever he used it.
SuzyQ, commiserations on the lost post. I think we’ve all done it. It’s so frustrating. Try Control C just before you press ‘submit’ as a safeguard. Good job on the kilo gone. Regarding the added sugar, I found it very easy to eliminate sugar in drinks by cutting down a small amount each week until I used none. That was decades ago when my grandma was diagnosed with diabetes and was controlling it with diet. Now if I accidentally mix up my drink with OH’s and get sugar, it tastes disgusting. In fact I dislike all sugary drinks (but make a concession for tonic water because gin tastes even worse without it).
GDSA or anyone who does 72 hour fasting – what time of day do you start and finish? I’m not considering it, just curious as my brother (who does 5:2) is doing 72 hour water fasting in solidarity with a close friend of his who’s recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. I’m curious because my 5:2 / 6:1 fasts start after dinner on one day and end some time during the morning of day three. So about 36-40 hours although, of course, not fasting in the true sense of the word.
Anzac, laughing about your description of your brain. And your psychic abilities.
I’m not going to risk going back a page but I do remember reading it, just not what was said. I think Neil was there talking about his holiday and maybe LJ so hello to you both.
CalifD, are you alright? We haven’t heard from you for a while.
Thin as I eat within a 4 hour window each day, I start my fast after I eat so for me I would start between 2 and 4pm. It makes sense to start a fast after the last meal of the day, whatever time that may be, because then you are using your sleep time as the first part of the fast. Starting a fast at any other time of the day makes no sense.
For example: If you were to eat an evening meal at 6pm, then sleep for the night and the following morning have breakfast at 8am and then start your fast, this scenario makes no sense. You’ve already fasted from the 6pm evening meal through to 8am so why have breakfast and then start a fast when you’ve already got 14 hours fasting under your belt.
As for the end time, I keep going until I feel like I’m done, so it could be anywhere from 50 hours to 70 plus hours. I do have a rule when it comes to breaking a fast, I will only break it early within my 4 hour eating window. If for some reason it’s getting to the end of my normal 4 hour eating window and I still haven’t broken my fast, then I will continue to fast until the following day. I do this because its getting at the day for me (early riser and early to bed) so I figure I may as well keep fasting to make the most of the night’s fasting sleep time.
I always break my fast with 3 hard boiled eggs as they are easy on the gut and then over the next four hours of my eating window I will have several smaller meals of things that are not too heavy, again, food that is easy on the gut.
During my fasts I take electrolytes (which I take every day anyway) as they don’t break a fast and I also drink plenty of water, organic green tea and 2 coffees in the morning as again, these don’t break a fast.
Quacka, wonderful to see you back here again! And glad to hear you’re doing the 5:2. I had been away for a long while, but am back again and doing the 5:2 as well. It took a few weeks for it to feel natural again. What days are you fasting? I’m doing Monday and Thursdays because that worked well before.
Thin, thank you for asking about me. I’ve just been getting OH to bed late a lot of nights and then feeling tired. I’ve been sleeping a little better some nights. I’ve been stuck in the 66’s for a couple weeks. I’ve been faithfully sticking to my Fast days so I know it will eventually come off.
Good to see everyone here again. But my eyelids are feeling droopy. I need to get some sleep. Hope everyone has a good day!
Good morning all.
Pleasing results this morning for my fortnightly body measurements:
Chest – no change
Waist – lost 3.5cm
Hips – no change
Left upper arm – lost 2cm
Right upper arm – lost 1cm
Left upper thigh – lost 3cm
Right upper thigh – lost 2.5cm
Neck – lost 1cm
Weight loss for the week exactly 1kg
I decided to hold off on my extended fast until Sunday afternoon due to Father’s Day. Miss GDay has asked her dad over for afternoon tea, she is making him a cake so it makes sense to start my fast after my small piece of cake. I don’t really want to eat cake at all but this is one of those occasions where I feel obliged to eat it.
Have a great weekend everyone
Saturday morning in Melbourne. No wind at the moment.
Quacka, Hooray for a lovely fast day frame of mind, and getting into the 5:2 rhythm.
Woot for gym junkiness!
A year’s experience with LPR makes me presume that your esophagus had got badly inflamed with that reflux trouble years ago and you are now pretty successfully stopping it from getting that bad again. Hooray! But sympathy for not being able to eat enormous amounts of pickled chillies!
Anzac, you psychic woman you!
Looking forward to that post!
Hello LJoyce.
Suzy, sympathy for the lost post, it has happened to all of us here. Thanks for replacing it with a new wonderful newsy post.
I do so hope you can soon do more things with your 10 year old. Even though exercise doesn’t use up as much calories as we imagine, hooray that it does so all the other things.
Good luck with that cold front, we are getting one too. A windy one. Again.
I’m also thinking soup, and cauliflower was good and cheap at the shop the other day so that is the soup I am making. I wish I had a couple of your leeks for it!
I’ll cheer you AND Neil on with the rugby! Good luck!
Isn’t it great when you have such yummy eating options for fast days!
Thin, hello. Just having a moment of envy of a life in a small place with not much stuff.
On the other hand, I loved living in a huge house with my usual amount of stuff. It took ages before it looked too messy! Haha I am more Mr Thin style. (I had a friend who was very much a tidyupperer but unfortunately he was already married. I would have snaffled him just for that trait!)
Cali, hello. Sending you good wishes for refreshing sleep and good fast days.
I hope this week the scales do a good step down after being irritatingly stuck for a while.
Gday, nice work!
I hope you can enjoy that bite of cake and then have a lovely fast.
Hello to everyone else! I’m having a pottering round day and extra small meals so it is almost a fast day.
Time to make soup.
Standard Sunday Fast Day for me. Cinque you are a very funny. Thanks for making me laugh.
GDSA, thanks for your explanation – I can certainly see why you’d start an extended fast in the evening if there’s a good chance it might end after 50 hours. But I’m more interested in a 72 hour fast which obviously ends at the same time of day that it begins. It’s the end time that interests me. If you were to start (and end) a 72 hour fast at, say, 6pm, you could equally argue that you’d be wasting the final night’s sleep by not fasting. That’s really why I’m asking – I suppose it’s down to personal preference.
