Speaking of sabotage. OH has just produced an enormous traditional Christmas Cake. The kind that probably has more dried fruit than flour and which at regular intervals after it was made was fed with booze. To be fair, I knew of it’s existence but in the run up to Christmas we had both forgotten that it was trucked away in the cupboard. The good news is that if I am strong they keep for a very long time and can be frozen. The bad news is that I am really very fond of them and not very strong.

Good morning,

Cinque, nuts are a weakness of mine too. I think it’s partly the salt and also the roasting that encourages us to keep eating – raw unsalted nuts I can be restrained with. I’m so glad you got to have an apricot for dessert. I suspect fruit will feel like a real treat for a while, given how long it’s been since you’ve allowed yourself to have it.

Penguin, you thought that final batch of mince pies was going to be the last waistline challenge for a while, and then the christmas cake arrives. You are right, it keeps very well and freezes well. It’s also a very rich flavour so you might be able to convince yourself that a smaller piece will be just as satisfying – sorry is that a foolish hope.

Sorry to hear so many of you are feeling jaded today. My FD yesterday set me up nicely – I’m feeling lean today. Although I am expecting today’s lunch to be very indulgent and I doubt is lean is a work I would apply to the anticipated meal of to the way I will feel afterward.

I hope those of you fasting feel great tomorrow.

Happy Feast of Stephen, everyone. The snow is not ‘deep and crisp and even’ or even existent, but oh well.
Sunday Dec 23: weight = 107.6 same as I weighed on Dec 1
Monday Dec 24: weight = 108.2 uh-oh
Tuesday Dec 25: weight = 108.5 arrrgh
Wednes Dec 26: weight = 108.0 no explanation for that loss, but I’ll take it.

Christmas was lovely. We stayed home, except for our annual Christmas Morning Walk [about 1.5 miles]. We opened gifts, ate tons of Stollen and Pretzel, cooked together, ate roast beef, Yorkshire Pudding, creamed onions, green beans with roasted red peppers, and Buche de Noel. The boys and I made a big dish of Brussel Sprouts roasted with bacon — yum! ODH turned up his nose, but did try one. Then we hung out some more in front of the fire. A good time en famille.

Today was a ‘Fast Day.’ ODH + I had Roman Breakfast* and for dinner a Croque Madame which I calculated at 310 calories. But ODH broke open the toffee his sister sends every year, and Older Son made his best-ever baguettes, and we all shared some dark chocolate after dinner… Not exactly the way Dr Mosley plans it. Hope I lose a few ounces for tomorrow. Tomorrow might be a Fast, or a 1/2 Fast.

*Roman Breakfast: 270 calories 3.5 g fat 4.2 g fiber 14.2 g protein 41 g carbs [– g Complex Carbs] 187 mg Calcium PB Though a bit unusual, this is a very good plate of breakfast food, based on foods available to Romans in the 1st century BCE. It is satisfying and flavorful. Try it.
1 Pan Muffin [see ..Not by Bread.. Feb-7-’18] 1 oz pear 1 oz cooked chicken 1 oz radish 1 oz cucumber ½ medjool date = ¼ oz blackish coffee or blackish tea or lemon in hot water 5-6 oz green smoothie or fruit smoothie or unpasturized apple cider
Dice all the fruits and vegetables. Add a good finishing salt and gently stir to combine. HINT: I did this the night before and refrigerated the mixture. Prepare the pan muffin or take from freezer with time to thaw/heat. In the time it takes to brew the coffee, you can plate the muffin and the fruit-veg mixture.

It will be tough to get into Fighting Trim by Jan 1. Older Son departs tomorrow following Linner. Maybe if I don’t eat the rest of the day, it will help.

Happy Fasting, if you are on Thursday. Sounds as if some of you are doing really well. Excellent.

