The Third Annual Silly Season Challenge

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thinatlast

11:14 am
30 Nov 18
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Welcome to the third annual Silly Season Challenge! Here we will show our continued commitment to intermittent fasting while still enjoying everything that Christmas has to offer.

This will be my fifth Christmas since starting 5:2. It’s a sustainable way of eating that easily fits into all aspects of our lives, whether we’re losing weight or maintaining our goal weight. We don’t have to abandon 5:2 for Christmas or travel. Together, we can start the new year from a position of strength.
Christmas is, at most, a two day celebration leaving 29 potential fasting days between now and the new year! It’s all in the planning.

Find out who was in and how we managed last year https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/the-second-annual-silly-season-challenge/ and, if you’d like to join us, please come and share your own experiences.

As for me, I’m a kg or so lighter than I was at this time last year. My ‘trigger’ weight, i.e. the weight at which I stop eating, is now 60kg. My Silly Season Challenge this year is to weigh 60kg or under on 3 January, which will be the day after my first FD of 2019. There, I’ve said it out loud and now I must be accountable!

So, who’s with me for a ‘no excuses’ commitment to maintaining a current weight or perhaps even losing a little between now and 1st January?

penguin

12:38 pm
30 Nov 18
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I’ll give that a go. I have just checked the graph and I am the same weight as I was just before Christmas last year. That is not a disaster, most of this year has been about maintenance, but I would like to lose a little more. So, today I am 219 lbs or 99.5 kg. . Target for 1 Jan is 210lbs or 95.4 kg. That probably sounds a lot, but I am tall and 210 lbs will give me an acceptable BMI.

thinatlast

1:33 pm
30 Nov 18
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Hi Penguin, it does sound ambitious but with your tenacity and maybe the odd water fast thrown in, you will do it. I wonder if your daughter will be tempting you with the craft beer advent calendar this year!

penguin

2:53 pm
30 Nov 18
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I should be safe from my daughter – I won’t be seeing her until a week into advent. Unless that leaves me several bottles in arrears. The real danger is that all of the groups I attend will end the last pre – Christmas meeting with mince pies and mulled wine.

CalifDreamer

4:34 pm
30 Nov 18
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I’m in. I’m actually .5kg below this day (Nov 30th) last year. I’m at 60.1 today. Dec 1st last year I was at 59.3. My challenge will be to get into the 58’s and stay there, something I’ve been wanting to do for a while now. My FD’s aren’t the problem, it’s the NFD’s that do me in. So I want to get into the habit of being more mindful on NFD’s.

Thin and Penguin, great to see you here. We can do this!

LJoyce

1:11 am
1 Dec 18
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Thank you for hosting this again this year Thin. Count me in again, I found this really helpful last year.
Because I know I got thought last December without gaining weight (probably for the first time ever), I now believe it’s possible.

My goals this December (I may add to this list later)
– My minimum standard – gain no weight and do a minimum of 300 minutes of exercise per week.
– My hopeful aim – lose 3 kg and do 400 minutes of exercise per week.
– Do 5:2 every week and do non-social NFDs in a controlled way so that those high fat and sugar foods are confined to a few occasions rather than most days.

I did an experiment last month so I could compare controlled NFDs with adding extra FDs to my week. I found that I do better with the controlled NFDs and just 2 FDs per week. If I add a third FD my NFD eating always increases, despite my best intentions. So this year I’m not planning to add any extra FDs just make more controlled choices on most of my NFDs.

Best of luck everyone. I have we all have a happy festive season without it showing up on our waistlines.

penguin

8:44 am
1 Dec 18
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Cali it is the NFDs every time. Yesterday was an NFD and I made a great start to the challenge by putting on a pound. Fortunately a couple of FDs a week outdo the NFDs.

fasting_me

6:57 pm
1 Dec 18
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This sounds like good incentive! Am currently involved in an online health challenge from the group that does the insurance for schools and municipal employees: you log in daily and report how many steps you did [minimum is 6000], if you ate breakfast [!], if you didn’t drink colas/sodas, if you ate 5 fruit/veg, and if you didn’t snack after dinner. That has been keeping me honest, since I’m trying to break the habit of nibbling in the evening.
And now there is this challenge. Just checked — I’m 0.2 pounds over what I was last Dec 1st.
Lots of mutual support, Friends!

Quacka

8:56 pm
1 Dec 18
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Thank you for this year’s silly season challenge, thin.

