That’s true of Australian snakes too Penguin (not that Thin relaxes at the thought!).

Veggies for breakfast! Well, it’s my favourite subject at the moment! Growing up it was only possibly mushrooms on toast, or grilled tomato with bacon and eggs. Then I discovered that a lot of Asian countries have a soup for breakfast, with with veggies in. It blew my mind’s idea of what breakfast is.
Recently I discovered Indian deliciousness such as poha with cauliflower and peas: https://www.wnyc.org/story/recipe-madhur-jaffreys-flattened-rice-cauliflower-and-peas/ and the ground legume pancake type things that can have added veggies grated into them. I also realised I can make a Spanish tortilla full of veggies instead of a plainer omelette.

Any other suggestions welcome!

My veggie challenge: well yesterday was a fast day so just veggies in my evening miso soup which were green beans, carrot and fresh mushrooms.

Thanks Cinque. I have not come across poha before but amongst my many recipe books I have several spice stained examples by Madhur Jaffrey. I’ll have to read them more thoroughly. I don’t often do breakfast but it looks like a great light lunch.

Good morning SSCs

I had a really easy FD yesterday, but today will be challenging as I have 2 food events to deal with.

I have lunch in the city with someone I used to work with. The lunch could be tricky as we are meeting on the corner of a couple of streets with lots of eateries and will choose something on the spur of the moment. That means no careful perusal of the online menu ahead of time to select a sensible meal – which is what I usually do. I think as long as I can steer us away from choosing Italian I’ll be ok.

My sister and brother in law arrive this afternoon and will be staying with me overnight. I’ve invited all their kids and grandkids for dinner – that’s 12. As I’m in control of the menu there are plenty of healthy options – but there’s also crumbed prawns, mini sausage rolls, shoestring fries, garlic bread and pavlova. I just need to steer myself through the temptation of those to get to the poached chicken and salad.

Anzac, I am so pleased that you weight journey is heading in the right direction, you sound so upbeat now.

Cinque, the poha looks nice, but I couldn’t cope with it for breakfast. But then I can’t face a traditional cooked breakfast at that hour of the morning either.

Penguin, your cookbooks sound like mine. You can tell which recipes have been used the most by the number of old stains on the page.

Have a good day all.

Hi everyone,

Joining Thin and all of you for the Silly Seaon Challenge again🙂.

After being AWOL for awhile I’m back, not with a vengeance just yet, but working on getting my Fast Days going again. We’ve had a medical issue taking up our time, with a bit of head spinning, a learning curve, Drs visits, multiple phone calls with family etc. You all know how those times go.

Anyhow, I found it too much of a challenge to do fasting days through the worst of it and not fully back in the rhythm yet, so my weight is up at 66.5kgs. Will look up what it was last year at mid December.

My first goal is to get my FDs functioning properly again, and to get back to weak tea, water, sparkling water as drinks ie drinks with no calories and not milk coffees that have “magically” appeared in various places, when I had ‘an anxious tummy’ that didn’t like being empty.

My weight goal? Gosh, haven’t a clue right this minute mmmm maybe to stay the same weight.

Anyway, good to be back, and hope you are all Silly Seasoning well.

Onwards and Downwards,
Merry

PS I was interested in the question how much weight can I gain from over indulging so looked it up and found this…

How Much Fat Can You Gain in a Single Day?

Here’s the short answer: not as much as you might might think.

According to two studies, people who were a fed 1,200 to 1,500 calorie surplus every day, after 3 weeks, each only gained about a fifth of a pound of fat per day.

So, why does the scale always seem to jump up by as much as five to ten pounds after you go a little off the rails?

The answer more or less boils down to three things: sodium, carbohydrate, and water.

When most people eat a lot of food, they inevitably eat a lot more salt and carbohydrate than normal.

Sodium brings water into cells, which is why eating large amounts of it can increase your total body water stores. Most people would call this “bloating” or “water retention” and you’ve probably noticed it after eating a large, salty “cheat meal,” like pizza, burritos, or fries.

A single high-sodium meal could add several pounds of water. This might stay reflected on the scale for several days before your body excretes the extra sodium and water.

Carbohydrate can have a similar effect.

Carbohydrate is mostly stored in the muscles and liver as glycogen. Every gram of glycogen is stored with 3 to 4 grams of water, which means that if you consume 400 grams of carbs, that could bring along 1200 to 1600 grams (~3 to 4 pounds) of water.

