The power of a smile. 😉

Today on my usual lunch time walk into town I bought myself a punnet of strawberries which I enjoyed on my way back. I was in deep thoughts when a young passing man smiled at me which triggered several thoughts simultaneously:
a) It can’t be the water re-juveneation challenge working already? ;-)) (This morning when I looked in the mirror I had noticed nothing unsual)
b) Have I got a strawberry stuck down my front? (A quick glance found no strawbeerry or stains)
c) This must be a son of a friend who knows me. (Alas, I couldn’t place him)

A few metres on an older man passed, also smiling at me. Now I started panicking. What have I got on my face; do I have strawberry juice all around my mouth? (A quick reflex wipe). I definitely didn’t know him and by then I had abandoned the water fast re-juvenation idea completely. ;-).

Then I remembered that I had just had some lovely thoughts in my head and must have had a smile on my lips, provoking them to smile back and possibly triggering simultaneous panicking thoughts on their part. 😉

Happy, you might be right with the paranoia. 😉 but I hope to spread a bit of happiness, too.

Nicely put “our brains see what they want to see” – but I call it delusion. ;-)) Although being deluded to look fresh-faced, plump-skinned and glowing is a comfortable and preferred option.

My DH swears he is only 30 which for him is a big concession, because he managed to stay 25 years old for at least 25 years.

I have to take photographs of our directors for press releases and I have to take at least 100 takes before there is one they accept. “That’s not me, I look old in this picture” is the usual response as if for some reason it is my fault. 😉 So it is not just women…

Oh Lichtle, what a lovely thing to have happen! I think those men saw something you don’t! 🙂

Mahalo, lovely story about your lock too! If it happens again you can just spray it with cooking oil and it will work beautifully!

Hi can you tell me is it normal to have to fast 3 days a week to maintain? I think there is something wrong with me! I’m feeling a bit miserable and deprived and this is not what 5.2 is supposed to be about. I’m doing 1400 call on non fast days. My T.d.e.e is 1650. I have little energy and stay in bed a lot in the evenings like a sick person. I didn’t think maintenance would be this hard! My metabolic rate is on the floor. I think hibernation mode really does exist despite what it says on this site.

Oh, and Kindle – I’m assuming the weight you’re trying to maintain is actually a healthy and realistic one for your height, build etc? No point at all in trying to be a stressed-out Scots pine when you’re actually a beautiful oak! Just a thought!

Hi Kindle. Sorry to hear you are having such a difficult time. FastFastSlow is right: You are not giving an awful lot of information about yourself to help you. Generally you should not have to do more than 1 or two fast days if you eat sensibly and roughly around TDEE with the occasional treat. Please heed Fast’s advise and see a doctor to have you checked out – just to be sure. Take care and good luck

Hi Kindle,

I too think it sounds like a trip to the doctor would be in order.

As Lichtle says, you haven’t given us much information to go on, but I’ve dipped into some of your previous posts.

It sounds as if it’s been a long slow process for you, and you have probably been quite severely calorie restricting for quite some time, perhaps averaging only 1000 calories a day (or maybe less when you’ve done 4:3 with water fasts?)?

I don’t know what you are eating on your non-fast days, but with such a low calorie intake it’s not surprising that you feel exhausted and cold. Also, the long-term calorie restriction could have resulted in some form of malnourishment/ imbalance, unless you have been careful to optimize nutrition?

In my opinion (and I’m not medically trained), the answer to avoiding weight gain/ maintaining your weight is NOT to keep cutting calories and upping the number of fasts you do.

I think you need a health check. It may well reveal nothing, but at least that will be a start. And perhaps look at what you are eating/ consider supplements (if you don’t already).

Hi Carol,

I think the cooking oil is fine, so long as you’re prepared to dismantle the lock and clean it at some future date! Old oil attracts dust and dirt, so you would expect the lock to gunk up eventually… If it does, just don’t tell OH it was your fault!