Last year I was ‘taking a break’ from 5:2 from the last week of November until the middle of January. This resulted in me putting on weight and also made it harder for me to get back into 5:2 when I decided to start again. That is not happening this year.

I will be on holidays for three weeks so it is going to be a challenge but I would like to at least maintain my weight. I think I can do this.

thinatlast

12:06 am
2 Dec 18
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CalifD, thanks for joining us. Yes! We can do this.

Fasting me, good to see you here. It’s interesting that many of us ‘veterans’ of 5:2 still appreciate the value of these support threads. After reaching my goal weight in 2015, I decided to stick around on the SH thread to encourage newbies since I’d benefitted greatly from the then-veterans. I later realised that I was getting as much out of being there as I was giving, if not more. I, too, have kept weight records – in my case, daily, since August 2014. I was able to see that I’d dropped 1.3kg from this time last year. A body scan undertaken earlier this year had told me that I was 2 kgs overweight – cheek! I’d like to end my obsession with daily weighing but I’m afraid to since it keeps me honest. Although I’ve never skipped one, I’m terrified that one day I will wake up and just not want to do a FD.

Quacka, strength in numbers. Perhaps if you state your current weight, it will help keep you accountable here? Prior to 5:2, I would typically gain 3 kgs over Christmas and then spend January depressed and obsessed about it, maybe lose 1kg and carry the other 2kg over to my advancing years. Same with each overseas holiday. And so it went on.

LJ, that is a noble goal. FDs are a breeze for me, NFDs are the killer. Yesterday, we had the grand opening of our local ‘Good Grocer’ (it’s like the IGA). I grazed my way around the entire store, sampled everything including cake which I normally don’t eat. Felt utterly sick afterwards and I’m so happy today’s a FD to put the breaks on. We’re still the same people we always were wrt food but now we have the toolbox in the form of IF.

LJoyce

1:45 am
2 Dec 18
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As I fasted on the last day of November I had planned to do 2 controlled NFDs to start December. As all of my NFDs last week involved too much food and too many discretionary foods it was important that I started December by feeling I was in control again.
Yesterday went really well. I went for a long walk and restricted my eating to veg, fruit, legumes, milk, an egg and 2 rye crispbread. Unfortunately I slept badly last night, which tend to effect my appetite. Although I rarely eat breakfast, I found myself making 3-grain porridge (barley, rye, oat) at 7am. All too often eating breakfast leads to endless snacking for me. Thankfully that didn’t happen today. I’ve made it to lunch time without wanting more food so I think I’ll be fine now.

I have the same issue as Thin – FDs are easy but NFDs have continued to be a challenge. Maintenance hasn’t changed that.

Hope everyone is having a good day.

Quacka

9:12 am
2 Dec 18
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Ok. Weight this morning is 68.5kg. Last week it was in the 67kg range. I have had a week where I only did one FD and also ate and drank whatever I liked. Hence the 1 kg weight gain.

Really looking forward to this week where I can do two normal FDs. By next week I am hoping to weigh back in the 67kgs on Monday after the weekend.

Last year when I had a massive blow out for my birthday (……week/month) I decided to have a break from 5:2. Can’t wait to see how my FDs this week counteract my food choices last week. Is it weird I am actually excited about it?

thinatlast

10:42 am
2 Dec 18
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Good for you, Quacka. Remember, nothing tastes as good as being slim feels! Sorry Penguin, that little slogan might not work for you, we’ll have to come up with something a bit more blokey.

penguin

11:16 am
2 Dec 18
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I can be in touch with my feminine side.

thinatlast

10:44 pm
2 Dec 18
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OK Penguin, do that!

Just been invited to a restaurant birthday dinner on Saturday night for one of OH’s work associates. That makes two events this week but still leaves my normal FDs free, so no real drama. Restaurant meals are a mine field for me though, trying to dodge carbs. I usually select what I’m having before leaving home so there’s no impulse or envy ordering. But I haven’t chosen this restaurant and it’s my worst nightmare – Italian.

It’s one of those ambiguous invitations where you’re first asked if you’re free without telling you what’s being planned. When you affirm, you’re then asked to join the person for their birthday celebration. That sounds great you say, thinking it’s at their home. And then you’re told it’s at a restaurant. No mention of who’s paying! Awkward if it’s the host’s treat and you haven’t taken an expensive birthday gift. Annoying if you have and you’re also expected to split a bill for twelve overeaters as you nibble away at your caesar salad. Or am I just being a stingy grinch?

