So many lovely posts to read today. 🙄

RT, I just mention in case it helps your OH, that I gave up sugar when going through menopause. I noticed that every time I ate food with any kind of sugar in it, I had horrible sweats. If I had no sugar or processed carbs, I had minimal symptoms. I hasten to add that this may be just me, and not applicable to her, so don’t promise it will work.

However, if she is going to try it, she cannot have even a spoon of sugar or sweetener of any kind. You have to read the packet of everything. 😉 She will know after two weeks what the impact of sugar is on her body.

A warning, we sugar addict types have withdrawal symptoms, grumpy, etc. 🙁 Have to drink two litres of water a day to get through the first 48 hours without sugars or processed foods. Good luck. I never had problems fasting, my grumpy days have always been about eating sugars and processed foods the day before.

Cheers, Bay 🙂

Hail storms here today. We went from 32 to 22C in about 30 minutes. Hope all better in SA and Vic.

Hi Bay, things have eased somewhat here in SA however expecting more extreme days mid week.

I find I’m grumpy if I have too much sugar the day before, I try now to not have any sugars but I don’t always succeed, ie this weekend, but I do minimise them especially now. Have told OH not to buy Magnums!!! He can have icecream just not them as they are one of my downfalls 😀 I don’t miss soft drinks but will occasionally have one (or more, ie NYE).

Happy days one and all 😀

Morning/evening all.

I woke up at 4.30 and couldn’t get back to sleep so got up and am sipping my tea and watching the tennis from Brisbane.
After a night of rain on Friday, last night brought a heavy frost and it it very chilly at the moment. The promised fog hasn’t arrived.

I don’t peel butternut squash as the peel softens and sweetens as it cooks. I use it for mash, in soups, curries, vegetable chillies, roasted and stuffed. There are plenty of recipes widely available on the internet, but as a guide, cook it like a potato but for less time. It can be tested by sticking a knife in it to see if it is tender

Using up wine is such a chore isn’t it………

Good evening everyone, hope everyone is having a good day/night. Very smokey here tonight, strong smell, but thankfully the fire ground is still a long way away from us but thankfully the immediate threat has eased.

Bay I’ll be joining you tomorrow as I’ve over done the sugar this weekend but it’s all out of the house now thank goodness and I’ve made lots of soup to keep me on the straight and narrow 😀

I tried to not have the sweet stuff this weekend but having it in my face (so to speak) was too much. OH now knows not to get them (Magnum icecreams that is) I can say no to everything else just not them for some reason so it’s best not to have them in the house

Tomorrow I put my best foot forward to join the downward spiral (in the nicest possible way)

Hi all,

We are just home from seeing The Imitation Game. Brilliantly told, very moving story, I highly recommend it. Scary to think it was not that long ago.

Had a late dinner of leftovers. I made a new salad yesterday, diced pumpkin and chickpeas mostly, with some fetta cheese, mint, chives and a few chopped walnuts. It was yum yesterday but even better today as the mint had flavoured it. Not really lo cal as I dressed it with mayo, any suggestions for a healthy low cal dressing? They are often my downfall on this type of salad. I can get by with vinegar or lemon juice on salad leaves, but a salad like this needs something to hold it together. Also I just diced the pumpkin and microwaved it instead of the usual roasting (much too hot to turn on the oven), far simpler and no real difference in taste. I won’t bother roasting it again! I also need this type of dressing for home made coleslaw, any brilliant ideas folks? Is yoghurt tasty enough?

Monday morning very soon and the new challenge begins! Thankyou all for such great support as we ride into battle to slay the dragon! (Been watching too many movies!)

Hi jojo, I eat 3 or 4 fresh medjool dates most days with natural yoghurt and a banana. This is my ‘break fast’ at 11.30 or 12 and, with perhaps a small snack mid afternoon, easily keeps me going til tea time. They are high sugar/ carb, but better than a biscuit methinks if you have a sweet tooth!

