Angiebabe
I saw our knee op filter doc a couple of years ago, he said yes need both knees done, there is no weight limit in the South West, but history shows that a BMI of less than 40 really aids recovery especially when I would have to support all my weight on a dodgy knee, so we /he agreed I should go and see my GP re surgery once I had lost the weight, this is the first serious attempt to shift my weight, just being a cynic, I wonder where the NHS goal posts will have moved to when I get under 40BMI?

I have just reached a mini goal (in terms of time) but a major goal in terms of my health. Before starting BSD my HBA1c was 8.2, then 6 weeks into this diet I was retested and was down to 6.7, today I had a further 3 month check and now down to 5.9. My next HBA1c goal is 5.5 and that is going to take in Christmas so I will need to luck but do not lack the motivation. I am even taking my spiralizer and nutribullet back to my daughters with me.

I’ve done it! The journey to a healthy weight for my height according to the BMI is over, destination reached. Only 24.95 admittedly, so some more wriggle room definitely needed but there will be a celebratory glass of wine tonight. Two more days of 800 calories before I start the transition to BSD 5:2 etc. 😀😀😀😀😀😀😊

Today’s weight was 11 stone 0.6 pounds as well, so tantalisingly close to both next stone down and the 10 stone 11 target of being the same weight I was when I got married.

Many congratulations that is a fantastic achievement ,!

That is brilliant Mixnmatch. You deserve a glass of wine , hope you enjoy it.

Excellent news Mixnmatch and Sunshine-girl – congratulations to both of you.

Sunny – may I ask what you use your Nutribullet for? They are selling off in Morrisons atm and I was tempted but the question “what would I actually use it for?” stopped me buying one. I know it’s unusual for a bloke to question the value of gadgets, but part of me thinks they’re a great idea, I just can’t articulate why…..

Jules, I use mine for making smoothies. They are particularly good as I use a lot of nuts and seeds and hard veg like carrot which a processor will not touch. You can use them for most things you would use a processor for i.e. soup, smoothies, pureeing fruit, making tomato sauce. I use mine about twice a week but I must say hubby was keen at first and now if it was up to him it would be in a cupboard with loads of other gadgets. I paid about £65 here in France and I only have one large cup with it. If you can get it cheap so much the better.

Thanks – I think I will get one. I’m the sort of person who uses gadgets to death and I have some half-formed thoughts of what maintenance will look like ( along way in the future) and smoothies/veg juices will definitely have a role.

Thanks again.

I have a Nutri-ninja, which I mainly use at the moment for my badminton protein shakes, but have all sorts of plans for smoothies and raw soups for next summer. I have just got a soup maker as well, so I can make some slightly more controlled recipes, mine tend to be a bit freestyle.

My weight now starts with a 10 for the first time since my honeymoon 😀😀😀😀😀 10 stone 13.2 pounds and 33.4% body fat this morning. I only now have 2.2 pounds to go before the next double whammy of goals, which is eight stone off and the weight I was when I got married. Today has ended up at just over my usual 800 day calories, at about 840, but the carbs were kept under 40 by being the last day of my mini challenge over on the ‘Strictly’ thread. Now my only job for the rest of December is to try to balance my transition back to 5:2 with the holiday season temptations, so I don’t put any back on. 😊😀

That is fantastic Mixnmatch. Many congratulations ! How long has it taken you and how does it feel to be that weight again ?

Well done Mixnmatch!!! Amazing! See you over on strictly tomorrow.

Well done Mixnmatch that’s an incredible achievement!

I started at the beginning of February 2015, although on 5:2 not BSD which wasn’t around then. I lost about three stone in 2015, then ‘fell off’ the path and put a stone back on over last Christmas holiday. I started again as soon as Christmas was over, although I decided to give the 17 day diet a try. That went well until the bit where it said I could eat bread and potatoes again and the weight loss stalled 😊 5:2 beckoned again, and I restarted it using 600 calories instead of 500 for fast days and 1840 calories for non fast days and tracking them all. Discovered BSD forum in April and switched to 800 fast days and 1600 non-fast days which was a similar average calories, but a lot easier, and started watching my carbs. It also educated me into my new ‘maintenance’ sized days. Got impatient and switched to 4:3 fasting, then 2:5 for September before starting a full 8 weeks as a final push. I am so grateful I found this way of eating. Without it I know I would have still been either permanently dieting, or yo-yoing up and down when I went back to eating all the simple carbs again.