LJoyce

11:53 pm
2 Dec 18
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Good morning Silly Season Challengers (or is it challenged?)

After 2 mostly controlled NFDs, I am already down 1.3kg. I did expect that as I knew I was carrying quite a bit of water weight on 1st December, and any day of restrained eating will start to shift that.

Thin, not good when these things are sprung on you. Can you look the restaurant menu up online. Most have either a website or facebook page. Occasionally I do decide to have pasta, as I never buy it or eat it at home. Although 2 restaurant meals in one week would probably not be the best time to do that. Most Italian restaurants have non-pasta mains – usually chicken or veal – just watch out for the creamy sauces that often accompany them. Caesar salad without dressing never appeals to me much and with the dressing it has more calories than pasta with a tomato based sauce. Another option would be to have an antipasto plate as a main.

FD for me today. I have planned my week by allocating FDs to days when I know I’ll be home all day. This is because I always get through a FD but often struggle with NFDs when I’m not busy. So this week all busy days are NFDs, hopefully controlled ones as I won’t have a lot of time for meals. I’ll just need to pack a piece of fruit to have between appointments so that I don’t get home feeling ravenous.

Have a good day all.

Anzac65

1:48 am
3 Dec 18
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Thank you Thin for setting this up. I haven’t weighed for several days as I have been away. I will weigh tomorrow and my pledge is to be 2 kilos lighter by the 3rd January. Quacka I too have holidays, 2 weeks, over Christmas plus three birthdays (including my own) in December. So this challenge will ensure the non-social days will either be FD’s or very controlled NFD’s.

Anzac65

2:18 am
3 Dec 18
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I have read all of your lovely posts and thoroughly enjoyed them. I won’t be able to comment on everything as the workshop, which went really well, unfortunately resulted in about 17 million action items for me to do – before 3.00pm tomorrow!

Thin thanks for the Christmas challenge. I’ve put my pledge up – I hope I understood what we need to do/state. Glad your OFM’s appreciate your cooking and best wishes to DD and her exams

Quacka – that garlic! I love garlic and often double or more than what is stated in a recipe

Cali, so glad you are feeling better and your eyesight is clearing

LJ, Hope the inflammation has settled down. And that 3kg will be mostly fluid for sure.

Cinque hope you enjoyed your post FD brekky.

Gday, you will be so pleased when all the building is finished and you can see the back of those dratted tradies!

Betsy, glad you have already found a way that works for you and your first FD went so well. Congrats!

Lindsay – I say it again re your Lawyer…”people…just do your job!”

Intesha, great tree! We will put ours up next weekend

FD tomorrow and Thursday and they are VERY much needed.

penguin

9:23 am
3 Dec 18
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Thin, it is not just the social uncertainty, invitations get you both ways. Too easy to lose control. Yesterday was a late lunch with son and family. Absolutely fine, except I don’t normally do very much at lunch time which left me eating unwise snacky things in the evening because that is when I normally eat.

Quacka, I like the garlic crop. I use a lot of garlic but it is one of the few things i have never grown. My seed catalogue has arrived with lots of garlic varieties in it, so when the weather is good enough….. (early December here tends to be wet and windy and the ground is unworkable).

Weight this morning is unchanged. Today is day one of a fluid only fast. No food, only drinks, but I do cheat and allow myself milk in my tea/coffee and there will be a splash of lime juice in the water bottle I take to the gym this morning. Tomorrow I will have to be anti-social. It is my last Pilates workout before Christmas, at the end of which there will be mince pies and mulled wine. Fortunately they all know I fast, although they don’t all approve, and as the only bloke in a female group they expect me to be different. There is a group Christmas lunch a week later that it won’t coincide with a scheduled fast day so I can redeem my social reputation then.

LJoyce

10:47 am
3 Dec 18
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FD went well today. I also spent over 3 hours digging a large hole in the front lawn, with lots of resistance from the heavy clay soil (in preparation for tree planting). I’m hoping that leads to some further weight loss. If not, I’ll be demanding an explanation from my bathroom scales.

Quacka

7:27 pm
3 Dec 18
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I am on track for the silly season challenge. Weight this morning is 67.1 kg, so down a bit from the weight before last week’s feasting. Feeling very happy as I was worried that it would take more than a week to undo the damage. I think that’s because last year I out on weight over this time period but I am forgetting that it was over about two months not one week!

