Congratulations Neil on the fundraising fantastic work.

Lindsay, I can’t even begin to imagine the stress of what you are going through. Lawyers have perfected the art of dragging things out as long as possible, less money for them if cases are settled quickly. And to put yourself and OH through those horrible questions from the psychiatrist, which I assume is an attempt to discredit you or find something to use against you. Just shocking beyond words. I do home these resolves for you both very soon and you can put the legal battle behind you.

I think when we are under pressure and stress, we become super sensitive to things that normally wouldn’t bother us. I know I felt this way when Mr GDay passed, every little thing bothered me, whether it was something that directly impacted on me or not.

When I was speaking to the lawyer with OH’s will when it was contested, the lawyer told me that the law was there to be ‘fair and equitable’ to everyone and I just laughed at his face and asked him if he seriously believed that – he downcast his eyes and didn’t respond.

Day 3 completed with no dairy, and I can’t say I feel any different other than I’m really, really missing dairy. But will persevere and try to complete 2 weeks. I will attempt to make homemade mayo in a moment so I can spread that on my homemade bread as a substitute for butter, cheese etc as well as mixing with mashed boiled egg as a spread. My homemade mayo attempts in the past haven’t always been successful; I struggle getting the emulsification process to work properly so fingers crossed for success this time around.

Quacka don’t be disappointed with your results, there will be weeks with a loss, a gain and sometimes no change at all and that is the nature of how the human body works but as long as your trend is heading downwards over a period time then all is good.

I think Dr Clare and her son Dr Jack are doing brilliantly at continuing the work of Dr MM. I follow them both on Instagram and am really impressed with them both for providing down-to-earth advice around good health and wellbeing.

Thin, it is so sad to see the UPF’s and drinks people are consuming. Unfortunately, governments around the world have a severe lack of political will to stand up to the UPF companies and enforce proper food labelling laws that make it blatantly clear what the product is and the negative effects it has on the human body, and mind for that matter. I know we’ve had this discussion before and yes there is an element of personal responsibility but the circumstances of so many people doesn’t afford to give them the knowledge or understanding to make the right food choices. They believe what is on the label because they honestly don’t know any different, UPF is all they know.

Mmmm…..worried about LJoyce, it’s been so long since we’ve seen a post from her I do hope all is okay.

Woo hoo mayo success – I’m so happy. I’ve also made a batch of cashew nut cheese and avocado chilli dip, although the dip is actually a Jamie Oliver salad dressing recipe that I adapted many years ago to make it my own. As all 3 contain apple cider vinegar they will all last in the fridge for many weeks.

Cinque you must have been reading my mind as I had a feeling one of us had LJoyces email and I was going to ask, thank you for looking.

Still no change with the sinuses. However happy to report in the last few weeks a downward trend on all the weight management markers I track. Also noticed some snug outfits are not so snug at the moment which is pleasing.

I’ve been very lax on the exercise front since returning from Adelaide as struggling to find the energy. A week of very late nights coupled with a reduction in the number of hours sleep per night during the fringe has sent my body out of whack big time. I’ve been struggling to fall asleep most nights, my brain won’t stop thinking. Last night, or this morning rather, I was still wide awake at 4am and up at 6.30am so I feel like a zombie today. It’s been a few weeks now so I think I may have to take a melatonin tablet each night for a few weeks to hopefully kick start my normal sleep pattern back into action.

Daylight savings finishes this weekend and that always plays havoc with my sleep patterns for a few weeks. I’m looking forward to getting the early sunrises and early sunsets back over the coming months. Hopefully this, along with melatonin for a few weeks will get me back into my normal pattern of 8 hours sleep per night.

Good morning

I’m on B2B fast days today. Yesterday went well and I got through it quite smoothly. Had a lovely home made miso soup last night with the qetoe noodles, veggies, prawns and fish balls. Yes, fish balls! lol
Total calories for the day were 358. Check in tomorrow with weight.

Have a great day everyone! Mine is going to be busy again, yay!

Evening all

Weigh in today I was back up 300g. So the rollercoaster rolls on.