Thanks carol Ann,lichtle and happy. I’m feeling more positive today as the scale showed a drop of 1.3kgs after 3 fasts. That is super loss for me. I think sticking to 1400 was the answer, it’s good to know that now. As we all know this can’t be seen as an exact science as there are so many factors involved. Yes it has been a long slow process, 18 months to loose 16 KGS. So what now? I will take your advice and work to a trigger point, say 63.2 over which I don’t want to go. So I am back now,feeling focused. I agree that adding more and more fasts is not the answer,it just leads to misery. I have decided not to do anymore back to back fasts. It shouldn’t be necessary. I will weigh at least once a week so I can keep a good eye on it. And if it all becomes ridiculous again I will get the thyroid checked. Am really grateful for your input girls!

Heya ladies,
hello kindle,

HappyNow – makes a lot of sense. Now I understand that warning better 😉

I have another question. I searched this site first yet did not find that keyword.

There is a form of IF called “10 in 2”. You speak it “One zero in two” and it means a fast of alternating eating and fasting day by day. It comes from an Austrian guy and is supposed to be a way of living not only for a few weeks but forever. We have a book here in the German speaking world that is full of medical experts saying this way is it for optimal aging – I HATE the word Anti Aging they use!!! – and immune strengthening.

My questions: Have you heard of this before? Do you know whether there is a thread on here about this that I missed? Does that sound healthy to you? I mean it would mean that you take in less calories than adviced ones, right.

I am curious and also a bit confused. I had read that book in November 2014, too, before I started 5:2.

IF is so very fascinating to me that I try to learn and understand a lot about it.

Kindle, one more thought: When I “avoid” seeing a doc “against advice” of others I have something going on inside myself. I agree with the ladies, what you told sounds serious and I add to the choir to better see a doc and get yourself checked. If you have done all your fast journey without seeing a doc at all it is not a good idea in general because the check of blood etc. is important to be sure you’re on the right track. I started my journey in August 2014 and had my blood and so on checked in March 2015. Just wanted to be sure.

Hey, I am still on the water wagon. And men on the streets respond much more on a daily base now. hi hi. I am not saying it is about the watery me. But it could be, couldn’t it… 😀

Cheers all
have a loverly day and week-end
M

Thanks, Lichtle, for sharing,

yes, that is what I meant except that in my book the 0 is really no eating at all. It is a full day like my WF.

Today I have written an e-mail to one of the medical experts in that book who happens to live in the same city like me. I am curious whether he will answer. Eating 0 means to cut your calory intake half and I was wondering how this can be healthy. On the other hand there are thousands of people out there doing it and reporting they feel great, better than ever.

As you see, I am finding my way around and it is not about weight-loss yet about finding a balanced way of happy nutrition without risking my health.

I have started to test the 10 in 2 on last Monday and I feel very good with it. Yet, as I said, I am a bit confused and “scared” to do my body harm (potentially).

So I keep exploring.

M

Well I’m back for a bit. Been reading and rereading about diets and healthy eating etc. It appears that all diets work. I’ve come to that conclusion by noting that regardless of the diet I research I can find people who have used it, lost weight and swear by it. The trick it appears is the one we talk about on this chat; maintaining the loss. The success on non-IF diets appears to be quite low.

I guess that is one reason I like IF. I can set a trigger point and jump back on when I hit it. I also like the fact there are so many ways to do IF. While below my trigger point I experiment on different food diets to see what may work for me on a permanent basis. Not there yet obviously.

As to the three liters a day water consumption, I’ve thought about it. Even tried it one day. That’s a lot of water. And if coffee doesn’t count (and I suspect it doesn’t) then I didn’t make it that one day.

It is fun to read about all your daily struggles. Makes me chuckle to see how you all can take a licking and keep on ticking. And it appears I’m not the only one trying to find the holy grail of weight maintenance. I think the best thing about this group is the positive attitudes. So, if you all don’t mind, as I continue my reading of glucose and insulin and glycogen and fat and this unmeasurable thing called metabolism, I will stop by from time to time to restore my sanity by touching base with those who are on the front lines.