Penguin, all of our garlic is grown from single cloves, not seeds. I would be interested to check out some garlic seeds, might have to google that one. Good luck with your first try at growing it. It’s not difficult except that it doesn’t like too much water which is fine when the weather is being cooperative.

LJ good luck with those scales today! Remember it may take two days to show up if it hasn’t already today 🙂

penguin

8:01 pm
3 Dec 18
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Quacka, Sorry, seed catalogue was too general. It covers seeds, but also fruit bushes and tubers. The garlic on offer is all cloves. There are some which we can plant late in the year to overwinter but our winters can be cold and wet so I’ll wait until spring. I have grown onions from seeds but generally have more success growing them from sets. (Don’t know if that translates – a small immature onion). The catalogue people are quite good at accepting a bulk order now and shipping at the appropriate time. About now I need some raspberries to replace the ones I dug up in the Autumn, and a couple each of gooseberries and blackcurrents.

Anzac65

9:00 pm
3 Dec 18
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Oops I forgot I was still in the Silly Season Challenge thread when I posted my second post above. That was supposed to go in the Southern Hemisphere’s one!

So my Silly Season Challenge is to lose 2kg by the 3rd January. Today I am 88.1 so I will be 86 or below by then.

Good luck everyone!

LJoyce

9:29 pm
3 Dec 18
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Didn’t weight this morning as I don’t want to start a daily weighing habit. However the waistband of my pants was quite loose this morning so I’m content with that feedback. I normally weight myself quite rarely, but I might weigh weekly during December as it will help me plan for the coming week.

More hard gardening tasks today, shoveling up gravel that I don’t want and bagging it for my niece to take. Hopefully that will help the waistline too.

thinatlast

10:31 pm
3 Dec 18
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Anzac, thanks for joining us. After reading everyone’s goals for December, I’m feeling a bit lame with my pledge to just stay the same weight by 3 January.

Penguin, your garden plans are so inspiring. One day, I hope to have a garden like that. Meanwhile, I content myself with a few vine tomatoes, chard, silverbeet, cress, lettuce and a lot of herbs.

Off to the first of my Christmas events today. My former cryptic xword group kindly invited me to their end of year function despite my having abandoned them to learn bridge this year. I am setting a good example by taking a rainbow salad platter. This doesn’t mean I won’t be sampling what the others have contributed but I must be careful. No alcohol for me as I’m driving so that’s one hurdle handled. Tomorrow’s a FD so perfect timing.

LJ, loose clothes are always a good feeling.

Anzac65

10:51 pm
3 Dec 18
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Hey Thin, don’t feel lame. You are already at your goal so no need to pledge to lose. I won’t get to my goal by the end of next year if I slow down so I need to continue losing in December, albeit a bit more slowly for that one month only. Enjoy your party 🙂

FatFingers

11:36 pm
3 Dec 18
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I’d like to join in, please!

I’m Fatfingers and this will be my 2nd Christmas following this WOE, although last Christmas it was early days for me and I still had long a way to go. This year I’m in maintenance mode, having reached my goal weight late October. My ambition is to maintain my weight at 150lb, which gives me a BMI of 23, which I’m happy with.

Like many others, I find FDs are straightforward nowadays – practice has improved my fasting technique! However I occasionally over-indulge on NFDs, and I fear the rightly-named silly season will provide too many temptations! Staying on this forum will help to keep me accountable.

@thinatlast – your opening post really resonates with me. You are so right, there are 29 other non-feasting days in December, so with planning it should be possible to keep on track. I’m with you for a ‘no excuses’ commitment to keeping at 150lb!

thinatlast

12:43 am
4 Dec 18
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FatFingers, great to have you here! Congratulations on reaching your goal weight. I’m guessing you’re somewhere in North America as you’re using lbs? I read your profile – have you thought of revising your name now that those rings are happily reunited with your fingers? I normally post on the Southern Hemispherites thread and, were you to visit us there, someone would inevitably shorten your pseudonym to ‘Fat’. Which would not be fitting for the new, slender you! Anyway, just joshing. Looking forward to getting to know you.

Anzac, thank you on both counts! Hope your day is going well.

CalifDreamer

6:03 am
4 Dec 18
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FatFingers, glad to see you on the Silly Season Challenge, and congrats on reaching your goal during the year. This is definitely a challenging time of the year with so many sweet things everywhere you look. Today was a FD which was much needed. My mindset on NFDs has been somewhat out of control lately and I was 61 this morning. I don’t like the idea of my weight slowly inching up and although I’m good at FDs, they can’t totally counteract the overeating on other days. And I don’t drink alcohol anymore, so you know that I’m eating a lot. I’ve got to get back into the groove!