Cinque, thank you so much for your donation. I thought the donation was from my workmate’s wife Joy. I told him to thank her on my behalf, he looked puzzled and told me he didn’t think it was her because she was “morally opposed to charity”

My goal for this coming week is to premake all my lunches so it’s easier to track. I just made a batch of chicken, vegetable and lentil casserole that should last me 4 lunches, I also made some overnight oats with greek yoghurt, stewed apple, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a tablespoon of everything butter (a peanut butter that’s a mix of peanut, almond, hemp seed, seseame seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, chia seeds and flax seeds) so I have 2 of my meals for tomorrow logged already.

Quacka well done on the fasts, I’m sure you’ll smash the weigh-in out of the park

Gday, snap on the sleep. I’ve been getting only around 4 hours sleep, waking up at 2am and dozing off and on until my alarm goes off. I’ve tried to cut my coffee consumption right back because that had been creeping up and I’m sitting at 9 days without coffee, perhaps the withdrawl is what’s keeping me up.

Hopefully Ljoyce will show up soon to let us know she’s fine.

Habe a great one everyone.

I spoke to LJ on FT a couple weeks ago and had a text conversation with her last week. She’s just been busy, and like me, it takes her a while to catch up on pages of older posts. I’ll give her a nudge. I’ll get caught up here again too. I do enjoy keeping. In touch with everyone here. It’s just difficult with caregiving here these days.

Thin, is your email address the same as way back when? I get so much junk email these days that I do most things with texting or FaceTime.

Anzac, congratulations on the new job! So happy that you weren’t off for very long. Commuting only 2 days per week doesn’t sound too bad.

Morning all

Cali, Good to hear Ljoyce is ok, just busy. I really hoped it wasn’t like the situation with Penguin a couple of years back.

Quacka, A local NZ company “Fix and Fogg” make the everything butter,

https://fixandfogg.co.nz/products/everything-butter

they have some really nice products including smoke and fire, which is a peanut butter mixed with chilli and smoked paprika.

I got some walking in over the last couple of days, I rode my bike in to work on Tuesday, left it there and walked home. Today I’m doing it the other way around. I walked into work, then I’m going to ride home.

Have a good one everyone

LJ has replied apologising for worrying everyone and will post here soon. Whoa! Loads of posts to read now.

Cali thanks for the LJoyce update it’s a relief to know she is okay. Like Neil, I was having Penguin thoughts.

Quacka yes Aquafaba is very good for health and I’ve seen mayo recipes using it but haven’t tried to make it that way, maybe next time if I remember.

I have 2 pair of expensive shoes, over $300 retail each but purchased on sale. They are Vivo Barefoot shoes, I have a black hiking boot and a white gym shoe and they were worth every cent. They are designed for the foot not for fashion by being very wide across the toes and minimalist sole so the foot and toes have room to spread out as they naturally should and minimalist sole allows the foot to feel the ground contact while allowing the sole of the foot to walk as it was designed to. I wear them all the time and since using them and ditching the standard shoes I no longer have foot and toe problems. With all the walking we did in Adelaide during the fringe my feet felt just as good at the end of the day as at the start. I still have tons of standard shoes which I rarely wear nowadays but on the odd occasion I do need a pair to suit an outfit.

Saturday weekly weight tally has recorded another loss of 0.6 and a reduction in body fat %, bmi etc but still no change in sinus’s condition but I will continue dairy free until Tuesday which will make it 2 weeks, I figure no change in that time means dairy is not the culprit. However, I’m thinking that it may be helping with my weight loss as I’m not consuming the good dairy fats so I will be mindful when I return to dairy to keep a check on the good fat intake.

So lovely sitting on the front verandah this morning I’m feeling very unmotivated to get moving and do some chores. Have a good weekend everyone x

LJ, good to have you back and I’m sorry that things took an ‘uphill’ slide for you. You’re here now and back fasting, the heat of summer is over so hopefully you’ll be back to your old self (and weight) very soon.

Anzac, I forgot to say that your post made me laugh. We’ve always called Australia the land of the acronym. People can speak a whole sentence using them. It’s like another language to learn. ‘BIRs’ was the first one to baffle us when we moved there looking for a house to rent.

