“Supper”, a term my father disdained as lower-class, is from the French ‘super’ which of course means to eat soup. In the evening. What a sensible course of action! Then there is the charming custom of “Faire chabrol.” When you get down to the bottom of your soup bowl, you pour your glass of wine into it and swirl it around to get all the remaining bits into suspension, then drink it. Very tasty [another word my father disliked] when done with the correct pairing of wine and soup. In PEI, CA, where we spend our summers, the noon meal is dinner and the evening meal is called supper although it is not soup.

Thank you all for your insights about breakfast and husbands. Our compromise last Friday was for me to eat the fruit and the back bacon but not the cinnamon swirl brioche toast. I should do that more often!

Do not plan to lose any weight today, as we are having friends over for Cake and Champers. I told my ODH that I wanted some friends over for my birthday [#69!] and he ran with it. The bespoke cake just arrived, somehow I’m not supposed to know about that, and ODH has everything else under control. He said, “I suppose this takes care of dinner too?” Yes, cake and sparkling wine sounds sufficient for Sunday dinner or supper.

We’ll be looking forward to tomorrow’s Fasting!

Does MM have a regular program on the telly? Didn’t know that. Not seen over here.

And supper 😀

Well done Carol! I always take the attitude that tropical fruits have a higher GI. That doesn’t stop me eating mangoes though 🙄 P

It turns out our plant buddies are very skilled at protecting themselves. Plants that have fruit usually want predators to eat it so they can spread the seeds elsewhere in their poop. But they don’t want it eaten until it’s ripe so they produce chemicals called lectins that make predators (like us)sick. These chemicals are neutralized by the plant as the fruit ripens.

Fruit should only be eaten when it is ripened on the vine. So local & in season.

Of course there is also the issue that fructose doesn’t signal the brain to stop eating like glucose does.

Very clever these plants

Hi Polly
This is certainly what Mr P has found with his daily bs tests over the past 5 years. The simplest way for him to reduce a raised bs level is to cut out breakfast. But he can also use his ‘get out of jail free’ card by having apple cider vinegar before a carb heavy meal (occasionally).
P

So the results are basically reaffirming the incredible ability of the body to adjust to keep healthy, within sensible limits.
“This rather surprising result could be explained because our bodies are inherently good at processing carbs in the morning. This means that when the group followed the high carb breakfast (HML) pattern, with peak carbohydrate intake in the morning, they were not able to significantly improve their blood glucose response – as their bodies were already efficiently processing the carbs they were eating.

But our results suggest that the high carb dinner pattern (LMH) trained our volunteers’ bodies to become better at processing carbs in the evening. What is particularly interesting is that this change occurred after only 5 days of following that regime.”

Marvellous. Reduce the carbs. Don’t overload at every meal. Hmmm…that’s what we do, isn’t it? P

Same old. Same old, Happy 😑😐

Good work on getting back to your fighting weight F_me. I’ve now passed my four year anniversary of starting 5:2. Next milestone in May will be four years maintaining under 60kg 😀

I used to be a real carb addict (hence I was at least podgy for most my life), but I really seem to have broken that link with IF. Don’t get me wrong, if I get started on carbs and sugar I’ll want to keep shovelling them in! But I’m very rarely tempted in the first place these days.it certainly makes weight maintenance considerably easier.

Although…on that subject….I have three increasingly sad oranges in the fridge from before Christmas and the only thing I can think to make is an orange and almond cake 😊

They all appeared to be eating white bread, Carol. Hmmm. I quite like the Atkins approach of counting ‘net carbs’ – ie total carb grams minus fibre grams. But I guess it’s still down to personal metabolism etc.

2 weeks ago I started doing low carb/high fat/protein à la Volek – for neurological reasons, rather than weight loss/maintenance, as my carbs were already fairly low, and always complex, and I’d been happily maintaining goal weight, within a +/- 2lbs range, since 2014. . The first week I did one FD, one semi fast, and ate a lot (but no more that 50g complex carbs) on the other days – and allowed a few more carbs on the weekly ‘feast day’. I lost 2lbs. This week, I’ve had only one FD, one feast day, but kept the carbs to 35g per day. Weight has stayed absolutely steady, with no fluctuation between FDs and not regaining those 2lbs – despite generous amounts of nuts, cheese, eggs, salmon (fresh and smoked) avocado, cream, FF yoghurt, dark chocolate etc – all the things the medics warn you off – plus, obviously, mountains of veg, but slightly less fruit. Not necessarily the right way for every body, but mine seems to like it. I shall continue to fast, for all the reasons we all know – but it may be that my usually variable regime of ‘5:2 / 4:3 / 5.5/1.5 depending’ can be 6:1. Will monitor carefully!

