Good morning everyone from rain, rain, rainy Melbourne,

Oh dear Neil, hello to that 1 kilo again.
Keep on keeping on. Those evening indulgences may well be the problem, so all power to you avoiding them.

I might just set up a new forum to rival 5:2 on my completely unresearched light bulb of an idea based on personal experience (what could go wrong?). It is because after nearly a year of eating small meals that don’t stretch my stomach, and trying to be philosophical about the fact that I might never feel satisfied after a meal, something readjusted in my stomach – brain messaging and now my small ‘no bigger than my fisted hand’ sized meals satisfy me and if I eat more I feel so uncomfortably full.

So what if that is the thing that would stop people from putting back the weight they have lost? What if the stomach has to spend a year without being stretched and then it reprograms the brain? I could make millions (seeing how people just love a solution that takes a year to work 😉 ).

Ofcourse, still struggling with my predilection to comfort eat and just want more. And evening are the trickiest.

Gday, what a wonderful trip to Adelaide! I hope that fast is going well… gone well? and you are feeling fantastic.

Thin, I am also glad you survived Storm Bert easily, some places got such terrible damage. And yay for getting back to your favourite 5:2… 6:1 routine.

Anzac woohoo! Thanks for popping in. Oh what wonderful sights! You can try my ‘one year of never feeling satisfied’ diet when you get home! I need some guinea pigs 😀 😀 😀

Oh well, I have had my coffee. I will enjoy the feeling of being satisfied and go and get things done.

Best wishes to everyone.

6 days after arriving back home from Adelaide last week and I’ve dropped 0.9kg so very happy indeed. My fast on Tuesday wasn’t as long as planned, only 38 hours but still a good amount of time.

Hello old friends. Yes, here I am back again. Life’s been a bit hard but I thought it was time to shake myself off and get back into the things that are both enjoyable and important. OH is still doing okay after some life-threatening incidents. But he has come through again (Lazarus with a triple bypass, is the expression I think we credit to Paul Keating). I have had some reactions to it all, but am okay.
I am not going to go back and read all your posts for now – I just wanted to reconnect.
Hope you are all well and happy.
xx
Lindsay

Morning all, and good to see you again Lindsay

Well that last kilo is being bloody stubborn, still hanging around where it’s not wanted. I have been able to get out riding a bit more this week than I have been over November, so that is a positive.

Congrats on the losses Thin and Gday.

Well, back to the grind, I hope everyone is well.

Morning Neil. Our messages crossed. “the last kilo??”. Does that mean you are back to your fighting self? Last time I was on the site…a long time, admittedly…. you were still struggling to shift some weight you’d put on. Congratulations.

Writing quickly before I head over to my daughter’s to babysit.

Hello everyone!

Hello Lindsay! All power to you getting back into 5:2 and feeling good on it.
Big congratulations to you getting through rough times, and big cheers to Mr Lindsay too!
Lovely to have lots of veggies and wonderful organic meat.

Thin, woot for the 59’s!

Gday, woot on nearly a kilo gone.

Neil, I hope your kilo goes this week!

So interesting to hear about that documentary Thin. I have been thinking so much about your issue re personal responsibility. It is true that is part of it, but we are such social creatures.
I’ve been thinking how, in my suburban childhood, half the population grew up with no responsibility for feeding anyone (men) and the others (women) had a daunting task that they tried to make as easy, quick and inexpensive as they could. And since then we have had big business flooding us with what they have called easy, healthy, inexpensive and what the family would love to eat.
It takes a lot of hard work and research, and skill and experience to swim against that tide!

I’m doing the best I can though! I have my freezer packed with lovely home made ready meals at the moment. I do need to finish up the remaining veg in the fridge, so hopefully I can organise that well.

It has been so hot here, I have already worn more summer dresses than I did over the last couple of summers combined. (I can only wear sandals on very hot days as I suffer from cold feet).

Sending out lots of best wishes
Ciao

Hello all. Sunday morning here, started fasting from 7pm last night and hoping to go through until Tuesday morning. The heatwave is over thank goodness and now we have wind which by the forecast will persist for the entire week.