Morning all,

Good to hear from you Ljoyce, sorry to hear you’ve been struggling a bit recently. I hear what you say about time flying. It doesn’t feel like we should be halfway through autumn, but next Tuesday will be exactly that. This year is motoring by.

My weekend was OK, I got out for a ride yesterday, and got the lawn mowed for the first time in about 2 months and it was halfway up my calves the grass was so long. I’m hoping I can put in a fast today and tomorrow, because I had cards with friends on Friday, and we always eat too much junk when we do that (luckily we only meet once a month). We had a big power cut last night that affected half of the western area of our city, affected around 3,500 households. It was quite nice hanging out in the dark with candles and camping lights around the house. My wife wanted a cup of tea so we broke out the camping stove to boil up a brew. Really roughing it 😉

Have a great one everyone.

Good Morning everyone

It’s Monday FD today and I may even do a B2B with tomorrow as I have just made a Wed afternoon appt with the dentist. Oh great!

The weekend was great with exercise but not so great with eating and alcohol. I had pasta (out), nachos and chicken snitzel (both home made) and also too much alcohol, so feeling a bit bleh today. A good FD will fix me up.

Thanks thin, for the congratulations. Yes, I will keep posting my weight until I get to my goal which I haven’t set yet. Interim goal is under 70kg when we go away. It’s now only 6 weeks away so it’s going to be close and if I keep eating like on the weekend I won’t make it even close!!

G’day we sell the Vivobarefoot shoes in our shop but only the men’s ones at the moment. I haven’t ever tried them but I have seen most of the PT’s at the gym wear them and swear by them. It’s interesting that any foot issues you had disappeared after wearing them.

Wow Neil, 9 days without coffee. Wondering how you are doing now and if you have had any since that post. I can take or leave coffee so it wouldn’t affect me too much but I can understand how it affects some people. I actually didn’t have any coffee for the 3 weeks we were in NZ, mainly because Mr Q doesn’t drink it. I still had my morning tea(s). Love that you used the camping stove to make a cuppa during the black out. I would have done the same!

LJ, nice to see your post. Glad you have been ok and just busy. Time definitely flies by but I hope you can find some time to post again soon.

Hi Cinque, Cali and Anzac and anyone else that I have missed.

Hope everyone has a great week ahead and I’ll check in tomorrow to say if I’m doing B2B or not.

Take care xx

Weighing in on the coffee debate, last year I went one month without coffee as I was drinking way too much. Now upon waking I have ACV and water and a large pot of organic green leaf tea. Then I’ll have one coffee mid morning, sometimes but not often I will have a second one. Very rarely will I have jar coffee nowadays, it’s always organic beans, ground and made using a moka pot on the stovetop. Good to see you are cutting back Neil, that was a lot of coffee in one day, especially one so late in the afternoon. Have you noticed any improvement in sleep?

My sleep has improved after taking melatonin for a week or so and I’m loving the end of daylight savings. Back to getting up at 5am and falling asleep by 8.30pm with the exception of Friday night as we went to the cinema to see the Minecraft movie – Miss GDay’s choice not mine – neither of us enjoyed the movie or the crowd. People, or I should say teenagers, although I don’t like to lump one generation into being a certain way, were noisy, talked loudly all the way through the entire movie, were up and down to the canteen like yoyo’s and the parents who took their toddlers and pre-school children – well, they were quite happy to let their kids scream, cry and carry on throughout the entire screening. I couldn’t wait for it to finish – our worst cinema experience ever.

Quacka how cool you sell Vivo’s. I bought mine from Vivo Australia direct. I can understand why the PT’s wear them as they provide great foot stability.

Last day without dairy and still no change. Happy because I can go back to dairy but not happy because I still have sinus issues 😄

Good morning everyone,
I am in the middle of a busy week. I have a friend staying overnight so this is just a quick morning post with my first cup of tea, before she wakes.

Tonight I have Ms 8 staying overnight, so I will probably need a week recovery time after that.

Quacka, aren’t you rocking those back to back fast days. Yay for veggies! I hope you are feeling wonderfully light and empty.