All the fun planting and gardening going on in the Southern Hemisphere is making me jealous. We have a frost warning between now and Monday morning. It got down to about 2C last night. The Meyer lemon tree/bush is full of lemons that still have some green on them but if the temps stay down there we may have to pick them early. I prefer leaving them on the tree and picking them as we use them. They usually last until sometime in Feb if there aren’t any long frosts.

penguin

8:46 am
4 Dec 18
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Thin, staying the same over Christmas is a perfectly reasonable target. It is the period of greatest risk and you have all of the rest of your life to do more, if you need to. Thought you were pretty much on target? We seem to grow some of the same things, although I don’t recognise silver beet. The problem with a garden like mine is that I don’t like to leave it for very long in the weed growing months, which is why we tend to take our holidays in November or March.

Morning Fatfingers, well morning here, but on this thread you could be 12 hours ahead of me or 8 behind.

Cali, we had a frost overnight. I envy you your lemons. I can’t do anything more exotic than figs.

Day one of my b2b has gone. I am down 3 lbs/ 1.4 kg. That puts me on track for my 1st Jan target so I will permit myself some food later today, probably a kipper this evening. An unexpected side effect of no food total fasting is on time available to do things. I seldom eat breakfast, but have something light at noon and an early evening meal which I cook. Not doing that gives me about three extra hours to do other things.

Off to my Pilates group now. Our leader has already threatened us with mince pies and mulled wine. My turn to be anti-social. Fortunately everyone will be milling around the table so it shouldn’t be too obvious, or as un-obvious as six and a half feet/not quite two metres of bloke can be in a crowd of females.

LJoyce

10:02 am
4 Dec 18
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Penguin, you probably know silver beet as Swiss chard

penguin

10:52 am
4 Dec 18
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LJ. Yes, grow that. There is still some outside which seems to have survived the early frosts.

My cunning plan for Pilates didn’t work. There were very few there so it was impossible to be inconspicuous. I passed on the mince pie but accepted a mulled wine. Mistake. Putting that into a body that had been totally fasting since Sunday had an immediate effect.

Minka

11:23 am
4 Dec 18
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Oh Thin, I do recall benefiting from this challenge last year and maybe year before too! At moment, I’m so off rails so to speak. I would like to commit and will sleep on it! I always love the warmth, support and humor of the Silly Season Challenges you host! Let me sleep on it! I so would like to take this up though didn’t do so well with one of the other challenges I participated in this year and felt like I let everyone down. I’ll keep you posted! Thank you again for hosting this!

thinatlast

12:07 pm
4 Dec 18
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Minka, we are still the same people we always were when it comes to food and that’s how we all got here in the first place. Now we have this brilliant toolbox to help us manage how we handle food. This challenge is just about continuing through December as we have all year. January can be depressing enough without the added irritation of having gained 3 kgs (or however you’re measuring it in your corner of the world). You will not be letting anyone down if you don’t achieve what you set out to do. We’re just here to keep each other honest! Just come and join us, please. Set a small goal.

When you read about my day, you’ll realise you’re in good company. I set off to my first SS event with all good intentions, vibrantly coloured salad platter proudly riding in the passenger seat. https://imgur.com/a/ClxLPMO Declined champagne – and was the only one drinking water. Took a moderate plateful of food (didn’t take bread rolls, cooked chicken, hard boiled eggs, or anything I could readily eat at home). Didn’t realise there was dessert so went back for cheese. A bit greedy there. Someone said the desserts were ready. That’s when it all fell apart. I was already stuffed but tried all of them. Felt sick in more ways than one.

Tomorrow is a FD – hurray for that!

Penguin, I was going to ask you how many water fasting days you now do in a row but you’ve answered that. Yes, I am well within my wiggle room. But, as you have read, I still have a long way to go on NFDs. Well, at least you passed on the mince pies. I didn’t pass on anything. For some reason, I thought you might have your own place in Portugal where lemons, etc would be growing. I think I just assumed this as you’ve mentioned travelling there a few times since joining the SH thread.

LJ, I looked up Swiss Chard and it says ‘Chard or Swiss Chard’ as if they are the same thing. Are you saying Chard is the same as silverbeet? Mine looks quite different.

