Hi Igorek
Effectively, basic 5:2 involves only eating 1/4 of your normal healthy daily food requirement (your TDEE) in 36 hours. That is, eg, from dinner one night, say Sunday, until breakfast 36 hours later, Tuesday. The 400-500 calories can be spread out, but most people find waiting as long as possible, just drinking water or black tea/coffee is easier. Once you eat anything, it is much harder to stop. Eating low carb, low calorie foods on fast days allows more bulk and seems to make it easier. Soup or leafy salad as opposed to cheesy toast. Maximum quantity and very satiating. Carbs simply make you hungry.
Remember, it is only two days a week.
All the best.
PVE

PVE, the Sydney Weather sounds like it here. It’s the shock of the change, I think, especially in the Spring when a lovely warm day raises our hopes – before they’re dashed again.

Ignorek, it’s so hard if you eat with the kids! I think you’ll have to resist those cheesy, buttery treats! Good luck!

I had a light lunch yesterday, although it was a goats cheese tart, it was small, with cardboard pastry which I left, and salad. It was good fun, though and a good send off for our friend who’s returning to the USA.

Hello PVE

So sorry to be a pain, but, I think I am a bit confused. This is what I do.

1. On Tuesday, I eat normally and at 4pm (Tuesday) I have a normal meal with my kids. I then don’t eat anything until the evening, nothing in the night, nothing the following morning or lunch. The first meal I have is early dinner with kids at 4pm on the following day, Wednesday. This means that I have 24h with no food, only tea, coffee and occasional milk before bed.

In the past, I did the normal routine i.e. 7am till 7am. It definitely worked, but, I failed in a longer run because I just felt too busy and disorganised around kids’ meals and have end up eating with them. I find this regime is great, but, if you go above your 500 calories, it won’t work – this is my experience.

This is why I want to try out the new regime 4pm – 4pm. This means that I miss the fasting window of the previous night that I would have on the traditional regime, the 7am-7am one.

Has any of you know anyone who has done it? Have you lost any weight? I am worried that 4pm-4pm isn’t long enough? What do you think? I will give it a go, but it would be good to know if anyone else had any experience with the afternoon regime.

Best

Happy, Marmite was the number one seller in Australia until the govt seconded it all for the troups in WW11 and the population at home switched to Vegemite. I don’t give a s**** how much Vit B is in it. I have it for the salt!!! Kraft, who made Vegemite, were taken over by a US company years ago. I think they were bought back, but I still need my regular Vegemite hit no matter who owns it. 😊😊😊P

Well P, I’m pleased I can now defend my Marmite habit on the basis that I’m warding off dementia… I just hope when I’m in my dotage I can still remember to eat some every day!

@igorek,

If the one meal you have on Wednesday is 1/4 TDEE then no problems, you have done a fast. If the meal is a lot bigger than that then you haven’t really done a fast, all you’ve done is delayed your normal food intake and eaten it in one sitting rather than 3 meals.

Example: You have your last normal meal on Tuesday. On Wednesday you have 1/4 TDEE. This can be as one meal or broken up over the day. On Thursday you resume normal eating. You have just done one fast day.

Hi Igorek, welcome. I think the received wisdom is that having children can definitely make you fat. Contrary to received wisdom, it’s not pregnancy that does it, but finishing up their uneaten food which is ‘too good to waste’ shame, but true! Good luck with kicking the habit 🙂😇

Hi BigBooty

Thank you for explaining this to me!!!

No it’s the crusts, and the cold fish fingers….just try telling yourself how unappetisiing they really are!

Best maintenance week so far! Although I’ve varied by a a pound up and down on my every other day weigh, my recording day shows exactly the same weight.

Going to dive the the shower now, before my birthday treat facial. Out for yet another meal with the rugby lot tonight – a new Turkish restaurant.

Pol. 🙋🏼

Hi, Carol, birthday is not until Easter Sunday, but we will be away, of course. Seems like il. E celebrating for a month! The facial, complete with massage, was bliss!