Yes that’s interesting Fast! What tool do you use to measure how many grams of CHO in the food?

Hi Carol – I use MyFitnessPal, though I’m sure it’s not always mega accurate. Have been getting irritated with it when it bosses me about eating too little on FDs, or pops up that ive had quite enough fat for one day, thank you, so it’s not perfect (if anyone knoks a better one, please shout. ) But I’ve just discovered you can customise nutrient goals, which helps.
I’m a great believer in ‘if it ain’t broke….’: if it were just about weight I would leave well alone – and sounds as if you’re doing fine. Just thought it might be useful to anyone finding maintenance less easy.

Fantastic Califdreamer (with flowers in your hair?🙄) You’ve
done brilliantly.
My advice is to keep doing what you are already doing. Embrace the lessons you have learnt on the path to the new you. This is what works. Most of us find we continue with twice weekly fasts once we reach our goal, but are a little less strict on non fast days or increase the fast day intake a bit.
My husband and I are heading towards our 5 year 5:2 anniversary. We still fast strictly on Monday, with no food for 24 hours, then about 500-600 cals of fish and salad. Thursdays are often not quite as strict. We skip breakfast often and rarely snack. We now eat some bread, but very rarely eat rice, pasta or potatoes. We never drink sugary drinks and dessert is usually sweetened full fat yoghurt with cinnamon, berries and nuts. We eat a lot less meat, sticking mainly to seafood with lots of veg.
The ability to go long periods without food and to eat lots of fresh, unprocessed foods has been life changing. Mr P has reversed his insulin dependent Type 2 diabetes and both of us feel years younger.
Analyse what changes you have made to your lifestyle and keep it up!
Keep posting….everyone’s ideas add to the bank of fasting knowledge. Cheers PVE

Morning, all, I had unticked the response box somehow, so missed some posts. Welcome, Califdreamer. I hope you’ve not been effected by the sequence of horrendous, freak events there recently.

I maintain on 16:8 every day, although I did need a little reboot after Christmas as I seemed settled at top of my wriggle room, do did two FDs last week. OH is driving me mad, though. He is stuck with 21 lb to lose and must be cheating somehow! He had lost his beer belly completely, but it’s back.

Carol, it is strange to feel that we just don’t want cake, isn’t it? I have such a stock of small chocolate bars in the fridge, my Saturday afternoon treat when OH is at the rugby club. But I don’t get round to eating it. That’s one of the great pluses of 5:2. ,nothing is banned, but put off until a NFD then you find you no longer want whatever it is.

Pol. 🙋🏼

Ha ha, well I don’t have a sweet tooth..unless I get started with sugar, and then it can be moreish. I’d rather have savoury treats most times, although we do have a bit of 70 or 85% cocoa chocolate with nuts at the weekend. That doesn’t lead to sugar craving though.

Calif,

Congratulations on the weight loss. I lost 14ish kg four years ago and have kept it off with flexible IF (7:0, 6:1: 5:2, depending on how my weight is). I eat pasta/rice/bread rarely now, and a lot of weeks are added sugar free. Lots of veg, and cheese and nuts for snacking. Full fat all the way 😀

Hello again, Cali. Haven’t heard your voice in a while. Congratulations on reaching that goal — Woohoo! What you are doing to maintain [2 Fasts/week] is just the ticket. And you are savvy enough to note when the scales bob up and to know what to do about it.