My brother didn’t quite make the 72 hours; his friend did. (they’re not romantically involved, just great mates). They both took electrolytes. I believe a strict daily eating window will be vitally important to her if she’s to see any reduction in her tumours. She’s decided to reject surgical intervention which is of great concern to my brother but he wants to support her in whatever she decides. So he’s hoping to attempt 72 hour fasting regularly.
I originally arrived here while researching breast cancer treatments when my dear friend was diagnosed ten years ago. A Canadian doctor discovered anecdotally that his advanced cancer patients who fasted had good results. The cancer cells, having previously only ever been poisoned, didn’t know how to behave when starved and essentially ‘committed suicide’. He was saying this was unproven so ‘don’t try it at home’ but people got wind of it and, because it’s free and they had nothing to lose, more and more did in fact fast, many to good effect.
One contraindication of course was that the patient may not be strong enough to withstand prolonged fasting. The side effect of weight loss was how I was ultimately led towards IF and 5:2 and these pages.
I don’t think I could manage 72 hours of strict fasting but I’m going to employ an eating window. It makes good sense. I know it works for Lindsay. I am impressed that yours (GDSA) is only four hours. hope I can convince OH (or do it in a way that he doesn’t actually notice).
CalifD, I’m sorry that your days are so long with the intensive care regime. For weeks, I’ve been toying with providing you with some light relief but didn’t want to burden you with even more to do. I’ve decided to do it and you can ignore if you wish. The link is to ONE SECOND of every day of the 16 months that my DD spent in central and south America. It’s about 8-9 minutes long.
LJ, I think you might like it too as you’ve recently visited some of these places. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=h5_NBo5O4vE&fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaYA3uQRsQBjJMG054RwscotHNvbjSUF8-fRWP-Qi9OoR9frxpfImjAFaIE_aem_edMMTNKrvfkxtpqp4wmpNA
Thin, I guess if someone was wanting an exact fasting time of 72 hours then It is the finish time and the time they want to break the fast that’s the focus for them. From there work back 72 hours and that’s their start time, regardless of what time of the day it is and regardless of whether they lose the prime time of fasting while sleeping as the start of their fast. I think it’s a bad idea to focus on an exact fasting number instead of making the fast as easy as possible by starting prior to sleep time but each to their own. A few hours less or more than 72 hours would be irrelevant for a fast of that time.
There is so much positive research on the benefits of extended fasts but of course it will never be accepted by the overseeing medical bodies or governments because it’s not a one size fits all approach. Plus why would they promote for people to fast and be healthy when the big UPF and pharmaceutical companies have so much influence over them, could you image the big companies uproar if we all ate healthy, fasted and reduced reliance on medication.
It’s has been shown that fasting prior to cancer treatment such as chemotherapy greatly reduces the bad side effects of treatments. And it’s been shown that fasting may help to prevent many diseases.
In a nutshell Extended fasting allows the cells to repair. Rouge cells (free radicals) which are cells that have mutated (which is where cancer and other illnesses begin from) are whipped out. Extended fasting also helps the immune system to reset. I could go on and on but you get the picture.
The one thing that is so important for someone who regularly does extended fasting is to ensure they retain muscle mass to stop muscle wastage. And of course there are some medical conditions where fasting can be detrimental.
Morning all.
It was a good weekend here, nice and warm, touching on 20 degrees. I managed to get out for a ride, and got some gardening done. Overnight we got woken up by howling winds. It was the first day of spring, and the spring winds decided to show up right on schedule.
Suzy, funnily enough I don’t feel the need to eat when I’m watching the rugby like I do when I’m watching movies, I’m not sure why. Not that I actually watched the game this weekend. It was played at around 3am our time, and there was no way I was going to get up at that time to watch.
Gday, congrats on the loss. Mine is creeping down, I have a feeling that some of the reason the loss is quite slow is that I’m back up riding more regularly after shutting down for most of the winter, and my legs are building back up again (my quads are certainly feeling a lot tighter). The first time I heard about IF was Michael Mosley’s docco, where he started it off with a 72 hour fast, having only a cup of Miso soup 3 times a day (a total of around 150 calories) I’ve tried doing a prolonged fast a few times, but I find that if I do too long these days I get really bad acid stomach.
Thin, when I was doing 3 day fasts, I did the same as G’day and started after the evening meal. It’s always good when you can wake up at 7am the following morning and already be 13 hours into your fast.
Well better do some work, I’ll catch up with the rest of the posts on this page later.
Good afternoon everyone
Thanks everyone for the warm welcome’s back (is that English ok lol).
Hi Cali, I’m on a fast day today (monday) and I think I will do Wednesday as my other day. I do weights training at the gym on Tuesday and Thursday and also have a circuit class right before the Thurs training session so that day is a big one of exercise. I feel like I need a bit of a refuel after that morning.
It’s 1:20 pm and I’m just having a miso soup. It’s an instant one so it’s only 20 calories. I’ve had a really busy morning as we I’ve had about 100 cartons of stock to process and I’m about half way through that so far. It’s my first day with the new owner at work. We have all the new season stock pouring in so it’s an exciting time in here.
Anzac, thanks for thinking of me x It’s funny how these things happen. Glad to hear that you are not giving up on your weight loss. You’re in the right place in here.
I have to go now as my lunch break is almost over. I started to write this post this morning but didn’t get to finish it.
Hope everyone is having a lovely day xx
PS. It’s really really windy here too Neil. We have had gusts around 120km/hr this morning. Lots of damage around and I received a text about 2 hours ago to say that the power is out at home (again!) One of the courier’s trucks actually blew over onto its side last week!! So scary
GDSA, I agree completely about big pharma and food manufacturers. The last few decades have seen a lot of social engineering changes forced upon the population, not much of it for the good in my view. People behave like sheep though and are often afraid to question. I’ve long been a believer that fasting has many health benefits and that weight loss is secondary to those benefits. That’s why I’ve never, ever missed a fast day in ten years. It IS my WOL.
Neil, thanks for your input. Great job that your weight continues to fall.
Quacka, I hope your FD went well. I don’t eat until 5pm on my FDs now. Sometimes I feel a little hunger during the day but it doesn’t bother me, it just reminds me that I’m doing something good for my body.
Have a great week all.
Morning all.
My weight loss is both promising and frustrating at the same time. I had my 6th consecutive week of losses, but it’s going very slowly. I was only down 100g from last week. Which means the last 3 weeks I’ve lost a total of just 0.5 kilos. The 3 weeks before that I lost 2.6 kilos. I’m thankful that it’s still going down, I just wish it would go down a bit faster.
