Hi everyone,
I agree, 19 hours is very easy without food, I try an hour later, but I do know that this is about my limit at this time, I think I will try 4-3 fasting just for a week or two just to get the holiday pounds off. At this moment my WW friends are finding it hard after the holidays to get back on track, so we are not on our own. tomorrow is another day and I will be thinking about my non-fasting day too.
PVE I wish my sweet tooth and my stomach was under control. Do you think it is now the little voice inside our heads or is it more the life style that is our problem? If I am out and about I do not think of food but when I am at home and it’s meal time and as I have said before it’s snacking that I have to control. It is 5-2 that I have to thank for helping me to keep the odd pound or two or more off. This is the first holiday I have been on since I started 5-2 so the proof is in the eating LOL or not eating. I have always walked and for my age of 68 I know that I am doing well. I like being a size 12 and I want to stay this weight. The clothes still fit so that’s good.
Good fasting or feasting. JIP

Tim, if you are lurking please give us a ‘hoy’ to let us know you are still around. We miss your wicked sense of humour. P 🙂

thanks Purple, I know you are right! it would be mad not to take the bull by the horns and get going again. Tomorrow is going to be one of my 4-3 this is only because of my coming cruise and my wriggle room that I would like and then I will go back to 5-2 which I know keeps me at my goal. My rum and cokes are under control so the snacking on non fasting days is my next thing. I am going to print a couple of messages for myself to pin on by kitchen cupboard and fridge saying Nothing Tastes Like feeling slim feels.
Hi to everyone else.
Back soon keep up the good work. JIP

@jip many thanks for reminding us about the programme. Just in time for me. @ssure – being on maintenance, do you still keep your 3 FD calories at 350kcals or are you a bit more relaxed?

S Sure
it`s good planning…

@ssure, that makes sense. Thank you. i am still experimenting with maintenance and tried to do 3 fast days at say 650/700 kcals (or a filling meal in the evening) and roughly to TDEE on the others. However I am not certain this is working as psychologically I am allowing myself to be slack on fasting days. It almost felt I had given up. But I think trial and error are the way forward.

@PVE I agree with you re our bodies needing less food as we get older. I think a lot of people think this is because the metabolism has been changed through diet. And Of course I don’t dispute that.

Lately I have been thinking/remembering my great grandfather who was a small man. I was always impressed when my mum kept saying how little he ate. Like a “sparrow” they would say. Mum would say that old people are less hungry. He apparently ate very carefully because of some stomach problem, when in the 50s he was only given a few months to live. I know that does not mean too much considering medical knowledge at the time. But he changed his diet and somehow made it to 90. I also remember other old people when i was a child and they all ate very little and no-one dieted. They just adapted their food intake to what their body required.

I think/hope i have accepted this now for myself even though I am not quite that old – we definitely can’t eat like we could in our 20s.

Hi P,

Got to feel sorry for the charity promoters… I suspect the reason they just smiled was less to do with your age and more to do with their ignorance!

@PVE the smiles of the promoters were just ignorant smiles. Even if they had agreed with you they could never admit that being paid to say what they are instructed.

In England they say: There is no such thing as bad weather just bad clothing. 🙂

I walk about an hour per day and I find it very relaxing.

same to you auriga….

@ssure you don’t seem to be doing things by half. 😉 200 Christmas cakes!!!??? 😉 and paddling in the cold water brrr. ;-).

For years, I used to make 25 Christmas cakes – I never want to see one cake again. ;))

Good luck with fasting today. I am maintaining well at the moment and even gaining a little wriggle room of 1lb below GW. No sugar cravings at the moment. I wish I could ditch the cravings altogether and most of my weight issues would be solved.

Hi Lizzy,

Thanks for the invite. I would have loved to have joined you, but I just can’t afford it at the moment (I’ve spent my spare cash on smaller clothes, had some additional expense (sick cat), and it’s sooo close to Christmas).

I’d definitely be up for a meet next year though. Fingers crossed you all get on and want to repeat it!

Hi Happy
I wondered about the 200 cakes, too! I used to make cakes to sell, but never that many. I’d better make my pud soon. Should do it while the weather is cool.

Lichtle, my sourdough starter had a smell of nail polish remover (acetone) last night. The sponge smells ok this morning so I’ll use it, but wondering if I need start a new starter? Any ideas? P

Doh P, and I was just psyching myself up to start a ‘Charlie’ (?!). It sounds like it might just be one more thing I don’t need to worry about…

Night out on the tiles?!

Presume your bathroom floor is tiled…? And the bathroom cabinet is where Charlie found the nail varnish remover…?!

Maybe if you’d let him out once in a while he wouldn’t have had to resort to drinking the contents of the bathroom cabinet 🙂

@PVE aaawh poor Charlie 1. All he needed was feeding or using up 🙁 If this happens again, please don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater 😉 just feed him (double the quantity) and wait for a few hours. The acetone smell will go and become mild and sourdoughy.
You could have used him for bread, too. Where do you keep Charlie? may I suggest the fridge (unless you bake almost daily) as fementation is slowed down to need baking only once a week or less especially if you keep starter quantity low. I often only had less than 20g (or 1/2 oz) starter quantity so that I could comfortably double/feed several times before needing to bake. If your initial quantity is too high you might hesitate to double for fear of having to throw out excess sourdough which can make it go a bit pongy.

