Hi all, weight still steady which is always a bonus after a weekend although no alcohol was partaken of 🙂

Spent the afternoon sewing about 20 ants (should have been spiders but bought ants) and 5 bats onto my bolero style cardi and a purple and black lace witches hat. No time for exercising, that’s my excuse – tomorrow is another day.

Really looking forward to our night out on Thursday. Have a good week.

Hi 54,

I started the BSD in mid June. Calorie and carb counting and (latterly) also protein. My start point was newly diagnosed diabetic and 15 1/2 stone. I have been extremely strict for most of the last 4 months, with a few ‘slips’. Weighing and recording everything I eat! In mid September my blood test result was back into pre-diabetic and this morning I weighed in at 11stone. I have another 7 pounds to go and then the really difficult bit starts! Keeping to an even weight…not on 800 kcal but on maintenance…and also keeping out of the diabetic range, with counted carbs…change of mindset needed again for that! I have reduced from (British ladies) size 22 to 16..I can do so much more now!

I am keeping on….

A new week, and I have slipped….when I was a teenager I suffered very badly with migraine, but this has not been a problem for many years! Yesterday I felt one start, with my sight slipping into ‘half vision” and immediately went home. As I was on autopilot, to settle the nausea, I had 2 pieces of toast and a cup of tea. (This was the only thing that used to enable the painkillers to stay down!) 12 hours in bed completed the recovery. I have to note that the toast still works after all these years….but 2 slices of carb laden bread blew the diet! So I must try to find something else as an anti-nausea, keep the pills down, settler incase migraine is going to feature in my life again! 🤞it is not!!!

On the plus…that was the only thing I ate yesterday and I finally shifted a pound…so not on the plateau.

Hello Bloke and Julia

What is a Water Fast !!
Im assuming lots and lots of water !

Dont think I could cut food out completely so well done you

Keep going Julia, it is about mind set and wanting o do it

Im now in week 11 of my reset so still plugging away with the 800 (ish) calories and 3 litres of non sugar zero cal drinks (No longer have to wee every 5 mins luckily)

Im now 17 stone 13 so heading in the right direction although slowed down lots

Im swimming 5 days a week for 45 mins and still hate the gym so I dont go !!

Im eating normal food just a lot less and I dont snack on anything healthy or rubbish at all between meals (If I have something bads its within a calorie counted meal in a calorie counted day !! (I do avoid white stuff as much as I can but quite like wholemeal anyway so all good

Anyone else out there ? Tell us how you doing

Keep on going

54

Thank you S-G & it was enjoyable seeing Aled Jones who with film clips showed & explained how he was discovered aged twelve with his extraordinary singing voice, his fast rise to stardom & then having to deal with his voice breaking & deepening aged sixteen. I had forgotten that he appeared on The Masked Singer as a large traffic cone & also on Strictly but now is most known as a presenter on Songs of Praise & Classic fm that I listen to every day 😀. He came across as modest, funny & likeable much as he seemed to be as a twelve year which was amazing that he kept his feet so firmly on the ground.
I am fasting today after my more relaxed weekend & have still not had a letter from my surgeon confirming my diagnosis & I am hobbling around with my left knee joining in now or it probably is that I am now much more aware of how bad my right knee is having been given my diagnosis 🤔
I suppose it’s even more important now to try to lose as much weight as I can to take pressure off my knees but it is difficult & I know I am being self protective & more sedentary.
However well done everyone keeping on track & this is the healthiest way to eat👍
Margaret xx

Oh Verano, I love the winter! It is so quiet and everything is resting until spring and we can rest too. The darkness is like a soft cloak and I love to light the fire and make food as the day draws down. You can sleep longer and wake later — so lovely!
I like to wear heavy wool socks and my wellies and a hat and go out in the rain and walk. All the trees are bare and the evening light coming through them is so beautiful. And after a late, late afternoon walk, you can go in the warm house and put on leggings and a sweater and just settle in for the night.