CalifD, hope you get back below 60kg after your FD today.

penguin

2:23 pm
4 Dec 18
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Thin, this last year has mostly been about keeping my weight where it is, so I have not done very many three day water fasts. I usually set out once a month to do two days, then re-assess on the day two morning weigh in. This, with a few low cal FDs in between, is usually enough to compensate for any silliness on my NFDs. I decided to do the challenge because losing a few more pounds will be a good thing and because it will ensure that I am not looking at a problem in January.

We don’t have our own place in Portugal. We keep going back because we have been doing it for long enough to have friends there. We take a self catering apartment which means we can control what we eat – self-cater or go out for a meal as the fancy takes us. We have been thinking about getting a place – they are relatively cheap and the cost of living is much less – but like many others we are waiting to see what Brexit does to our relationship with the rest of the world. On Madeira there are more banana trees than lemons.

I also looked up silver beet and got Chard. I grow two or three different Chards, mostly with red or yellow stems which is why I didn’t make the silver beet connection.

CalifDreamer

7:27 pm
4 Dec 18
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What we call Chard or Swiss Chard has whitish stems.
https://goo.gl/images/GW9qSS We also have Red Chard with red stems and I think I’ve seen the yellow stems too. https://goo.gl/images/gG2xT3

My weight was down 1.7 kg this morning after yesterday’s FD. I’m puzzled as to why it went down so much other than water weight. I was right at 500 calories yesterday. I went from 61 to 59.3kg. I often see drops of 1kg after a FD but this is a lot. Maybe I’m dehydrated. But I won’t argue with it. I’m going to be careful about my eating today. It would be nice to maintain that weight and then go down a bit more.

Thin, your platter was beautiful! Were those black mushrooms up in the corner along with the white ones? The contrast is great. It’s hard to resist desserts at a festive gathering like that. Your FD should take care of any damage.

Penguin, drinking mulled wine after fasting for more than 24 hours must have made you feel festive indeed. 🤪 No longer inconspicuous or a party pooper. 😁

Minka, I hope you do decide to join us here. If nothing else, it’s a good place to discuss silly season coping strategies. 🍾

Cinque

8:07 pm
4 Dec 18
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Just have to jump in on the chard discussion. There are heaps of different chards and the silver beet we grow is usually ‘fordhook giant’ which is bred to be big and strong, with thick stalks that can be used as a vegetable in their own right. The delicate little rainbow chards are the other end of the spectrum, being smaller with thinner stems. They are all the same family (and beetroot is too 😉 )

While I am here, just a cheer for those small goals over the Silly Season. It is such a time for feasting, for family tensions, for feeling alone and miserable while the world seems happy, for food traditions that can’t be avoided and ramped up social pressure to join in.

So matter what your goal is, if you can make it through the silly season without putting extra weight on, or with putting less weight on than you have in previous years, then you can walk away from the Silly Season Challenge feeling really good about yourself!

I’m in a strange situation as I am out of the workforce with chronic illness, I can’t eat food with added sugar, my family and friends know I can’t indulge. Foodwise, and eating habits, this time of year doesn’t make a difference to me (unless this year surprises me by being different). But I can cheer on everyone who is dealing with end of year stress, pre Christmas parties and work dos and socialising, family expectations and drinks, mince pies, party food and eep, only 20 days til Christmas!

Best wishes everyone.

Cinque

9:25 pm
4 Dec 18
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Your post wasn’t there when I posted Cali! Your photo shows the silver beet = swiss chard well. We can buy a punnet of ‘rainbow chard’ that are delicate chards with a mixture of red, orange, yellow or white stems.

penguin

9:34 pm
4 Dec 18
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Tis the season to talk about Chard. I have just watched “Professional Masterchef” on UK TV. Half of the contestants seemed to be using Chard. Some new approaches there that I must try.

And if you see this twice it is because the internet is playing silly b’s and decided the first time that it couldn’t access this thread.

Anzac65

9:55 pm
4 Dec 18
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It’s great to read about everyone’s challenges and realise you are not alone. It will make getting through this month without gaining a stack of kilos which is what I do faithfully every year.

700g down after my FD yesterday so very happy with that. I have 1.4kg to go until my maximum challenge weight of 86. I’m sure I will get there but the big challenge will be keeping it there during my two weeks off over Christmas. At least I will have time to do more exercise and plan good, healthy meals when we aren’t socialising.