Hi Lichtle
Thanks for the reply. I did make bread with it…it is rising now, I had fed him and replaced him in the fridge last night, but he seemed so sad. It’s ok. I can cope with the loss as I know how to start again. I do keep him in the fridge until the day before I am baking. I feed him every day and let him get quite energetic before I use him for sponge. I thought he must have become contaminated with another yeast. Do you put him in a new container every time you have used some?
We have been fun making the different sourdough loaves (only one a week) and OH even bought me a cloche and proving basket. It is great that after 20 years we can share one loaf of bread. 🙂 P

Thanks for your continued advice L 🙂
Yes, I used Charlie 1 in the loaf I made today. ..just out of the oven…mmmmm …as I had already used flour to make the sponge. I threw out the small amount I would normally reserve. Charlie 2 is sitting on the kitchen bench, hopefully doing his ‘thing’. He’ll be ready by next weekend.
The loaf rose, but flattened in the oven. Will still be delicious. I read you shouldn’t cut bread for an hour as it is still cooking. I’ve always hacked into it straight away, but with this woe I am far more restrained
😉 P

Happy, we’ve had a stunning day here..24 deg..so ideal for heavy gardening work. We built a dry stone wall and moved quite a lot of soil to control a rough area of the garden near my vegies.
In all the drama this morning I forgot the oil and salt in the bread, but it was ok with panchetta and cheese for dinner sitting outside as the cockatoos screeched! My OH has eaten gluten free breads for years, so no matter how bad my sourdough is, it shines 🙂
Hope your Sunday is relaxed Happy. P

Good stuff ssure. I used to do that sort of thing for Xmas presents. I seem to have become too grumpy or maybe too busy making little dresses for granddaughters. You are inspiring! P 🙂

Morning my MC mates.
I’m up early this morning. ..interesting. ..despite eating a whole pizza and a ridiculous piece of cake in the vineyards on Sat and hoeing into bread, cheese and cold meat last night, I’m still only 58.1 this morning before I fast today. Whoohoo! I CAN have my cake (and wine and cheese and pizza …occasionally) and eat it too 😉
I could hear wind that sounded like rain, so just rushed out, in my nightie, to put the outdoor chairs under cover…the new moon looks lovely AND it is a tipping moon. My grandmother used to say if the new moon is like a saucer it will hold water..won’t rain that month. If it is tipping it will rain. Check it out. ..it works.
Embrace your fasting if you are in to it today. P

Hi ssure
At the end of my Monday fast day. OH left early and as it was windy and rainy here, I thought I’d catch a movie. I saw “The 100 Foot Walk” with Helen Mirren. Good film, but not a good choice for a girl trying to avoid food (if you haven’t seen it, it is all about restaurants.) Still, I made it until 3.30 when I had some chickpeas and veg out of the freezer. Then at 5.16 I had quite a few handfuls of peanuts (SO addictive). That’s it. Not hungry.
It IS interesting letting yourself eat only when really hungry. Normal meal times go out the window. My natural time to eat must be 3.30 and 5.30.
I’ve just spent hours on the computer sorting photos. Found some nice fatty ones of me (lovely plump smiley face), but virtually none recently. I’ll have to do a photo shoot. Enjoy your fast MCs, P

Hi P,

It’s all delightfully spontaneous and unstructured when you break away from set meal times! Eat whatever, whenever.

Today I made it to half 2 with no food, but then succumbed to yesterday’s soda bread.. toasted with butter. I froze some and made sure I ate all that wasn’t frozen… (to be rid of temptation tomorrow you understand!). Now I remember why I don’t make it more often. Yum.

And tonight I had pasta AND garlic bread.

Guess what? Yep, fasting tomorrow!

Hi P,

Dad’s weight has plateaued for the last few weeks. It serves him right though for being so smug about his initially rapid weight loss (oh no, I’ve lost much more than you in the same space of time)!!

His health is improved, and he has already lost about 21 lbs (BMI probably 26 now, down from 30), and at least he isn’t gaining anything, so I’ve suggested that he perhaps doesn’t need to worry about further weight loss too much and could just carry on as he is (and he might find the weight loss starts again anyway once his body’s readjusted).

But he wants to lose another 14 lbs. He’s rubbish at the whole numbers thing (“I looked online and it was all about what calories there are in an ounce of this or that. How am I supposed to know how many calories I’m eating?”, “Ermm, you could weigh your food…?”). But he has decided that the amount he’s eating now (much reduced on all days from his pre-5:2 diet) is probably the maintenance amount for his current weight. So his solution is that he needs to eat less.

I suggested he could perhaps cut out/ reduce the cheesecake/ crumble and/ or wine on a fast day, or perhaps try 4:3 for one week and see what happens. But he seems to think the answer will be water fasting rather than eating at all on a fast day. Quite extreme, and I don’t think he would stick to it (particularly not if he has any length of time with friends or family), but we’ll see.

Hi MCs
This morning, on the radio, they are talking about uni research showing people can lose weight by skipping breakfast! Mon Dieu! What next? Snacking is bad for you? 😉 P