Taken together, the increase in sodium, carbohydrate, and water storage could bump your weight up by five to ten pounds overnight.

Obviously, that will come back down, but it can make you think you’ve gained more fat than you really have.

The bottom line is that if you eat 1,000 to 1,500 calories more than your maintenance needs in a single day, you may only gain around a fifth of a pound of body fat (or 90 grams), even if your scale weight tells a different story.

The above is an abridged version of the info in this link:

https://legionathletics.com/how-much-fat-can-you-gain-when-you-binge/

PS The above info doesn’t make me feel any easier about over indulging. My sense from reading the full article in the above link is that even if a quick gain doesn’t equate to the amount of fat I originally thought, the whole process causes stress and wreaks a sort of havoc within the cells, especially if blood sugar spikes are involved (which weren’t really discussed directly in the article). In other words, the info doesn’t make me feel that I’m free to binge, just because the extra weight that registers on the scale isn’t primarily fat.

Thank you for posting that article, Minka. It certainly seems to be true for me lately as I can gain up to 2 kgs over NFD and then lose it on FDs. My “bounce”. I like that I can usually lose it all on my FDs unless I go really crazy with eating. That’s the nice thing about maintenance on 5:2, even during the Silly Season with all the temptations. The one other thing that might be a big help for me is that I have consumed 0 alcohol in the last 8 months after the medical issue. I only drank wine before, and maybe 3 glasses max occasionally, but I think it made it more difficult to lose when I was in the losing phase. In my younger days I used to be able to drink a lot with no ill effects the next day, but as I got older, even after 2 glasses I felt like I was dragging the next day.

Merry, my thoughts are with you. I can empathize. Once you have a plan, everything seems to calm down considerably and you just plow through. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

It’s Monday, so I’m fasting today. I was going to comment the other day, and then forgot, about several of you telling friends about 5:2 and having them say that they could never manage a 500 calorie FD. (Friends that I’ve mentioned it to think I’m nuts and on some kind of weird diet.) My DS said that for months and months, even when she saw what good results I’ve had with 5:2. She finally decided to try it when she couldn’t seem to stick to any other diet. She was going to try for just a couple FD’s to see if she could survive. That was many months ago and she has been doing it ever since. She doesn’t seem to have any problem sticking with it and has lost the approximately 7 kg to bring her to her skinny jeans weight. She’s been maintaining for a while now with 5:2. It’s become automatic, just like it has for the rest of us. It seems like people get a very different idea of it once they actually try it. 500 calories seems to be just enough to keep us going if we stick to bulky veggies, soups and protein.

Good morning SSCs

Minka, an interesting article thankyou. I knew that glycogen and water were big contributors but hadn’t realised the fat gain was quite so tiny. I had also thought that there were limits to how much glycogen (and the accompanying water) the body stores.
I don’t envy you the gluten free issues when trying to eat out. There are a lot more restaurants and cafes providing GF options but some cuisines just aren’t very compatible. In the end we went to Mexican for lunch yesterday and I had the summer salad that they offered which was very nice and topped with a toasted almond and seed mix that really added a nice crunch. It also contained warm chewy black rice along with all the shredded raw veg. I’m not much of a salad fan and I don’t really care for rice but the salad was lovely

Quacka, it’s not just beer, everything costs more when you get out into the rural and remote areas, especially fresh food and petrol.

Merry, I hope your FDs return to normal quickly.

Cali, I found if I don’t use the word “fasting” people accept the 5:2 concept more easily. I usually just say that twice a week I have a very light eating day. Fasting has such a different meaning than the calorie restriction that I do on a FD that I think it makes people think they need to starve themselves.

Cali, it sounds like you need your meals to all contain veg to get to 7. Not being able to have fruit as snacks makes your challenge much harder. I am wondering if a big salad is really only 2 serves of veg though, I would have thought it would be more.

Yesterday involved some good and some poor choices. I was pretty happy with my lunch choices but I didn’t stick to cold meats, salad and fruit for dinner, there was some garlic bread and sausage rolls and some chocolate added to the mix.
Today I’m planning a controlled NFD before tomorrow’s lunch at a Vietnamese dumpling place.

Hope everyone has an easy day with their food challenges today.