Interesting discussion about goal weights here also. As I found, it’s good to have a goal but when you get there you may realise it isn’t quite right (too heavy or too light!). I had never been thin, so my goal was just the lightest weight I had been as an adult (and by default, because it was the least fat I had been, the happiest). I didn’t realise that I would be able to weigh less, or that it would suit me, before 5:2.

Our of interest, how have you all determined your goal weight? Is it based on what you’ve weighed before? Or perhaps being a particular BMI? Or dress size…?!

On the subject of ‘scrawny’ or ‘skinny’. As a society we have lost perspective on what looks healthy and what is (or at least should be!) normal. Larger body sizes have become the norm and we are familiar with a padded look rather than one where we can see we have bones. When we see thin or ‘bony’ we automatically think undernourished and emaciated?

I now see bones, but I also see muscles, and I’m happy with that. My vanity is now having a fit slim body. Will I be a scrawny old lady? I hope so! The alternative is not reaching old age or having an unhealthy old age…

Nama, I make a yoghurt dressing for coleslaw, and salad. I add lemon juice, mustard, herbs. Sometimes I put a spoonful of mayo in it. Fewer calories than mayo and tasted good. You can play around with it until you find what suits you. I make my own youghurt and it is very thick as I drain off the whey, but you could use Greek style.

PVE
I believe nutritional comparisons lead to banana nut bread being the most nutritional complete bread.
Just saying , I eat it on feed days when it’s being shared in the break room, but I walk for many hours afterwards.

I love banana bread. I used to make it often when I was working and take it for my staff. That worked well because they were like a plague of locusts as far as my baking was concerned, so I couldn’t eat too much of it.

this is it on Myfitnesspal for 1100 grms

Knorr – Seasoning***, 1 ml 1 0 0 0 61 0
Tesco – Frozen Chopped Onion, 6 g 1 0 0 0 0 0
Morrisons – Frozen Chopped Garlic, 0.5 teaspoon (3g) 2 0 0 0 0 0
Generic – Butternut Squash – Roasted, 1100 grams 484 70 21 5 1,331 16
Marigold – Swiss Vegetable Buillon, 3 teaspoon 30 3 1 3 3 1
Add Food Quick Tools 518 73 22 8 1,395 17

Nice job on the run, Jojo! I just joined this challenge with 2 friends: http://www.runtheedge.com/2014/12/run-2015-in-2015-challenge/

It is to run/walk 2,015 miles in 2015. You could definitely do it solo with all your exercise! Comes out to about 5.5 miles per day, or you could get a teammate!

JoJo
Can’t find , but will find why dates are bad for us.

Not real real bad, just not absolutely great like other choices like prunes.

Say they hinge in calorie, and there are other similar tasting fruits to eat on feed days.

Something about insulin, can’t recall right off.

And If you don’t at first succeed on 19/5 , give it time. It was hard for me even when.I was 1200 a restriction. Preferring 5:2 Instead, but the research combined with the 5:2 leads me to believe it’s a healthier way to live than grazing all along , especially if not using probiotics,
The probiotics basically help beak foods down into smaller particles so in turn there’s better uptake of nutrition.
So if you’re drinking soda cola, or alcohol you may be killing off some of the good fir you bacteria. ( flora)
That’s why I guess , that we crave the bread foods because the flora bacteria that breaks down breads doesn’t kill off as easily . So when our much more bacteria is present that breaks down those breads we get a lot of uptake from the breads and we start to crave the snack oreads that have the salt ,sugar bliss points.
But it’s not the best outcome for us.
If we can’t stop drinking soda or alcohol ,we need to giving attention to probiotic health.
It’s not hard at all, or expensive either.

I could go on expaining the acidity levels and how that effects uptake, but I’ll try to keep my message in this post simple.
The key IMO to 19/5 is good uptake of nutrition . That means maintaining a variety of probiotic flora in the gut. Also not drinking cold liquids when eating high fat.