Ah, s-g, I should clarify that I had help for nearly half of the garlic. I have a young lady who has come out a few times this year to give me a hand with various things. I knew I was going to be in a rush with the heavy weather coming in, so I paid her to come out and help get the job done. Worth every penny. I finished up on my own on Tuesday, 2500 in the ground and finished laying down the straw on top yesterday. Now I just hope I can sell them all next year.
Luckily the rainy weather has meant time to get the house in shape. Things are looking a lot better. I am going to do a really good declutter over the winter so I don’t have so much stuff to manage. And sure enough, as soon as I got the kitchen tidied up, I felt like cooking again. I made a lentil mushroom soup in the instant pot yesterday that should stretch for several meals.
Hope everyone is doing well this week.

Good evening!

Mixnmatch ‘stable’ is good just stay positive.

S-g a ‘calm and happy’ life is all any of us can ask for. Enjoy!

Sunny keep enjoying your time away.

It would be very easy to say ‘nothing positive here’ with the start of the long dark nights but yes there is a positive……

🌝🌞🌝 Just 8 weeks before the shortest day then the days start to get longer!

🥂🎂🍾 Just over seven weeks to my next birthday. I’ve taken a leaf out of sunshine-girls book and have decided on a goal, 1.3lbs per week loss until my birthday. I’m sure that’s doable!

🌶️🥦🧄 Friends joining us for dinner tonight. My shout so pretty low carb!

Hope your weekend has been enjoyable.

Hi all, happy Sunday. Hope you enjoyed your theatre night Margaret. Great news on the 2lbs.

Weight down again so feeling very optimistic. Just been painting the desk and it is half done. Can’t finish until it dries as I have to shut the dropdown part to get to the rest of it. Looking good.

Nothing much for the week ahead, except shopping for halloween stuff and then going to the quiz night. The meal will be easy to cope with, just have to avoid the bread and keep the wine down. Don’t want to spoil what I have achieved but again, don’t want to be worrying on one of our few nights out. Then nothing until Christmas but might fit in a meal at our favourite restaurant at the end of November.

Have a good week.

Thank you everyone, starting the new week with renewed vigour as yesterday I had a small relapse and ate some biscuits. Just one of those things….maybe it will get my metabolism going again, who knows. I’m disappointed with myself but straight back to it . Thanks for your support
Sunshine girl that’s a great analogy and one I can keep thinking of. Hopefully there wind wi be blowing through my hair again soon!
Here’s to a new week and hopefully some lbs coming off! 🤞

Hello & I know that I have not posted much recently but keeping an eye on this thread. I weighed this morning and have lost 2lbs. and pleased I am losing some weight again. I try to be strict keeping around 800-900 low carb calories during the week & up to my BMR calories around 1300 now on Saturday & Sunday. If I couldn’t relax a little over the weekend & have a glass of wine & perhaps a small icecream I would go off piste entirely but know I am not diabetic so can be a little more relaxed. Otherwise I stick to a strict two meals a day only eating at lunchtime around 1-0pm & this last week had one 24 hour fast day. So a sort of reverse 2:5 which I can mostly stick to long term. I am still in limbo not having a surgery date for my knee replacement & increasingly in pain since my left knee is now joining in!.🙁
My husband & I are looking forward to going with neighbours to see Aled Jones at our local theatre tonight & will watch our recording of Strictly Come Dancing Halloween night when we get home 😀
I hope you gave all had a good week.
Margaret

Hi everyone. Big O, I am so glad I helped you get over a small hump in the road. Keep with us and you cant go wrong.

Weight has shifted down again and I can announce I am under that 72kg mark now at 71.8kg. Going to keep that going over the next few days before we go to our quiz night. Decided to dress up for Halloween, I have a long black dress which I am going to decorate with spiders and cobwebs (and whatever else I can find) from the local pound shop.

As the weather is pretty murky I might get round to painting our very old desk – one with a pull down flap for writing on. If I had my way it would be in the junk pile but hubby has had it for about 50 years. Anyway it is going to be a chalky blue and will blend in better with the decoration in our bureau (little office).

Have a good weekend and don’t forget to put the clocks back if you are in Europe.

Hi all, good to hear your positives V, mixnmatch and SunnyB. Mine are not exciting to life is calm and happy.

So number one, life is calm and happy.
Dentist said no treatment except a light clean and have to drop off my denture the day before the cleaning appt so she can clean that too – just the top one.
Booked our table at the quiz night on Halloween and decided to dress up. I have a long black dress which I am going to decorate with spiders and cobwebs from the local pound shop.