Good Morning SS challengers

Minka, thank you for that excellent information. I knew that daily weight fluctuations were not really fat but it is interesting to know why it happens. I am one of those that weigh everyday but I don’t usually let it get to me if the weight is up as for me it’s just part of the checks and balances. Understanding why the fluctuations happen also doesn’t make me want to go and over indulge, it’s just good to know.

This morning’s weight is 67.3kg, down 1.5kg from yesterday. Case in point.

OMG LJ! I love dumplings. I make some really yummy ones sometimes but I just can not get the dipping sauce right. Any suggestions SSC’s? I went to a dumpling place this year that had a cheeseburger dumpling. It wouldn’t be my first choice (or second or third…) but my friend wanted to try them, so we did. It tasted exactly like a cheeseburger from the very popular fake food joint.

thin, hope you enjoy your sundowners. Remember it is about balance 🙂
A snake crawling across your towel does not sound very nice. My friend did the swim to Rottnest Island and although they were escorted the whole time, she said it was still quite scary at times. She said there were big shadows swimming below and we all know what they could have been. Did you hear about the kayakers who were attacked by a shark? I’m not sure exactly when it happened but my friend said a shark bit one of the kayaks and threw the paddler in the water and then his mate had to get him up onto his kayak to keep him safe! Now, that is scary!

I’m going to look up Madhur Jeffrey. You have piqued my interest.

Good luck all with your FD’s. I’m joining you today in a B2B but 800 calories not 500. I’m also planning on another 800 calorie day tomorrow as I will have a busy day so it shouldn’t be too hard. Think I can do it? Here’s hoping 😉

Thin, I’m not at all surprised that the sleep clinic was full of obese people. There is a correlation between obesity and sleep apnoea.
I noticed a change in my sleep patterns after losing weight. Although I still have occasional sleepless nights I have found that the combination of being a healthier weight and also having a mostly healthy diet means that most nights I sleep quite well now. It doen’t take too many days of poor food choices for it to affect my sleep, so I know it’s not just weight that’s important.

Anzac & Quacka, I dislike pork which always limits my choices at Asian restaurants. However I have checked out the menu for the place we are going and found plenty of interesting choices although they all involve either dumpling dough, noodles or bread. I’m going to look like a dumpling at this rate!

Anzac, I can think of a third reason to do 5:2 instead of Jenny Craig – cost.

Penguin I hadn’t realised that your wife also did her FDs as B2B. It must make it easier when you are both doing them at the same time.

LJ The Mexican sounded delicious and fresh. Because there are so many Mexican gluten free options (traditionally corn is used – flour tortillas are an American invention) I tend to go for that when possible!

Anzac, I too have a friend who fears starvation. She did try 5:2 with my encouragement on two different occasions and said she didn’t last the afternoon. She then tried 16:8 which she said kind of worked for her, though admitted when I saw her last that marketing got the better of her and that she’d enrolled in Jenny Craig and also admitted that she’s only been half doing it and so hadn’t shed any weight, though said she was glad she hadn’t gained weight. She said not to tell anyone that she’s doing Jenny Craig since she’s a well known yoga teacher in her area and offers multi-week programs that include teaching of yoga and macrobiotic cuisine and way of health and nutrition. She even cooks a macrobiotic breakfast for participants each day of the program! In other words, everything she teaches is the opposite of Jenny Craig philosophy of weight loss and nutrition and still she said the marketing compelling her to believe that Jenny Craig has the answers to her weight woes, was convincing! I just listened and supported, especially since she had given 5:2 a ‘go’ a couple of times.

Cinque, I understand how snacks can fill us up and make us not hungry enough to eat what we originally intended! However, speaking of cashews, have you heard of ‘cashew apple’? I wish the fruit of the cashew trees were available to our markets to eat. A friend once sent me via Oxfam gift service, a bag of dried cashew apple fruit. They were amazing tasted! They tasted a bit like mildly sweet coffee with deep tones though without a caffeine hit attached! What I liked is for a dried fruit, they were not so sweet. They were dried and packaged by some small village in South America at the time and I’ve yet to ever see or taste them again.

Way to go Quacka! Keep rolling down!

Thin, I hadn’t mentioned that a week before Mr M presented me with the box of dark chocolate truffles, he alerted me to the presence of a particular plastic bag in the refrigerator that I was not to open, since it contained gifts for both me and his family. I indicated that I probably knew that these might be along the same lines as last year’s gift. He smiled sheepishly and said he wasn’t telling! Mr M is truly a creature of habit. I guess I’ll be practicing the ‘Tidbit Sweet Truffle Meditation’ well into the New Year!