It turned out to be a different day. We went into town to change a Christmas present we had bought for one of the grand children – it was a good idea but we got the technology spec wrong. The town was very quiet, i have never seen the multi storey car park so empty. Having done that we popped into our local supermarket to buy some veg. They were selling their Christmas specials at less than half price. For some reason it seemed a good idea to buy another Christmas pudding and some frozen Beef Wellingtons – as the family cook I would normally resist this temptation, but they were very cheap! In the afternoon we managed a short walk, only three miles, but at least we got some fresh air. Came home and ate some venison sausages with a variety of veg. I must confess to a couple of whisky and waters.

It sounds like everyone is making inroads on any Christmas weight gain.
I had an indulgent food day yesterday but did not go overboard so I expect some careful days will take care of any gain.

Hello SCC people, happy ‘Twixmas and best wishes for a peaceful 2019!

Hello TigerAnne – thank you for asking me about my top tips! I have to confess, I’m no more expert than the other contributors to this wonderful thread – but I’m flattered that you asked me! In addition to the tips already given – which I agree with 100% – I would also say be persistent and be patient, especially on days when nothing seems to be happening on the scales. If you stick with the basic 5:2 advice, you will eventually shift the fat, along with the excess water (which I believe was the main cause of my ‘fat fingers’).If you also build in a good exercise regime into your routines, you will maintain – even build – your muscle mass. You can look forward to a more streamlined profile, better health, more energy, more choice of clothes – what’s not to like?!

Having said that, despite all the (food) dodging and swerving earlier in the month, I have somehow gained a whopping 6lb in 1 week! So today is a much-needed FD. Sadly I doubt I will achieve my 150lb target maintenance goal, but I aim to get back there early in January.

Good luck all SSC challengers out there – just keep on keeping on, you know it’s worth it!

fasting_me. Indeed so. I run three freezers, two free standing large uprights and a built in about a metre tall. It used to be three uprights but in a moment of weakness I gave one away. Because I grow a lot of my own fruit and veg and buy frozen fish about once a month from a guy with a van, they are usually too full for spontaneous purchases. Currently they are very full.

The first of the beef Wellingtons has gone, accompanied by some dauphinoise potatoes I made with the cream left over from OH’s Christmas Day toffee apple pudding and a cabbage. To follow we started the Christmas Cake. OH is from Yorkshire so it was eaten with a slice of Wensleydale cheese. As a Monkey Hanger I consider this a strange southern habit, but i have learned to live with it. Not really an FD or, considering the red wine, even a sensible NFD.

I’ve lost weight already! After the meals with family on 24th, 25th, 26th I was 74.6kg, and this morning 74.0kg. Awesome!
Fasting_me I think that answers your question, somehow I managed to eat what I wanted on 3 days, and then with one fast day and yesterday’s sensible NFD I have lost 0.6kg.

Good morning SSCs

TigerAnne, That is an excellent start. If you can make this work over christmas then it can work for you all the time.

Cali, I think you can use whichever end point to this challenge suits you, especially of you have early new year food challenged to get through.
Yes I’m getting a reasonable amount of exercise but it’s erratic. I seem to be alternating between weeks where I far exceed my planned hours and week where I barely manage half. This week my exercise hours have been low but I’m hoping to squeeze 2 x 1 hour walks in today which will help – the cool change has arrived which makes it much easier to contemplate doing both morning and afternoon walks.

Penguin, thank goodness for google or I never would have deciphered “monkey hanger”. Google tells me you hail from Hartlepool, not that I know exactly where that is – I have a vague idea.
I’m rather fond of Beef Wellington too – lovely meal for a cold night – glad you enjoyed it.

FF, you have my sympathies with the weight gain. The only thing I will say is that a gain like that in a very short period of time is likely to include very little body fat gain. I’m sure a couple of FDs will put a good dent in it.