Ive been feeling very unmotivated in the last week and seem to have lost my mojo both mentally and physically, I just don’t have the energy for anything. I hate not getting things done. Tomorrow, regardless of how I feel I will push myself to get out in the yard and do some chores. Tuesday we go into town for an appointment for Miss Gday, do food shopping etc and for the rest of the week I plan to continue with outside chores given the temps will be in the low 30s so I need to make the most of the cooler weather, despite the wind.

Time to hang out the washing and make another cuppa

FD for me. I so enjoyed watching my weight drop during November that I’ve continued 5:2 into December. Happily nudging 60kg instead of 61kg by the time the FD arrives.

We’ve had 56mph winds all weekend. We tied our boat to our neighbours’ with whom we share a stub pontoon. The basin here is relatively sheltered. Some parts of the country endured 93mph wind yesterday. Many of the boats now have their Christmas lights up and there are trees and lights in the windows of the canal warehouse converted apartments surrounding the basin. There are Christmas markets in the town. It never quite seemed like Christmas when it was 42C although DDDD (dinky-di DD) has a different view.

Cinque, GDSA, I respect your views on the obesity pandemic. I understand the complex underlying issues. And I’ve been a fat person. We don’t glorify other addictions. Unfortunately, we are now at a point where society has normalised obesity. Here, we have ads for deodorants and sanitary products where morbidly obese women are proudly portrayed as beautiful. It’s not beautiful; it’s unhealthy, life-threatening and comes at a huge personal and societal cost. Placing blame solely on governments/food manufacturers disincentivises personal change and ensures the status quo. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7025495/

I think it will be interesting to learn whether Trump’s appointment of Kennedy to rattle the FDA has any effect in America. Trump is the only President in US history to leave office with less money than he arrived with. He is not for sale. Bad luck for the mighty food manufacturing lobbyists.

As you know, I don’t do political correctness or woke. Adult issues require adult conversations and some people may get offended. So what?

Welcome to England Anzac, I hope you’re having a fabulous time in Bath. It sounds like you just missed the brunt of the storm and high winds in the SW – although it would have been wet and windy in London too.

So sorry you have been sick Neil, I hope you feel better soon

Thin the weather in London was quite ok when we arrived but when the storm hit it was diabolical. So cold and wet and blowing a gale. Bath is beautiful but we are off to Edinburgh tomorrow

Morning all. Neil that’s tough your weight is up. But fluid disappears, so hoping for a good loss when you’re recovered. Our weather has been crackers. 36 on Sunday, which was hideous. Then rain yesterday, which started just after we took the dogs to the beach…we were so chilly when we got back that OH put on a track suit. DD says there was 85 mm in Brisbane overnight.

Your trip sounds wonderful Anzac – hope you find Edinburgh sunny. I love those crisp winter days when the sun is shining. And such lovely architecture. Quite different from Bath’s, but lovely.

Thin I wonder if Elon Musk was told Trump’s not for sale? 🙂 Kennedy’s appointment, if it goes through, will be interesting to watch. He seems to have such a mixed bag of beliefs. His policies on ultraprocessed food could make a huge difference – but then there’s the other stuff…vaccines, fluoride. Wait and see, I guess.

Gday I think you are so right about how fast easy food has crept into society. Personal responsibility must take a part …but how can you take responsibility if all you have ever known is packaged convenience foods, served up as healthy?

I bought baby cereal to wean Rosy’s puppies, and was horrified at the ingredients in this ‘healthy’ product. Bellamy’s organic cereal – oats and corn as the main ingredient, and pear juice as the second. Training babies for a sweet tooth from the get go. Nestles rice cereal…rice first, and maltodextrin second. And many mother would read it is organic, and therefore healthy, and think they were doing the best they possibly could. (and no, I didn’t give it to the puppies when I read the ingredients list at home).

Cinque how are you going? As always, lovely to read your posts. I wonder if things have changed much in the generations? I suspect most of the shopping/cooking is till done by women.