FDs, the food diary, weighing daily have been really working. I kind of feel like a well tuned car at the moment, something I haven’t felt for months or possibly not really since around the time I reached goal weight 2 years ago. After yesterday’s fast, this morning the scale registered 1/2 kg or 1 pound below goal weight envelope zone. Because of this, I’m going to nominate this week as the first week I can legitimately forego my second FD and pronounce myself as having reached my genuine maintenance goal and can now afford to give myself a 6:1 week. Since reaching goal weight, I have actually practiced some 6:1 weeks, though these were only due to being forced to do so by health issues and usually that week saw my weight swell back up into high goal weight zone or even above. Keeping to the SS program goals I’ve nominated will be interesting. I don’t have travel scales and now wish I did have a set! I know you love yours Thin!

I did buy a pocket travel scale to measure my inulin grams! No way am I going to incite another bout of internal plumbing problems via inaccurate serving sizes. TI bought the scale at Jaycar and the clerk said that it measures fractions of grams and says they are usually purchased by those who want to way a certain type of herb and he winked! I felt compelled then and there to profess that I wanted mine for inulin measuring rather than drug dealing! The clerk had no clue as to what ‘inulin’ actually was and not sure he believed it was something real or that I made up on spot to ‘cover’ for ‘real’ intended use of scales.

By the way, I’ve got another shark in the water coming up on Friday. The shark will be in the form of a ‘customer’ Christmas lunch. This is where the customers of our agency gather together at a sports club for a set menu Christmas themed lunch. The shark will be the dessert served. Last year I was served Pavlova because I’m gluten free. Pavlova seems to be the ‘go to’ answer to gluten free Christmas dessert offerings, much like ‘orange almond cake’ is mainly what I see as gluten free in cafes! As far as Pavlova goes I don’t regard it as much different than dipping my spoon into a bowl of white sugar and ingesting, though I suppose the texture is different if not the taste. The truth is, I really don’t want any dessert. In fact sitting here I feel a bit incensed at knowing some part of me will feel obligated to eat something I don’t really want. So, I’m thinking of ways around this. Mr M suggested I simply say ‘I’m full’ and decline dessert when it is served. How would I feel when 7 other people all sitting at a round table are amicably downing their sweets while I sit there with nothing? I suppose I could accept and move bits of it around on the plate, pretending to eat? Or I could accept dessert and offer it to someone else at the table, maybe a man, who would gladly like second helpings? Either way, I’m not eating it. I don’t want an instant replay of the insatiable hunger I experienced last week the day after eating the sweet cake at the company BBQ!

Good evening,
Just had a read up, and even though I need to cook celery soup before I get too tired, just had to respond to you, Minka, about not eating dessert. I’ve not been eating dessert for about 6 years and it isn’t a big deal. Just say ‘No thanks’. Then enjoy the company of the people you are with.
Do give that a try. I will be amazed if there is any issue at all. But if there is you can say “But Cinque told me it would be all right!”

Must go, I might write more when the soup is simmering.

Well I did my challenge quite well today. A good 2 serves of veggies with my lunch, a fruit snack (eep, hope I don’t regret it) and 5 serves of veggies for dinner (stir fry).

I also got a surprising amount done (touch wood and whistle) and with the batch of cauliflower soup I have used all the veggies that needed using.

Thanks to Penguin, I reread The World Health Organisation fact Sheet on Healthy Diet https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/healthy-diet and remembered where I saw 400g veggies a day (and the root veggie thing). This is what they say:

“At least 400 g (i.e. five portions) of fruit and vegetables per day, excluding potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava and other starchy roots.”

Is that better Thin?

Note, they just do 5, not 5 and 2. But since the experts say 10 would be even better than 5, I will keep aiming for 7.

Minka, the cashew apple sounds so delicious!

Best wishes all,
See you in the morning.

Hi everyone

Just a quick check in. 67.1kg this morning. Haven’t had a cup of tea yet so that may well go down some more lol.
Have really busy days ahead (as does everyone probably) so I may not be able to hog the threads for a while. I will still keep reading though.

All the best and good luck to the fasters today

Penguin, classic! I’m surprised you didn’t get arrested sniffing powder off the back of your hand. I have the funniest vision in my head 🙂

I think that doing FD, a food diary and daily weighing is also helping me Minka. Even though I’m not doing great, without this I would be stacking on the kilos at this time of year for sure.