FM, I have a difficult history with the scales so my normal habit these days to to way rarely and allow my clothing (especially my tightest jeans) to tell me whether my weight is stable (I’ve been in maintenance for a while). There was a lengthy period of time while losing weight where I weighed obsessively – daily or even more. Unfortunately I react badly when I get a number I think I don’t deserve. I also seem to be one of those people who’s body has a fairly volatile body weight that fluctuates wildly (2-3kg in 24 hours is not unusual for me) with hormone levels and inflammation levels (I have rheumatoid arthritis so there can be a lot of extra fluid around joints). After discussing this with my dietitian some time ago she advised that if weighing isn’t providing helpful reassurance or motivation then it’s not a useful tool for me. She was more concerned with me getting more comfortable being the weight I was now. (A few years ago I was morbidly obese and after getting my weight down from nearly 127kg to 75kg I started to panic about whether I could maintain it. 5:2 has been a perfect maintenance tool for me. Just in the last couple of months I realised I wasn’t afraid anymore.)
These days I probably weigh approcimately monthly but not on any specific cycle – just when I want to. Because in the challenges everyone seems to report weight as the measure of how they are going, I felt obliged to do the same this month. I did bring the scales back into my bathroom and start weighing more often but my old issues with them quickly reoccurred so I decided to leave them alone for now. I realised I’m not obliged to do what others do if doesn’t suit me. I’ll just weigh myself again sometime around the end of the month to see how things stand.

Quacka, the cheeseboard was my biggest indulgence christmas day too – mostly brie!

Cinque, it’s not surprising that it’s hard to stop at one small portion of fruit when you rarely allow yourself to eat it. Mangoes are definitely a high sugar fruit so I understand why you would react to those.

I hope everyone is managing their post christmas eating in a way they are happy with. I am thankful I don’t have any celebration meals around new year. I do need to bake a black forest cake for my nephew’s wife’s birthday on new year’s day and I suspect a slice of that will be consumed but I’ve already planned for that indulgence.

Thin, walking in the shopping centre is definitely slower than my usual walk and a bit frustrating as I try to weave around the dawdlers. I just walk for a bit longer to make up for the slower pace.

I just got home from a one hour walk before the first short shower of rain (I was in the literally one minute ahead of it). Hopefully there will be a dry patch sometime this afternoon so I can do another hour – I need to make up some ground for all the exercise I haven’t done this week.

Thin, I could actually do my final weigh in on the 2nd because I don’t have anything going on that day. But it would be nice to get in another FD before the final SSC weigh in. Tuesday and Thursday will probably be my FDs next week.

Who was asking about treating a mouth sore? I can’t find the post now and I forgot to reply earlier. We’ve always used a 3% solution of hydrogen peroxide. Swish a little bit around the sore in your mouth and let it sit for a minute or so. Then spit it out. (Don’t swallow the peroxide.) This usually gets rid of it within a day. We can buy the 3% hydrogen peroxide at the pharmacy here. It’s very inexpensive.

Rosy, I usually select “forum” from the top of the screen, then “active topics” from the pull down list. It lists all topis that have had recent posts. Under the title of each topic it lists the pages – just select the highest number. For example if you follow these instructions for this thread, you’ll see the numbers 1-6 listed – select 6 and it will take you straight to that page which is the most recent page of posts.

It’s been awhile since posting. I’ve continued with tracking foods in diary though figuring calories while traveling not conducive to eating, drinking and being merry, which is what I have been doing while in foodie heaven; Melbourne!

Mr M and I enjoyed a delicious Christmas Eve brunch with Cinque at a place called MOM cafe which only served heathy eclectic fare. I ordered a bowl full of greens, egg and some activated seeds, very satisfying textures even if the kitchen hand hadn’t completely washed all the sand out of the Bok Choy leaves! I would still return again, just nothing like this offering in cafes up north in the sub-tropics where we live.

Cheers!

FM and LJ, thank you for the advice and reassurance. You were absolutely right, it took just 1 FD to despatch 4lb of the Xmas weight gain. Back to 150lb this morning, where I want to be, and hopefully stay until the end of the SSC. It still surprises me how much variation I see on the scales, in such short time periods. Suffice to say, a LOT of water exited my system yesterday. I was drinking lots of fluid, too, mostly water and hot lemon tea. I think I’ll coin a new acronym…WIWO (water in, water out). Enough said!