OK, dogs still sleeping, OH in bed with tea and toast and ABC news radio, rain is still falling, and I have a book to read.

Have a good day all.

Hi all

Thin we flew from Bristol to Edinburgh. We wanted to catch the train but it was so expensive – at least 4 times the air fare

We are loving Edinburgh so so much – the architecture and the character are mind blowing. It is very very cold but we were blessed with a gorgeous sunny day on our first full day. Lindsay yes agree Bath and Edinburgh are both beautiful but very different

We embark tomorrow on our 3 day tour up north to the isle of Skye and back. There seems to be a heatwave coming; all the websites I check say both Edinburgh and Skye will have a high of 11 degrees!! When we first arrived the high was -1 then today it was a balmy 5 degrees so we had hoped for snow but now I doubt it

We are having the most wonderful trip and feel very blessed

Everyone at home us telling us about the heatwave. Apparently it is forecast to get to 40+ next week in Sydney. Yikes

Hope everyone is ok, take care

Thin you are correct in calling the consumption of UPF an addiction because that is exactly what it is, and like all other addictions stopping is not an easy thing to do because there are so many addictive factors in play. There is another addiction that is glorified in today’s society – alcohol. It causes so much damage to society as a whole and to individuals yet just like UPF it is readily available everywhere and is promoted as being a good thing to consume. Sadly money and power are more valued than health and wellbeing.

Anzac I am so envious. My grandparents were Scottish so all things Scottish were a thing in my family. My brother played in the local Caledonian band for over 50 years until they folded due to lack of membership. Every Christmas morning without fail my father would play his bagpipe records on our His Masters Voice stereo at full blast while mum was cooking the Christmas roast. Watching the yearly Edinburgh Military Tattoo was a big event in our household.

I’ve watched a lot of shows on Britbox that were based in Bath and it looks so beautiful. I had a big chuckle at your heatwave comment. It’s 10am here and we’ve just hit 35 deg already. Tomorrow the forescast is 44 so no doubt we’ll end up higher than that. Enjoy the cooler weather and fingers crossed for snow.

Lindsay It will be interesting to see how the new Trump administration pans out. I’m definitely not happy with Musks appointment and Kennedy is a bit of a lose cannon but if he can tackle the big UPF corporations then he has my vote. We will wait in anticipation of what’s to come.

LJoyce MOA – perhaps busy with Christmas functions or baking.

Cinque the garden planting sounds wonderful. My basil didn’t grow for some reason so it’s on my list to plant more seeds. I have a bumper crop of capsicums from 6 bushes. I grown then for myself and for our guinea pigs as they love them so much and at times very expensive to buy.

Neil what a bummer on the weight gain and ill heath. Fingers crossed for you too that you feel better soon and the pesky fluid disappears. Hoping the time away from work will help to move things in a positive direction for you.

Coffee time x

Thin Spitting Image is about the leave Britbox Australia, I’ve just binge watched it for that reason.

While the $12 for 3 bottles of red wine might equate to a pint or two at a pub, its really important to remember that the cost of ‘the pint’ includes all that you are using by being at the pub – the atmosphere, staff wages, toilets, entertainment, cleaning, set up costs, buying the business and all the thousand and one costs that are associated with being in business. They have to cover all of this and hopefully at some stage make a profit and it can only happen if patrons spend money in the pub.

So for this reason I have a very different view to yours Thin. Even though I live on minimal income and have to watch every cent, I feel it is so important to support establishments to survive and hopefully thrive by spending money so the venue can continue to provide us with live entertainment, food and drinks while employing people and contributing to the fabric of the community.

There is one pub where I live and if patrons only bought one drink and nothing else the pub would certainly close because they would be making a loss. The pub provides lunch and dinner 7 days a week, a social club, bar snacks, raffles, weekly members draw, pool table, kids play area, christmas and easter functions for patrons and kids and free live entertainment. It needs the community to support all of these things to survive and stay open. If the pub closes, the social connections of this community go with it.