Neil, I bet that first coffee tasted SO GOOD after 10 days without.

Gday, I am so glad your sleep has improved, doesn’t it make a difference!

My grandchilden (10 and 8) went to the Minecraft movie with their mum and just LOVED the whole theatre clapping and laughing and cheering together. It was a school holidays kid daytime crowd so maybe more fun than you had to get through.

I did another sort of fast day yesterday, haha. Well, I fasted until my friend arrived and then had a yummy samosa in yoghurt sauce with her for dinner, that was yummy but might have been 700 calories all on its own. It does mean I feel good this morning (without the stick of thinking I had LTR, I keep pushing the eating boundaries that suit me, sigh. My tummy is getting bigger.) I’ll do a proper fast day soon.

Good Morning everyone

Hi Cinque, hope you are having a nice time with your friend staying over and also tonight with Ms 8.
Your sort of fast days are good training for the body for when you get to do your proper FD’s again. I know you will get there soon x

Weight today is 73.9kg, yes that is 100g up from last week. I’m not too worried about the 100g more the fact that I didn’t lose any weight this week! That is what pasta, snitzels and nachos on the weekend will do and also yesterday I had a FD failure (***sad face***). Well, I’m calling it a failure. I was still under 800 cals but it should have been more like 600 cals, I was just so hungry when I got home that I had a little pig out on tasty cheese corn thins. Now if they were just plain corn thins I would have stopped at a couple but as they were tasty cheese (some addictive additive in them, I’m sure) I ended up eating 5 of them which added 135 calories that were not needed. Oh well, today is an eating day, and dentist day, and then tomorrow I might do a sort of fast (cheers Cinque) depending on how I feel. I guess it will be more like an IF, maybe an 18:6 or something like that. AND healthy eating for the rest of the week including the weekend, Quacka!
No use beating myself up about it, next week will be two proper fasts and I should see a bit more weight down.

Take care all xx

It’s a FD for me as I woke to 100g over my trigger weight. I thought I was having a good Sunday FD as I was SO hungry all day but it yielded a miserable 300g loss, my worst result ever. I did drink a lot of water but using water weight as an excuse seems so lame so I’ve kicked in an extra FD. OH has a sad look on his face but it never hurts him to forego the little extras despite his FOMO. (Wednesday night is steak night at the pub that’s a shortish walk across two fields).

Quacka, hats off to you with the B2B fasting. I never wake up hungry after a FD so it’s only a mental barrier that I feel I couldn’t do it. Frustrating results for you, me and Neil this week but we have to consider where we’d be on the scales had we NOT fasted. I did also briefly try to blame the scales’ batteries but my weight is what it is, no excuses, I just have to do what has to be done and tomorrow will be a happy day.

Cinque, did you have a fun overnight stay with your friend? And then another lovely day with little Miss 8?

Years ago, I drank 6-8 cups of instant or filtered coffee (mostly mindless drinking between patients at work). Once I invested in my Italian Rancilio coffee maker and could savour the entire process from the grinding of good quality beans, tamping, milk frothing, etc, I only required two cups per day. I miss my machine on the boat but I still keep to two cups of cafetière ground coffee a day and I can’t handle instant coffee at all. I dislike the commercial pod machine things and I rarely buy a coffee while out and about as I never know how many calories it might deliver and whether it will meet my standards. I recently saw a cup of coffee advertised at £3.80. That’s about AUD7.60, good grief.

We spent the entire day travelling on country buses to get to a larger city for a ten minute appointment for OH yesterday. It started off so pleasantly with passengers greeting and acknowledging each other as they boarded at small villages. As we reached the towns, I was again struck by how generally unhealthy people looked. There were so many people using mobility devices and a number of people on the city buses displaying obvious mental health issues. And the obesity issue ever present – on both sides of the hospital counter. Receptionists, nurses, technicians – many morbidly obese. It’s hard to accept health advice from people who present like this.

I remember in the Southern California hospitals where I worked in the eighties, staff fitness and health was a very high priority; we had a gym, staff showers, an exercise track around the hospital perimeter, regular 10km team running events, and so on.

