Bonjour Speedy:
I definitely agree with your comments on the way the huge food conglomerates manipulate us – they bombard our senses and subliminally convince us that we must eat their foods. One thing that really annoys me is when people say they can’t afford to eat fresh food, convenience packaged foods are cheaper! NO, anyone can cook from scratch with fresh seasonal ingredients (just follow a recipe it’s not rocket science!)
Littleliz: your comments about your mum being a ‘feeder’ made me think of my lovely mum. In the 50’s she worked full-time as a teacher, it was very rare to have a mum who worked then (how times change), and when she arrived home I always got 4 old pennies to spend at the sweet shop whilst she cooked a dinner each evening, and there was always a pudding. I also was told to eat everything because there were children starving in Africa. I remember also at school dinners the teachers would monitor what we ate and I can remember one male teacher (in junior school) who would thump us on our backs to eat up. My brother was a poor eater and would arrive home with his pockets full of rice pudding (which he hated) rather than force it down. Sounds very Dickensian now.

Here in France there are very few fat children. Right from when they enter school at 3 they either eat in the canteen or go home, there’s no such thing as a packed lunch. When I see the menu for my granddaughter I am thrilled to see it is ‘grown up food’ no sign of pizzas, fish fingers, etc. They finish school at 4.30 and are allowed a snack, usually fruit, until dinner at 7 p.m. Also I have noted that portion sizes here are much smaller – they tend to eat 5 small courses, none of the plates full of meat, yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, vegetables, etc.

Hermaj: thanks for your encouraging words about our (hopefully) occasional binges.
Cheeseplease: also as you pointed out the 5:2 is now a way of life, and I did not beat myself up, but did my Monday fast with no problem, thanks.

Mention was made of pilates which I can highly recommend – in the UK I went to a weekly class and found it very beneficial, especially for bad backs. Unfortunately, I have not found a class where I live but I do practice a routine of yoga every morning – Salute to the Sun – which gets my muscles and joints moving before breakfast.

One ‘down-side’ that I have spotted, to losing weight on the 5:2 is that our TDEE goes down also, and we have to eat less. Of course, we can up our exercise I guess!

That’s all for now, Jan

Hi PVE 🙂 No trouble! Enjoy! Laughter is great for weightloss.

Hi Femme Anglaise, your name always makes me think about la crème anglaise!
Also here in Holland when I moved here there were few fat children or adults. Seeing more and more now but not as bad as in the UK. But then when I moved here you couldn’t buy chocolate etc. in garages or kiosks, only inside shops.

xx

Hi BooBoo

Yes as I now hover around 9 stone (+/- 1lb) I am now maintaining. I would love to be only 8.5lbs but must be realistic I’m not a youngster any more! I continue to eat food based on the low GI principles and fast 1 or 2 days a week so I can have that occassional packet of crisps or bit of chocolate when I want. Give me a box of Lindor and I can easily eat nearly half in one sitting!!! My 2 day fast this week put me down to 8:12, before it had crept up to 9:1, so I lost 3 lbs this time, YIPPEE. Ali x

Precious BooBoo. I just posted after stopping and starting my message with a few interruptions and when I submitted my post your post had come it above mine. Great minds think alike. Hubby has the footy on. So what else is there to do. I know 5-2 like you say, keeps me out of the kitchen. Good night. JIP

Thanks JIP
I’ll definitely drink to that. Wine (in moderation) also allows you to be more sociable, sleep better and be happier.
Bottoms up ! 😉 Purple

Good evening lovely LOACA! Boo, so glad you are back and had a lovely holiday. You gain is surely mostly fluid. Expect to hear a huge sigh of relief from you next week when you find your system has sorted itself out. Purple and JIP did you proud while you were gone. They tended the flock admirably. Lots of love and encouragement in abundance.

However after reading the posts of the last two days, I am shocked! I think we all had the same mother! We must be sisters and didn’t know it!

OK, maybe not exactly the same mother, but they were cut from the same cloth for sure. From the UK to Australia to round back to the US, THEY WERE ALL READING FROM THE SAME SCRIPT!

In the US we had a local TV station that had a children’s program on about 4:00pm (before dinner time) and they had the Clean’m Up Your Plate Club encouraging children to eat what you mommy gave you.

And we also where told we had a duty to eat XYZ (whatever thing we were gagging on at the time, in my case horribly overcooked olive drab brussels sprouts and calves liver) as there where children starving in ________ (fill in the blank). And our universal response regardless of where we lived: then let’s box it up and send the awful stuff the THEM!

Around the globe they must have handed out pamplets with the same script in the maternity ward. Pretty amazing when you think of it with no TV at the time to get them all in sync.

My grandmother who had raised my dad in the depression did none of this. No quota of what you had to eat, no cleaning up your plate, no business about not leaving the table until you were done. Zippo. But I think all grandparents have learned by experience that children are pretty hardy and they where more relaxed compared to our parents (who may have felt inadequate if they didn’t raise children “by the book”).

Well, that is all ancient history now. We have to recognize the old conventional wisdom for what it was, and toss the failed science of last couple decades on the scrap heap and do what we know works for us and our bodies. So nice to have kindred souls to compare notes and share tips. We are succeding in spite of the nonsense blasted at us by the media.