TigerAnne, congratulations and keep up the good work! If your fingers are anything like mine, you’ll probably find at some point the excess fluid will suddenly disappear, rather like a balloon being deflated. My rings are even slightly loose now, but I have to ‘fold’ the skin on my ring finger to get them on and off. It doesn’t sound very pretty, but it’s better than the alternative!

Good morning everyone,

I count 6 serves of veggies yesterday, so nearly there. I ate well, so I don’t feel too bad. In fact I feel nice and light.
Fast day today so let’s see what I can do tomorrow. My garden has plenty of zucchini, the last couple of lettuce, some strawberries, and I picked my first tomato! A cherry tomato, but a big one. So lots of veg on hand!

Thin, that is a great idea to freeze the rest of the mango! I am intending to stick to the things that don’t push me to the edge of my tolerance for a while, but when I decide to push it (which I probably will, eventually), I will use that strategy and might manage it successfully for once!

But as for contaminating a glass of water with a little wine (another thing I won’t try again for a while), I was never a great drinker, but oh dear, I miss sharing a glass of wine over a meal! In fact, if I could go back to Christmas Day and (sensibly) only do one of the things, that is probably the one I would choose. It is amazing how well I can taste it through the water when it has been so long. Sigh.

My new fridge is gorgeous. The plastic freezer drawers are rather weighed down because I have everything in pyrex, but they haven’t broken! And it is so nice having frozen things organized in drawers. The fridge section is a perfect size. So delighted.

Hi Minka! That was a special cafe wasn’t it! I didn’t tell Thin about the glorious beetroot puree I had, that looked so beautiful against the avocado! 😉 Hoping you find some more deliciousness that fits well with the SSC!

Fatfingers, hooray for that EOEO (Easy On, Easy Off).

Penguin, what a story that Monkey Hanger is, poor monkey! But typical politician!

Best wishes for an excellent day today, fasting, non fasting, and whatever your challenge is!

Thin, I do not want to think what would happen if I went on 6:1… It wouldn’t last long. Lucky you to ‘take your own food’ to the party. Reassuring. We’ll take a contribution to the NYE pot luck, but there everyone shares. Hope there will be something sensible to eat.

Cinque, isn’t it grand to have a new fridge! But then you have to figure out what will go where and remember where that is. Got my 5 veg/fruit today. Only 4 yesterday.

FF, I knew the weight would be temporary. hooray.

LJ, you are stoic to be able to avoid sweets on Slow Days! For Christmas each of our sons brought us chocolates made in their respective cities, and we spent several days after dinner tasting them. There is still some remaining. Get thee behind me, Satan.

re mouth ulcers: I used to get them on my tongue — painful and exceedingly annoying. For 35 years we have consumed a daily ration of ‘Elixir’ [our name for it] and since then, I have never had another ulcer.
Elixer = 6 cups water + 1/4 cup honey [warmed] + 1/4-1/3 cup cider vinegar. We drink 8 oz daily. And more if not feeling well. In addition to eliminating oral ulcers, it minimizes illness. My husband used to tell his student teachers to take it and all the teachers in my school would ask me for the recipe since I was always so healthy.

Happy weekend.

PS Cinque, I meant to add that the suggestion you offered about simply replying ‘No thanks’ to offerings of food that I’d rather not eat, worked very well while on travels! Though as I wrote, I did indulge with gay abandon at times while away, I only ate what I really wanted to eat.

Because declining unwanted food in challenging circumstances is actually a new experience for me, I will say that aside from every other way I’ve benefited this Silly Season, I’m starting to consider the trialing of your strategy as my greatest Silly Season Challenge success.