Pol. 😊😊

Hello All

@igorek – some great advice given to you here already – stick to this WOL and you will gain all sorts of health benefits as well as losing weight – If I could do it so can you – am now in my 5th month of maintenance!

@purple Vegie Eater – I find drinking lots of hot water in the winter months helps keep me warm on my FD ☺️

@happynow – you made me smile about remembering to eat your marmite – I’m definitely a vegemite girl myself and my daughter born in the UK has followed me in this as well ………another Easter birthday girl I see!

@pollypenny – Glad to see that you are starting the birthday celebrations early and why not – I’m jealous facial and a massage too then a Turkish meal – Yum!

Lovely weekend to look forward too – day out with OH tomorrow – brunch to break my fast and then playing at being tourists! A ballet on Sunday afternoon, live telecast from the Bolshoi “A Hero of our Time”
“The story based on the larger-than-life hero Pechorin – disillusioned and careless, he inflicts pain upon himself and the women around him. The ballet is adapted from Mikhail Lermontov’s literary masterpiece in three separate stories recounting his heartbreaking betrayals. Is Pechorin a real hero? Or is he a man like any other?”

I’m still doing my 2 x FDs each week and maintaining below the 55kg mark – today has been a FD and has gone really well so far – dinner was homemade lentil with spinach soup (very low calorie!)

“Losing weight is hard. Maintaining weight is hard. Staying overweight is hard. Choose your hard.”

Thank you everyone for your comments of encouragement! I am so so happy that I’ve joined this forum! I feel I can do this knowing I am not on my own! I felt a bit guilty bc. I am quite lucky in a sense that … I am 66kg which means I am not big – but – I grew up with a family where everyone is overweight. I know how difficult it is to loose weight; I know how being overweight can destroy you life. SO – I don’t want it to happen to me. It was always easy for me to loose weight, I know – unfair, but things have changed since having three children. The baby-weight just want go! No matter what I do OR TRY! Someone up there ‘UP’ is talking about maintaining 55kg! Fantastic! My goal is to be 60kg, my pre-babies weight, when I felt well, full of energy and optimism. I know, this was 10years ago – but, I am going to give it a go!

I know that with your support, I can do it! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thank you!!!! I will share any success!

Have a great holiday Polly!

Sorry to hear OH is back-sliding….

Have a great holiday Polly…
And remember. ..you can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead! ☺☺P

We Aussies like to look on the sunny side of life…something to do with our climate 😉😉

Hello

Had a brilliant Pilates workshop this morning – Getting Back to Basics – spent a wonderful 3hrs with a small group of like minded women under the guidance of our great teacher – then 4 of us had lunch together catching up – very relaxing.

@pollypenny – amazing how big the portions can be in some restaurants – I rarely clear my plate these days and I only have 2 course now but I used to be able to polish off 3 course no problem…….no wonder I had gained so much weight – NEVER going back there again! Had a lovely weekend and such beautiful weather too.
Not my birthday but was thinking about you and @happynow
As others have said don’t fret about your OH – he will have to learn for himself that maybe that daily sandwich is not the best thing for him……
Have a great holiday 🥂
@igorek – never thought I would get back to 55kg but I did and am staying just below around 54.5kg on average – this WOL works and allows me to have a bit of evreything I fancy but not every day and not in such large quantities as before…….I agree with others have said “that maintenance is yoyo dieting with a smaller yoyo range”

On Monday I heard that a really good friend of mine has just been diagnosed with cancer and her prognosis is not good – the saddest part is that I now live 5.5hrs drive away and I made the most difficult phone call to her on Tuesday – a very close mutual friend had rang me at my friend’s request to tell me the news as she felt unable to call herself………I just so wish I lived closer………..the three of us are such close friends; we met through our work 25+ years ago and have remained good friends since. I moved up to Cumbria 3 years ago but we keep in touch and visit as much as we can……..I was planning on going down south for a visit to celebrate the other friend’s birthday so we will still do this but maybe in a less extravagant way all depending on how she is feeling with the treatment she is about to start undergoing.