Good afternoon everyone
It’s FD today and I have to say I’m really hungry! I completed my FD on Monday successfully as I was super busy at work so was distracted. The 20 calorie miso soup also helped me get through the day.
Yesterday wasn’t a FD but I don’t think that I ate enough to get me through today (again so busy at work) but I am persevering. I’m having my miso soup again so I hope that helps.
Cali, I just read about your husband. I’m so sorry that you (and of course he) is going through this. I hope you are doing ok, well as best as you can be. xx
Neil, weight loss can be so frustrating. Have you just started back again? I have lost almost 3kgs since starting back on FD’s last week. I only did one last week though so today is my third FD. I know some of this is water weight but I also know there is some fat loss in there so I’m focusing on that! I will need to remember that next week may not be like this.
Well done on the successful fast Quacka.
I have been struggling the last 3 years with stress eating and I’ve gained back over half of the weight I lost when I first started fasting. It’s been particularly bad over the last 12 months, where I’ve gained around 11 kilos. Last August, work started getting really stressful, I got hit by a car and couldn’t ride for a couple of months, and my mother passed unexpectedly. My doctor referred me to a health advisor who has been giving me tips to help fight it, and give me a regular check-in to have a bit of accountability and support.
Anyone else having weird weather fluctuations? The last few nights and mornings I’ve been rugged up like an Eskimo as it’s been so cold and last night back to sleeping in summer pjs, no covers and the ceiling fan on all night. This morning walking around in shorts and singlet.
On a positive note the spots of warm/hot weather (temps have been up to 35degs some days) is doing wonders for the garden, its looking spectacular. All the natives are out in flower and my 5 wisteria vines on the front verandah arbour have the biggest blossoms I’ve ever seen – the smell is whofting through the house – it’s just divine.
Interesting read Neil thanks for posting. I can’t read the entire article as it won’t fully load and keeps reloading to different parts of the article but I definitely don’t agree with the part about it being a brain disease. I don’t believe some people are obese and some are not because of something they may have or not have in their brain.
Definitely agree with Dr Ludwigs comments, I have his books and read a lot of his studies and in my opinion he’s spot on when it comes to obesity and it’s causes.
As the article says obesity has skyrocketed in the last 50 plus years, the exact same time as the sales of UPF skyrocketed, genetically modified foods were introduced and herbicide use became widespread across all food sources.
Yes, there are some medical reasons causing obesity but essentially it comes down to lifestyle choices and the impact those choices have on the brain and body systems.
Hello everyone,
Somehow it is Saturday again. I had a busy week with grandma duties and have just recovered enough to be able to write… I hope. My concentration might be off!
Thin, I was able to take the time to watch DD’s wonderful modern equivalent of the slideshow. How gorgeous. What sights she has seen. I love the delight on her face (presuming I picked her rightly).
Neil, I also managed to read that very interesting article. A good follow on from my Dr Chris writing about UPF. I was able to read the parts about all the things happening in our brains that led him to label it a brain disease. Very good.
I do know I just have to be kind to myself about the way my brain is messaging, or not messaging, in regard to food. It got stuffed up along the way and hasn’t been able to right itself.
Just going to get a cuppa and reply some more.
Back again with a cuppa.
It is cup of tea since I am out of coffee. It is a bit hurt that I called it second best so I will try to make up to it by enjoying every sip. Tea is quite marvelous really.
Thin, good on your brother for being such a good friend. My sister fasted along with her cancer treatment when she was going through it a couple of years ago. I did do more research then and the hypothesis hasn’t been proved or even strengthened with latest research but, as you said, if the patient is strong enough it is worth a try.
Gday, I am another one who completely agrees with what you say about the big food companies investing millions into research to entice us to eat more and more ultra processed food made from cheap nutritionless ingredients. And then add in a couple of nutrients so they can put it on the packet.
Neil, I have a feeling the howling winds you mentioned had come through Melbourne on their way to you. We have had 100km winds, hail, a 25c day, an 18c night.
(Interruption, my cup of tea is very good).
Anyway I am glad you have got some gardening and cycling in.
It is frustrating that re-losing that weight is such a long difficult drawn out job. It is all to do with the stuff in the article I think.
And yes the bottom line is that if you weren’t doing all the work, your weight would still be going up. Stress eating did not seem much of a deal at all when we were younger, but it becomes more and more an issue. Hooray that you are putting in such good work with strategies etc. I hope that by the time you are my age you have got everything in place for easy maintenance.
Hi Quacka, I hope you have had a good week with fasts and gym and your busy life. All power to you.
Gday, yes, the poor weather systems are being buffeted like crazy by this global warming. I am glad your garden is happy though! I have nasturtium leaves with holes and scars from the hail but everything else looks fine and I think I might get a bumper crop of broad beans. Lots of flowers.
Okay, tea is finished (thankyou tea, you were lovely) and now I am going to get ready to go shopping (for coffee!).
Sending best wishes to everyone for fasty fasts and results on the scales.
Quacka, congrats on the weight loss. What a great way start back up on the program again!
Neil, thanks for posting that article. I read just a bit, but will finish it tomorrow.
Thursday was busy with someone visiting and having to do some quick cleanup. For the first time ever, I forgot that it was supposed to be a FD until late afternoon. So Friday was my second FD this week. I hope the scales are kind to me in the morning. I keep jumping between the 65 and 66’s. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out why.
Thanks for posting that article Neil.
Regardless of the studies, and data can be manipulated to show just about anything, I see it as the food manufacturers’ job to persuade me to buy, and become addicted to, rubbish and my job to fight back and resist it. Governments could certainly do a lot more but what I put in my mouth is my responsibility. Unfortunately, it took most of my adulthood to get where I am with my relationship to food. Lucky you, those in your forties and fifties with enough time to make lasting changes.
Cinque, I’d forgotten that ‘studies show’ that fasting during cancer treatments can reduce or eliminate the nasty side effects. I hope that your sister benefitted from that even though, sadly, it didn’t prevent her cancer from spreading.
Cinque, I’m so pleased that you watched the 1SE video – and, yes, a modern day slide show! The person you saw frequently might have been a former colleague who joined DD for a few weeks in Galápagos. They are both always smiling but the one doing the little hoola hoop dance while stirring is not DD.