What a journey it has been for you, but so worth it. Wishing you continued success after all your hard work.

I forgot to answer your other question, it feels AMAZING. My parents live up a small rise in the Lake District, and yesterday on my way back from the pub at the bottom of the hill I had a sudden urge to run up it. I arrived slightly out of breath, but I used to get that much out of breath walking up slowly. I have more energy in general, am sleeping better, and my confidence has increased. I am fitting into clothes that I either haven’t been able to fit in since I married, or new clothes which are in styles I never would have dreamed of risking. Just keep on keeping on, this journey has been pretty stop-start, but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I dread walking uphill so hope one day to be fit and energetic like you. Also, can’t wait to buy more fashionable clothes and enjoy wearing clothes again. It must be a fabulous feeling.

This is an interesting mini-goal reaching experience. I went for a Boditrax scan today, as our local gym has just got one. One of my long standing goals has been to get to a healthy level of fat and water content and as measured by my Salter scales I am still quite a way from both. Boditrax has me at 22% fat and 55.5% water! This explains why I can fit into clothes I never could before while still being technically ‘overweight’ (actually until yesterday morning when I dipped below again, but Boditrax weighs you clothed of course). So I am now officially deciding that my goal is no longer to lose any more weight than the three pounds I am now away from my goal, and I have until April to do something about that, so no rush. I will work to maintain at that weight or let it rise a little with my main goal being to maintain this level of fitness or increase it.

Oh and it also told me that my BMR was 270 calories more than I thought it was, so my current maintenance diet is actually still a weightloss one. And that my metabolic age is 35, considerably younger than my actual 50.

Oh, I forgot one. Visceral fat was on the lowest possible part of the scale and said 4cc, not sure what that means, although if it is cubic centimetres, that sounds quite good. So I guess the fact that that is the first fat to go on this diet must be true. Thanks again to Michael Moseley and Professor Roy Taylor for helping my life really begin at 50.

That is amazing Mixnmatch! Only 35! And such low visceral fat, that is excellent.

Just resurrecting this thread as many of the newbie posters won’t be aware of it and I found it so useful when I was losing my weight to break down the massive target into smaller achievements. I have just repassed the 7 1/2 stone, 40% body weight lost mini-goal 😀 after my expected rebound in December, and some indulgences over Christmas and new year. Next mini-goal is BMI 25 again, then under 11 stone, matching my previous low of 10 stone 13. After that it’s onwards and downwards to a new low, and 8 stone off at 10 stone 11.

Mixnmatch agree Mimi gaols mixed in with the big targets give a sense of YES when achieved.
My first this year was to restart the 8 week plan, Done
Get back down to weight I was before Christmas, hopefully by the end of next week.
Then to break the 23stone mark and stay in 22stone and continue down

At this morning’s weigh in I hit BMI 25 again. I do like the post period ‘whoosh’ effect, it makes such a big difference when the weight goes so easily you know it was just water. Now just under 3 pounds left to hit my lowest weight since my honeymoon 24 years ago again. Hopefully I can lose that before the end of the 27th challenge, but if not I will keep on keeping on.

MNM
Yep the post Xmass downward rush is mainly water, weeing for Britain again, made worst by drinking like a fish (do fishes actually drink?), not making the mistake of not drinking enough, only downside until it settles is the waking up every 1 to 1.5 hours to wee?
I had not thought of the wait when I was married 37yrs ago on5 Jan, that target will come after I achieve my knee Op weight target.

Wahey, made it back under 11 stone for only the second day since my honeymoon today at 10 stone 13.2, and just 2.2 pounds off my long term target of 10 stone 11, which is also the nice round (or hourglass) figure of eight stone lost in total. Currently solidly in BMI healthy weight if only just as well. Still going slowly on a kind of 6:1 at the moment, with the six days at 1600 calories ish and one fast day at 800. Keto calculator still tells me my average of 1450 is a large deficit still so I am very gradually ramping it up to work out what my TDEE is, while still avoiding the white stuff. I want to overshoot my target for a little bit of wriggle room, the last thing I want to do is get to April and have to do another major fast to get into my wedding dress. 😀😀😀😀😀

Just for accountability, my next mini-goal is the get to the 9st mark. To achieve this, I need to consolidate a loss of a further 3.8lb and I’d like to achieve that by mid Feb. It feels doable but as I’m a slow loser, this might be more difficult than it sounds. If I can achieve this the plan is to try to shift a few more pounds before April – fingers crossed.

