Hello everyone, how are we all? Pretty quiet lately, I thought I must have been locked out! 😄

Have finally identified my Achilles heel – wine😞

I drink very little – one glass on a Friday Saturday and Sunday and if I go out during the week for dinner (which isn’t often) I’ll have 2 glasses.

What I’ve noticed though is if I have more than one glass my self discipline goes completely out the window! I have an immediate sugar craving which lasts the whole of the next day and doesn’t disappear til FD done. Fortunately this seems to happen mainly on weekends so it’s only a day until FD. Great I’ve identified the problem now I just have to figure out how to control it!

Kefir is going great thanks Purple! Quite sour compared to the shop bought one. I checked ingredients of shop bought and they add flavour enhancers, doesn’t way what flavour. I find it pleasant enough on my breakfast though and it’s just so great to have a supply there when I need it!

Yes, bummer about the wine isn’t it because I don’t intend to give it up lol.

Hi All,

I’m still alive! I had phone and broadband problems last week, managed to do a bit of reading but no posting.

I’ve nothing to report though!
Holding steady in the mid 59s with one fast a week at the moment.
Fed up of cold wet weather, badly in need of a bit of warm sunshine ☹️

And still waiting for my kefir grains to arrive. I have got a shop-bought supply, no idea if anything is added as I can’t read Polish!

Hello Everyone,
I am still trying to get my head around maintenance.
I had found 5:2 quite easy and was lucky not to have the plateaus and other horrible things some people suffer.
But somehow, when it got to maintenance, I am playing all sorts of mind games and eating too much on non fast days. I’d prefer to eat normally on non fast days, and have slightly easier fasts on fast days.
My latest strategy (ie starting today!) is to write up what I will eat through the day and stick to it.
Wish me luck. And any tips welcome!

Had a better idea! I googled it, and a well known supermarket helpfully tells me it’s just milk and live bacterial cultures and yeasts for kefir. Worryingly it says once open use within 12 hours! Since it’s only me drinking it I don’t really want two servings per day…or one at bedtime and the other first thing in the morning!

Thanks Purple. I had a good sensible eating day yesterday. Fast day today.
Cheers everyone.

Hello

I’m happy to report that I’m still maintaining nicely and feeling good.

My knee and hamstring injury is still troubling me but feeling better – I’m back to doing all my yoga and pilates classes and will be restarting my aerobic class this week but will be careful not to undo all the good work towards recovery I have been doing with the support of a brilliant physiotherapist. I’m still unable to do high level fell walks but have managed some low level ones with only slight discomfort although I feel a bit sore for the next 2 days……

@carolannfud – wine does the same for me but I do enjoy a couple of glasses every now and then and am not prepared to give it up so will just have to work a bit harder to reduce the snacking that comes with it (snacking on savoury and not sweet is my downfall….)
@purple Vegie Eater – Like you I avoid breakfast and follow a 16:8 WOL on my NFDs and find that this works better for me
@happynow – great feeling to be holding steady isn’t it!
@cinque – I find the following working for me – 1 FD is liquid fast – 2nd FD is around 400cals and NFDs are all 16:8 days but no calorie counting although I have reduced the amount of carbs I eat and use a smaller plate/bowl to serve my food in, thus reducing portion size!

“Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle.”

P – I have wine 3 or 4 days of the week too!!!! It is my one vice I’m not prepared to give up – I have compromised from drinking wine daily – definitely all about balance – cheers

@cinque That’s so funny because I love the sound of number 5 in Italian. Such a pretty sound isn’t it?
And to answer your question about how peeps chose their username… ‘Mimi’ is the name my grandkids call me, ‘go’ are the first 2 letters of my surname, and ‘girl’ was just a bit of fun.
Happy fasting

Morning!

Well my username just described how I felt after intermittent fasting for a few months and losing my excess flab.

This is my first and only foray into online forums (as a poster). Given my time again I’d probably choose something more exotic!

My user name is dead boring, a combination of all my names. As you say Purple, I had no idea this was the name to be seen on the 5:2 website forever after. My first foray into online contributing and I had no idea lol!

Cinque, I kept a food diary for about 4 weeks trying to identify if there were particular foods that created a weight gain. Results were inconclusive but what the diary did give me was information about the calorie content of all my meals. From that I made a choice of meals that would keep me at or slightly above/below my TDEE on NFD. On the weekend all hell breaks loose 😄 It’s trial and error!

Those of you who do 16:8, does that mean you only have two meals a day, or two and a snack?

I thought the thread had gone rather quiet, but I had stopped the notifications somehow.

I do 16:8, on two meals a day, breakfast at 1ish. I’m finding that I can basically eat whatever I want now. However, I’ve learned that I don’t want too much. Wine is fine, not every day, though and the occasional chocolate, too. The only things I don’t trust myself with are hot puddings, with custard.

Weighing every other day, I keep a close eye on weight, still well below target and not wanting to lose more. Who says ‘wriggle room’? Fast? Herm? It’s a great idea.

OH made Mimi’s tagine for guests on Sunday. It went down very well. I made a weight watchers chocolate bread and butter pudding for dessert,

Oh, my user name is from a family pet name when I was little.

Pol. 💁🏼

…and I’m clean out of wriggle room at the moment – still on target, but dead on – 4lbs up from the summer – and not really happy about the way the scales are creeping. I suspect it’s a combination of inactivity (weather, post-op recovery) and undisciplined NFDs, plus annual February blues tempting to extra carb consumption. Time for a change of season, please!

