Hi,
I am 61 yrs old.
I started fasting (with my partner) three months ago. Almost immediately my ankles stopped swelling. They tended to swell (and my face as well) especially the day after eating garlic or onions. I find that I can now eat these in moderation. I had also given up liberal spicing with chili flakes because it seemed to be causing my gut to become inflamed. Since the fasting I can tolerate chili again. These benefit have remained. I also enjoy fasting. I am not sure, however of my weight-loss. It has fluctuated since the first week between 2.5kg and 0.5kg., despite on some occasions really hard physical work and exercising My partner is also having the same unreliable results, which probably points to our food choices. But we both enjoy the fasting and get a lot done on our fasting days, without the interruption of food and shopping etc. I have noticably more energy. It is an interesting lifestyle. This morning I got round to having a fasting blood test for a variety of things like blood glucose and cholesterol and I have forgotten what else. I stopped taking my anti-cholesterol pills at the beginning of my fasting diet and will be curious to see where I am at now after three months of fasting. If my cholesterol is up then I will take the anti-cholesterol pills because multi-infarct dementia is a risk in my family.

I hope to be able to report in next few months that my weight is slowly continuing to go down.

I find the contributions on this website from women of a certain age most helpful.

I remain confused like many people about what is a healthy diet. It seems pretty clear that fructose and its relatives are quite dangerous, but I am still not sure. Ditto for margarine. I use lite cream cheese spread as a substitute, however some of the additives look suspiciously like indigestible sugars. I have also recently read a book that maintains that high fat, protein and low carbohydrates is the ticket, using an argument I have read elsewhere that eskimoes survived well on this diet. But eskimos also got a lot of exercise hunting and probably didn’t eat every day. On the other hand, when I was growing up, everyone knew to avoid starches, (but they also avoided fats). I remember how it became fashionable to eat pasta, bread and cereals, and wondering at the time if this could be true or if it was only an attempt by big business to market low quality foods. People getting fat seemed to coincide with this ‘high fiber, high carbohydrate diet, with lots of fruit etc’. Oh, and another thing, being told that eggs were practically poison, then hearing more recently that they got that wrong. I have become very cynical; almost anything I read against food in a newspaper I suspect is being done to bring its share value down so the newspaper proprietor can invest in it at low price then drive it up a while later with a spate of contrary articles. I feel that the commercial gain is probably behind a lot of confusion and misinformation about food as well as pharmaceuticals etc.

I would love to get it right one day before I die. It is infuriating living in a society where eating has become so complicated. Hence part of my enjoyment of fasting.