I watched the last episode of a new Michael Moseley doco series the other night. Wonders Of The Human Body. In it, he was saying that ‘studies show’ that dancing is the best way to stave off dementia, better than doing crosswords. As I don’t have anyone that will dance with me, I have to stick to cryptic crosswords. Funny that my relatives can act, sing and play musical instruments but I am the only one that can dance (and not do any of the other things mentioned).
We have just completed the first leg of the tidal Trent. We exited the lock in dense fog at 7.20am which made it more challenging but we arrived at the destination lock four hours later. There were several huge tree trunks to dodge but it was uneventful.
Someone was asking about the price of olive oil. I did take a photo in the supermarket soon afterwards but forgot to report in. Olive oil costs £7.29 a litre.
Hello friends
The weather has been crazy here too; we had 30 degrees on the 2nd last day of winter!
I despair of friends who eat so much processed food and think that frozen dinners from the supermarket are ‘healthy’. It isn’t hard to put a lovely meal together quickly with fresh ingredients. Today is Sunday and my DD (Dad) is coming for lunch as usual. Mr A found a leg of lamb on special so we are having roast lamb with lots of different roast veges and fresh greens. Yum! I have to stand there and watch Mr A do my portion because he is a feeder and likes to pile the plate high so I just say ‘that’s enough thanks’ for each element
I wish I could drink tea Cinque, but it makes me dry-retch. No idea why
I am back walking as my back and knee are doing well. I am taking it a bit easy to start with (physio’s orders) but have increased from 2km to 3km after just one week. I need to get some fitness up for the trip
Congratulations on the loss Quacka and it is so great to have you back with us
Did you have professional dance training Thin? What type of dancing do/did you do?
What is your favourite dance? I can’t dance to save myself but I can sing a bit and play the piano
I hear your frustration Neil, my weight loss is so slow and then one slip and it jumps up like a gymnast doing a flying leap. Only 70 days until the holiday and I am still struggling to get back under 92
I have so much admiration for your will power and determination G’day. I wish I had a quarter of it
Must go and do some house work before Dad arrives. Take care all
Good afternoon everyone
It’s Monday FD today. Work has continued to be crazy busy so it’s been an easy FD again. I’m so grateful. Weight loss back up 1kg after weekend of eating and drinking anything I wanted. We will see how I go tomorrow!
Neil, sorry to hear you were hit by a car!! I know how frustrating it can be when you just want to be active again but are unable to. I had surgery on my nose in May and was not allowed to do anything strenuous for 2 months. I have had a hard time healing so it stretched to more like 3 months but it has made me appreciate being able to move my body now. You have the tools to get that weight back off and I know you will be able to do it. Just keep going.
Well it’s after 5pm now so I better go prepare my dinner. Something with lots of protein and within my fasting limits.
Oh and I got a tick over the weekend so I have a nasty lump with a big bright red patch around it that is still spreading. I’ve just taken an antihistamine so I hope that helps. My goodness the itch is driving me batty!
Hope everyone had a good weekend and a lovely start to the week. Chat soon 🙂
Xx
Neil are you okay? It’s been quite a few days without a post which is not like you.
Cinque, part of my cutting back on coffee strategy last Xmas was to replace my first morning coffee, which I always had immediately after waking, with a pot of organic green tea. Now I can’t go without my pot of green tea first thing. Then I’ll have a small Moka pot (stovetop coffee maker) of organic coffee. I only have an instant coffee now if I’m going out early and don’t have time to fuss about with a moka pot. Two coffees a day is my limit, always before noon. I could very easily drink more because I absolutely love a good coffee but I keep to my limit.
Oh Quacka, hope the tick wound is healing, nasty little critters. With the warm weather our garden is a hive of reptile and bird activity. Miss GDay had a jump scare yesterday, she saw that Master Oliver (Ollie, our 18 month old Koolie) was fixated buy something along the fence line in the backyard. She fossicked around and couldn’t find anything and then out of nowhere a baby sleepy lizard dashed out. He was so adorable but gave Miss a fright at first, always mindful of snakes where we live. There have been numerous sightings in our area the last few weeks, even in the centre of our neighbouring town.
Sleep has been good, struggling to stay awake past 8pm and waking at 4.30-5am. Love being up early, especially as the sun is rising just before 6am but that will all change next month when daylight savings kicks in.
Yes Thin always very mindful when I read ‘studies’ to find out who conducted the study, who funded it, the type of study and have many people participated. Sadly the vast majority are manipulated to ensure the end results favour a specific outcome rather than the true outcome. None more prevalent than the biggest study manipulation of all time in my opinion, Ancel Keys Seven country study in 1958. It a bit like politicians and governments when they pay consulting firms to provide them with data, the parimeters are all specially set to ensure the outcome is exactly what the government wants it to be so it suits their agenda – very rarely does the truth come into it.
Must dash have a busy day ahead
Afternoon all
Well I tried the tip from the health advisor with regards to movie snacks, and it worked well this time. I had some scrambled egg and salad for dinner, then portioned myself 50g of chips into a bowl and ate just that during the movies along with my regular Friday drink. I managed to keep my Friday calories from spiking like normal. I’ve continued my cycling the last week, even though the weather has been a bit up and down recently. I came off my bike on one of the mountain bike tracks I was riding on Sunday though and ended up in the middle of a puddle, I had to ride home afterwards absolutely covered head to toe in mud. I kept my calories to 1600 yesterday, and I’m hoping to have around 1200 today and see how that, plus my weekend efforts shows on the scales tomorrow. Even if my weight isn’t coming down quick, I realised the other day that I’m down a couple of notches on my belt from where I was a month ago, so something must be happening. My legs are certainly getting a lot firmer too, with all of the cycling.
Gday, While I agree it’s lifestyle that does lead to weight gain, the article suggests that some people are always going to work harder for the same results, that some people have a genetic mutation that affects the satiety triggers in the brain, which means they get less pleasure from food, so need to eat more to get the same dopamine hit other people do, and get the satiety trigger later than others, so will keep eating after they are full because the brain hasn’t told them they’ve eaten enough in time. The ultra processed food altering your brain chemistry so that you crave more and don’t get pleasure from healthy food is disturbing, but there are people whose whole careers are based around getting us addicted to their products. In the “Sugar” documentary they had a segment about the guy who was working to find the “bliss point” of sugar in soft drinks. Putting more sugar in something makes us want more, up to a point where it becomes too much, then our enjoyment diminishes.