Have a great weekend and don’t forget to put the clocks back. Another positive, an extra hour in bed.

Hi Lucy, I think you have worked it out correctly. You lost a chunk of weight after your holiday gain and your body is taking its time to even itself out. It will happen. Weight loss is not linear, it goes up, down and levels out. Think of it as a car journey. Sometimes you are whizzing along country lane with your hair blowing (weight loss), then you go round a bend and there are a whole load of sheep in the road (a short stop), then you run out of fuel and cannot find a garage (a gain). After you get started again you sometimes just have to stop and admire the view – sit back and enjoy it (a plateau). I am not poetic or philosophical but I just liked this analogy.

It will start up again, mine dropped off today after dithering around the same half a pound for about 2 weeks.

Thank you for rolling us on to page 127 of Positive Thoughts, V … so heartening to see that people still have some good things to post. Glad your eye appointment went well and you had a lovely meal catching up with friends.
Mixnmatch, lovely to have you posting here and so glad your medical situation remains stable. Enjoy your mum’s visit and don’t stress too much about hitting the 800 while she’s there.

My positives are quite lightweight, but here goes …
🥐🍳 breakfast with old friends yesterday, only the 2nd time we’ve managed to spend any real time with them since we got here, so a few hours very well spent
🧥🙂 bought myself a lovely new black jacket, reminiscent of the Chanel style, to wear on cooler evenings here
💕👫 date night tonight, but instead of me cooking, we’re going to one of our favourite restaurants

Please take a minute to post a positive or two, just taking a moment to identify them is good, but by sharing them you spread the positivity.

Hi Lucy, don’t despair, I am sure you will shift more weight this week…just keep at it! I have also stayed at the same weight for the last week…but I am seeing the positive..I didn’t put any on!!! 🥴

🤞🙏 for next week! xx

Gday 54 & rest of the gang. Good to see few familiar posters. Yes im back need a big reset which im in the process of doing.
Ended up going full blown Carnivore from Sept 2023 and was very strict. Was hovering around the 97kg to 100kg mark for ages which l was happy with. But i started to go off the rails last couple of months and started introducing nuts, dairy and bad habit of having a couple of milk chai lattes each day. Weighed in at 112.2kg on 20/10/2024. Im on day 4 of a 5 day water fast. Feeling pretty good, hopefully systems gets flushed. I’ve put bit of salt on tongue in evenings to mask my cravings. Will do a weigh in tomorrow.

Keep it up all, and remember never bloody give up!

Positives from this week!

OH saw the consultant this week, Mr Tumour is still growing slowly but not causing any problems so far, and he has started some pill based chemo to try to slow it further. So far so good!! Five years from diagnosis next April, hope for many more years yet.

I have had a (stress related) week back drinking the wine, but not put any weight back on at least 😀back to hard core 800 next week from Monday.

Mum managed to get down to Cornwall today despite a vehicle fire on the M5 briefly interrupting her journey, lovely to see her.

Good evening!

I do have some positives …..

💉🩺💉 Eye appointment yesterday just involved drops and scans which took about 30 minutes unlike my last appointment that was nearly three hours!!!

🥦🫒🫑 Lovely lunch out at a very nice French restaurant with friends we met on a cruise 6 years ago. Haven’t seen them in a while so it was really good to catch up. The food was great too!

💅💅 Pedicure tomorrow. My nails are in a mess after 4 weeks so really looking forward to having nice toes again …. if she can rescue one big toe nail that’s in bits!

Hope you have some positives. They really aren’t that hard to find!

Hi Lucy,
Take a look at your carbohydrate intake — it is possible you are just a bit too high in carbs to get your insulin down to the point where you can shift the weight. Do a couple of days at very very low carb (20 gr) and see if that doesn’t make a difference. It worked for me personally when I got “stuck”.

Thank you Pootle. Yes rhe worst thing happened I was just the same today. Stuck on this weight for a long time now.
But I’m not going to let it get me down too much. In this long time this is the first time rhis has happened. Annoyingly my husband lost 4lbs this week (no on this diet)….damn lol!!
Just have to keep going, I personally think I lost my holiday weight very quickly bar 1lb….and I think maybe my body is adjusting. Praying that’s what it is and hoping for it to start to move again next week . I can’t give in….
Thanks to everyone, it’s nice to be able to pop on here and keep my head up. X

Hi Lucy,

I am also on a plateau (not as long as you, only for the last 6 days) so I am going to take Verano’s advice to weigh and count EVERYTHING again. (I have become a bit slack at counting calories and carbs!) Thinking positively, I am sure it is a blip and I will get to my goal!