I can’t fathom that level of cold weather fasting_me. I’ve never experienced it. Here in Winter it can get down to 5c first thing in the morning but then warms up to 12-18 during the day. OH and I are planning a trip to Europe next Christmas and I whilst I am really looking forward to it I’m a bit anxious about whether I’ll be able to hack the cold. We will buy some good coats and hopefully be fine. Your activities sound like lots of fun and how lovely that your two son’s will be visiting soon.

Quacka, you are doing so well! I’m really happy for you and you have one more work sleep until your lovely break. I have two so I’m not far behind you. I can’t wait! I said to OH yesterday ‘yippee you have 16 whole days with me at home!’. He pretended to look horrified but then laughed. He should be happy; when I’m home he doesn’t have to worry about what the dog is up to, cooking, housework or laundry. He can concentrate fully on the renovations and other ‘bloke’ tasks that I can’t do.

Congrats on a successful challenge and soup making day Cinque 🙂

LJ, I don’t like pork very much either and it has to be disguised for me to eat it. I wouldn’t eat roast pork or a pork chop for example. But I’ll eat a pork curry if it is made from loin and heavily spiced. When I make the pork and prawn dumpling (remembering too that I don’t like seafood) the sauces etc that go in with the mix disguise the taste enough for me. Plus the dipping sauce helps too.

I had a bad FD yesterday. Again. But I wont bore you with the details and I’m not dwelling on it. I’m WFH today so will be busy and I can sneak off and do some HIT sessions on the exercise bike. Managed to go on a gentle walk with OH and puppy Maxx this morning as my ankle is slowly getting better; but sadly I can’t resume my big walks yet as it is not yet healed enough for that.

Have a great day fellow challengers

Hi All,

Quick check in! Busy day and one tomorrow, even if it is my ‘weekend’ off from work. I work Saturday and Sundays. Wednesdays and Thursdays are my ‘weekend’.

After yesterday’s 5 hour exercise marathon at work (it’s not like I work in a gym either, though some days my work involves a lot of physical activity!), I did eat above usual ‘sedentary’ TDEE calories, which felt applicable to do given the amount of energy I expended. I actually entered the physical into MFP to see how many calories it thought I would have used up and stayed well below that number when I allowed myself that extra nourishment after work. This morning I was up 1/2 kg over previous day which landed me right at the lighter end of my goal weight envelope ‘wiggle room’ and I’m fine with that.

There’s a part of me that is truly tempted to fast again tomorrow and return to 5:2 this week! Tee, hee! It isn’t just Mr M who is a creature of habit! I’m now thinking I might miss a second FD! At the same time, I want to continue to see if I can successfully pull off a 6:1 week!

Well the dumpling eatery was nice – I had both crab spring rolls and chicken dumplings. We all exchanged small christmas gifts – mostly food. I ate the chocolates and shortbread on the train on the way home. It was a day of poor food choices. Thankfully tomorrow is a FD.

Minka, about the only positive that I can see in your end of year shifts is that your first week back is a very short one before your Wens-Thurs weekend. All I can say apart from that is that I hope you enjoy the days you do have off.
When I was working I really enjoyed holidays where I didn’t go anywhere but could just potter about at home at my leisure. Now that I’m retired that’s my everyday life – a holiday now definitely involves leaving the house and preferably the state.

That is such a shame Minka, you won’t feel like you’ve had a break at all sadly. At least your first week back is a short one. OH and I love to travel but I equally love my holidays just pottering around at home which is what I am doing this year over Christmas.

How funny about eating the food gifts on the way home. I’ve done it too – many times.

Penguin I loved your final sentence that this may well be the first Christmas many of us emerge no heavier. If I can pull it off (and I will) it will be my very first one. It’s pretty darn exciting to be honest. I may not make my challenge weight and in fact I am going to change my challenge to make it more achievable. My new challenge is to be lighter on the 3rd January that I was on the 3rd December. So I was 87.4 then and I am 87.7 now after some more bad days. So I will need to be mindful and active on my two week break starting on Saturday

FD today, my last one for the year as I am not fasting during my break. So it needs to be a good one! I’m prepared – both food-wise and mentally so I will do this. I will!

Have a great day/afternoon/evening depending on where you are in the world

Good morning,
Hmm, it can get a bit time consuming posting on two busy threads! But isn’t this a good one!