Quacka, the tick sounds annoying. We don’t tend to get many of them over here, but our cat has been getting fleas at the moment, and filling our bed with them. We’ve treated her, but then you have to wash everything else to get rid of them.
Great to hear you’re able to get out walking more Anzac, I know I get stir crazy if I can’t get out for a while. I actually twinged my back helping my wife’s aunt to clear out her mother-in-law’s house after she had passed away, I was lying on the couch feeling sorry for myself, but still felt like riding on Sunday, weirdly I actually felt better after getting out and riding.
Thin, if you don’t care what other people think about you, you don’t need a dance partner. I used to walk listening to music and I would dance while I walked. I got weird looks from some people, but it made me feel good. It made me laugh when this Molenberg bread ad came out over here, I probably got similar looks from people https://www.facebook.com/MolenbergBread/videos/feedyourawesome/286812916254384/
Cali, I hope the scales were good to you this week.
Cinque, I hope you managed to find a good coffee. We have a local roastery that blends and roasts their own beans. I grab a bag of them every few weeks for my coffee machine at home, it’s the best way to start off my weekends.
Well weight in tomorrow. Hopefully the scales are kinder to me this week than they have been the past few weeks.
catch you all later.
Hello everyone. I finally have a quiet afternoon where I can catch up on posts (and laundry). I haven’t even looked at posts for a week.
My diet has been erratic in recent weeks. FDs were good, but far too many of my NFDs were a hot mess, so I was only losing 1-200g a week. I decided to try something more drastic. I’m still doing 2 FD dinners each week. But I’m only eating a solid meal once a day (mostly at dinner time, unless there’s a social lunch event). For the rest of the day I’m allowing myself up to 2 low cal (100-150cal) liquid meals daily – smoothie, iced coffee or a cup of soup. I don’t add sugar and am adding fibre (psyllium or oat bran) and protein (soy or pea protein powder) which helps me feel satisfied. I’m almost a week in and it’s been working very well. I’m losing a little weight on the NFDs too. Pleasingly I’m not struggling with wanting to snack throughout the day.
Because I’ve put no restrictions on my NFD dinners I’m not feeling rebellious – although in reality there is a distinct limit to how much I can eat at one meal, which imposes a hidden control. The weather has been helping as it’s been mostly mild – makes it much easier to have a smoothie for lunch and enjoy it.
Neil, there a 1980s song “Safety Dance”, which started: you can dance if you want to. I agree, dance if it makes you happy, it’s good exercise. For me it’s while I’m doing housework as I put dance/techno music on the ipod while I’m cleaning. No one to see me, only the cat.
I’m glad you have found snacking strategies that are working. Snacks can really be my undoing too.
GDSA, Doesn’t the warmer weather bring out the lizards. I get them in my back yard – especially when the strawberry plants are fruiting.
Yes to the weather fluctuations – there have been some unseasonably warm days here too with nothing that feels like winter except for a little early morning chill.
I found your results interesting – that seems like a lot of cms off for only one kilo on the scales.
Quacka, hope that tick bite heals quickly. I’ve thankfully never encountered a tick – it’s not the right climate for them where I live.
Thin, thankyou for posting your daughter’s compilation video. It was lovely to watch – she certainly found plenty of animals along the way. Wonderful memories for her. I felt a bit of panic with the hitchhiking, then remembered your youthful travel stories which seemed full of risky behaviour.
Anzac, I know you were planning a trip to Europe – is that happening soon? You are right about the fitness – if you want to make the most of the sightseeing, being able to walk a lot and climb stairs is a must.
Cali, I hope the delayed FD did the trick and rewarded you with a decent loss.
Cinque, I really giggled at your attempts to apologise to your cup of tea for calling it second best.
SuzyQ72, glad to hear your slow and steady weight loss is continuing and that you are content to stick with that pace.
I hope I have gotten back to all the posts I missed. If I forgot to mention someone, sorry and hello.
Take care everyone – time for me to hang up some washing.
LJ, how super to be losing weight on a NFD. Well done, you are so persistent with your efforts to combat those dratted restaurant meals and other temptations. Although my ten years of IF has been a life changer for me, I still often feel that I have failed in that I can so easily drop 900g on a FD yet, after all this time, I continue to gain 100g (or worse) on a NFD. Why can’t I just take in the daily fuel I need and stop there? (Note to all: please don’t suggest calorie counting!).
My OH has not gained one ounce since high school. He is highly food motivated and I can get him to do anything where food is involved. He never stops eating and thinking about food. While eating breakfast this morning, he was asking if I could roast some cashews for a snack tonight! He describes his metabolism as ‘highly inefficient’. Overweight people tend to consider slim people as having an ‘efficient’ metabolism. But the reverse is true. Consider the analogy of putting fuel in your car. The more fuel required to deliver a desired performance makes it inefficient, not efficient. Same for the human body.
LJ, so pleased that you were able to view that 1SE video. The hitch-hiking concerned us greatly but is quite normal in certain S. American countries. My long-term uni friend (and co-hitch-hiker in Africa) is amused that the risk-taker now has a risk-taker daughter. She (DD) is currently in Budapest where she flew for £4.50 last evening.
GDSA, glad to have found a fellow cynic! I love lizards, terrified of snakes. Our two bobtail lizards, Rocky and Psycho, that we had in Perth have been together for nearly twenty years now. Twins born each year. Husbandry passed down through vet students in our absence but we still keep close tabs on them and they’re now producing triplets each year. A happy couple.
Quacka, very concerned about that tick. I associate them with Lyme disease although I understand the link is not recognised by the medical profession in Australia.
Neil, good idea to weigh/measure out the snack foods. I wouldn’t be able to stop if I started. I notice our gin bottle has been going down at an alarming rate. I’d never have more than 1 drink but we seem to be doing it a bit too often. Oh well, 800g off after Sunday’s fast so it seems my job is to steadily re-gain that until next Sunday rolls around.
Neil, you are funny. That link! And you must know by now that I don’t care what other people think of me!
Anzac, remind us where you’re going in Europe please. Regarding the dancing, no, nothing formal other than I think OH and I took some salsa lessons many years back. I was thinking more of decades of wild dancing to rock bands and sixties music. I have a friend who turned 90 this week and she does line dancing – no partner needed for that.
OH YEAH!!