We reached exactly 46 deg (nice round figure) at 5.15pm under my back verandah yesterday and at 10am this morning we are currently sitting at 40.4 deg. I’m not going to complain about the heat as I made a point during winter of mentally telling myself how much I hate the cold, how hard it is to get out of bed in the mornings and how difficult it is to get motivated so I’m embracing the heat. Although I’m stuck inside during these heatwaves, on a normal hot day I still get out and about and the heat doesn’t bother me too much, I love living in shorts and singlets.

The garden workload is reduced now everything is on a watering system and timers, with the exception of the spare block with the native and olive trees which are on watering systems but not timers so still easy to just turn the tap on and come back half and hour later and turn it off again. I didn’t have time to install pop up sprinklers in the lawn when I laid it earlier in the year but I have since purchased some and hope to have those installed soon, a lot easier than dragging the hose and sprinkler around the back yard. The garden is fairing very well in the heat with the exception of most of my nasturtiums which are now shriveled up and dead – the sun and heat yesterday was just too much for them.

I have some halloumi cheese in the fridge so halloumi salad for lunch today, its been ages since I had halloumi so looking forward to it. Time to go, you guessed it – coffee time.

Hello everyone,

Okay Gday, YOU should have got the Isle of Skye heatwave swap!
I hope today isn’t too bad.

Your capsicums sound wonderful. They are terribly expensive here at the moment. My favourite is roasted red capsicums and I prefer homemade to jars, so I hope the price comes down soon.

My contribution to the pepper family is the same chili plant (just about a tree now) that I have had for years. It is covered with green ones at the moment. I still have my fridge and freezer packed with last year’s chili oil, chili paste, sweet chili sauce, roasted chilis and frozen just plain.

I’m also complaining about the heat, and remembering how I complained about the cold, haha. I am enjoying my summer clothes, lots of linen and silk and lovely cotton.

We had 41c on Monday and I wilted, and was also minding my 8yo granddaughter. Eep. We managed to have a nice time but I think I am still recovering.

The hot day must have germinated all the pumpkin seeds in the garden so any of my little seedings that survive will soon be shaded by however many pumpkin plants I let continue.

Thin, I have the same trouble trying to put thoughts and my point of view into words. I might be worse in a cafe setting! But it would be fun to try, with the time to just casually work through conversations with plenty of time to explain and listen.

Neil, yay for a good weigh in. 600g down is good!
That lingering cough can take so long! Patience. (Mine is still going too).
One day your energy and bounce will return! Soon I hope.

Best wishes to everyone,
How was the Isle of Skye Anzac? I hope your trip continues it wonderfulness.
Hi Lindsay, Turn, and LJoyce how are you going?
Ciao

Evening all

G’day, I’ve done liquid fasts up to 3 days before, it might be tricky at this time of year. We have Christmas lunch with my family tomorrow as my sister is heading up to Waiheke island on Monday. Then Wednesday we’re having Christmas dinner with my wife’s family. I can try to fast in between, but I was hoping to get out for some decent rides, and it’s quite hard to do.a complete fast when doing some heavy exercise.

Morning all from a sunny and suprisingly not hot Saturday. All going well here. Just the usual Christmas stuff – mostly cleaning because the family comes to us at Christmas. The little girls and I made Christmas icecream yesterday (a family tradition which involves nothing more than chopping a box of Family Favourites into a tub of good icecream, and refreezing). Definitely not part of the program.
I’ve been banned from cooking meat this year – apparently I get too distracted when I have to cook on Christmas morning. Suits me. I’ll do the puddings (pavlova, the icecream, an egg custard and plum pudding) and DD and DS can do the rest.
Cinque my chilli bushes have gone bananas (figuratively, of course) so I used a whole bowl of them to make chilli jam, using a Nigella Lawson recipe.
Unfortunately I didn’t get the capsicums at $2.99 a kilo 🙁

Ah, you and I are the only two women left in the world who like ironing. And why not? The joy of pillow slips neatly folded, alongside the teatowels and the occasional tablecloth.

My goodness Gday …such temperatures. I hope you get some respite soon.

