@ruthi
” but it will only work long term for me if I kick the damaging habits.”
Kicked one my habits: eating second rate pizza.
I replaced it with something else.
It’s actually easy.
On to the next.
β°
This topic contains 7,289 replies, has 660 voices, and was last updated by Opal Shine 8 months, 3 weeks ago.
@ruthi
” but it will only work long term for me if I kick the damaging habits.”
Kicked one my habits: eating second rate pizza.
I replaced it with something else.
It’s actually easy.
On to the next.
β°
@maureen55.
I too grew up in the north of England. Fizzy pop, crisps and fish and chips were a treat for holidays and birthdays! My mum was a great believer in healthy food so made sure I had plenty of milk, which I loved, and dark green leafy veggies, which I hated! I find it appalling that nowadays you can buy 3 x1.5 ltr bottles of Coke on supermarket special for less than 2ltrs of milk costs!
I have been on 5:2 for 3 weeks and haven’t lost an ounce, at least as far as the scales are concerned haha. But today I managed to get back into a pair of size 12 jeans that haven’t fit for the last year, so something is happening. Also noticed that my heartburn has gone …hurray!!! Hubby is off to China for 2weeks next Friday so I will be a bit more disciplined with my eating while he is away π
Hello to ladies of a certain age. Gosh, I have been feeling my age lately (56) and I’ve been very tempted to colour the grey hair. I lost 10 kg when I started 5:2 and I love this lifestyle but I’ve been stuck at 71/72kg for maybe six weeks now. I’m trying to find the resolve to get under 70kg, well under, for Christmas and to aim for 65kg for my birthday in May next year.
Wow- 10 kg! How impressive! I’ve been ‘stuck’ since I started, about 8 weeks ago. Not hard for me & my partner to do, and not pigging out on non-fast days, but waist measurement just won’t budge. I didn’t weigh myself until a couple of weeks ago because I don’t care what I weigh, but it seems I lost 1 k in the 2 weeks between weigh-ins so I suppose that’s something- but, if I am losing fat, it must be from other regions than my middle which makes it look even worse! I’ll keep at it, though, I’m sure it will work eventually, but an acceptable waist measurement seems a long way off at the moment! So disheartening!
Hi loretta1, don’t get discouraged! When I started in mid April I was losing weight every week but my waist size stayed the same. After a couple of months my weight loss slowed down but now my waist is 15 cm smaller, I guess my belly fat was with me for so long it got nice and comfy and didn’t want to leave :). Stick with it, it’ll happen eventually.
fastinginberlin- thanks for your answer to Loretta (I was as not a happy camper. Roba, glad to hear from you. Been listening to you for a while. My advise is let your body tell you what to do. By which I mean, quit struggling to lose more weight and just incorporate the amazing loss you already have achieved. No one is talking about lowered metabolism and/or set point. I think that’s strange
@piper
” let your body tell you what to do. ”
My body is saying do as little as possible and get the best possible results.
I think I better take over control to get where I want to go.
β°
I’ve been trying 4:3 for a couple of weeks now and have lost one and a half pounds. I will carry on with 4:3 for a couple more weeks or so and see what happens.
With Christmas coming and I’m off to Europe to visit my daughter for New Year, I suspect it will be very difficult to keep on with the dieting during that period.
Still maybe when I go back on the diet in the New Year, the break may have had a positive effect.
In total I have lost 7lbs or 8blbs since Easter, but I have dropped a dress sizd, so it’s coming off from somewhere!!
Hi Janthea, congrats on one and a half pounds lost in a couple of weeks – all going in right direction.
I would suggest not thinking of yourself as being ‘on a diet’ and coming off it for Christmas. For me, it’s a lifestyle.
I haven’t done a Christmas yet as I started last January but I suspect that I’ll be looking forward to sneaking in a few fast days over the holiday period when I feel it won’t impact on festivities too much. I think I’ll be looking forward to them too – like a detox every so often.
Have a wonderful time in Europe with your daughter.
Annie x
Janthea, I weigh every day – but don’t let any increases deflect me. That a deliberate decision I have made beforehand.
I record my weight every day in my email agenda with a π when I have a new low and any brief notes such as ‘had chips yesterday!’. I’ve found it useful to get feedback about how what I do and eat can affect things.
What is your real weight? They both are! If we were glass vases you can say what a real or constant weight is. I think of my post fast weight as my real weight. I know that even eating in a healthy way can mean that I store extra fluid. Or hormonal variations from activity / stress / sleep – or lack of – can have the same effect.
I find it useful to think of my post fast weight as the ‘real’ weight and take that as the weight I am trying to get below.
If you made a graph of your daily weight, it would show a scatter pattern but would probably have a downwards trend – if that is your goal.
What a long reply to a short question π
Hi Ladies,
Checking in; yesterday was start of Week 3 for me and the day wasn’t too hard, although very happy to be in bed and looking forward to having something more to eat in the a.m.