Weigh in this morning I dropped 1.2 kilos. I finally got a reading on the scale that reflected how my week went. So now that’s 7 consecutive weeks of losses for a total of 4.4 kilos. I had a look back and this is the lightest I’ve been since 2nd of February.
Thin, I only drink once a week, I have 2 drinks on Friday night to unwind from the week. But I always make sure I measure it out with a jigger, so I always get the same amount. I’m pretty sure if I didn’t, I would be making them a lot stronger on weeks I’d had a more stressful time.
Well, I hope everyone is doing well, have a great one everyone.
Good Morning everyone
Hi G’day. The tick bite is slowly healing. The big red ring around it has almost gone and the hard lump where he went in has gotten smaller. I’ve been taking antihistamines at night but I have been waking up so tired, struggling to open my eyes. The antihistamines do make me drowsy but I’m surprised it lasts until the next morning. I’m thankful they are working though.
Thin, I also associate them with Lyme disease. I have had a few over my life time so far and have had no adverse effects that I know of apart from the skin issues. I have also heard that some people cannot eat red meat after getting a tick. Lucky that hasn’t happened to me, I love a good steak lol
G’day, funny about the baby lizard 🙂
We were down the coast camping on the weekend and I saw a black snake crossing the road in the scrub next to the beach. We were in the car and I pointed it out to OH so he didn’t accidentally run it over (we are dead against those people who deliberately run over the poor animals!). Then I wound my window up. OH started chuckling at me because I did that ha ha ha. He was like “you know we are in a car right?” and I’m like “yeah, but I’ve heard they can climb up cars”. Never mind that we were in a ute too which is much higher off the ground than a normal car!
A few years ago we were out fishing in the river and we had a black snake climb up the boat motor and he ended up on the side wall of the boat. Unbelievable but true!
Neil, LJ, Thin well done on the weight loss for the week 🙂
I’m on a FD today, my second and last for the week. I’m really tired today so I hope I can get through it without too much difficulty. Monday FD went really well so let’s make this one the same!
Happy Day all xxxx
Ljoyce yes I can see how my post was a bit confusing. The 1 kg weight loss was total weight lost for the previous 7 days only. I was a week late taking my fortnightly body measurements so the cms lost was total cms lost over a 3 week period, not 2 weeks. Over the 3 week period relating to the cms lost my total weight loss for those 3 weeks was just under 4kg.
Hello everyone,
Woot! Neil https://media.tenor.com/ld5b1obZaHMAAAAM/hooray-hip.gif
I especially like that tip for movie night snacks, I hope it keeps working. There is a particular pleasure in having a little bit of what you love, drawing out the enjoyment, and feeling really good afterwards.
Cali, so glad you managed to post. Haha and oh dear forgetting fast day. It maybe a sign of how much stress you are under. Naughty scales. Are your clothes starting to get looser?
I’ve seen the news of more terrible fires in your state, such a worry.
Thin, I do understand what you say about personal choice, but I wish we could make it easy for everyone to eat well. Not only would people feel so much better, but think of the health dollars it would save!
I do hope you can get to do some dancing. Maybe with the old songs playing loud, and really rocking that boat! You too, Neil 🙂
Ooh fog on the water sounds so beautiful and a bit worrying at the same time. Especially with tree trunks to dodge.
Anzac, that is such crazy weather. I worry for the summer. Best wishes for power and determination to get 5:2 working, for your health as much as for your holiday.
Sympathy that you can’t drink tea (but coffee is better 😉 )
Yum for that classic meal of deliciousness: roast lamb and veggies.
Quacka, how awful to have that tick bite and what a lot of recovery. Sending best wishes.
Gday you drink coffee like a Melbournian. All the cafes here close at 2pm because everyone has finished their coffee for the day. Is it like that in Adelaide too?
Snake season is starting early, I am glad yours was a lizard. I love lizards in the garden!
LJoyce, you are a good strategist. Sending good wishes. Yay to housework dancing!
I’m going pretty well. I am noticing that I can feel more satisfied after a smaller meal, if I can just be patient enough to wait for it, than after a bigger meal. Am focusing on that and keeping on noticing if that is the case. It will make for a good mantra.
Best wishes to everyone
Hi everyone, me again
I had a tough FD today. Was feeling so tired all day and had no energy. Really felt just like giving up!
I caved in and had a can of tuna, some beef jerky and my 20 cal soup. I was feeling a bit down, thinking I had blown my FD but then I started to turn my attitude around and told myself that I can still make this work…..I can have a lower calorie dinner and still have a successful FD.
So tonight I made a yummy chicken and veggie miso soup (from scratch this time!) and managed to stick to 600 cals. 500 is my preferred limit but I’m happy with the 600 for today.
Don’t give up! We can do this!
Hello all ! Hope you are all well ?
This is a bit of a bumpy journey this fasting thing. So many varying experiences from all of you and I suppose, that is life and as long as we are doing our best , that is all that matters and yes Quaka. We can do this! Congrats to those that have lost. Those that didnt, dont worry . Tomorrow is another day.
Yesterday was my fast day and one of my hardest since I started. I dont know what was wrong but I was hungry and hangry all day and I didn’t feel like drinking anything that I usually do like my herbal teas or sparking water with lemon – so of course that led to a massive headache because I was probably dehydrated. A few times during the day, I considered calling it quits and doing a FD on another day, but I perservered. We had prego steak and salad for dinner and I still felt hungry afterwards but the hangry had gone :). At 9pm I broke down and had another little piece of steak but really I should have just brushed my teeth and gone to sleep. Bit disappointed in myself but hey … we will try again tomorrow – FD 2 for the week.
I wonder if hormones played a roll in my stressful FD yesterday ? Thoughts anyone ?
SuzyQ, sorry you had a tough fast day. You too Quacka. I remember being hungry on fast days sometimes. It’s not a nice feeling but you get used to it. The things that helped me through were knowing that hunger comes and goes in waves and can easily be distracted by things other than food; sometimes we can confuse hunger with thirst; remembering that, if I felt hungry, it meant I was doing something good for my body.
Sometimes I have harder FDs if I overindulge or eat the wrong things the day before. I try to arrange my FD intake so that there’s always something left in the calorie bank for later in the day because going to bed feeling hungry is just the worst. This could be a boiled egg or half a banana or a tbs of cottage cheese.