I look st this way , instead of thinking of the stomach as something I can just keep dropping stuff in and hope it all gets sorted out. I looked into the research and have an understanding how it works and what products or foods to make like a strengthened muscle. It’s really not difficult to understand either.

So there’s regular eating I’ve done all my life on the gluttonous side then belonging to the royal order of yoyos myself. Overeating. Co tangly brings In a lot of nutrition. But when go beyond simple weight loss.
It does gett a little more complicated , but not rocket science.
Basically less intake will require better uptake! Or well start to crave nutrition from what uptake were missing and out goes our will power to keep on keepin on!

Things have changed in that 20 Years. We know even more about exercise. Even more about calorie restriction and fasting on immune health. Mosely such a great video maker.

These are doable.

Increase vo2max
Fast 4:3
Use HIIT

Personally speaking from and to me, myself, and I.
I add the probiotics, antioxidants, and omega3, and strength training.
Making many menus over last year.
It comes down to low carb Brain foods on fast days, and high energy body foods with exercise on feed days.

The point on finding what’s doable that works for me, myself , and I . Is spot on. Fist I had to fi d what worked for 5:2. Few months later 4:3.
Adding the exercise in ten minutes sets six times a day , rather than one 30min . I started being able to gett closer to the 2,000 calories of exercise per week . Made my intake better offset than diet alone.

In simplest terms.
More exercise with Better gut flora , more nutrition dense food uptake. Less craving and inturn impulse temptation for sugary food. Some my blood sugars are not all over the scale. I believe that’s directly associated with insulin and fat burring ratios.

Ok. Going to do another. Set of weights and the shower before breakfast.

Wee do you eat cherries?

Can’t find the con
But one pro for dates is for heart health.

Here a food for thought article

“10 Sure Ways to Become a Healthier Raw Foodist”
by Frederic Patenaude

Eat Raw

The first step might sound obvious, but for many raw-foodists, their 90%, self-proclaimed raw food eating is, in fact, close to 40%. All those soy lattes at Starbucks, those occasional baked potatoes and chocolate samplings are really adding up at some point. It’s so easy to get caught in a pattern, eating the wrong foods and slowly but surely get off the wagon. If this happens to you, don’t desperate. The easiest way out of this is to spend a few days eating very lightly. You could eat only raw fruit for 2-3 days. With this little cure, it will be much easier to start eating raw again.

Take Sleep Seriously

The modern hero is a work alcoholic who works 16 hours a day and doesn’t have time to engage in a time-wasting activity such as sleeping. Since the invention of the light bulb, sleep is generally viewed as a mostly wasteful activity. While this is true that, on a better diet, your sleep needs diminish, it does not mean that sleeping 8 or 9 hours a night is wrong or lazy. It might be just what you need.

When we get less than our required sleep, which is different for every person, we accumulate a sleep debt. A person with a big sleep debt will not digest very well, even if all she eat is raw foods. She may even start to loose weight while eating more.
Sleep is so critical that many books have and could be written on the subject. But, the average raw-foodist knows as much on sleep as the average Joe. It could pay off to study the subject a little more, especially if you experience sleeping difficulties. An interesting book on the subject is The Promise of Sleep, by William C. Dement.

Exercise

Most fitness gurus will tell you that health is not possible without fitness. While sedentary people can live without disease, they will not experience a high level of vitality.

Let’s be honest: we’re naturally lazy. That’s the tendency. Even though we eat healthy and make our juices and smoothies, it’s still too easy to just hang out, surf the net, watch the rain fall and eat all day. But, one day you drive by a gym where they have big windows so you can see everyone working out and you realise: “I think something is missing from my life.” You don’t exercise! And you’re really missing out. Exercise is absolutely vital, especially to help us metabolize all those avocados and tropical fruits.