Coming late to the discussion about obesity being normalised. I agree with you Thin that as a major health hazard, making it acceptable is never going to lead to change. But oh, I do also agree with Cinque and Gday’s perspectives. How can people make good choices when they’ve never known anything else? And fat people being loaded with guilt and self-hatred is surely not the best way forward? I strayed over to commercial television yesterday and saw a new product being advertised – if I remember correctly, it was a ‘new’ snack food…a combination of crisps and popcorn, with a suitably appealing name and advertising to match. People like us will never buy it – but people who’ve been brought up with junk food over generations will – and that’s the demograpic the food manufacturers and advertisers go for.

I saw on FB a little while ago pictures of people at the beach in Brighton in the 70s, and another of people at the beach in the 2020s. In the first pic, hardly a fat person in sight, if at all. In the second, there was hardly a person of normal weight. Not coincidental, that as Gday identified, the 70s were the start of UP.

I have a full day of activities planned – starting with finishing wrapping Christmas presents, hanging out the washing (I finally caved and bought a clothes dryer earlier in the week, after days and days of pouring rain, and the sun has been shining since), and whipper snipping the fence lines and around the pool before OH mows. Our gardener, at 56, had a stroke, which is very sad. Very high blood pressure, apparently, which his mother told me he wouldn’t take medication for. So now it’s OH’s challenge. I did buy him a Ryobi mower, which is light and easy for him to do our rather large garden in stages. I also bought a Ryobi whipper snipper which is turning into my job.

Neil I hope you are feeling better.

Anzac what an amazing holiday you are having – looking forward to the next instalment.

Thin did I read you are sitting a Vizsla? A lovely breed of gundog. My girls love them, because they come in front of us in the best in group lineup (Hungarian Vizslas, Irish Setters).

Take care all.

Happy Christmas everyone! We’re a day behind you but the 3 of us are planning our own little Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. There will be too much food involved so back to fasting after the holidays. I was doing good for a while but need to learn to manage stress better – without a lot of eating.

We heard on the news that there were bushfires in Victoria, but it looks like Cinque is safe in Melbourne. At least I hope she is.

OH is doing ok, a little better on most days lately. I feed him well! I will try to get back here over the next few days. I need to catch up on all the older posts.

Merry christmas everyone.

Today I’m heading into the hills for christmas lunch with my Dad’s side of the family.

I’m hoping for some less hectic days after christmas so I can catch up on the news here. I haven’t even been turning the laptop on lately, let alone reading.

Take care. I hope you all have a lovely day.

Hello friends

Home again and it is HOT but we are loving it after being cold for so long. We had the best holiday imaginable

My big news (other than how big I am after the holiday) is my project has been cancelled and I have lost my job. Thankfully they are keeping me on until the end of January so I have some time to find something else. Not optimal after not being paid for 6 weeks and spending a fortune on a wonderful trip; however it is what it is and I need to look for a new job and hopefully it will be a lot less stressful than this one

I look forward to catching up with your posts and getting back into the swing of things including 5:2 which starts on 1st January

Anzac i echo Neil’s comments, view it as a blessing and a time to reflect on whether a job is worth the time it takes out of your life (working too many hours) and the stress ( the impact of stress on our health and wellbeing) and perhaps move onto a less stressful job with less hours. I’m firmly in the camp of having a life where having time to do the things I enjoy, maintaining good health and minimal stress is much more important than making money to build wealth. Mr GDays sudden passing cemented that for me, worked hard all his life in jobs that stressed him out and passed away just as he hit retirement age.

Neil, enjoy your break from work and the bike rides. Woo hoo for the downward trend, keep those new year treats in check for more downward figures on New Year’s Day. Great work

LJoyce good to hear from you, I hope the hills was cooler for you on Xmas day.

Lindsay I feel for your DD. Christmas can be a sad time for many people due to family issues, I cringe every time I see one of those memes about happy family Christmas’, very stereotypical and not true for so many.

As usual, no New Years celebrations for me, I’ll be lucky to stay awake for the ABC fireworks broadcast 🤣🤣