Well done Yowzer, I only started mid September so early stages at the moment. Still I am down just over 14 pounds which I am pleased with.
The plan hit a hitch on Sunday, when what was supposed to be a full on 1600 calories day ended up being a trip to a food festival in Truro, where I subsisted on tasting the food after the demonstrations, a few cuppas, one pint of beer and some definitely not low carb samples of honey and spiced rum, before going out to a gig in Falmouth later. Thanks to the weather public transport was having a ‘mare and the time in between the two outings ended up so short I had time to either change out of my wet clothes and have a shower and get changed, or eat, and I chose the former, so on adding it to the app it was actually an 800 day. I moved my 1600 day to yesterday where I experimented with a homemade chimichurri marinade and a barbecued piece of brisket, which was lovely, and had some wine.
Back on track today!
Dreamscometrue, I always found work days more difficult, but settled on, for breakfast, full fat Greek yoghurt and berries, in a pot, and for lunch either a miso soup or marmite. Usually I still preferred a main meal in the evening. If that wasn’t going to be possible, I sometimes took in a salad, or low carb proper soup for warming up. I was lucky to always have a shared fridge and microwave available.

Wow Yowser that is brilliant, you must be so thrilled! I am sure it’s been hard work as well.
I am plodding along and was delighted today with a 1.4kg drop since Tuesday. This brings me to well under 70kg and within spitting distance of my goal 🙂 I expect it will bounce up a bit again but that’s okay, the trajectory is still slipping downward.
Remembering my past failure to successfully maintain, I am not sure I’m ready to let go of my vigilance. So easy to relax the rein and so hard to shorten it again.
Cathy, good luck with your surgery and other procedures. I hope you find some good paths forward and are able to be without pain, it’s so debilitating.
Mixnmatch, hi! long time no see and you might not remember me but we have been on the boards at the same time before. 14lb in a week or two is very impressive.
Good luck with finding a way, DCT. I’ve been just there in the past. Sometimes it seems to me I have to wait it out until the head is in the right space.
Looking forward to seeing how everyone is getting on over the weeks before year’s end.

Hi Mariet, I do remember you, there are a lot of familiar names from my first go making me feel welcome 🙂 after my last post I had a bit of a wobble and had too many calories, although still mostly low carb on Wednesday, with a bit of tidying up/fridge grazing rather than meal planning being the cause, but I was stern with myself and logged it all and one 1000 calorie day won’t hurt me long term. Back on track again since but having my first plateau with my weight currently marginally up since Monday. (0.8 pounds) not much but you do get used to seeing the numbers going only one way after the first couple of weeks so still a bit of a shock.
Experimented with a Joe Wicks recipe for cheesy chicken with garlic and chives for tea last night using what I had to hand, so no chives! Also I used Creme fraiche instead of mascarpone and a chilli instead of the garlic so really it was nothing like his recipe but it was absolutely delicious. I still have some for an evening meal tonight, with some side vegetables as accompaniments I decided the recipe was perfect for two 280 calorie meals rather than one huge one as Joe intended. I went out to a talk/concert in the church last night and afterwards tea and cake was offered. The cakes looked and smelt awesome but I stayed strong! There’s time for treats after this challenge!

So true MIXNMATCH…”There’s time for treats after this challenge!” XX

I have to make a confession- I’ve been feeling sorry for myself this last week and have not eaten healthily. I am sitting here feeling bloated and annoyed with myself. Tomorrow is a fresh start and I am going to make better choices. I am feeling sad and annoyed that I’ve let myself down this week. I am writing this to make myself accountable and to move forward on a positive mind set tomorrow. Must try harder.