I wanted to know if poverty and ignorance are a valid defence for poor nutrition given that, in England anyway, a) education is free and b) education is compulsory. And, if this is the accepted line of defence, then why are there people in my own friendship and socio-economic circles who are morbidly obese? I wondered whether what we knew in the seventies as ‘domestic science’ was taught in schools today. Well, it turns out it is.

Primarily a subject for girls, it was essentially scrapped in the early nineties in favour of ‘design and technology’ which left a generation of pupils unable to follow a basic recipe. But in 2008, practical cooking classes were re-introduced in the hope of combating obesity. It became compulsory for every child aged between 11 and 14, both sexes, to be taught practical cooking, learning to make traditional ‘English’ dishes such as fish pie, spag bol, along with (in a reflection of changing times) Indian and Thai curries.

There were many teething problems when it was re-introduced. Some new schools hadn’t been built with kitchens. Teachers had to be re-trained. Home economics now includes personal and family finances, consumer issues, housing and interior design, nutrition and food preparation, as well as textiles and apparel.

Critics, of course, moan that governments shouldn’t force teenagers into any subject that they don’t want to take. Given that there are so many influencing factors on their decision-making when it comes to nutrition (poor habits handed down from the generation of parents and teachers who apparently knew no better, cultural norms surrounding food, internet misinformation, social media influencers, poor understanding of how to manage personal finances, etc, etc), school seems to me to be a very good place to start.

Cinque and Neil yes there was lots of dress ups at the minecraft movie as well as the audience participation which was great, very similar to what occurred at the opening night of Five Nights at Freddys. It was the rudeness of people talking loudly and screaming toddlers throughout the movie that annoyed me.

On track for tomorrow’s weekly weight average to drop another half kg for the week so very happy with the continuing downward trend despite no fasting at all of late. Will fast later next week as we are in Adelaide for a few days early in the week and I time my fasting for when I have used up all the fresh food in the house and before I restock.

Interesting times in America and indeed the world this week and moving forward. So much damage done in such a short period, all based on lies and incorrect facts. Leadership and common sense in the administration has been replaced with complete incompetence and reckless self indulgence. I could go on but I’ll stop there.

Morning coffee time, have a good day everyone

Good morning everyone.

Neil, Quacka and Thin, I feel you scales pain. I hope you all have a better week ahead.
In the week since I last posted I’ve done 3 FDs (Sa, Tu, Fr), yet my weight as of yesterday is unchanged. I suspect fluid retention, due to hot weather, is a factor. I sneaked in a weigh-in mid week and was down 1.2kg, then the weather changed and I know I retain fluid when it’s hot. The weather here turned hot by Thursday – we are now facing a week of mid-30s UGH!

I have realised just how much my mood and energy levels are impacted by the weather. When it’s cool I sleep so much better and usually have unbroken sleep, so I have more energy and I want to get out of the house and do things. When it’s hot I get limited broken sleep and feel tired all day and I don’t want to leave the house. In the last few days as it steadily returned to summer temperatures here, I could actually feel myself getting grumpier and fatigued. It’s like a brain fog descends over me and I plod my way through the day. I really do live in the wrong city for someone who’s so averse to hot weather.

Cinque, I smiled when reading your comment about needing a week to recover from a sleepover. I used to feel like that. My great niece and nephew are 11 and 13 now, so I offered a day out this week at Marion Westfield (movies, lunch and a wander around their favourite shops). I used to do that with a sleepover the night before. The day time option is definitely less tiring and they are old enough not to want sleepovers the way they used to.

GDSA & Neil, I suspect my movies trip with my nephew’s kids will be Minecraft – I didn’t offer dress-ups!

Anzac, well done on the new contract – excellent that you had a bidding war in the end. Excellent news on the flexible work arrangements – 3 WFH days is a good deal in the fiance industry these days, from what I hear. Commiserations on the super, let’s hope it improved before you retire. I suspect that once Trump’s done his deals and there is more certainty over world trade, the stock market panic will slow and confidence will return.

Time for me to have a late breakfast. I might do a low cal high fibre smoothie. It’s good weather for it.

Take care everyone.

FD for me.

