Hello Everyone,
I have had a mini break which has meant eating out for meals, treats and now I am home. No idea what the damage is yet, but I have decided to wait until the weekend to compare the stats.
Hi Cinderella, hope the chest is healing. I will avoid ice cream as much as I can because I know that it is a gateway food for me to then scoff anything sweet. I am fine until I eat that sugar filled something and then I turn into a lunatic looking for more and more sugar.
I like fruit and homemade hummus and unprocessed foods, I feel better without the rubbish. So, why I try it again and again, I have no idea. Very much a work in progress!
I am on half term too. I have cupboards to empty and sort as no.2 son is moving back in with rather more stuff than he left with.

You must have heard my wail of despair as I tried to fasten some shorts, Iona. There is no doubt that everything is tighter.

Jason Fung would say that longer fasting is the key, so with that in mind I am going to fast after dinner and skip breakfast, have a light lunch(back to work) and then see if I can skip dinner. Well, I know that I can.

I eat far less and also eat better quality food. I was fat at 50 and although there is still 2 stone less of me, I really need to shift this padding that has snuck on.

Back to keeping a note of what I eat and the calorie cost so that I can see the error of my ways. I am aiming to be able to do up those shorts in 5 weeks time which is the end of term.

Great News Iona. Sadly I had the right shorts on!

I did indeed fast from dinner last night until lunch today, despite making a cooked breakfast for the Chinese Teacher that is staying with me until mid July. Pretty pleased that despite the wonderful smell of the bacon, I kept my resolve. Met a friend after work which involved a toasted teacake on this wet and chilly day, so the plan is to have nothing else until breakfast tomorrow morning.

Hello Everyone!
I have been struggling but seem to be making some progress. I am coming to the end of a 24 hour fast and really want to eat now, but I am not hungry! I am back reading Fung again and will post the key points.

Boy number 2 moves back tomorrow and is keen to cook/feed himself. Boy number 1 has managed to put on 2 stone while working in the US with the company paying and is now starting to shift that slowly. My Chinese guest loves anything processed so it will be a relief when he leaves in 4 weeks time. The plan is that I am simply going to feed myself on what I need and the boys can buy/cook/wash up for themselves.

I am menopausal and struggle with waking early and needing less food. My plan is to eat wholefoods and avoid the sweet stuff. I know that is making me fatter and makes me feel rubbish too, and yet I still need to test that out from time to time. We humans are complex.

Pride comes before a fall. I had breakfast and lunch today, all sparked off by the smell of bacon frying by my house guest. It smelt so wonderful…Never mind, I know that I can certainly get back to regular longer fasts in a fortnight and to start jogging a bit again.

How is everyone else getting on?

Haifa,
Scales are a very poor indication of health. Tape measures can be tricky too, to get it in in exactly the same place is very difficult. I could ‘see’ from my clothes that my body was changing, less rolls of back fat, a skirt that I couldn’t do up and then could which was why I started this thread in the first place. I was frustrated that everyone seemed obsessed with what the scales said, when my clothes told me that I was shrinking and changing shape. I suppose that I was lucky too, there was a woman that wrote on this forum that the scales hadn’t budged but that she had dropped 3 dress sizes and that kept me going and focused. Recently, I conducted a small(just me) study for a week and weighed myself daily to see what the scales said and found that it was quite possible to gain anything up to 11 lb in a day! Which proves what many of us have found out here, that the scales lie! The solution is really simple, put the scales away for a couple of months and believe what your jeans are telling you, and as the weeks tick by, you will notice more changes with your clothes. Keep the faith, I think that clothes are the very best indicator of shrinkage. Let me know what you think.

Hello Everyone!

I have had a depressing week. Finished work for the summer holidays only to be given chocolates and millionaires shortbread-a huge square. Then I tried on my shorts and swimming costume…big mistake. One more week with my overseas guest and his love of a cooked breakfast and anything processed. My sons GF is staying too, so that is another complication.