Don’t let being at a plateau get to you! I have to make myself think “if I give up now, I will have wasted all this effort”. I am also desperate not to increase my numbers back to the diabetic range. I know when we both started the BSD at about the same time, we were at about the same point…newly diagnosed as diabetic (just into the range on an HbA1c test) and a similar amount of weight to lose. Like you, I am also back down into the pre-diabetic range, and have lost a significant amount of weight. Let’s both ‘keep on keeping on’! 🤞for your weigh in tomorrow!

Thanks Verano for taking the time. I’m definitely being as good as I was before. Maybe my body is just adjusting after hols. My issue is I am fine when I’m losing weight, that’s what keeps me going…but struggle when I’m not.
Hopefully it’s just a blip. It’s official weigh in day tomorrow but have been weighing every day hoping to see it go down…but it hasn’t moved once.
For a long time!!!!
X

Lucy it could just be a plateau. They do happen.

Maybe weigh everything you eat for the next couple of days and keep a note of your calories and carbs etc. It might just be that you aren’t being as ‘good’ as you think. It could be that you’re just being ‘good’ compared with what you ate on holiday! Just a thought.

Don’t despair weigh loss doesn’t happen in a straight line. You have done so well so far don’t blow it now. As s-g says just keep on keeping on ……..

Thanks everyone, I’m going to try the chia but at the weekend. When I don’t have to rush off anywhere…..just in case.
I’m feeling pretty down, I lost the holiday weight quickly apart from a pound but since then I haven’t lost anything. I’m getting annoyed eveytime I step on the scales it says the same thing. So nearly 2 weeks of being same weight. What is going on?? I’ve been so good. Is it because I list the holiday weight quickly and now my body is adjusting again….I’m starting to worry as I know what I’m like if I continue not to lose weight . All this hard work and nothing budging.
Is it common to plateau occasionally?
Sorry for whinging…..I just hate it when this happens! Xx

Good work Big O! And glad to see you are still here posting.
I don’t weigh either — it just messes with my brain. I go by energy levels and how my clothes fit.

Sunny I hadn’t realised it was so long! But, you are now on the last lap which is wonderful.

S-g completely agree ‘life is more than dieting’. Well done grandson! Hornets gone. Sounds like another positive!

🫒🥬🌶️ So good to get back to ‘healthy’ eating, delicious. Stir fry vegetables tonight with roast chicken from last night so an easy meal.

🍳🥯🥐 Wonderful not to ‘have to ‘ eat breakfast everyday. When you’re away and breakfast is included you eat ‘because it’s there’. No longer a temptation. I eat when I’m hungry in the morning.

💉🩺💉 Eye appointment tomorrow to monitor the effects of some medication. I’ve waited months and months for this appointment. Hoping my cataracts are ‘ready’ for surgery too. I’ve found my sight has deteriorated quite a lot in the last six months.

Hope there are some positives out there!

S-g I see exactly where you’re coming from. Pulses are so high in carbs. I tend to use them to bulk out meat. I make a bolognese with 500g minced grass fed steak and use lots of vegetables and add a pouch (200g) of lentils at the end. I usually get 8-10 portions out of that which means at best 50g of steak plus and 20g of lentils. Beluga lentils seem to be the least carby. Cooking that way means I’m cutting down on meat without adding too many carbs. I also add pre cooked lentils, pouch or tin, to meat balls, meatloaf and cottage pie. I occasionally add butter beans or chickpeas to a soup to thicken it if it’s too ‘watery’ but that’s not very often.
As you say if it ain’t broke don’t fix it!

Glad you hornets are sorted out. Fingers crossed they have been totally eliminated.

Julia I think we all know of people who are quite happy to carry on with their ‘heads in the sand’ because it’s so much easier than actually changing your lifestyle where possible.

