Thanks Purple, Happy New Year to you too – when did you get home? You seem to have been away forever – and done so much over there. I hope you, Mr P and your travelling scales had a fabulous trip. Yes, I remembered your saying that you’d be coming through a week after we got home and wouldn’t have time to meet. Another time maybe. Have a pleasant trip over and stay safe on those country roads down south.

Hi Hermaj, just re-read your profile, what determination you showed throughout those plateaus. Inspiring for those who haven’t quite reached their goals yet. Pleased to read also that you enjoyed Holland. Aren’t we a lucky lot to be able to see so much of the world?

Well, it turns out that the first post-holiday fast wasn’t so bad after all. It’s 8.30pm and I have still have 18 calories to spare. How many almonds is that?

Fantastic revelations and insights FFS. “Basically still greedy” resonates as we are still the same people we always were – but now we have a toolkit.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/zBx3JZJCKfNBrWgT0Qyj93/the-big-experiment-could-i-lose-fat-just-by-changing-my-meal-times

Hi all,

As a long-term advocate of 16:8, I was interested in the above. It suggests there is a physiological benefit to restricting your feeding window.

An interesting article, Happy. If I were to take the advice of delaying breakfast and then having a very early dinner, I’d most certainly lose a shedload of weight, largely because I’d feel as sick as a pig and end up living on a daily diet of a half slice of toast and Marmite. Over the last 20 or so years all attempts to eat breakfast – even around noon – have ended in tears. I’ve tried, usually on holiday, but I’ve always ended up feeling so awful, even after a small pot of yogurt or half a slice of toast, that a whole day gets wasted as I crawl back to bed and stay there, with nothing passing my lips but camomile tea. I can’t even face dinner at whatever hour.

It’s not all bad news, though. In fact, my weird body clock makes fast days a lot easier. I don’t quite make 16:8, but my natural instinct takes me to 15:9 most of the time without even trying. Much as I love the occasional bacon butty (with vinegar but I must also try your version with chili jam) I can’t face one until around 8 p.m., which some may argue is completely against the rules.

I want to know what everyone looks like! How do you all manage to meet so many other people from the forum? Doesn’t Barata live in Wellington? OK, so she’s in Oz on holiday? I have met two forum people in Perth and seen photos of two others. Do you organise it through JJ? Why don’t they put a PM button on here?

Hermaj, putting golden syrup on bacon or sausages was a boarding school fad we had in the UK the sixties. I enjoyed chilli jam and things like that on my big greasy breakfasts for years afterwards. Wouldn’t dare have a bacon sandwich these days but it sounds fun.

I’ve decided to throw caution to the wind and skip tomorrow’s fast day since I am down to 58.8kgs this morning and OH keeps saying, “please don’t lose any more weight”. Such a strange thing for my ears to hear. I know 130lbs is a good weight for someone 5′ 6″ but I still can’t really believe it’s me.

Hi thin,

The way to do it is as follows: you email JJ saying that you would like to contact a person who posts as whatever and include a brief email message, which you ask JJ to forward. Then if the recipient is up for it s/he will email you direct and you take it from there.

So far I’ve met three 5:2 cyberbuddies face to face at least once, in all three cases with their lovely OHs. These include Purple and Bay and a one who posts on a different thread, has become a really good mate. We’ve met several times, once over a hilarious weekend with our respective fellas and try to get together and aim to meet once every season. Our last meeting was in Bath where we teamed up with Mr and Mrs P for a fabulous day. There’s another meeting with a new 5:2 friend in the offing and hopefully there may be one or two more at some stage before too long.

I have to say that on the forum you tend to meet what my rather snooty mum would have called “a very nice class of person”. 🙂 I think the common factor – apart from all being former, or nearly former, fatties – is they are all intelligent, well-informed and have been round the block a few times. They are also stylish – in some cases drop-dead gorgeous – and funny, with a definite touch of naughtiness. I’m not the most sociable person on the planet but I’m so glad I’ve made the effort.

Have I got this right? You’re in Oz but went to school in the UK? Not sure about golden syrup on bacon and bangers. OH lived in the USA for a while and has told me all about the big breakfasts with maple syrup sloshed all over them. I’m pretty adventurous but I still haven’t got round to trying it.

It’s absolutely fine to throw caution to the wind now and then, especially when you’ve got down to a happy weight. I haven’t quite got there yet, but I still take the brakes off big-time occasionally, without inflicting major damage.