I have 8 weeks to re-shape the body, kick the sugar addiction and get back to fasting for longer. The chocolate has been put away for Christmas, the shortbread is being shared out and once the overseas guest has departed there will be no more white bread(makes delicious toast).

I am also going to order a rather more forgiving swimming costume and start swimming again. I used to walk to the pool(30 minutes) swim 10-20 lengths and then walk home again on a FD.I must get back to that again.

Too many of my clothes are snug or I am unable to do them up. Damn menopause is conspiring against me around my middle. Lets see the difference in 8 weeks. Who’s with me?

Hi Iona,

Not much of a drinker but I do love ice cream and it took all of my resolve not to buy a pack of 6 yesterday. I think that my goal is similar to yours.

I have told my 2 boys(25 & 27) that are here that once our guest leaves, no more cooking by me for them. So each of us will be assigned a cupboard and they can use that to put their food items.

I am going back to ditching bread/pasta/rice and going to try longer fasts. The 24 hour ones are fine as log as I can avoid the kitchen and keep busy, but I would like to try 36 hours and see how that goes.

I like simple food and that is what I am going to eat and enjoy. I have a skirt that I wear in the autumn/winter which was much looser and sat lower, that is also my goal, along with the 34″.

Mini update. Fasted from dinner last night until lunchtime today. All fine, could have gone longer if I didn’t have to enter a supermarket and buy food for this evening. Gave my son(who has Asperger’s/was very overweight and is shrinking) who I haven’t laid eyes on for a couple of months the choice of what he would like for dinner. He chose curry-which I make from scratch,, he hasn’t had rice since he moved out 3 months ago and rarely has pasta and he has shrunk lots in the interim. He is a man of routine and eats an omelette for breakfast Mon-Fri(has anything he likes at the weekend, takes sandwiches in for lunch and has meat with 4 types of vegetables for dinner. The boy who was always hot and insisted on a 4.5 tog duvet during the winter, woke up cold this morning(16C) with the window open.
If there was any doubt that avoiding rice and pasta had any impact, the evidence is sitting in the same room as me. I am completely thrilled for him.

Thank you fatrabbit. It is his legs and arms that are now slim and toned that is really amazing. My boy refuses point blank to get on scales at any point, but if I had to guess then he has probably lost 3 stone/42 lbs in around 18 months, but it may well be more. I spoke to him today about using a tape measure around his belly button to see what that measurement was, with the aim of 37″ for a man. I imagine that he will have a bit more to lose to achieve that. He may choose to do that or not but I must take a picture of him before he leaves tomorrow as I suspect that it will be several months before I see him again. He is so much happier and more confident. He has a beard but I can see that his face is more defined and his neck has shape now. I am thrilled for your son too. You and he must be delighted.
My boy was always ‘the fat one’ and I can see that his two older brothers are a bit shaken by the new slimmer little brother. Both of them have put on weight, the eldest by working in the US and the firm paying for food, the other one has a depressed GF who just wanted to eat carbs-but she has moved away for a new job, so the boy is cooking rather healthy-looking food for himself-hurray. Jason Fung would say that weight loss is 95% what you eat and the remainder is exercise. I suspect that your office boy is surrounded by sweet treats. My office boy says that there is hardly a day without cake at work and he finds it a real struggle not to eat it.
I had a moment when I was cooking the base for the curry and realised that it needed a teaspoon of sugar, and that is something that I no-longer keep or buy since I gave it up in my tea. We had the curry with white basmati rice and followed with fresh fruit salad and a little bit of ice cream. I have no idea whether it was the rice or the fruit or the ice cream but I am struggling to keep my eyes open with a full sugar crash.
Reading’ the clever guts diet’ by Michael Mosley. Fascinating and very readable.