That why I wonder about the new ‘fat jabs’. What will the long term results be? How many side effects will wreck some aspects of health? How healthy is it to continue eating what you have always eaten but less of it if it’s junk? Why invade your body with unknown/unnecessary ‘drugs’? Too many unanswered questions for me!

In fact I was reading an article about Botox and fillers a few days ago. Young women in the 30’s and 40’s are needing full face lifts because of over use of fillers since their teens! The fillers don’t automatically dissolve as was ‘promised’ and they are left with sagging skin and odd shaped lips, cheeks etc.

As you may have guessed I only used medication when absolutely necessary!

Hi – I haven’t been on here for ages but thought I’d post this for the optimistic October. Particularly as SG helped me out when I was feeling a bit low a while back.
I started the BSD after an HbA1c result of 46 back in April. I haven’t been weighing so I’ve no idea how much weight I’ve lost but I’m down 3 trouser sizes! I’ve had my ups and downs – particularly when my finger prick levels had gone through the roof after a holiday – but back in September my latest HbA1c came back at 34 which blew me away. I’m still going and loving the fact that I’m not weighing so I don’t get disheartened if I have a day or 2 off plan, I just get back on it knowing in the long term it won’t have wrecked anything.

Hi Verano,
Good to hear that you were already watching seeds oils! I post in case readers haven’t yet heard of what I have come across — I know that the “regulars” here are already aware of most of the research out there.
I know what you mean when you say we can only measure ourselves against our own age group — I am actually horrified by how many of my close friends and acquaintences (sp??) are falling by the wayside and giving up exercise.
And Sunshinegirl, your hornet story is scary!! It sounds like it was big! Those things are bad news so I am very glad you were able to get rid of the nest.

Hi all, weight is going back down. Verano, I am not so worried about getting enough protien as I have eggs most days and not cut out fish or dairy so yoghurts are allowed. It is more that I am eating TOO MANy beans, lentils, chickpeas, butternut squash etc for it to be compatible with a low carb diet. For example, Monday I had boiled eggs for breakfast, tuna salad at lunch and I followed a recipe for a traybake which was butternut squash and chickpea based in the evening, thats carbs on carbs. I am sure there are lots of other things I could make but I just dont have the knowledge and tried a book on the basics and, again, too many beans. Also I cannot do with messing with things like tofu or tempah and we cant get those easily or jackfruit or whatever else I would have to make. Beans or lentils once a week is about as much as I can tolerate before BG goes up. I think I will just go back to my normal diet because it works in terms of the number of carbs and also for weight loss and I can have a couple of veggie meals each week. Lesson learnt, if it works don’t change it.

Man in a white suit and mask came and killed the hornets. He took ages vacuuming the shed inside and out. Then he brought out what looked like about 3 paper carrier bags glued together and that was the nest. I was almost a cubed metre in size. We are not allowed in the shed for 3 days and have to report any further sightings.

Have a good rest of the week.

Sunshine-girl it must be so difficult trying to eat the right amount of protein when you are excluding meat. Your plan sounds like a good one. I had just one thought. If you are eating three meals a day maybe you could add more protein rich dairy and/or eggs to the first two meals of the day. Then you could cut down on your main meal. That might allow you to have the lentils etc without being too carby. If you are a ‘two meal a day’ gal maybe you should add a third?

Julia sounds good!

I love salmon and sardines, in fact any fish, eggs and cheese too. Walnuts are my go to snack and I eat red meat a few times a week.

For me I do my very best to avoid ‘additives that aren’t in my cupboard’! I think I do pretty well.

I guess you can only measure your own health against your contemporaries. I’m coming up to my 77th birthday and I feel that my mental age is much younger. I eat really well avoiding additives wherever possible, I take supplements, I feel generally bright and ‘alive’ despite my mobility issues.

I think the best thing we can do for our bodies is ‘feed’ them the best real food we can.