My challenge is to eat 7 serves of vegetables a day, of which two, at least, are botanically fruits, and not counting the starchy veg which I count as: potato, sweet potato, dried legumes, dried corn.

Yesterday was a fast day though. I ate a bit of salad through the day, enough to count as a serve, and extra fresh mushrooms and baby zucchini in my miso soup, so that was another two serves.

NFD today and I had avocado (half an avocado) and tomato/eggplant relish on my toast, and I THINK it would add up to a serve. I will be more generous with my next serves.

I must say I am finding this challenge very good for me. I have to cut out other foods to fit in this many vegetables and I am finding this makes me feel well. I hope that by the time the challenge is finished, it will have become my eating habit.

Best wishes all.

Weight is creeping, slightly upward…. but I will not lose heart. Tomorrow is a Fast Day.
To me, ‘5 servings of Veg’ = green, red, yellow, purple, and orange things. NOT potatoes. Still trying to stick to that, even tho the Health for the Holidays Challenge is over. But my daily mileage is down — not the 5 miles/day that I want. Too much sitting.

The Ladies of SKEIN were over this morning and we had a lot of laughs! The gift exchange was not only food: it included cocktail napkins, soap, and after-dinner drinks. The biscotti were a hit and the ODH loved them.

Then we had the planned Tea With Friends… but not the way we’d planned! Gordon had emailed us saying it would be great to get together — nothing fancy, just tea and ‘hanging out.’ So my ODH emailed him with a date and the two of them decided on a time. Mary [the other wife] and I both said OK. So at 3 pm today we drove to their house. Their car and truck were in the drive, but they were not in the house. I know because I went into the house and called for them. We hung around for about 8 minutes, shrugged, and left. When we got home, there was a car in our drive, and Mary and Gordon were sitting in our Sun Room waiting for us to show up!! So I ran to the kitchen to put on the tea and compose a snacks plate: Clementines, biscotti, cheese — the same as I served to the Ladies in the morning. So we all sat and chatted and then I decided it was time to warm up the dinner [pasta in sauce from the freezer] and invited them to stay. Had green beans, french bread, and red wine. All on hand from freezer. We all had a great time together. Mary said it shows that you can’t trust husbands to do social planning. so true.

Keep eating the veg, Folks. And fruit. My condolences to people who have to work over the Holiday Break. As a former teacher, that was one of the best perks. Anyone Fasting tomorrow?

Cinque, the avo on toast with relish sounds yum! I’m imagining that combination on a paleo style bread I buy that’s made mostly of seeds which I love.

Thin, a small packet of fudge sounds easy to polish off along on a drive. Up until recently I had a ‘no eating in the car’ policy that I kept to. I stuck to that for the first 18 months of acquiring the vehicle, which I bought relatively new. However, that policy went out the window during one work day when I was famished and accidentally had no lunch break and I’ve not been able to stick to it since! Maybe I can add that into my next Silly Season Challenge!? Remind me of this next December! Lol!

Anzac, I hope the fast is going well and that you feel it has been a really good one to last you until the New Year!

Quacka, fantastic weigh in result!

LJ what you said about work and retirement meanings of relaxation and holidays is exactly how I feel! Were I not working, I’d be so looking forward to the adventure of boarding a plane to travel to a new and different locale! Yes, it’s true that even working starting work on Sunday means that my work week would be shortened, which is great. Even better now is that I checked with head office and they’ve agreed to give my Sunday shift to another worker! Yea! I’m doing a ‘happy dance’!

I stepped on the scale again this morning to find myself 200 grams under wiggle room range after yesterday’s NFD. This means I’m still on track to continue with 6:1. That said, I may end up fasting tomorrow anyway because my Friday fasts are something I’ve kept to for over a year and my body naturally wants to fast on Fridays and I think it will feel weird if I don’t! There is the Christmas lunch event, though one of my superiors admitted that she is so busy during those events that she doesn’t end up eating a lunch. I thought that maybe I can make myself busy by helping her out and not eat too! There’s someone who was invited who wasn’t able to afford to come, though we’ve invited her anyway. I’ve arranged to sit next to this woman and have decided to slide my courses to her when served and so I don’t look awkward as the only one at table not eating, I will gracefully rise out of my chair and head over to other tables to kneel down and chat with customers briefly, make the rounds of the room. I will return to my seat in between courses. Well, that’s the plan. I’ll let you know if I’m able to comfortably pull it off!