A lovely afternoon yesterday with a piece of carrot cake with a cup of tea. Dinner was early as I was hungry, could it be the cake effect? Today I am doing a 24 hour fast but might have a go at pushing it to tomorrow breakfast. It is going to be hot today so tricky to keep myself busy if I can’t get out and about this afternoon. But I am determined to stave those bacteria that make me crave the sweet stuff.

I hate having my photo taken too. There is no before picture of me either, but I have dropped 3 dress sizes which is proof enough. I found a photo of my boy almost 2 years ago to the day at his graduation which shows how much slimmer he is now. I can’t believe the change.

Inspired by you I have completed a 24 hour fast which was also ADF.I just wanted to eat this evening, so I did. Followed by avocado, salad and fruit.

Not having cake wasn’t an option as this was a money-raising exercise for a village church with cakes supplied by the WI, which I didn’t know until I got there. I think that carrot cake is scrumptious.

My plan this evening is to do an inventory of the clothes that I have and see what can be donated as I never wear it/doesn’t suit/fit/love it as the cupboards are crammed. I normally wear a 12, have jeans that fit and are a 10 and just bought some smart just above the knee shorts that were in the sale and are a 14. I buy many of my clothes either in the sales or most often, at charity shops, so in the true spirit of recycling off they go again.

Hi cinderella,
I saw that programme too and wondered if that was part of the problem with my overweight boy. For him it seems to be pasta/rice avoidance and increasing vegetable/fruit intake. I also saw a programme about faecal transfer when a woman who had a debilitating gut disease had a transfer from an obese person and they changed from being slim to obese too. Fascinating.
I might get back to making my own yoghurt although I buy live plain yoghurt. You have inspired me to have a go and to research these grains.

Thanks CalifDreamer. Really interesting link, but no one I know has heard of this and so there are no grains to share. I shall have to do some research on where I can get some.

Planning another 24 hour fast today to starve those sugar-loving microbes and improve those ones who are happy with fasting, as well as the benefits of IF. Feeling really happy as I feel that I have found another positive food stuff in my armoury to help me to make positive choices.

Change of plan. Decided that I shan’t do another 24 hour fast until next week. I have decided that twice a week is enough for me.

Hi Everyone,
Yesterday I had to drive a 300 mile round trip to collect boy no.4 that has split up with his girlfriend. This meant a stop on the motorway for food, not at the one we had planned, but exiting early in rain so heavy that I could barely see. Fast food and coke, not had for years and I thought how expensive it was and how horrible. Home to eat fruit and ice cream!
So, after weeks of sugar free/pasta/rice free living, there has been a huge bump. Never mind, back into the groove again. I have been fed up not shrinking any inches despite all of my positive choices, but suspect that my menopausal body is to blame.
Back to a full house again, but we are cooking for ourselves-my new regime, so I should be able to do 2 24 hour fasts this week, I just need to pick the days. The clothes have all been sorted and those that don’t suit have been despatched.
Update on my boy(no.3) who has Asperger’s and now lives alone in another city. He is shrinking and looks amazing. I think that at a guess, he has lost 3 stone but it might be more as he refuses to stand on the scales. He eats an omelette for breakfast 5 days a week, takes a sandwich and banana to work and then cooks meat and 4 types of vegetables for dinner. He is experimenting with new food at the weekends so that is all good. He tells me that he has a packet of rice that he hasn’t opened and can’t remember when he last cooked pasta. Co-incidence? I don’t think so.
Sounds like you have had a lovely time Cinderella, apart from the colds. I think that the thought of a 24 hour fast is worse than actually doing it.

Hello Everyone,
I too am struggling to get my mojo back, Iona. My boy has been sad, another boy had a birthday so that was a meal out and then cake, went to see an elderly uncle so that was another meal out and now I am cooking a roast dinner. On the plus side, those bigger jeans that I was wearing are once again too big, so will be retired again.

I love ice cream and could eat it all day, every day. I know that it is the route to sugar madness if I indulge and sometimes I do, but mostly I don’t.

How did the 36 hour fast go Iona?