Hi all
I also think the best thing about this is the maintenance. I got to goal weight when 40 years old doing WW and again at 50 years old doing Dukan, but I put all the weight back on. I’m 53 now and am determined not to put it back on again. This is so doable forever!
It’s my official weigh in day today. I’m smack bang in the middle of my target weight range but want to loose that kilo to get to the low end and then reduce my range from 57-59 to 56-58
Fast day tomorrow for me 🙂

🙂 hi all,

have a wonder-ful start into the new week, ladies (and reading gentlemen if there are any)!

HappyNow,
I will have a weigh-in next Tuesday, September 1st to answer your question in terms of “official measurement” 😉 What I can tell you by now is the ‘lil story of an ebay purchase of mine: a jeans seize 27.

I had seen it on ebay small ads (not the bidding platform) and knew I have to get this. So I went to the selling lady on 7th of August, bought it without trying it on. When I was back home I found my belly lap over its waistband significantly. I could close it only with huge effort when lying on my bed… Did I say I need challenges, yep, I did… ^^

Today I can close that lovely jeans easily while standing. My belly still laps over it a bit yet not as much as three weeks ago. So I guess it means some more fat-loss. (As I had told you on my annifastery the belly still was there.) The seize 27 is it now. I will not buy a 26 or do more “downgrading”. Next week and at the end of the three test-weeks of ADF I will know the kg results. And not to forget the 3 liter impact. They are supposed to have a waist impact as well.

Ah, and I will instantly report when/if the medical expert is responding to my message I sent the other day on ADF.

Cheers
M 😀

Barata, I am 1.7m and hover 58-59. My trigger point is 60 but haven’t been there for a few weeks now. I was interested to read you would like to go lower because I don’t actually want to get,below 58 because then I will drop another dress size and it’s already cost me heaps of money for new clothes! Plus I think maintaining less than 58 could be a struggle whereas my weight now is easily maintained. What s motivating you to go lower?

Carol, you touched on a very important point re deciding on maintenance weight. how difficult is it to maintain? My goal weight is 50kg (1.60m) and I started maintenance when I reached 49kg to give me wriggle room. In the past couple of months I seem to be around the 50.5 – 51kg which I am finding easy to maintain (with only maybe 1 fast a week) and it has occurred to me how much effort it is for me to stay at 49-50kg as opposed to 1kg more. I am not sure what goes on psychologically, why exactly 1kg and not more. It seems to be like the little child that walks 3 metres behind their parents and whining that she cannot keep up but never falls back more than 3metres.

I am 50.5 kg this morning and have already abandoned my Monday fast. there must be something going on in my subconscieous that is happy with the weight, yet the other part in me is annoyed that I cannot keep to my very neat and round figure of 50kg.

Can I also mention that when I don’t do two fasts a week, I very rarely overeat or even indulge in too much sugar recently. The more fasts I do the more I seem to compensate on the other days and I am not sure if this is physiological (I need this food) or psychological (I deserve this food). However this was not the case when I was actively losing weight. This is purely a maintenance phenomenon.

Happy and Lichtle, I think that’s right that we stay with a weight that is easily maintainable. If we are continually striving for something less I think that is when the feelings of psychological deprivation can creep in, which we don’t want! This needs to be easy! Anyway really what difference does half a kg or a kg make in the way we look or feel? I honestly don’t feel/look any different wether I’m 58 or 59. I think we get stuck on the numbers and I think maybe all of us are pretty competitive or high achieving and think we need to keep on challenging ourselves. I’ve also found I now have a weight that is pretty easy to maintain wether I fast or not. I don’t want to get out of the habit of fasting but have obviously altered my eating pattern so much that the weight fluctuations are much less than what they used to be. Sounds to me Lichtle like you have a pattern that is working really well for you too! Agree Happy we can sometimes have spots of weight we would like to lose but reality is as we age we put on weight in particular areas for health and not a lot we can do to shift that. I honestly feel great now about the way I look and you can’t beat that!
Judy, just see how you go. We all need to work it out for ourselves!