Hi Cathy
Don’t feel bad 😞 I am going to confess too !! I have had a terrible week I am now 2 pound heavier I feel awful 😢 I have a headache boated tummy and all my own fault my life is very stressful at moment I am not going into details but as usual I eat for England!! I read all the post. And every one seems to be doing ok I am so cross with myself I nearly jumped off bus 🚌 feeling sorry for myself as. Have let myself down too
Hopefully I can pick myself up again thanks Cathy for posting
Lv nokie 💞

Hi Nokie
Good to have some company in the naughty seats! Life isn’t always plain sailing and like you I eat more when I am stressed. We have both had a bad week but tomorrow is another day. Let’s try and have a good start tomorrow. We are human and life isn’t always easy. We know we have let ourselves down this week so let’s not make it worse by shooting ourselves with a second arrow. Let’s try our best tomorrow Nokie. Hope you’re ok.

CATHY and NOKIE…It happens to us all. ….time and again in my case.
You have both been through a lot and that means at times we just need a bit of extra comfort.
Im doing ok at the moment,but getting bored,and today I was too heavy on the cals,although carbs are ok. ( had far too much cream,the cal count is horrendous,and I feel a bit sick now!)
But…We are only human! Tomorrow is another day and fingers X’d it will be a better one! Sending hugs.XXX💜🩷

Cathy and Nokie I hear you! In fact this has been me for the past 6 months at least!
I read this today on Instagram, and going to
Give this a try:
“…before you buy (or eat) the thing ask yourself “why am I eating this?”is it hunger? For comfort? For healthy minerals and nutrients? For energy? Just the act of asking why forces me to stop and face the truth and I often make a different choice”.

This sounds so sensible! Going to try it this week.

I’m not going too badly, have done lots of walking over the past week, including 22,000 steps on Friday. Did have some wine and beer yesterday watching the footy grand final, so sticking to 800 cals today, eating brunch and dinner only.

Have a good week all!

Thankyou Cathy yowzer sue blue💞

You are all so kind!
I am going through a rough patch but I will get there !!
I have just weighed myself and cried!! But I have reread your words sue and I will give it a go this week I am going to try and plan my meals but do it one day at a time and work out in the eve what i am going to eat the next day I know it means more shopping but maybe that will help
Thanks again hope everyone else is ok I will try and stay on the bus 🚌 but at the moment the seat 💺 isn’t big enough!! So I am standing🤣
I will be in touch soon have a good week all
Lv nokie xx💞

Hi everyone

Cathy and Nokie thanks for your honest posts, and from the responses it seems that a few of us are feeling the same way. I include myself in that. Thanks to Yowzer and SueBlue for your encouragement and wise words.

I also didn’t have a good week last week. It was a very busy week for all kinds of reasons. Non-stop rushing around at work – including an event on Saturday – and also at home, with various tradespeople turning up to do work (all good – but just happened all at once. And much of it in this awful rain too). I’m also trying to do these online fitness challenges which I’m enjoying and am very motivated by, but am always counting steps and miles and trying to push myself on. So I’m afraid with all that I took my eye off the ball food-wise and too much sugar was definitely consumed. The result of all of which was by yesterday I felt completely exhausted and fed up. So your posts really resonated with me.

But something Mariet said last week was very helpful in all this : “Sometimes it seems to me I have to wait it out until the head is in the right space.” Last week mine wasn’t, but there’s nothing I can do to change that now, just move forward. This week is a new week, and it will be whatever we make it.

So if you’re a bit “stuck”, why not set one or two small, achievable goals, and just focus on that? Baby steps. Mine are simply to nip the sneaky sugar habit in the bud, and to lose 1lb. My initial aim on this journey had been to lose 1lb a week and gradually get to goal but basically I’ve lost nothing. At least I have, but then put it back on again. So this week I want to lose that pound yet again, but this time keep it off. Then get back on track for 1lb a week for the rest of the journey.

Hello to everyone else I’ve not mentioned so far – Mixnmatch, Arcticfox, Dawn, Heidi and anyone else reading this. Wishing you all a positive week, and do let us know how you’re getting on.