I’ll tell you the secret right now: you’ll have to force yourself to exercise—but only for 7-10 days. After not exercising for a while, you won’t feel like it. It may even be very difficult to get back into it. But after 7-10 days, your body will be trained and you’ll actually be looking forward to your exercise routine. Start with 15 minutes and increase by 5 minutes every day. Pretty soon you’ll be rocking along with everybody at the gym.

Don’t Overdose On Nuts and Fat

When you stop eating meat, tofu and cheese, there aren’t many “filling foods” left. For that reason, most raw-foodists initially eat too many nuts and seeds. Many continue that pattern for many years. Eating too many nuts and seeds, as well as eating too much fat in general, will leave you tired and will cause many health problems. From what I have seen, that’s one of the major reasons why most raw-foodists are not experiencing exuberant health.

When you eat five avocados, that’s the equivalent of almost an entire cup of oil. How would you feel if you sat down and ate a cup of oil? Yet, many raw-foodists don’t mind eating five avocados a day. That is too much. And that’s why they don’t feel so great. So what’s the solution? I’d say that almost every raw-foodist would feel a lot better if they cut down their fat consumption in half, and in most cases even more than that.

Eat Greens

It’s easy to eat fruit. Fruit is sweet, and eating lots of it comes naturally. It’s a no-brainer. Because of that, the natural tendency is to eat too much fruit and not enough green vegetables. This leads to several imbalances and possibly nutritional deficiencies. Let’s be honest with ourselves: we don’t like green vegetables as much as fruit. Who would honestly choose kale over a mango? So what’s the solution? Simple enough: make sure you eat at least one vegetable meal per day. This meal should contain a good quantity of green vegetables, either mixed in a salad or blended in a raw soup. It’s also a very good idea to drink one green juice every day.

Food Combine

Food combining is still valid, even for raw-foodists. While we avoid most bad food combining by avoiding cooked foods, there are still a few bad food combinations possible on a raw-food diet, and they may start to matter when we repeat them everyday. I would say that there are only two rules to remember.

Don’t mix fruit and nuts. This combination can only work in small quantities, but will definitely cause problems in larger quantities. The worst combination is the mix of dried fruits and nuts — although it is one of the most delicious. Reserve for special occasions, when preparing a raw dessert!
Avocados don’t combine with nuts. This combination is especially difficult to digest.
As for the other combinations, you can experiment with them and see what works for you.

Avoid Dried Fruit

My current recommendation for dried fruit is simple: don’t eat it, except rarely on special occasions. The stuff is deadly. It doesn’t matter if it’s organic, sun-dried or imported from other planets: it’s still too sweet and too addictive and too difficult to digest. Unless you can limit yourself to eating two dried figs per day, avoiding dried fruit completely will be easier and might greatly improve your health, if you have been eating too much of it. Instead, reserve dried fruits for special occasions, when you’ll prepare a raw dessert with your friends or children.

Avoid Strong Spices and Irritating Foods

Not all raw foods are created equal. Just the fact that a food is raw doesn’t make it healthy. Generally, you can tell whether a food is good for you by tasting it in its natural state, without any combinations or seasoning. If the taste is pleasant, it is good. If your body rejects it, it means it contains some poisons or toxins that the body does not want.

So why do you persist eating hot peppers and onions when those foods, when eaten in their natural state, burn your tongue and make you spit them out. Even children and animals won’t eat them, and we should certainly follow their example. They disturb digestion and are very irritating to the digestive tract.

Get a Life

For many raw-foodists, food and diet have become an obsession. They so are obsessed with food, its quality, its “perfection” that they stress out in the way and forget to have fun. They also forget that it will never be perfect, no matter how hard you try, and that there are other things that matter in life in order to be healthy.

The best way to become less focused on food is to be involved in an activity or hobby where you don’t have to think about food. It could be taking a class to learn about digital photography, learning to play the guitar, engage in outdoor activities, and so on.

Food is just fuel — what you do with your life is what matters!