In time, it will get easier with the more fasts you do. Keep busy. Try to go as long as possible before having anything to eat on a FD because knowing that you have some calories left can help keep you going. I used to hold out until 2pm but now I have nothing except tea or coffee until 5pm. Nothing will happen if you’re hungry. You’re just hungry! Don’t give up.
Morning all
Sorry you had a tough fast Suzy and Quacka, some are definitely tougher than others. I agree with thin, try some water/tea/coffee first to see if you were just thirsty rather than hungry, then a small protein rich snack to see if that helps.
One thing I’ve noticed in the last few weeks after eating a boiled egg or two, or a handful of roasted chickpeas when I get back home from work, is when I eat my dinner half an hour to an hour later or so, that I feel full halfway through it, and often don’t finish it.
My first big test is coming up this weekend, when we have a big family lunch on Saturday for all the September birthdays (there are 5 of them in our family). There’s always lots of snacks, lots of lunch, and lots of dessert. I’m going to have to work hard to keep to sensible portions.
Have a good one everyone
Neil, congrats on your weight loss.
Suzy and Quacka, I have had a couple of FD’s in the last couple of weeks that were hard. But like thin said, the hunger does come and go in waves. Sometimes it’s just in the evening that I have a harder time. But I always get through it by remembering that I can eat the next day.
Not a lot of time to write now, but just wanted to check in. My weight has been bouncing around in the mid 66’s to the mid 65’s. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out exactly why. I think a lot of times it has to do with the amount of salt intake. Oh well I will try to get back and write some work tonight. Take care everyone. Hope you are all doing well.
Good morning all.
My new eating approach is definitely more successful, so far, than my previous eating. It’s not quite a full week and I’m down 1.4kg. Most of the losses were from the FDs, but I’m no longer regaining weight on the other days, they are stable or tiny losses. I’ll see how it goes over a longer time period. It’s quite low calorie across the whole week, although I haven’t worked out exact calorie counts. My memory for kilojoules, carbs, fibre etc is extensive so my guesses are usually pretty close to the mark.
I am keen to get my weight down as my left knee has deteriorated and the time frame for needing that second knee replacement has gotten closer. It’s not urgent, but it’s already stopped me doing the longer hikes I could do 6 months ago. Being lighter should buy me a bit more time, and will also make post-surgery rehab easier. My GP has said it’s best to delay as long as possible, but I have said that I won’t delay surgery if it’s limiting my ability to get enough exercise.
Neil, excellent news on the weight loss. Good luck with that lunch. Maybe take the edge off your hunger before you go to lunch – just as you have been doing with your evening meal. The silver lining here is that it’s one lunch for 5 birthdays – it could have been 5 lunches in a month! (I feel a sense of panic, just thinking about that challenge.)
GDSA, Yes we have to be quite careful when it comes to research results. I remember from my studies the saying “lies, damn lies and statistics.”
Suzy & Quacka, tough FDs just drag. I find a headache, lack of sleep or a cold snap are usually responsible for me. Sticking with the FD instead of postponing it and going just a few calories over sounds like a perfectly acceptable compromise to me. I admire your perseverance. I also find Thin’s approach of delaying first food for the day to be helpful.
Cinque, I have a dance playlist on the ipod – although I should probably call it the cleaning playlist as that’s when it’s mostly used. Although during some of the covid lockdowns when time outside was limited I did play it while doing laps of the hallway.
Quacka, you need to be careful with snakes on the road and car windows open. I grew up in a rural area and a neighbour ended up with a snake flipping in to the car through an open window. His tires had apparently run over the very tip of it’s tail which he thought caused it to flip.
Thin, I agree with your comments about an efficient metabolism. I’ve struggled with weight my entire life and I know from extensive monitoring that my TDEE is over 200 calories lower than it should be based on the formula. Clearly my body is very efficient at using calories – I’m sure some ancestor found that to be life preserving during famine. That genetic inheritance has not been so useful for me.
I will keep reassuring my pot of tea that I love it, even if everyone else thinks it’s second best.
Hello to Anzac, Cali and anyone else I’ve missed. Take care everyone.
After a chilly start to the day, the sun is out and it’s perfect walking weather.
LJ, for your new eating approach, are you limiting yourself to one solid meal only on FD’s or NFD’s as well? That might be a good plan for me to try as well. My weight loss overall has been so slow and bounces up and down, sometimes for no apparent reason. Adding psyllium fiber sounds good too. Maybe I’ll try that, at least for a couple of the NFD’s.
Cinque, I used to drink a lot of tea and coffee. But lately I’ve switched to decaf coffee only. Most of the teas I like have caffeine. I’ve always had trouble sleeping but more so lately, so I’ve gotten used to decaf. There are actually some pretty good ones out there, especially in the dark roasts.
Gday it sounds like you have a lot of lizards there. I could see where your daughter might be startled by that one. We have a lot of small ones in our back garden, but not as many as we used to. We’ve had a few neighbors cats hang out in our yard and I think they go after them. We’ve also had a fox in the neighborhood that’s been in our yard several times lately. Really a beautiful animal but even though they say they aren’t interested in dogs and cats, we always go out with our dogs. They, of course bark like crazy when they see any other animals in the yard. We have snakes too, but rarely see them on our patio. One of the ones that is common in this area are rattlesnakes. They’re poisonous. I do check my Crocs after I’ve hosed them off and left them outside to dry.
Well, time to get some sleep. Have a good rest of your day everyone.
Hi Cali, I think you were posting at the same time as me earlier, so I didn’t see it then. Sorry
As to your question, the one solid meal per day is every day. Mostly I have it as dinner. What I am doing is not dissimilar to a Fast800 program where some people choose to use shakes as a meal replacement for some of their meals. I would rather make my own smoothies/shakes – they taste nicer and have fewer calories. I don’t count calories, but my estimate is that I’m consuming 5-600cals on FDs and 900-1200cals on NFDs. Hence the more rapid weight loss. This week I did 3 FDs, but I intend to reduce that to 2 for future weeks. I am being quite careful to limit added sugars and simple carbs – most of those come from the dairy products I’m using.
On a FD I am having an iced coffee, mocha or chocolate for lunch and a low cal dinner. Plus cups of tea as needed.
On NFDs I have a smoothie late morning. Then I have an iced coffee, mocha or chocolate in the afternoon. Dinner is whatever I feel like, but no snacking afterwards. I am finding that the afternoon drink does limit my appetite for dinner. I think it’s a combination of the psyllium and the volume of the drinks.