Cripes, I don’t think I quite meet the criteria ladies. Neither stylish nor highly intelligent. Definitely not drop dead gorgeous. But, yes, I’m a former fatty who’s definitely been around the block a few times as you put it! Thanks for the info – contacting JJ was how I met CharliesMum (now a good friend), then FreyaT and we’ve contacted EnglishAussie who we haven’t yet met. I think it was you PVE who gave me the instructions then. It seems a lot of work for JJ but if he/she is happy to facilitate, then all’s good.

Yes hermaj, I was born in England, emigrated to the US after uni and have lived in Australia for 20 years. Always searching for new places to consider living (hence the trip to Southern Spain). Please send your entries on a postcard via JJ.

Makes a change for JJ to be asked to do something nice, rather than dealing with complaints and requests to remove posts. 🙂

I was once told that by a teacher of long experience – my immediate boss at my first job who defended me against the big boss, the headmaster, who was constantly on my case – that a child who achieved grade 4 at GCE (long since integrated into into the GCSE which is over all a somewhat tougher exam taken by most kids at 16-ish) was considered to be of “average” intelligence.

If this is the case, all of us who have somehow got through uni or similar are “highly intelligent” by comparison. Stylish doesn’t mean looking like the front cover of Vogue, just someone who takes the trouble to look reasonably OK and possibly a little bit quirky in the nicest possible way, and unlikely to frighten frail old ladies or gents, or small children.

I’d bet money you more than qualify, thin.

Happy, I think chicken poo is a brilliant look – and practicality is always in style! ‘Function dictates form’ or whatever that saying was…

Just in case hermaj doesn’t send you an informative educational post before I finish this one —

GCE (Gen Certain of Education)was what most of the 70+ among us took, if we were fortunate enough to be deemed academically able. Later known by its two levels : ‘O’ (ordinary, at 16+) and ‘A’ ( Advanced at end of 6th form – the gateway to most forms of higher education)

CSE (Certain of Secondary Ed) was introduced later, as a school-leaving qualification for less academic youngsters, at 16. But a CSE grade 1 or 2 in any subject counted as equivalent to a pass at O level, (which were graded 1-6, so a CSE 1 or 2 was roughly an O level 4,5 or 6) so some kids were able to progress via that route to higher education.

In 1988 (I know, because my middle son was part of the first cohort) they were combined and called GCSE,(Gen Cert of Sec Ed) and graded A (now also A* available) – F. Anything above a C is roughly equivalent in value to an old ‘O’ level; D and E are sort of CSE level, and F means you turned up. ‘A’ levels have become , first AS and A levels and then A1 and A2, taken at end of 1st and 2nd year 6th, respectively.

Confused? So are the kids. And as for the teachers….

Don’t believe it, Thin….Hermaj certainly has her own style. Pity you didn’t buy that Paddington Bear hat in Bath, Herm. It looked terrific 👒

Maple syrup and bacon are a marriage made in heaven. Mr P did a lot of work in Canada. We’ve never been without “murple surple” 😉 P

Maple syrup, pancakes, bacon – Saturday morning treat (occasionally) in this house! Other Canadian habits, brought home by my father who did his flying training there in WW2, are cheese with fruit cake and – especially! – with apple crumble or pie. Yum to them all!

Happy, my DD, now 46 and mega-stylish, has never lived down storming out of our back door at the height of 15-ness, declaring loudly that she intended to marry a Very Rich Man. When asked if there was any particular reason for that decision, the reply was ‘because I’m never going to step out of my kitchen into duck s**t, and I’m never going to eat another bl***y lentil’! The story gets repeated at every family gathering; the prosperous marriage was not a good one and the second, more successful one involves very little money – but as far as duck poo and lentils go, she’s stuck to her word. I’ve promised lentil loaf next time they visit…

I should have photographed you in the hat Herm. Even with my thick hair, I’ve never used hat pins! Just buy hats with a deep crown 😊

Don’t even start me on WA and their educational “standards”. That’s why various Federal Governments have tried to drag WA kicking and screaming to comply with National standards, but the WA Govt has always wanted to do their own thing, no matter how detrimental it is for the students. Spoken as a grandmother of school kids in the wild west AND an educator 😦 P

Amusing hermaj and well done! I didn’t enjoy Lit. much mostly because the teacher’s irritatingly smart clone of a daughter was also in our class. For ‘O’ level, we studied among other things, Macbeth. I knew the whole play by heart and I’m sure Mrs Barton was as shocked as I was that I got an A for Lit. especially as it was my only A grade.