I’m not weighing myself weekly. I thought I would do a monthly weigh-in as I can’t face the fluctuations of the scale. I measure myself and there has been no change to my waist, bum, hips. But I do notice my upper arms are slimmer as is the area above my knees. I’m thinking maybe my waist fat will be the last to go. I’m kinda a perfect apple shape. But meanwhile my clothes are fitting much better and I’m more comfortable in them
The change that is occurring is in my fasting blood glucose. Usually it’s in the pre-diabetic range, 100+ (US). During exercise it gets into the 70s range. I’ve been including more exercise in the form of daily walks to bring my blood sugar down. I try to take a walk first thing in the morning but can’t always do it due to work schedule.
Yesterday my fasting numbers were 95! Wow! I haven’t seen that in a long time.
This morning my fasting blood glucose was 77!
So, although I’m not seeing changes in my waist measurement, I am seeing huge changes in very important markers for health. This is quite amazing to have such a huge change in under 3 full weeks on the program. I’m impressed. I know I feel better. I have more energy to actually go out and take a walk.
Hello!!
I was a Weight Watcher helper for years, vigilant to my life plan (halo glowing) of eating well and after a solid 2.5 stone loss…I started to gain weight? huh? It was so odd, I did a pregnancy test!
It was a combination of pre menopause and a malfunctioning gall bladder. Gall Bladder was removed last August and the weight started to come off again with Weight Watchers, but SLOOOOOOWLY, like maybe .5 pound a week. A fit friend started to praise the 5:2 plan and I went for it and so far lost 9 pounds in 3 weeks. My dress trousers are telling me that I may have lost a few more this week.
I started with a 5:2 then moved to 4:3 to “kick start” my body – seems to work and I find it all very easy, but might have something to do with since the GB removal, I cannot handle large meals anymore, so don’t tend to pig out on non-fast days.
My other pre meno praises: exercise, lots of water, menohop (natural remedy) and linseed seeds, these keep me happy and cool.
So, I do feel for you, I feel I am now over the hump, hope you do too soon.
Hi –
also being ‘of a certain age’ – I’m 67 – I know how difficult it is to lose weight as you get older. I have been calorie counting since February -it’s not the hardship it sounds, I eat whatever I want just in smaller amounts within my calorie allowance. I’ve also been helped by using Paul McKenna’s ‘Hypnotic Gastric Band’ cd……it works!! I walk 6 – 7 km every day – aiming to step it up to running and increasing distance and completing the 5k ‘Race for Life’ next year.
Anyways, since February I had lost 35lbs but around 8 weeks ago I reached a plateau. I stuck it out for 5 weeks getting more and more frustrated and depressed – I need to lose a total of 60lbs.
I had heard of the 5:2 but didn’t bother much about it – but then …. nearly 3 weeks ago I decided to try it with the idea ‘it can’t do any harm’ and WOW! I’ve lost another 4lbs!!
I eat 3 small meals totalling 500 cals on my ‘two’ days and 1200 cals (plus some exercise cals)on the ‘five’ – this level is with my GP’s blessing. I’m now on week 3 so hopefully, when I weigh on Sunday morning the downward trend will continue. I’ve surprised myself because I’m actually enjoying this eating plan.
Wow, amazing Sylvestra! Bravo!
I’ve just completed my last fast day for week three and I resisted like crazy weighing myself. I told myself I would wait until I’ve gone 4 complete weeks.
Meanwhile, my tight black slacks are really looking good on me! They are definitely still ‘stand-up’ pants, don’t dare sit down in them, but wowie!! I’ve got them on they look pretty super. Maybe another month or so and I’ll actually be able to wear them.
Today went pretty quickly, thank goodness. Got hungry a couple of times but it passed, drank some water….I ate just one meal today and was a bit low in calories, under 400, but I ate 2 cups steamed broccoli w/ vinegar and 4 ounces of salmon so I’m fine…..blood sugar is still quite good….I’m excited….each time I do this I feel such a sense of accomplishment!
Hello!
Nutri advanced Menohop, Phytoestrogen Support from Hops and Soy – I buy it online, many suppliers, should cost Β£11-14 a bottle. I buy a few to keep as spares (see below). I have not have many flushes, but instead, I was generally ‘warm to hot’ most of the time. Example, I have been known to have the air con on in the car… in the Winter. If I go without it for a while, the heat returns. I find this works better than Black Cohosh.
I love the thought of ‘Living la Vida LOACA’ …and it’s true.
I’ve found that now that I don’t have to get up for work any more, the hot flushes have been and gone, the kids have grown up and have homes and families of their own – my life is mine again.