I for one thank each and every one of you!

Hello LOACA, Boo, and all newbies.
The scales have not moved after my fast yesterday. Why? I walked my little feet off walked and walked. Pedometer said 19972 steps and 8.25 miles. I must be shorter from the wear and tear on my feet. I was 5ft 3inches when I started slimming I think it’s less now. LOL. Last week with my weekend away I had walked 41 miles and the steps, wait for it. Drum roll!!!!!!!!!!!!! 100259 steps. I think from this last week and my life style I will be on 5-2 for ever. Not that I mind I know I could do this. It’s the tablets, it must be, blooooooooody steroids etc. etc. it’s another lovely day in South Wales. Smiffy should have a wonderful time putting her holiday home into shape.
Not fasting today bowling this afternoon and it’s a tea after I will enjoy but not go mad with all the home cakes etc.
Happy feasting or fasting as the case may be. JIP

Sorry posted twice, ipad battery running out did not work quick enough so I sent again . LOL JIP

Tis scary LTC.. a universal mum…possibly only in the English speaking world, but fascinating how universal attitudes were pre tellie!
Purple

Hi JIP

I can heartily agree with your sister. Since I was tragically widowed four years ago, at the age of 47, I have slept very lightly and extremely badly. I too have found that a lavender spray helps me enormously, and I also use a lavender boy wash when I shower last thing at night (Avon and Body Shop). Before I go to sleep I spray it on my pillow and the top edge of my duvet or rather my sheet – at the moment as hot flushes due to menopause. Other ways that can help sleep are to reduce stimuli before bed, less late night tv and computers/tablets (I turn down the backlight on my tablet in the evenings), a warm milky drink. Ali x

Hi BooBoo and gang
When I posted at 6.28 am this morning I was not a happy Welsh bunny as Boo calls me, I had fallen out with the bathroom scales. I put cleaner over my little bungalow and read a few posts. About 8 am ( same morning) LOL I went to take a shower and thought I would just jump on the scales again. Well I could not believe my eyes, I had lost 2 lbs. 2 lbs in an hour and a half. I am not going to weigh tomorrow Friday my brother-in law and his wife are coming down for the evening, meal (the works) plus coffee, cheese, biscuits, etc, etc. I think I will leave the weighing until Monday or even Tuesday when I will have had another fast day in by then. I hate those scales!!!!!
BooBoo I did think I was trying to out do you, with my rum and cokes and meals out every night against your wine. The only thing is I did walk three miles Saturday and Sunday morning carrying our nap sack on our backs, it made me think about the weight in them, after losing my 4 stone, I would have carried that around everyday and not been able to put it down to take a breather. I will not want to put that weight back on.. It is 3 years last week that I have kept that amount off. With you LOACA and 5-2 I feel sure I can do this.
Got to go. Happy fasting or feasting JIP

Good morning to our happy band of international LOACAs!

As others have said, how busy this site is. Miss out on a couple of days and need ages to catch up. I would also have happily sent my unwanted childhood food to the starving children in India if I could have worked out how.

BooBoo and JIP – great to read of your F2F meeting and holidays.

Littleliz, so many things you have written resonated with me. How empowering for you to have conquered bulimia on your own. I laughed out loud at the thought of our fat tummies creeping back on us (from behind?) – what a sight 🙂

Despite faithful fasting these past 2 weeks and moderation on other days, scales have declined only 0.2 kg. However I know that plateaux (I hope you like that our French friends) come and go.

Happy FD/nonFD everyone.

Hi BooBoo, JIP, et al

Thanks for the congratulations on my award BooBoo. I am still glowing with pride and buff it up daily!

Yes I have read both books, but have only read Michael’s book in the past two weeks. I am quite prepared for the weight loss to slow up now. In the FBD the main criteria is that you have to be strict on calorie counting on non-fast days too, and it is recommended that you stick to the lower end of the 1200-2000 allowance. I was trying to keep to 1200 – 15and it obviously worked. As for the recommended HIT, I’m afraid this was a non-starter – the only real exercise I get is walking the dogs for an hour or so a day. That said, it often involves a hill, so I tend to count this as my out-of-breath period.

I have only just caught up on the recent posts as we do not have wifi here yet and the GPRS signal is a bit iffy to link up the iPad, though it seems ok this morning. It must be the weather, which is glorious. I have to admit not a lot of unpacking has been done – the call of the beach has been too great. Must try and focus on the jobs in hand today!

Regarding all our near-identical childhoods, if we HAD been able to send the food we didn’t eat to Africa and India, the Third World would be fatter than us! As for sugar on everything, as LUVTCOOK remembers, I even had it sprinkled on lettuce and tomatoes! How could I have been such a fussy eater in my childhood and then grow up to eat everything that came my way?!

What rotten luck JIP – you must have walked your little feet off! Stay with it, you know it will be worth it eventually. Very frustrating. It must be the heat. Hope the bowls went well. As for water retention and your honeymoon – the mind boggles!!