LJ, you’ve reminded me how I used to feel hostage to the air-conditioner during Perth summers. Although we had perfect weather throughout our recent visit, months and months of heat can really sap your energy. Conversely, endless days without seeing the sun can become so depressing. We’ve just enjoyed twelve consecutive days of blue skies and sunshine here, it was 20C yesterday. We had two towpath BBQs this week.

Anzac, I bet you’ll soon be a great asset to the work force. I’ve just read that Sydney is the second least affordable city in the world for housing (after Hong Kong) – so at least when you move north, you will be able to capitalise on that. I agree with LJ, stock markets are driven by fear and greed and have less to do with actual economies and more to do with perception.

Quacka, lovely post thank you, I enjoyed reading it – twice. But I feel for you not ever getting a decent night’s sleep. I need pitch blackness and total silence to sleep.

That’s a shocking array of fast food outlets. Same everywhere I think – the traditional High Street shops here have been replaced with row upon row of fast food outlets, tattoo shops, nail salons and Turkish barbers the latter widely supposed to be drug/gang/money laundering fronts (some towns have five or more in a single street). There are also eastern European shops selling nothing but sticky drinks and snack food. That tells you a lot, doesn’t it? Lots of fat people with expensive tattoos, perfect nails and/or trimmed beards.

I’ve never frequented fast food chains. My problem with being horribly overweight was overeating. I can recall a bit of a dilemma when one of DD’s primary school class mates invited the entire class to her birthday party at McDonald’s. DD had never had it. We let her go and form her own opinion – I don’t think she’s set foot inside one since!

That child’s mother BTW is my long-time friend and walking buddy (over 25 years). We went on several walks together during my recent Perth visit. She is even more grossly overweight than before, her knees are suffering terribly and it was clear she was struggling to walk. Eleven years ago, she watched the weight literally fall off me with 5:2 and could have replicated my path. She’s well-educated, lives in an affluent suburb, knows better, chooses to do nothing about it. Both her adult children (DD’s age) are morbidly obese, one to the extent that she cannot find clothing to fit and my friend is having to sew clothes for her.

Another parent in our social group (private school education, successful business owner, affluent suburb) berated me for not allowing DD to drink sticky drinks in primary school. She told me that DD would ultimately ‘rebel’ and drink more sugary sodas. What a load of tosh. Like us, DD drinks water with meals whether at home or in a restaurant.

These examples contribute to my difficulty attributing poverty / lack of education to poor food choices although of course I understand that, where those factors do come into play, they certainly don’t help. And I agree with you Quacka, fast food outlets don’t seem inexpensive when I see their ads.

Hi Everyone

It’s Wednesday FD for me and I don’t know why but it is going really easily. It could be that I have had an eating day in between (not that I had lots of food but enough to be satisfied) and it’s more of a mental thing. Maybe because I’ve been feeling a bit off in the tummy for the last couple days (seems to be going around locally) or maybe because I did a lot of exercise this morning. Or just that I am determined to get back into the 73s tomorrow and then try and stay there after a long weekend! Chocolate won’t be a problem for me as I haven’t bought myself any Easter eggs and OH has already told me he’s just getting me a block of chocolate lol. Much easier for me to avoid. I always say that Easter egg chocolate tastes so different but maybe that’s just a mental thing too ha ha. I think I just like Easter egg chocolate (the hollow ones) because the chocolate is nice and thin, and I break off a piece and really enjoy it. It’s also a throwback to childhood when we would get the dozen hollow Easter eggs that came in the egg carton. Oh the memories!

Thin, I have also never eaten a lot of fast food. We grew up in a town that had no fast food places at all. The nearest one was KFC that was in a much bigger town (maybe a city) about two hours drive away. We would go there maybe once a year and Dad would order the bucket of chicken and chips and we’d go down to the beach and eat it. It was a treat back then and I think us kids mainly ate the chippies, as we used to call them. I had my first McDonalds when we came to Sydney to see my grandparents (an 8 hr drive). My aunty took my sister and I out to Maccas and I have never forgotten it. It wasn’t the food so much but the novelty – the big Ronald McDonald and the polystyrene hinged boxes that the burgers used to come in, and of course the chippies again.
An interesting thing – my sister became addicted to the chocolate sundaes a few years ago and I mean addicted like a drug addict, she couldn’t stop. So she researched every ingredient that was in the sundaes and found that one, or maybe some, of the ingredients are known to be addictive. They are probably added to the sundaes just for that reason. She ended up breaking her addiction although I think she still eats Maccas sometimes, just that she is in control of it now.