“LIFE is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to DANCE in the RAIN”

So sorry to hear your saf news AY. The tyranny of distance can be so hard.

Shame we aren’t close Happy. I overheard a radio debate on the best way to eat HCBs, started salivating, and bought 2 dozen. 😑 We’ve eaten 2 each for breakfast and one for afternoon tea…warm with butter dripping out! I haven’t had them for at least 4 years and thought s***f it, this year I will. I was hoping to share the rest with the family, but they bought some too! No choice, they will have to be broken apart and frozen “for Ron”.
I’m sure the scales will wake up to themselves in the next few days and give you a pleasant surprise. ☺P

Barata, in the past, on some threads, I’ve noticed the folk “over there” are sensitive about direct language😉😉 I’d hate to be seen as a crude colonial! P 😊😊

Don’t worry about this one ‘over here’ , P- write what you like. Brought up sons, worked in parishes, prisons, refuges – heard it (and probably used it!) all!

Now that, I do find scary’ – too many childhood fairy stories have left me with an abiding phobia of wolves, which no amount of fantastic wildlife documentaries can shift. Perhaps Golden wedding anniv trip next year should be some sort of ‘walking with wolves’ experience…?

When it comes, happy Easter, everyone. And good fasting next week’

P I’m sure no one here would be offended by ‘stuff it’, although perhaps Hermaj… 😉 And to be honest, if anyone was offended I’d probably tell them where they could stick it 😀

I’ve just been looking at HCB recipes, with the thought that I could make a small quantity. Paul Hollywood’s recipe uses 1 egg and makes 15! So 1/8 ish of an egg for 2… not sure that’s going to work ☹️

And yes, happy Easter all 🐰🥚

Hope our Kiwi friends are all doing well despite Cyclone Cook – thinking of you

Lovely walk this morning with my usual Friday group – although overcast no rain to speak of during the walk – lovely catch up over a cup of tea afterwards. Although this afternoon my knee is a bit stiff and achy – small price to pay for such a lovely hilly walk!

I got my kefir grains delivered on Wednesday PM and started my first batch of that evening – drank some this afternoon – very nice taste but not as thick as the shop bought one – second batch is fermenting currently – any advice?

@happynow – My friend is recovering today from her biopsy yesterday – I spoke to her this afternoon, she is a bit sore but doing OK – You are right I just want to be able to give here a hug.
I do both Pilates and Yoga and enjoy both! You might find this link interesting reading
Yoga vs pilates | Life and style | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com › Lifestyle › Health & wellbeing

@purple Vegie Eater – as you say at times like this distance is a real pain and btw nothing you said could be construed as offensive 😇

@hermajtomomi – good to hear that the house issue is moving slowly but surely in the right direction

For those who celebrate Easter – have a joyful time with your family and friends – for those of us who don’t have a mindful weekend and make the most of each day and don’t forget to be awesome!

Hi AT,

Thanks for the link. That suggests I should be looking at Pilates for my back, not yoga.

Re: kefir. It’s very early days for you. It took mine maybe 5 goes to get a consistent product. And I did experiment with a few different milks, finally settling on yeo valley (based on flavour and consistent results). I’m on a 24 hour cycle, probably a tbsp or so now in 300 + mls of milk. It’s a thick pouring not a spoon-thick consistency. I guess it depends on how you like it! So long as you keep the grains alive you can play around to find what you like best.

Hermaj,

Good to hear it’s all progressing. It is a lot to do, esp while working. It will be worth it though. We haven’t lived in one place for 30 years, but even moving after 10 we were griping at one another (who’s bloody stupid idea was it to take up a carpet and put it in the loft, only to fight with it 10 years on to get it down and into a skip…?!). I can imagine some choice language in your abode during times of stress 😁