Doh! Just wrote a long post and then deleted it by closing the whole damn tab. Shame, because it was both erudite and witty… 🙂

Anyway, Lichtle, my neat round number is 60kg, 132lbs, 9st 6. Much neater than my original goal of 10st, 140lbs, (ruined by) 63.6kg…

Funny, because I only got under 60kg in the first place because Elaine suggested I couldn’t (what were you saying about being competitive Carolann…?!). And then I went further under 60kg so I didn’t have to see any messy 60.something numbers. Exsctly when did 60 become the upper limit and not just roughly where I wanted to be?!

I blame my Dad for the obsession with round numbers, btw! I spent my childhood watching him dribbling fuel into the petrol tank to make a nice round £ to pay. A penny over? Right, got to try and get another £’s worth in… He does it still, even though he always pays by card!

Also perhaps part of the problem is being imperial and metric at the same time, and not wanting decimal points (or divisions of lbs).

Hmm, starting to wonder if my ideal/ goal weight has anything to do with me or how I look or how my clothes fit. Turns out it’s just number OCD!

I think you are setting yourself up for failure, Happy, working in three forms of weight measurement, all without decimals 🙂 Do you do the same with the tape measure measurements?

Had to laugh about your dad’s tale – the things that affect us for our lives.

Ha ha Barata, I nearly mentioned measurements, but I’m definitely imperial (although not for distances!) and have a half inch on the hips… I haven’t checked cms!

re: habits. I’ve only recently managed to stop rounding petrol up to the £ (thanks Dad!). Stupidly though, I realised initially that I was rounding it to litres instead (30l is so much better than 29.8!!)

Carol, for some of us overweight youngsters that idea of a set weight doesn’t work, so am still trying to find out who I am! 🙂

Fascinating how some of us are trying to save 2c, when we would go out and spend hundreds of dollars on some household item. But the way I figure it, it’s the 2c that add up to enable the $100 purchase.

Barata,

I’m with you, I was definitely on the chubby side through my teens and early 20s. I have had spells of being slimmer but never as slim as this. There’s bits of me I don’t recognize now! ‘Trying to find out who I am’ definitely resonates with me.

P, that’s how I use scales when I’m away. Ignore the number, so long as it stays roughly the same I’m OK.

No fasting for me this week, 800g below my neat round whole number 🙂

Sorry, forgot to commiserate on your decimal point 🙂

Heya all,

here comes – as promised – my feedback after receiving a reply of the professor and medical expert today. ADF was the topic of my request the other day.

He wrote that the most important thing is how I feel both physically and psychologically. If I feel as good as I wrote in my message it is fine and I can keep going. He also wrote that the body has ways to (safety) regulate and stop weight-loss, hormones, thermoregulation and so on. 62 kg is – quote – in the ideal weight range with my height of 1,72 m.

I will check both the fit of that jeans and my weight on 7th of September, finally, the end of the 21 day ADF period. Then see how I do IF in the future. Right now I really love the ADF. Today I got a huge compliment by a woman who has not seen me in a while. She said: “You look absolutely fantastic!” (And I have so many problems right now – professionally and privately that there must be something to it… and I am still happy somehow…)

I am always following your conversations even if I am not writing sometimes 🙂

Have a great day/night all.

Cheers
M

Hi Mahalo – I didn’t realise you are actually doing ADF right now – I thought you were just enquiring. How are you feeling with it and since you are in maintenance how much do you eat on the eating days? it is great that you are feeling better in yourself even if things you have other problems to deal with at the moment. I can understand that it feels great to be in control of part of your life.

The reply is intersting that he thinks our body is inherently programmed to stop weight loss if we go too low..

Good luck with ADF and everything. 🙂