Hi Nokie and bus friends
Glad you’re still on the bus Nokia and I’m standing right by you. We are not getting off until Christmas. It doesn’t matter that we had a bad week or two. Today is a fresh day and even if we don’t do well today tomorrow is another day too. When you’re going through a difficult time I think it’s best not to be too hard on yourself. . I’ve made a pan of broccoli and stilton soup from one of the Fast cook books. My plan is to have that this evening and to not eat until tonight. I had a cup of coffee this morning with some almond milk. I’m not fasting as such just trying to reduce the carbs as I’ve been very carb heavy since my cruise. I need to detox. I’ve bought some huge blueberries from M&S and I’ll have some of those with some yoghurt tonight after my soup. I am focusing on healthy nutritious food and not carbs which have crept in in the form of sourdough bread and I even ate a mince pie yesterday which wasn’t as nice as I had anticipated it would be. Totally unnecessary indulgence which made me feel terrible. You would think after all this time I would have learnt! Thank you for the support on the thread. I am feeling positive this morning that I can make some progress this week. I’ve not weighed myself- I can’t face the insult but in a couple of weeks when I’ve been on the straight and narrow I will see if I am where I hope to be. If I can get back to 150 in the next couple of weeks then I can hopefully get into the 140s again and take things from there.
Thank you for the inspiring messages and wise words. Have a great week everyone. It seems that some of us are finding this more difficult than we anticipated. Dig deep and do your best. We still have 79 days until Christmas so plenty of time to get ourselves together and make a difference. I read a quote that said it’s not what you eat between Christmas and New Year it’s what you eat from New Year to Christmas. So true!

Hi everyone,
I’ve been rather absent as thing are soooo busy right now. I will have to catch up with everyone’s posts later. Luckily I get some time off work starting at the end of the week, so that should help. I signed up for a Sat afternoon wheel pottery class with my sister. It is 3 hours and really nice to do something other than work or the farm, but I don’t really have time for it at this time of year, so other things are being neglected and then I’m scrambling a bit. I wanted to go on a weekday evening as I can’t really afford to lose a Sat afternoon for 7 weeks, but my sister doesn’t do evening things, so it had to be Sat if I wanted to go with her.
I am having a wee break from counselling at the moment to see how well I do on my own. So a bit of time saved there which is good because I also have a job interview on Friday that I need to prepare for. Even if I don’t get the job, it may put me on the radar of this group who have a reputation as being good to work for/with.
I have been doing ok with my food. It turned out the tomatoes were a problem. Within 2 days of not eating any, I had significantly less joint pain. I’ve noticed that my reflux has been better over the last week too. So perhaps my system is calming down now as a result. I was doing fairly well with my carbs, etc. too, but then fell off the bus big time yesterday with some ice cream for dessert. I’m paying for it today as I have an upset stomach and refluxing again. So, no more ice cream for me, although I know I shouldn’t be eating it anyway.
The weather has cooled down a lot now. We’ve had several light frosts. I have an instant pot that I haven’t used yet, so I want to start using it for some nice stews and curries. A lady at pottery suggested that I use a meal kit delivery service to save time, but they are very expensive and then I still have to cook the meals. So instead, I will go on their site and look up the meals for the week, choose those which I like and plan meals that I can cook in the instant pot. Saves me a bit of brain power which is in short supply right now. First up is a kabocha squash and tofu (soy free tofu for me) coconut curry that I am going to try tonight.
Hope everyone is doing well. Will catch up later!

Hi everyone.
Sorry I haven’t posted as much as I intended, like a few of us I’ve been struggling a bit to get into this woe again.We are off to the Lake District today for five days to celebrate our Silver Wedding Anniversary (we had our honeymoon there) and I think in the back of my mind I’ve been thinking ‘no point starting healthy eating properly until we are back’ which is silly really as if I had just knuckled down I could have lost a fair bit before today and maybe just put a little back on whilst we were away and easily got it off afterwards.Instead I haven’t really eaten very healthily at all and subsequently feel bloated and achey😩The weather forecast isn’t great for the week but hopefully we should still get some nice walks in which may help me a bit.I daren’t weigh myself and think I will leave that until two weeks after we are back to give myself a chance to have a good chunk of sticking to a healthy food plan before facing the scales.I’ve been catching up on posts and hope everyone has a good week.
Dawn XX