Thanks Pol. I guess a version with wholemeal bread (no refined carbs), 90/100% chocolate (no sugar) and SS milk might be interesting…..or perhaps Nutella, on the grounds that the hazelnuts would counteract the sugar?? (Tho nb I have never actually bought or tasted Nutella, nor used extra sugar -apart from the marmalade! – in a B and B pud!)

I rather favour yours Fast, but minus the chocolate. ..not a fan of the brown stuff. I’m sitting higher this week too, but not worried. As long as I stay below 60 ☺☺

Polly,

Are you sure Delilah doesn’t have a revile…?!
Delia might not, but then she’s not a Welsh anthem 😀

Well Cinque, as we drove from Rome to Paris, Mr P would not turn off along that southern coast. Once on a motorway there is no deviation! I noticed Genoa through gaps in tunnels. We’ll take more time next Italian tour ☺☺
Drizzling here this morning. 17 deg, but the pool is 25, so my morning swim was delightful.
Glad you slept well and are back in the land of the living No 5. 😊 P

It was a great trip Polly, but we had not allowed enough time from Florence to Chamonix. That’s the problem with living on the other side of the world. It costs so much to get there, you try to squeeze the max out of your travel dollar.

I made 3 really tasty meals this weekend…(the weather is suitable for cooking again)
Frday dinner: bbq barramundi with a salsa of roasted capsicum, capers, olives, onion, vinegar, oil and anchovies served on a bed of lettuce.
Sat lunch (no breakfast): ham, fresh figs, fennel, lettuce, orange, rocket, roasted hazelnuts and an orange, oil and mustard dressing
Sat dinner: brioche buns with mayo, homemade beetroot chutney, homemade pulled duck, black beans, rocket corn and chilli.
Gosh we eat well, when we eat!!!! The way it should be. Nothing but the best. P

Hi B2tf (shorter)
Many of us have found we need regular rebooting. A slight change of diet or practice. Some suggestions :
Dramatically reduce your carbs short term
Add an extra fast for a week or so
Look at your non fast day eating patterns
Skip breakfast every day for a while
Eat well on the 5 days to make a significant difference between feast and famine

I could come up with others, but I’m in a shopping mall…must go..
Over to others
Cheers P

No Barata. It’s been raining all week. I was just shopping for groceries and thought I’d answer before B2tf went to bed (US time).
How are you going with the weight? I put on a significant amount of weight last week due to taking antibiotics, but it is falling off again thank goodness. Maintenance is definitely an ongoing job, but we’ll worth the effort. P😆

B2F, P, Barata – I’m in exactly the same state – 2 years, 9 months maintaining, with the only concern how NOT to lose more weight, and suddenly, in the last 3months, 4lbs up!! Don’t know what’s going on, but definitely a reboot coming up.

Hi Poll
Our 4 year anniversary is 24th April!
Newcastle is only 1 1/2 north of us. And yes, it is cooler now, but raining. They have just done a rundown on the weather. This summer was the hottest on record. Many top temps broken. How sad that our govt thinks fossil fuel is a good idea! P 😑

Hi B2tf,
Congratulations on all the weight you have lost. What a happy anniversary it will be in April.
I can’t think of much help except to say I found that when I had a lot to lose, that sort of seesawing still ended with weight loss. But at a lower weight that bit of over eating: adding an extra snack or eating another serving, makes a bigger difference. I’ve had to plan more, and keep to the plan more strictly, now than I did.
Good luck and best wishes.

Hello everyone else. It is morning after fast day and I am about to have breakfast. Lovely.

Hi to all the maintainers,

Just thought Id pop and say hi. Still going strong and still love riding my bike. Wish I could do it all the time but work gets in the way. I know that everyone has a different way of cracking the egg. All I can say is if its not working for you, you need to change something and see if it works. If you do the same thing over and over again then expect the same results over and over again. Pip pip, wishing everyone success.

Ticking over just about sums it up, Pol. After the major disappointment with the new regime (24-hr fasting combined with BSD) that failed spectacularly, I’m not quite back on bog-standard 5:2 but just being generally careful and sticking to 16/8 with the occasional 18/6. The scales go up and down by several hundred grams from day to day but the general trend is downwards and I guess I’ve lost around 800g in the last two weeks. Still a long way to go, though.

Work, thankfully, is going well. The current project, translating from German a book on the history of graphic design, is relatively easy and quite interesting, with a very appreciative editor and an author who hasn’t complained (at least so far), both of which are quite rare commodities. And I do love clients who pay up on time and even well ahead of schedule as happened with the first batch of text I submitted.

What is proving to be a pain in the neck (understatement of the year!!) is the proposed move to Cambridge. After two attempts to purchase something much nearer home (one where the vendor started playing silly buggers, another where the survey revealed several nasties) a house we really loved, set in a lovely green area within Cambridge’s city limits with a very cooperative vendor, fell through when our equity release provider refused to consider it because it was built on a steel frame. For some reason, these guys won’t touch such structures with a barge pole.

Since then, the search has continued, mainly focusing on villages outside the city but with good public transport connections as I don’t drive. I did learn and passed the test at only the second attempt but I just hated being behind the wheel. Lack of spacial awareness, failure to notice things like cyclists, pedestrians and cars coming the other way, etc., etc are not ideal qualifications.

Because the purchase is taking so long, we’re afraid we’ll lose our buyer. So far, he and his partner have been very patient and they have nothing to sell, but we can’t expect them to wait for ever.