Amazon, your new perfume will have to be pretty special if it’s going to divert people’s attention from you in your pants (or commando…?!) 🙂

Jojo, I’ve just googled ‘dates health benefits’. Check out mercola or livestrong for their health benefits. There’s plenty reasons to eat them!

Hi everyone, I roughly read through the posts and you all sound well :). I decided to do a sort of fast day today instead of tomorrow as I’m going out to eat with my dad tomorrow (whom I hardly see). So far I’ve had around 350 calories and have done a fast one hour long walk. I’m now roasting some parsnips and sweet potatoes and will have those for dinner. So far I’m pleased with how I’ve managed to control my cravings, it really helps when i know that I’ll be posting on here! I also have dates when I want to satisfy my sweet tooth and it does an excellent job because you can’t have too many as they’re really sweet. I love butternut squash soups it’s my favorite. I usually cook the squash with onions, garlic, turmeric, black pepper and salt and a bit of cumin as well. I cook it in a bit of butter and once the fragrance of the spices come out I add water (I also add some carrots along with the squash), I then add water and boil until cooked. Then I blend it and add some coconut milk powder which I think goes really well with it. Sometimes I put in chicken as well and blend it with the chicken. I have some parsnips in the fridge and want to make a parsnip soup, any recommendations? What’s your favorite parsnip soup recipe? Thanks!

Hello I’m 5’0 and a BMI of 21.3 similar to Mimi when she started, and my TDEE is 1247 or thereabouts so I’m going for 1lb a week. A quarter of my TDEE is 300 which I have tried and failed to do, but have done a few weeks on 50per cent or thereabouts of my TDEE in a 4:3 way and lost about a pound a week. the way I see it, is any loss is a good loss so why worry too much about it?!

I’m no longer going to bed!
Just going unconscious from heating blanket bliss.
Been laying here for 13hours .

I eat a lot of dried fruits. Well about 1200 calories per week , be ause I found them easy to measure on my cooking day. This helps me keep many of the fruits from spoilage mostly my reason for eating them.

Turned to eating them only on feed days as very high in calories makes for small meals on fasting days .

What picked up on. Today was about making sure to floss after eating dried fruits and nuts. This makes sense , because most cavities occur between teeth rather than where a brush glides across.

I also have a water jet , or water pic. This helps a great deal when I’m home , but not at work where eat most of the dried fruits and nuts. So I’ll either just eat them at home now or take floss.

Ok. Looking for the other bears in my cave, to hunt down some sustenance. Then prepare for a 4:3 this week. No change since weigh in on the 1st. Beans on Monday – turnip greens&spagetti sauce on wednesday, and dark chocolates flavored protein shakes on Friday. Is my plan. Not a very delightful plan. But those seem to work on those days more than all others according to my journal. Im wanting this to be the year I get under 200 for the first time in 25 years. So no time to loose.

Thinking a fish dinner tonight with apples , carrots, and greens with onion.

Welcome starfish and couscous.

Good morning fellow fasters. Another day commencing. Nearly time to get ready for work. Took a little while to catch up on all the posts … SAMM as always a font of knowledge which you share with us.

RT hoping all is well for you down in the SE, Nicky and Emel also hoping you are both okay.

Annette good advice re correct bra for sport/running. Wee look after yourself and take pain relief when needed to make your back more comfortable.

FoodA glad you didn’t mind the shortening 😀 also you’re right this WOL is great as you can change things around to suit what you’re doing that week/day.

Starfish try getting down to 400 cals per Fast Day rather than 300. I started at around 600 and now easily keep to 400 on FDs.

Time for me to get moving. Catch up later one and all 😀

Whoops! The importance of a good sports bra when running slipped my mind because it’s not really a problem for me since I’ve lost weight 🙂

However when I had a unruly bust I absolutely loved, and still wear, a shockabsorber (maximum support).

Exercise today and for the last two weeks has been more sedate though, a 6 – 10k walk. Unfortunately back to work tomorrow, and short on time, so Amazon will be my role model for home exercise…