My next mini-goal to work towards is the 50 kg loss. 1.2 pounds to go for that one as at this morning. That is an important one for me, because I have always said that when I get there I will fill a rucksack with that weight and when I am maintaining, if I put on more than half a stone, I will pick up the rucksack and carry it around to remind myself where I came from, and that I never want to go back there again. I carried 25 kg of bird seed to the car for mum over Christmas which was quite heavy so I think this should definitely help my future motivation. 😊

Mixnmatch I have to offer congratulations. Well done. I do not think that you can carry a 50kg rucksack, but I am sure that you will not need to.

Mini goal, get back under 11 stone (70kg)

Hi everyone. Only just got back on this site since Christmas and happy to see so many familiar names from Verano’s last forum.
Also happy that Christmas didn’t make a lasting impression on my weight – I’m lower now than I was on 24th December.
My next mini goal (I have LOADS of them!) is to get my BMI under 29. It’s currently 29.1, so not far to go.

Well done, MIXNMATCH – you’ve done fantastically well. An inspiration!

Hi everyone

Mixnmatch the mind ‘boggles’. Is it even possible to carry 50kg?????? You have done really, really well. A slightly easier way to help you remember where you’ve come from maybe to measure out a piece of ribbon the size of your waist at the start of BSD and slip it round your ‘new’ waist …. the ‘slack’ will be amazing!

It’s so long since I last thought of mini goals. I’m ‘treading’ water’ at the moment, staying with the same couple of pounds. Think maybe I should decide on a mini goal …. I just need to lose 2.5lbs to drop into the next ten … so that’s my goal.

I did it when I hit 30kg and it is heavy.

Ok so I’ve cracked that mini goal. BMI is now below 29. Next mini goal is to have lost 13% of my body weight – that’s another 1.6 lbs to go. I told you I had LOADS of mini goals!!

Less of a mini goal, and more a massive goal, this morning I hit 10 stone 11.4 pounds, which is (rounded) the weight I was when I got married in 1992. 😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀 This was my announced main goal when I discovered this site, and had already been losing weight (and stalling) on a variety of other diets since I took a serious look at what life was like as an 18 stone 11 size 22 woman very close to her 50s. So. Eight stone. I have lost eight stone. No, not lost, it has been moved on, banished. I feel decades younger, fitter even than I was when I married. I have had breaks from diets during the last two years, I relished Christmas this year, although not over indulging compared to the previous year, where the damage was much higher and I put a stone back on from September to December, and last July has three weeks off over my birthday and a holiday in France and it was a treat to get back to my higher calorie version of my new way of life. So now all I have to do is lose a little more to give me the famous wiggle room, and rock up in April with my wedding dress to wear it again. Thank you all for being there for me over the last nine months since I discovered the site and way of eating. It has totally changed my previously unpromising future into one I am looking forward to immensely.

Hi Mixnmatch

A HUGE, HUGE, HUGE pat on the back for you!!!

You have done so so well and it’s always good to hear of another goal reached. 8st is amazing …. just keep ‘happy dancing’!!!

Mix&match
Well done, I now have to focus after a wobbly start to 2017, some on here have removed Diabetes from their list of conditions, which has not been my driver, mine is to achieve a pass on knee surgery, now the pain in my knees has gone mad, I have found my re-focus. I have achieved my pre-Christmas weight again. My first target is to get under 23 stone and stay there, I have lost weight in the past but 23stone seems to be a stumbling block for me.
I was told that your knees see between 5 & 6 time the body weight above them so mine could be seeing in excess of 140 stone, every pound off is 5 to 6 pound off my knees?

Mixnmatch, I’m so thrilled for you and so much in admiration of the way you have worked toward your goal.
Enjoy wearing that wedding dress again🌟 🌟🌟

Hi Sumo

Many years ago I did my knee ligaments in playing rugby and was told by a physio that if you play a sport requiring jumping then you can have over eight times the weight on your knees, which is a staggering thought. Eighteen stone seems to be my equivalent, as I’ve been within a pound of it for the last couple of weeks.