You probably have your own drink preferences, but I’ll explain what I’m doing.
For the iced coffee/mocha/chocolate I use a tall tumbler and a stick blender. I add a large handful of ice cubes, 1-2 tsp coffee and or dark cocoa, about a teaspoon of granulated stevia or monkfruit (natural low cal sweeteners), 1 tablespoon skim milk powder, 1-200ml unsweetened fortified almond milk (mine is 17 cals per 100ml and is fortified with calcium), 1-2 teaspoons unsweetened protein powder (I use plain soy or pea protein powder from the supermarket), 2-3 tsp fibre (mostly psyllium, but some oat or wheat bran too), a dash of vanilla and enough water to cover. Blend until smooth and then taste, adjust the flavours or sweetness if needed and dilute to taste. These drinks are around 100 calories. (I often use coffee substitutes instead of actual coffee – eg chicory, barley, dandelion root etc.)
For the smoothies, it’s the same as above, but leave out the coffee/cocoa. Instead I add 1-2 tablespoons of greek yoghurt (with live cultures) and about 1/4 cup of fresh/frozen/stewed fruit. Because I’m limiting sugar I am mostly using fresh strawberries and/or cooked rhubarb with only tiny amounts of anything else. The smoothies are 150-180 calories. (That’s why I don’t have one on a FD.) I usually end up with at least 600ml, so it’s quite filling.
– my tablespoon measures are 20ml – your U.S. tblsps are 15ml, so you might need to adjust a bit.
I’m finding this pattern is working well for me as following it, means I can’t fill my afternoons or evenings with snacks. I was grazing far too much and even healthy foods have calories. The drinks are much more palatable as a meal replacement when the weather is warm. On one colder day I replaced the smoothie with cup of veggie soup as I couldn’t face something chilled.
Good luck. I hope you find a solution that suits you.
Just a quick Hi and happy weekend to you all .
I had a much better FD yesterday and feeling very positive about things again. Tuesday was a learning curve and a test of my will power. I am sure I will have more of those;)
But its learning how to deal with it that will be the next lesson.
All these different realtionships we have with food only proves to me more that there isnt 1 solution that works for everyone. We can use the same “diet” but it will work differently and we must adapt to what works for us as individuals. People are not all the same and its important to listen to our bodies. For instance something I have noticed on a non FD is that when I eat something sugary after a FD , I actually feel a bit ill like my body is saying OVERLOAD !!!! Please stop!!! I’m still learning how to stop. I am so used to eating that whole chocolate bar that it is more out of habit that I eat it. I could just eat half ? But i dont . oh well its all still new and I will keep forming new habits.
Have a super weekend evryone !
Cinque I’m in regional SA so not sure about the coffee culture in Adelaide but the majority of coffee shops/cafes in my area of the state close around 2 or 3pm and most only open Monday to Friday. I don’t think it has much to do with a culture but rather the business having their opening times to suit the owner rather than suit customer need. Im becoming more and more appalled with the lack of customer service and poor staff attitude in my region over the last few years. Miss GDay and I always comment when we are in Adelaide about how friendly and helpful shop staff are, I guess they have competition so they have to provide exceptional service to get customers but sadly where I live there is little or no competition so the owners and staff just don’t care, some are just downright rude and unhelpful.
Oops hit submit by mistake.
Cali we never leave our shoes just sitting outside, on the front and back verandah we have shoe cupboards, too much of a risk for creepy crawlies and slithery creatures,, including redback spiders which will be on the move now with the warmer weather.
Weight loss for the last 7 days is 0.4kg, must try to get an extended fast in next week.
Time to go, 6am and the sun is up now so time to get some outside chores done. Have been back to track pants, jumpers and a beanie the last few mornings, warming up during the day but not enough to change into shorts and T-shirt unfortunately.
Happy Saturday everyone
Morning all
I had a bad weekend, eating-wise. I didn’t go crazy on the calories, around 2500 per day, but I just made poor food choices and ate way too much bread and sugar. I’m going to try back-to-back fasts today and tomorrow to hopefully mitigate the effects.
I think it was probably the weather that prompted the carb binge, it was cold and wet all weekend, so I didn’t get out of the house all weekend, and I think I was just eating out of boredom.
I hope everyone else had a better weekend than I did.
Good Afternoon everyone
Monday FD today, it’s 1:20 pm and so far an easy FD. Not as busy at work but still busy enough to keep me occupied and distracted. Haven’t felt hungry at all today so far.
I thought you might be interested to hear this. So last week after my double dose of Miso soup I thought I should check how much sodium I had consumed for the day. It was close to 3000 mg which is WAY too much! The next day (Thursday morning) when I weighed myself I had not lost anything at all from the FD. I believe this was all to do with the excessive salt I had the day before. So, yes Cali I think salt plays a huge part in our weight loss, well what the scales say anyway. This is the interesting part – Thursday was a normal eating day and then on Friday morning I had lost 200g on the scale.
Suzy, you are right. We need to learn how to deal with those difficult FDs and listen to our bodies. I agree with LJ in that it’s better to continue with the FD and go a little bit over in calories than to give up. I feel like if I give up once then it makes it too easy to just give up next time I am finding it a bit hard. Like thin says, nothing will happen if we feel a bit hungry.
We can do this 🙂
Hope everyone had a lovely weekend. Mine was really good. We went to Canberra and were there for the opening of the Floriade festival. The flowers were beautiful and the displays amazing. It’s something I have wanted to do for a long time now so it was good to finally get there!
Friday night, we went to a Lebanese restaurant for dinner. The food was really delicious and to top it off the service was excellent too. We had a banquet for two which of course means way too much food! Luckily they gave us some takeaway containers to pack all the uneaten food into which we then ate for breakfast the next morning. One bad thing, we already had the strongest garlic breath from dinner so having the same for breakfast just made that doubly bad!! Ha ha ha .
Well I better get back to work. Hope you are all having a lovely day. If you are on a FD with me, hope it’s going easy for you x
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We pay tribute to our dear friend and colleague, Dr. Michael Mosley. Michael was an integral part of our lives, […]
Michael is touring Australia this September! Here's a link to dates and tickets. Hope to see you there.
Michael Mosley gives an update for 2019, current research in the field and announces a tour starting in February.
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