Hello FatFingers, nice to ‘meet’ you and congratulations on reaching your goal this year. I long to be able to say that phrase and I hope to do that around June next year if all goes to plan.

Penguin, I laughed when I read about your mulled-wine-on-top-of-fasting episode!

Best of luck everyone 🙂

penguin

10:10 pm
4 Dec 18
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I don’t know what happened there – I just got 107 copies of Anzacs last post in my email box.

Anzac65

10:15 pm
4 Dec 18
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Crikey penguin, I hope your in-box doesn’t go into melt-down! You must be having a few Internet issues

penguin

10:20 pm
4 Dec 18
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it seems to be OK now. I only got one copy of your last post on our other thread.

Quacka

10:44 pm
4 Dec 18
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Hi everyone. Just a quick check in. FD today

Weight down again this morning but I won’t bore you with the figures. Maybe I will just post it once a week, say Thursday, the day after FD.

Really just trying to eat lots of fresh veggies and also a little fruit as I love all the summer fruit. I have a pickled red cabbage salad today for lunch which also has a little carrot, red onion, sliced snow peas, zucchini and konjac noodles. I haven’t worked out the calories but it will easily be less than 50.

Have a great day everyone. 🙂

thinatlast

12:09 am
5 Dec 18
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Quacka, please do bore us with the figures! That pickled red cabbage salad sounds great. Joining you in a wonderfully cleansing and re-setting fast today.

Anzac, you’re on a roll. The weight loss kind, not the bread kind. I hope Penguin stops stalking you!

Cinque, thank you for popping in. Please stay! I loved what you wrote about Christmas. So true that for many it’s not a happy time. I recall a few family Christmas dramas when growing up in England and loved it when I moved to the USA and was no longer in the middle of all that. For the past 25 years, we have spent Christmas with family friends here in Perth, alternating hosting. Their daughters fly in from overseas and, this year, there will be a boyfriend involved, making 8 of us. It’s my turn to host. I always joke that, on my year, the temperature is 41C while, on theirs, it’s 28C.

Thank you also for the chard clarification everyone. Cinque, you are funny including beetroot! Can you eat the greens from beetroot? Probably a dumb question but, of course, I’ve never been near it.

CalifD, yay, that weight is falling off. You’re back on track. No mushrooms on that platter. As everyone I know (including people I’ve never met like Cinque) knows that I can’t handle beetroot, to the extent that I can’t even eat anything that has the juice running onto it, I like to grate some purple carrots on my platters and wait for the surprised looks. There were black beans, red cabbage, feta cheese, mung beans, mango …… My photo should instead have shown the pile on my dessert plate. You’d have been shocked.

Penguin, I like self-catering apts for holidays, too. We’re also watching the Brexit negotiations because we’d like to have a place in Spain at some point. I believe the Spanish allow foreign ownership but the business of having to leave every few months could become problematic as we age. OH has the idea that we could have another small place in Portugal for this purpose. Dreaming ….

LJoyce

12:17 am
5 Dec 18
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Just a quick post before I head out to a day of medical appointments.

My last 2 FDs have not been very controlled and they did involve unplanned sweet baked things. I plan to stop that decline today.

I’m planning for a light controlled NFD. So far I’ve had a nectarine and a pot of tea (and one cherry tomato, eaten while I was picking those that had ripened overnight). I’m taking a banana and a bottle of water with me. I have hummus in the fridge that I can have on a couple of rye crispbread when I get home at about 3:30pm. I have leftovers for dinner – a small serve of nigerian bean stew and a pile of green veg. If I want dessert I have cherries in the fridge.

Have a good day all.

thinatlast

7:53 am
5 Dec 18
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LJ, did you mean ‘last 2 NFDs’? Not like you to blow a FD.

penguin

8:35 am
5 Dec 18
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Quick check in. Down another pound. That makes 4 pounds/1.8kg in two days. That is enough for one week and puts me well on track for the challenge. More later when I have read all of your posts.

thinatlast

10:57 am
5 Dec 18
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Impressive Penguin.

LJoyce

11:47 am
5 Dec 18
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Thin, yes, thanks for picking that up. It was the last 2 NFDs that were meant to be controlled and were absolutely not. I have little trouble avoiding sweet things on FDs, I just tell myself I can have it tomorrow. Which of course causes trouble when I get to tomorrow.

Penguin, congratulations. It looks like the pilates mulled wine episode didn’t do a lot of damage.