I have, in my life, been on just about every diet known to man – or should that be woman – my weight has yo-yo’d over the years because …I set myself a goal for a particular occasion (daughter’s wedding, holiday etc etc) and then lost the plot after it was over or I couldn’t get to Weight Watchers/ Slimming World/Scottish Slimmers/Slimline Club (I’ve done them all!!) because of snow or having to go somewhere else etc etc.
Then someone took a photo of me with my grand-daughter and ……AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!!
I had been retired for a couple of years and basically had got bone idle. I had got into the habit of eating far too much at meal times, eating too many cakes and biscuits (couldn’t stop at just one). I was diagnosed with osteo-arthritis in both hips and in my lower spine. I was also told that I had Impaired Glucose Tolerance with diabetes being on the cards if I didn’t do something. I had high blood pressure and high cholesterol – I was a walking time bomb!! As well as being 60lbs overweight. This was in December 2012.
So…I took myself in hand. I bought Paul McKenna’s ‘Hypnotic Gastric Band’ book and cd and listened to it every night for a week, then every week after that. I used a teaplate instead of a dinner plate and joined http://www.myfitnesspal.com where I could log my food and it counted the calories for me.
I spoke to my GP and we agreed a daily calorie level. I joined the local gym to use their Power Plate as the doc had another patient who OA had been helped by using this. After a few months of doing gentle exercises on the Power Plate, I progressed to the treadmill and now am walking 6-7 km outdoors every day. I lost 35lbs and,as I said above, reached a plateau which is why, after watching the programme and reading the book, I’m now doing the 5:2.
I had my annual medical check up last week and got the results today. My blood sugar level, cholesterol and blood pressure are now NORMAL, I have stopped taking the pain killers for the OA and I am healthier and fitter than I have been for years. I’ve been through my wardrobe – given a load of clothes to the charity shop and can get into clothes I haven’t worn for years.
Living la Vida LOACA? You bet I am π
Great post, Sylvestra – you are a hero. Your spectacular success is thoroughly deserved.
I see you mention Scottish slimmers. Are you by any chance Scottish? If so you are among my favourite people. I’m half-way through a part-time MA in History of Art, part of which is an independent research project. I chose a Scottish subject and therefore had to turn to a number of Scots for help. I can’t tell you how wonderful they all were, every single one of them enormously kind, always ready to answer my many questions and to go that extra mile or ten to make my life easier. Thanks to them I got a really, really good mark.
Meanwhile at hermaj HQ, both I and Him Indoors are fed up with being stuck on our plateau. So the new plan is on feast days to keep a closer watch on the calories, with 1500 for me and 1500 + breakfast of oatbran porridge and dried fruit for him. Thinks – maybe I should start eating breakfast. After a quarter of a slice of toast and Marmite I would feel so sick that I wouldn’t eat until the following day, when I would once again attempt breakfast. As you will have gathered I simply can’t do the first meal of the day. I have occasionally tried while on holiday and have felt so unwell that it’s been straight back to bed for the rest of the day.
As for the new regime, the big decision is do we start now or wait until all the Christmas palaver is out of the way? (sorry, I’m a member of the bah-humbug tendency, too many memories of crap Christmases!) It so happens that I don’t like all the usual Christmas stuff so I’m not tempted, although the wider availability of lovely Italian panettone and even lovelier German Stollen can be a bit of a problem. However, we’re going to be in the South of France where we are bound to indulge a bit, although we can no doubt claim that we are following a healthy Mediterranean diet. I should add that in my miss-spent youth I did work there for six months and without even trying came home considerably slimmer than when I left, also sporting an amazing tan acquired by simply walking about in the open air (I’m also bah-humbug about sunbathing). Happy days!
Thank you for your lovely comments, ladies. I don’t see myself as a role model but – hey, if I can do it etc!!
Yes, hermajtomomi, I am Scottish – don’t know a lot about History of Art but, if I can help, just ask. Where do you live?
On the breakfast subject – there’s no rule that says ‘you must eat breakfast’ and there are days when I miss it out altogether. I’ve never been good at eating in the morning and before I retired I would travel to work (1 hour) and be at work for another hour before I could eat anything. Now I just eat when I want to.
I don’t really think it makes any difference to weight loss what time you eat at. It’s a daily calorie total so it doesn’t matter. On my ‘two’ days I eat 3 times because I feel better that way but some people have one 500 cal meal in the evening and some don’t eat at all (I can’t do that, I feel nauseous and get a really bad headache). On my ‘five’ days I eat when I feel hungry up to my limit. The way I see it, it all has to fit with your lifestyle or you won’t be able to sustain any eating plan.
We don’t ‘do’ Christmas – yes, such a commercialised hullabaloo, but we do Yule so there’s always extra goodies around. I’m going to have to be strict with myself. Also we are going to be away over New Year so even more temptation. I am going to try to fit in all my ‘two’ days over the period – wish me luck with that.