Can’t say I’ve lost my sweet tooth… :(. Had a croissant for brunch today, the first in many months. But we will eat a Fast Dinner tonight and the calories for the day will add up to 1000. Tomorrow will be a full Fast Day of 600 calories. Friday night we went away to a Wine Tasting: 8 tables of 8 wines each [no, we did NOT sample them all!] and small plates of delicious foods to pair with them. Yummmm. Then Saturday, not hungry for breakfast, I ate 2 sausages with my coffee. Dinner menu at restaurant had a nice touch: pasta entrees were available in 1/2 portions, so I had the crab fettuccine and no appetizer. Don’t know where this is all going to lead, but we’ll know tomorrow and Tuesday morning on the scales.

PVE, glad that Mr P has reversed his sugar numbers. What a victory.

Good morning, all! Well I consoled myself with ice cream yesterday after a disaster! I only knocked my lovely Galileo thermometer over on the hearth. Oil and splinters of glass in a puddle on the new carpet.

Luckily we have some thicker than usual kitchen roll, so repeated layers of that, weighed down with hardback books seems to have succeeded. I got up early to remove the last lot and mop it with white vinegar and woolite. Nearly had a heart attack when I saw that a red book cover had bled onto the paper! Hadn’t gone through, thankfully!

PVE, I keep telling my OH about your husband in order to encourage him. No chance, in fact he doesn’t really believe it. He’s stuck with that 7 lbs regained!

Pol.

Polly, never thought I’d say no to cake either but there you go, lifetime habits can be changed! 😄

Sorry about the disaster with the carpet. I had a candle that hadn’t even been lit soak into my pine table so had to sand down and re seal the table – not happy! But I think my worst disaster award goes to the not one but two times I have smashed a bottle of nail polish all over my kitchen/dining tom floor tiles. 😥😁

It’s funny how varied people’s idea of ‘normal’ weight is, Pol!
Talking of mishaps, I smashed our large glass topped coffee table when wrapping a wine bottle for a Xmas present. It virtually exploded! Shattered glass all through the thick carpet. We still haven’t replaced it, but have decided it was the catalyst for chamging the 40 year old lounge furniture 😉 Watch this space. P

Our carpet is also fairly new and thick (made from corn!). I have vacuumed it thoroughly and have hopefully got it all.
Mr P is always getting compliments on his weightloss ( and maintenance of it)..people don’t say the same to me, more often, ‘You both look so well!’ Pretty sexist! They won’t comment on a woman’s weight.P

Perhaps it’s the other way round here. No one comments on OH’s weight loss, but I’ve had quite a few.
Maybe the 10 inches lost from my waist! 😄

Oh fastingme that sounds scary! Maybe your blood pressure had dropped due to fasting when not feeling well? I can never rely on my memory 100% but thought the advice was not to fast if you were unwell???
Mind you, you said you couldn’t eat not that you weren’t eating. Hope it doesn’t happen again. 😕

We all read so much into comments, don’t we?😉
I’m glad you are ok now f_me. I also had a Torrid Tuesday and had to abandon a b2b fast. I managed to collapse on a soft couch. Wiser than a hard surface (I’ve done that before😑😶)
I forced myself to eat (lying down) and picked up after a few hours. I put my vertigo and nausea down to high humidity causing sinus issues. My bp is always on the high side these days…it flipped from very low at menopause. Dizziness can result from both extremes. P

Hi Polly,

Cold here too. And forecast to be cold and wintry on Saturday too. While I am looking forward to the arrival of spring, and there will be lots to do in the garden, I’ll be happy if I can’t get outside for the next few weekends 😀

I’ll keep my fingers crossed for your carpet! Luckily I’ve not spilled anything on ours, but the cat has trashed our dining room carpet in one corner. I think he thought he’d be able to dig his way under the skirting to get the rodent out from behind the dry lining… No respect for property!

Sorry, fasting_me, but Go Eagles!! We spent four years in Philadelphia (during the George Bush Snr presidency), so naturally still support the local teams. Plus, the Eagles have never won the SuperBowl.

We’ve just had the hottest January on record. I love the heat, but it has been very humid, and I’m fortunate not to be working outside on heavy work.

Stay well and stay upright, everyone.

We will sort of support the Eagles as we fly into Philadelphia and have a few days booked

More importantly, the Six Nations has just started. Wales v Scotland and against all expectations, Wales were magnificent! It was a brilliant, running game. I feel wrung out only watching. We have do many injuries, but the youngsters did good!

Embarrassed to report half a pound over top wriggle room. 🤨😩

Pol.