Admittedly, there was a period of awkwardness after I said ‘No thank you’, to Mr M’s 91 year old mother. In this instance she eagerly passed me the Walker’s shortbread box as tea was being served. When I declined, she perplexedly asked, ‘Aren’t you eating, Minka?!’ at that point I simply re-confirmed, ‘That’s right’ and left it at that. It was great that I didn’t use ‘No thanks, I’m gluten intolerant’ and be offered something else I didn’t fancy as a substitute! The feeling of freedom I felt as I walked away from that social gathering was well worth the few awkward moments!

I’ve decided to end my SSC today on 31st Dec and evaluate.

My goals for December were:
– 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.

So how did I do?:
– I’ve lost 1.5kg since 1st December.
– I averaged 317 minutes of exercise per week, but it was very erratic. Some weeks I did nearly double that and others barely any. I need to work on my consistency.
– I did do 5:2 every week, and I’m pleased that I didn’t resort to adding lots more FDs – which was my solution last christmas. I managed some controlled NFDs, but not as many as I could have – I was too easily distracted especially when being given treats I hadn’t expected.

All in all I think it’s a reasonable result and I feel good starting the new year without the burden of weight gain from an overindulgent December.
Thank you all for your support and stories – it’s always easier doing these things together.

Just read your last paragraph Thin.

Of course you add in the FD after New Year – it’s all part of the SS plan I thought. Yes we have some extras/differences, but the end result should, IMHO, include the balancing out of a FD.

Well, the scales delivered a bad message this morning: 108.4 pounds. Ugh. This is almost a pound more than where I want to be, and I wasn’t that naughty yesterday. I chalk it up to the dreaded ‘slow transit’ which usually sorts itself out. eventually. Fasting today [Smoked Salmon with Scallion Egg Bake for breakfast] Remaining son departs today and he requested oysters and a green salad for his last meal at home. Sounds like Fasting to me! If I eat nothing until then, and go easy on the treats at the Pot Luck, this might turn out to be a 700 calorie day after all! My SSC will end on Jan 3.
For the Pot Luck dinner, which commences at 9:30 pm, we will take a lower-calorie Spinach Mac & Cheese which I made yesterday. The ‘white sauce’ is replaced with a lower calorie Béchamel Sauce and some of the cheese is low-fat ricotta. I think the calorie count for a 1/2-cup serving puts it in the OK range. As for the dessert at our house, we always serve Bread Pudding with Fruit Sauce [there would be a riot if we didn’t serve it!] along with a plate of cheeses and a bowl of fruit. The plate of brownies my ODH wants may not appear this year… Fingers crossed, I can behave myself and still enjoy the company and activities.

Minka, glad your return to work was a happy one. Shall we assume you have Tuesday off? Well done on the lost kg. Keep tracking. Good example to all of us on ‘just say No.’ Thanks.

Merry, hope your ‘roller coaster 3 weeks’ were a fun ride rather than a gut-wrenching plunge off the heights.

thin, a picnic on the river! How lovely that sounds. As for the 13 types of cookies, I make one batch/day starting on Dec 1. One batch = 24 cookies and remaining dough goes into the freezer for next year. That way I don’t have to cook from scratch every year. 8 of each 2 doz are given to relatives, since they don’t bake much. Our Son’s Japanese Soup contained Chicken Stock, miren, soy sauce, onion, some noodles, and an egg which was semi-soft and prepared in the same way that they are cooked in hot springs in Japan: poached in the shell in an inch of water, then put into cold water still in the shell. For breakfast, he prepared the soup, then cracked the poached egg into it.

Cinque, well-organized and well-stocked freezer. You can freeze cream?? Yes, it will freeze, but in my experience it does not thaw out well. What’s your secret?

LJ, you should be mightily chuffed. Well done on all fronts. All I wanted to do was to have the same weight at the end. Getting my 5 miles/day should be second nature to me now, but it doesn’t happen every day. Alas.

FF, penguin, Cali, and all the rest: Happy New Year. Happy Hogmanay.