We also never had soft drinks or any other sugary drinks like cordial or juice. I tasted my first Coke when I was in my teens and it was disgusting.It still is.
When we visited my grandparents my grandmother would make us up a glass of Tang. Does anyone remember that? Tang was a huge treat for us. Mum wasn’t impressed that my grandmother would give us all this naughty food ha ha but she didn’t make too much of a fuss as we only would visit maybe once/twice a year.

Yay Neil! I knew that there had to be a big weight loss coming up soon for you. Well done for just keeping on and staying positive. Let’s hope that this downward slope is slippery ha ha and next week you have another big kg loss.

I’ll check in tomorrow with my weight and it better be in the 73s.

Chat soon x

Good morning everyone,

It is the end of next week! (Time flown since I last caught up!).

I am happily sipping my morning coffee. Sympathy to LJoyce and Gday suffering a SA Autumn heatwave. Here it is just as much worry about climate change, but a much nicer experience. A week of weather in the late twenties so I can wear my summer clothes one last time.

Lots of agreement with things said over the week: aagh the fast food places and the way childhood eating and relationships mould our brains, yes, I am another terrible sleeper and doesn’t it make everything more difficult, woot the belt buckle beats the scales again, oh no people talking and toddlers screaming and ooh doesn’t chocolate in the shape of eggs taste enhanced! (They say it is because biting the thin shape means it is in our mouth tasting and smelling for longer).

I found a new podcast series my twin doctors are doing and they spoke to a clinical psychologist about willpower and they broke it down into two main things (if I got it right), one is planning what to do when the unexpected happens, and the other is being able to sit with stress discomfort. (Thin, I think these might be your superpowers).
They talked about the difficulty of making new habits and that the fails always happen and are important to learn from. Not that new and surprising to me, but I notice I have been thinking about it since, so I thought I would share it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00298p6

I have pretty well recovered from my busy week and it was a good one. This week my daughter’s family are away and I have just had to occasionally visit their two gorgeous cats (who don’t seem to have been missing them at all). They are brother and sister cats, both deaf, both white with amazing blue eyes. Meg is small and short haired, Murphy is huge and super fluffy. So gorgeous.

Thin, yay for your stubbornness. It was an awful mindset in those times that children needed to be ‘broken’ to never win an argument with an adult. My sister suffered terribly the same. I went all numb and compliant (broken).

I have been doing some gardening, lovely autumn things in: Japanese greens, coriander and lettuce, lots of self sown parsley and warrigal greens.

Proper fast day coming soon.

Cheers aLL

Good Morning everyone

74.4kg so I didn’t make the 73’s this week. I had two good FD’s so I just say whatever. Enough said

Thin, I didn’t grow up with those sort of “bad” food experiences like some of you did. I was never made to eat all my dinner or anything like that, though I do remember Dad forcing me to try fried chicken livers and they were disgusting and I will never eat any kind of offal again! This was a a one off though. What I did have in my family was a huge focus on food, and this means my immediate and extended family. It’s sort of hard to explain but I come from a big Greek family and love is shown with food. Mum is an excellent cook, even my Dad could cook really well. My grandmother and all my aunties are also excellent cooks. We always had plenty of food around and biggest problem it was always so yummy, and is still so yummy! Every family gathering involved a lot of food and a huge variety of it and even if you have a little bit of everything you end up completely stuffed. So I guess what I’m trying to say is my weight/food issues comes from eating too much (really) good food not eating crap. Portion control is everything, but have you ever seen a portion of food that Greeks serve? It is massive ha ha.
One of the main things that doing 5:2 has taught me is that it is ok to be hungry. It won’t kill you. I still struggle with it, the being hungry part and also the portion control. If something tastes yummy I just want to keep eating it. I’m pretty chuffed when I can actually say yes this is amazing but now I have had enough, and stop eating. It’s a work in progress.
I hope your FD went well thin, i know you will have done it but just I hope that it was nice and easy. Your Easter egg tradition sounds like fun and ohhhhh the Crunchie egg! Crunchie’s are my favourite chocolate bar, followed closely by Violet Crumble. Yep, teeth rot here we come lol.