On the other hand, my DD’s exposure to Shakespeare comprised the Lit. teacher letting the class know that Hamlet was playing locally. It was never studied or discussed – is Shakespeare not relevant today? Instead they studied bizarre works with slutty themes by questionable local authors. On one occasion, a poem about mushrooms was analysed to death in class. Someone said it was a poem about feminism. Another thought it was discussing abortion. When they got to my DD, she said, “I think it’s a poem about mushrooms”.

Purple, I’m collecting my neighbour from the airport this afternoon. If I see anyone even remotely looking like my mental image of you and Mr P, I shall be approaching. Just kidding, only if I see someone clutching a set of yellow travel scales.

Sweet Shakespeare-related story from my own family. It’s become a tradition that my now nearly-17 great-nephew and I go to the theatre together once a year. The first time, when he was 13 and we were going to see Billy Elliot, I was really nervous about how it would go. I needn’t have worried. It marked the beginning of a beautiful and lasting friendship.

While we were on the Tube, I suggested it was a bit noisy for conversation, we’d be better reading our books. Looking over my shoulder at my Kindle, he noticed the name Lysander and promptly asked me if I was reading Shakespeare. I explained that I was reading a book – William Boyd’s Waiting for Sunrise – whose central character was the son of theatre people who named him after Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

I was well impressed. Firstly, because majority of 13-year-olds I’d come across in my spell in teaching wouldn’t have known a Shakespearean character from a hole in the ground and, secondly, because he didn’t find anything weird about his auntie reading Shakespeare on the Tube.

Re Eng Lit O-levels. My brother got one single O-level. Yes, you’ve guessed it. Eng Lit!

Hi Herm
Some Scots/Aussies do celebrate Burns Night, but as Australia Day is Jan 26, II is the big day here. I’m also at my grandson’s Nerf War birthday party today….the fun never stops in the southern sun!!! 😆 P

Hi P,

Didn’t you do Burns Night last year, addressing the haggis and all? Or have I just woken up from a very odd dream?!

And Nerf War? Paintball without the paint?

St Patrick’s then?! Minus the haggis obviously!

Hermaj, I love you! I’m not going mad after all 🙂

We go to quite a few Ceilidhs but not on St Andrews day. We also do St Patricks, so your recall is pretty good. Not going crazy Happy. ☺
Whereas Australia Day, today, is celebrated by a bbq and lots of lazing around! 😉😉😊 Especially after a preteen boys’ “sleepover”. P

Hi Happy, Fast, Hermaj, Purple and all

By accidentally falling off the thread I have missed a very lively and funny discussion over the last two weeks. We are home again and gratefully falling into our normal regimes. I have restarted my way of life on 5:2. During all the travelling and feasting with friends and family over the last two months ( and almost no fasts since 1 December), I have put on 5 kg and expanded my waistline.

Yesterday was a full on serious fast, coffee, water and vegetable soup only. I slept over 9 hours last night. It’s always a good sign when I’m tired after a fast day. Woke up to a loss of 800 grams. Happy to be on the wagon and on my way back to a healthy 5:2 lifestyle. ☕️☕️🎉🎉🌺🌺🌺🌞🌞🌞

I have missed your happy company, you wonderful ladies.

Lichtle, please come back before Ash Wednesday. I miss you and would love to have your company During the sugar free Lenten challenge. You know how hard I found it at the beginning.

Cheers, Bay 🌞🌞🌞👯👯🌶🌶💃💃🌺🌺😉😉😉😉

Hi Bay,

Good to hear you’ve had such a good time with family and friends, and that you’re now back to fasting and already eating (or not!) into your weight gain. I was going to say you’ll be back at your fighting weight by summer, but I guess I mean winter!

I’m maintaining relatively easily at the moment, having got rid of my Christmas excess, and now doing one fast per week. I must admit I’m very glad to have the second fast in reserve! I saw a friend recently that I hadn’t seen for about a year. She has always been a stick insect, but is now a very curvaceous lady… thanks to the menopause! Somothing for me to look forward to…not.

The weather continues to be mostly appalling here, and I definitely have January/ winter blues this year. The days are noticeably lengthening now, but they might as well not if it’s going to continue to rain non-stop 🙁

Yours,
Eeyore

Hi Happy, sending you some sunshine. 🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️🌞🌞🌞🌞🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺

I’ll think about it Bay.

On my second fast day this week. Maintaining weight lost on Tuesday. Have just mowed the lawn, because of all the rain and the hot weather. Usually we are so drought stricken that we don’t mow the lawn in the very hottest months. The whole city looks green. Sending you sunshine today, Happy. 🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