Still, onward!

Mixnmatch, that is no mini goal – it is tremendous. You are an inspiration. I have been stalled for months although not increasing and will start again. Go girl!

Ruth

MIXNMATCH – wow! What you have achieved is tremendous!! “Well done” seems inadequate!! I guess how you feel is an amazing reward! You’re an inspiration! I initially had 65 lbs to lose and that felt huge. 26 lbs down, I still have 39 left to lose but, reading your story, I’m totally convinced it is possible. Thank you and well done.

I worked out yesterday it is also 50 kg gone, so project rucksack 50 kg is on. Does anyone have any suggestions of what I can use to fill it but keep the volume down? I am currently thinking sandbags.

I obviously didn’t do quite enough happy dancing yesterday and too much mental cartwheeling and floating in the clouds so had to top up my steps to 10,000 with 30 minutes on the cross trainer. 😊

Thanks for all the comments and take it from me, I am nothing special, I have fallen off the wagon and yo-yo’d even during this last two years, but got there in the end, and am now not only determined to keep this weight off now but confident that I can. That is the first time in my life I have ever been able to say that.

M&M

50Kg of lard to show you what you have really lost?

That really is amazing, Mixnmatch. An inspiration!

My next mini goal is to lose another 3 kg, which will me take me to half way.

Huge and warm congratulations Mixnmatch — oh my gosh, that is an amazing loss and you kept working at it all that time and keeping on and keeping on, perfectly or not, and here you are! I think you might be like me, wishing that we had this information years and years ago, but honestly just grateful that we’ve got it now. The thing is though, that you had the amazing good sense to take it on and keep going — well done well done!!

Another new low this morning, 😀 despite eating more and more as I try the reverse diet to speed up my metabolism. 10 stone 10.4. That is definitely more than 8 stone off now, and lighter than I was when I married in 1992. I have bought some weights to do some strength training, and will try them in the rucksack first, then make it up to 50 kg with tins of food I think.

OH said I was looking skinny this morning! Not in a complaining or even approving way, just a comment. I think i am actually slimmer than I was when we married as I am fitter than I was then.

Had toast and marmalade this morning for the first time in years (wholemeal bread, and not too much marmalade). I am not going too far from the principles! 😊

Hi Mixnmatch

Well done on you achievements, you should proud 🌟🌟🌟

It seems that things are constantly evolving for you and it occurs to me that you are achieving the true aim of any weight loss process ie it truly becomes your WOL as it fits you, rather than you fitting it.

(Please excuse me for avoiding the word diet. ..I just hate the way it has come to mean something short-term, with an end point where we stop, instead of meaning our WOL with a broad range of satisfying and healthy foods).

Well, I didn’t mean to rant on your parade here mnm …sorry, couldn’t resist the pun. …I really am happy for you😊

I avoid the word diet myself, it seems to have some very negative connotations these days, with all the various ‘fad’ diets around. This is not a diet, it is a way of eating that I can live with for the rest of my (hopefully reasonably long) life, in good health and with occasional treats, even really sugary ones but now knowing that I have all the tools to get back to this if I need to. Weighing regularly will always be part of my life going forward, as will testing myself against some of my smallest clothes, I never want to let it get out of hand again, and 5 years down the line I want to be where I am now.

Oh yes, I’m with you there mixnmatch

I have just pulled my wedding dress out of the loft, and hung it up to see if the creases drop out. Size 14 says the handwritten label inside so it could be just a tad large on me now 😂 I’m not putting the weight back on so it fits better though! 😊

Amazing achievement Mixnmatch. I’m sure you’ll be fine with maintenance. There are quite a few maintainers here who I’m sure will share the up and downs of maintaining. I always think the easier .. mmmm …. part is the losing it’s the maintaining that’s more difficult. Mind you if you have your wedding dress as a reminder of days gone by then that’s bound to be a help!

Good luck for your new journey.

Ouch. Put my new weights in the rucksack to see what it was like, just 26 kg so far, as I need to get some sand for my new sandbag for most of the rest and 26 kg is really heavy. I haven’t tried wearing it yet, would need help lifting it onto my back, but that is nowhere near the final total of course. How on earth did I even walk around with an extra 50 kg?