Ali – so sorry to hear you were widowed tragically. We lost my brother at 47 10 years ago and I know my lovely sister-in-law and her two boys have still not fully come to terms with it. Cliched though it is, time is a great healer and she has a very positive outlook on life.

I can endorse the properties of lavender. Whilst I rarely have troubled getting to sleep, I often wake up very early, and I am sure a few drops of lavender oil on my pillow helps me go back to sleep. – usually on the days we have to have an early start!

Have a great weekend everyone. It’s a fabulous day here, so I can’t see too many boxes being unpacked today!

Smiffy x

Lettuce and tomatoes, Smiffy? They weren’t even trying. My husband’s grandmother put a teaspoon or more of sugar in a glass of sherry “to get the boy used to it”…he was 8!! Purple

Hi Iouab Great to hear from you.
Haveuyou calculated what would be a reasonable goal weight? Don’t get carried away…you can revise it if you reach it and still feel you could do more.
I set myself all sorts of goals, but I felt 65 kg was within “healthy” I reached that by losing 20kg but plateaued (is that right Nicky? ) for many months. That was ok. I didn’t lose heart as I was no longer overweight.

After many months I began to creep down and changed the goal to 62 then to below 60. That’s where I am now…59.3 today. But I am quite happy to crawl down to 56kg or not. I can wear size 9 jeggings!

Work out an achievable goal. Be strict on fast days. Think about food choices on the other 5. Life can still be fun. Just make the sensible tasty choices.
All the best, Purple 🙂

I’m not glad I turned the wifi back on…I’m meant to be in bed asleep.
Your life sounds like mine 10 years ago iouab!
Be kind to yourself.
As my husband just said to me, this is the one thing in your life you can take control of. Set yourself those achievable goals but believe me it will happen. Your life will only get better from now on. We are all with you. 🙂
Good night from Aust. Purple

You may be interested to note that although I love bread I have been very diligent not to eat any particularly on fasting days and within a month noted a remarked difference in the amount I retain fluid and bloat.
This has been a particular problem for me since going through menopause. I have now excluded bread and have Gluten free, at the most only 2 slices on eat days and substitute it with rice cakes.
I have never been able to eat porridge without getting dreadful acid within half an hour of eating it, but this week bought Gluten free oats and hey presto am fine, no acid.
Having spoken to a friend who is a doctor she said if you are sensitive to Gluten, then oats are often contaminated by wheat and you only need a tiny amount of Gluten to set off bloating.
It has taken me 57 years to track down my problem but it is quite easy to lose some items of food when you are on your fast days and this helps discover just what foods trigger reactions.
I also cannot eat cabbage, broccoli, beans and sprouts. All this blows me up and I love licorice and only just discovered that this week that Gluten free diets should exclude licorice!
I am not going mad, I think you can get obsessive with allergies but my bloating really is excessive after bread and for the first time for many years I have a flat tummy which stays flat all day.
Hope this helps someone!

Thank you for that I have read the link with great interest. I am always a bit wary about cutting things out of diet, except used to suffer terribly from excema as a child but again we were the generation that was loaded with dairy products and although thankfully have grown out of skin problems, if very stressed have a couple of patches that break out and are definitely aggravated if I eat too much dairy, but am aware that we need some, particularly with our bone mass thinning after menopause.

Allergies are really difficult,I think as you get older your system just seems to be more intolerant. What I have found so useful about this plan is because your body effectively “rests” for 2 days you have an idea what irritates you far more.

I am on the plan now far more for health than losing weight but one of the biggest boost to me is my rising energy levels. Considering how little I sleep, I am full of energy, my hubby actually said today I should have my thyroid checked as I seem to be so full of energy after less than 3 hours sleep.

I felt like a slow snail all winter but I would honestly say to any new comers to this plan, it takes 6 months to somehow really adjust and Michael is quite right, I have lost all desire for sweet stuff, which I used to love. I am eating far better quality food and far smaller portions.

I do agree we are all different. I probably have very strong views where scales are concerned simply because I see so much misery in what I do. If you are happy weighing yourself that’s fine as long as we appreciate our body changes from day to day.
Mine varies so much with fluid retention that if I get up and rings tight I avoid the scales that day, even if it is my weigh day.
I think weighing is fine as long as you know in your own head you are not getting hooked on scales. I would say investing in a good pair of digital scales are a good idea as if you stand on old dial ones according to how you stand or lean over the weight can be changed slightly, we have all done it ha ha !!!

Hi everbody!

Encouraged by Purple’s words telling me to be kind to myself. I went on the treadmill for minutes today @ 5.5Km/H. I feel great. I also ate a chocolate krispie bar and enjoyed it. 😉 Thank you, thank you thank you. 🙂 🙂

I am off to Strasbourg for 4 days now. Work, but wonderful. I don’t think I will be fasting until I am back.;) I will try to, though…. CIAO…

Isn’t there any official Fast Diet information on why menopausal/post menopausal women find it harder to lose weight on this? Can’t anyone help us???! I’m in a similar spot, 4 or 5 months and only lost four or five pounds. So it’s taking a month to lose what they say I should lose in a WEEK. Very slow. But why??? We want to know!