Sylvestra, I’m in London and my research project was done in and around Glasgow with a short side-trip to Edinburgh. We combined my second research visit to Scotland with a short holiday, staying in a self-catering flat just outside Perth – a great centre for seeing some of the amazing places in Central Scotland – my particular favourite is Glen Lyon. Where do you live?
It so happens that one of my very closest and trusted friends is also Scottish. She’s 25 years younger than me but we’ve been good mates for 25+ years. We first met while studying in Switzerland. She now lives with her gorgeous hubby and great kids – one of whom is our god-daughter – about 15 minutes drive away.
Sylvestra, my “handle” is actually half-Japanese.
The story is that while living in Switzerland I earned a few pennies extra by teaching English to children – all girls as it happened – and one or two adults from the large Japanese community in Zurich. All of them were delightful but you can’t help but have special favourites – they were all one-to-one lessons so no one was upset. My favourites were Tomomi, the most adorable six-year-old who I taught using Richard Scarry books, and Maiko, a very bright 12-year-old. When her dad was posted to London a few years previously, she went to the local primary school. As a result she spoke fluent, colloquial English with a London accent – I smile every time I remember her referring to Roald Dahl as a “nutter”. She was “writing a book”, so each week she would write a chapter and we would talk about it. Very good it was, too.
When we came home from Switzerland we acquired twin female kittens who we called Tomomi and Maiko. Maiko made it to 15 but Tomomi lived to be 21 and in her latter years just sat around looking queenly and wise. So I called myself hermajtomomi.
I’m always interested to know how folks come up with their ‘handles’.
Mine comes from my lifelong interest in trees and my involvement with The Woodland Trust.
My favourite tree is the Scots Pine – pinus sylvestris – hence Sylvestra.
How did others come with theirs I wonder.
PreciousBooBoo has told us that hers came from a dearly loved pet …anyone else care to tell us?
apologies if this is ‘off topic’.
OMG,Sonunda, I grew up in Newport Beach but that was in the 1950s…very fun…lots of surfing and sailing…..now I live further up the coast in Santa Barbara…and you’ll be thin again….I tried on some clothes yesterday and realized how very far I have to go….whoa! But I must just keep at it, one day at a time. I really like how my fast days affect my eating on ‘feed/feast’ days. I just don’t eat as much– but I have a long road ahead…I need to take off at least 15 pounds before I’ll start to look ‘normal’ again, and that is not thin-normal, that’s just ‘normal’…
And Speedy, I know what you mean…! But we’re doing it and that’s so important…
At last!! A reason to comment and join the ‘certain age’ topic!! I am afraid I am the woman time forgot :-/ next week is the beginning of my 51st year but I have not one single sign that I can begin my freedom journey π I barely even have any tinsel in my hair. So not fair. Lol. I am Freefalling because I never believed that this style of eating would change me at all. But it has! And the unexpected plus was weight just Freefalling from me π
What fantastic comments on your handles. Mine is just a combination of my first and last names, I should have thought about it more, oh well! BlueOcean, Sonunda, Speedy & Freefalling, you sound like Super Heroes π
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Sylvestra, the origins of your name connect with me, I too love the elegant Scots Pine, very prevalent in a woods near where I live on the North Norfolk coast β I think Holkham doubled for a Jamaican beach once, at the end of the βShakespeare in Loveβ film.. all I can say is the beautiful Gwyneth Paltrow must have been freezing her lovely bits off! I love the trees because my origins are also in Scotland.
Hoping that this isnβt too much Off Topic, talking of your love of the west coast Atlantic, once, my mam drove me up to a beach near Achiltibuie, (West coat of Scotland, north of Ullapool for those who are not familiar, and why would you be :)) in the 70s before towns, roads and life in general got too choked. I spent an entire day there, devoid of all the trappings of modern day βstuffβ, running up and down the glorious sandy crescent, the wind in my hair, the sun on my back, jam pieces, rock pools, thundering breakers and the stunning azure horizon stretching for miles. Just me and mam. It was one of those *perfect* days, do you know what I mean? *happy sigh* I want to get a few more of those days in before I kick the bucket and Iβm thinking the way to do that might be to get one thing right and thatβs to lose some excess poundage.
*shares early tinsel about*
Can I share this with you LOACA. I was feeling good this morning anyway after weighing in at the end of week 3. I lost another 1lb making 40lbs since I started my weight loss journey and 5lbs since I started 5:2.
Now here’s something that made me feel REALLY good!! I was getting dressed to go out for lunch and decided to put a belt over my jumper as it looked a bit big (that was good for starters! ) I haven’t worn that belt for about 3 months and I put the belt on but had to take it off and make another hole to fasten it….FOUR INCHES tighter than the last hole.
I can truly say – today is a good day!!
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Michael Mosley gives an update for 2019, current research in the field and announces a tour starting in February.
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16 Nov 13