Cinque, nice to read your post. The deaf cats sound cool. OH and I had a deaf dog called Maya who was also white. Did you know there is a correlation between white coats and deafness apparently? We taught Maya sign language and she was the best dog. I still miss her and her mate Brandy who we got from the pound to be Maya’s ears. Pets are so wonderful while they are around but so heartbreaking when they go. Too sad.
Your gardening sounds good. I’ve never had Warrigal greens but my grandmother used to make this stuff called “Horta” which translates to “weeds” in English. It was dandelion greens that she would cook up and then dress with olive oil, maybe some lemon juice as well. Super healthy but disgusting to us as children although I’m sure I would love it now.
Asian greens are always good in anything. How do you control all the pests the get on them though? I’ve tried growing them before and ending up with more holes and pests than actual leaves lol.

Well I better go and do some work. I hope you all have a lovely weekend. I am determined that my one will be active and eating nice healthy food (with portions controlled!)

Take care all and Happy Easter XX

What a super day after FD reading all those food stories. I loved them.

Quacka, it’s so interesting that cultures such as your Greek and the Italians express their love by providing bountiful food. Neil has talked of this with his Indian in-laws also and how his rellies would be offended if the food were refused. I can imagine frequent celebrations of large family get-togethers with so many dishes to sample and plates piled high. I’m afraid I’ve never associated food with love. Mealtimes were a battleground.

Cinque, you summed it all up so well as always and made a good point about not having to win every argument with your child. Sometimes it seems parenting has gone from one extreme to another in one generation. Fast food ads in England can now only be shown after 9pm making me wonder who’s calling the shots.

At our house, it wasn’t only about eating everything on the plate but instilling good table manners. My younger brother usually ate everything on his plate quickly progressing to the dessert reward (I’d still be pushing my food around the plate trying to make it look like I’d eaten more). I remember we had small dessert bowls with a lip around the edge. One day, my brother picked out all the sultanas from his spotted dick and custard and neatly placed them around the lip to savour for last. Just as he got to that point, my dad reached over and scooped them all away saying, “let that be a lesson to you not to play with your food”. That ‘lesson’ has stayed with us both for sixty years!

We never went to restaurants until we were much older but I must say that I am grateful that we were taught how to behave in one. This was considered an adult arena and it was a privilege to experience it. My intolerance of feral children running around other patrons’ tables, yelling, overindulged in food and drink preferences and seemingly unable to endure the experience without an ipad probably stems from my own upbringing. Other people’s comfort was always instilled in us even when we played in our own garden.

I’m interested that fast food outlets already existed in many of your larger towns while you were growing up, but I suppose some of you are a decade younger than I. I’d never heard of McDonald’s until the first one opened in London when I was at university. Four of us hitch hiked from our hospital practice in Croydon up to London one evening to experience it. We had the works – hamburger, french fries and a thick vanilla shake – and then hitch hiked back. It was so different from anything I knew. Like Neil, fish and chips would have been our only and very occasional fast food experience before that.

Turn, great to get your tiny house update. Sorry to hear about your dad passing away, so difficult when you’re far away. I’d forgotten all about Black Magic. I can empathise with your sister’s mealtime experiences having spent many an hour in front of a plate of re-heated food. On one occasion, everyone was upstairs getting ready to go the grandparents’ house and I was being told I couldn’t go unless I ate my dinner (as if they would have left me home alone!). I scooped up the remains of the disgusting shepherd’s pie and put it in my cloth handkerchief but stupidly put that in an empty waste basket. While I was upstairs brushing my teeth thinking I’d got away with it, I heard my dad’s booming voice. He’d found it and was re-heating it.