Ok, review of the Dr. Bikman seed oil podcast:
First, just in case you are not sure of what a seed oil is, it is a vegetable fat that comes from vegetable seeds — canola, rapeseed, corn, soy, safflower, sunflower, vegetable oil etc. It is a highly processed food and is usually heated, deodorised and refined in the factory and definitely is categorised as a UPF, or “ultra processed food”. If you look at a label of packaged food, it will almost certainly contain one of these fats.
There are of course, some seed oils that are expeller pressed but they are still refined and deodorised.
So, seed oils are bad for us because they become so quickly oxidised. I won’t bore you with his biochemical explanation of how that happens, but the take-away is that seed oils oxidise (they attach an oxygen molecule) and they become inflammatory bad actors in your arteries. This is how plaque forms in your arteries (and ultimately leads to heart attacks and stroke).
When the oxidised seed oil gets into the artery, it creates inflammation. The inflammation attracts the body’s own defence mechanism and your body sends cells to attack that inflammation. The cells that arrive “eat up” the oxidised fats and they get fluffy, or “foamy” because they are full of those seed fats.Then they are called “foam cells”.
Unfortunately these foam cells congregate and collect at the site of the inflammation in the artery. They call other cells and the foamy plaque that builds up is exactly what we do not want in our arteries.
This is the source of dangerous plaque in the artery.
So what CAN we eat? Saturated fats! They are actually GOOD for you. That is butter, olive oil, avocado oil and fats from animals, such as eggs, cheese, red meats and other meats. And especially good for you are omega-3 fats (think salmon, mackerel, sardines, flaxseed, Shia seeds, walnuts and dark leafy vegetables).
The podcast is easily found if you just Google Dr. Bikman and seed oils.

Hey, I saw that Dr. Benjamin Bikman has a new book out and it is a COOKBOOK! It is titled, “How NOT To Get Sick” (the title is a riff on his first book, “Why We Get Sick”).
I am going to order one today and get some new recipes! As we all know, recipes are useful to keep us on track.
And if you google his podcasts, he has a fairly new one about seed oils and carbs. I haven’t watched it yet but seed oils are on my personal “bad foods” list so I will watch it today.

As my weight is not behaving I cannot claim positives on that but life is more than dieting.

Youngest grandson has been accepted on the Duke of Edinburgh Gold course. As he hasn’t done Bronze or Silver it will be 18 months instead of a year.
Life is calm and peaceful except for a hornets nest in our shed, waiting for that to get sorted.
Dentist appt on Thursday which isn’t exactly a great positive except, from what I hear about the UK, we are very lucky here and can get appts within a week of ringing up.

I will try to come up with some better things for next time but being peaceful is better than chaos.

Hi all, butting in on a thread I don’t usually comment on but I do read. Arcticfox, you are an absolute hero. I have a small potager (2 veg beds of 6’x6′ and 2 small planters) and it knackers me out just putting in 20 tomatoes, 12 courgettes and a few seeds that never seem to come to anything.

Cathy, it was great to hear how easy the cataract operation was. I am in the early stages of glaucoma and will not know if they want to do anything like surgery until I have had my first 3 month check-up. But the opthamologist also said I had the start of cataracts so it may be something for my future. Thank you for the reassurance.

Hi all, stick with us Tulip, I too am off piste. Changing to veggie diet is not easy and I am sure I am making mistakes so my weight is up but I keep on keeping on… 🙂

I’m not sure if I would rather give up meat or carbs as very low carbs are the most important part of my diet and keeping BG down. Just about every recipe on veggie contains carbs I would rather avoid like rice or pasta, but also carbs I prefer not to introduce too much like lentils, chickpeas and beans. I know some people can get away with low carb and beans but it is my BG that I am more concerned with. My reasons for going veggie are nothing to do with the planet or saving baby lambs but the amount of inflammation it causes in the body. Yet I am advised to eat high protein and that is so hard even though there is protein in yogs and beans etc. I think I will stick to 2 or 3 days a week veggie, 2 fish and 2 meat (or chicken).

So no loss for my weigh in today but I do have all my life to keep trying.

Huge well done on the weight discard on holiday, V!!! Remember managing that in my early 20s, but definitely not at anytime since.
Thanks to an incompetent builder, the villa project has been running since December 2020. With a good portion of the work falling to my very capable OH and him project managing trades too over the last couple of years, we are finally approaching the finish line.

While I’m here, I should post more positives so here goes ….
🌞🥳🌞 Sun still shining and daytime temps holding up around the mid 20s.
👭🙂 looking forward to a ‘girls’ night out with my neighbour this evening.
🥳🎊🎂 eldest son’s birthday today …. 47 acts like 19!

What positives have the rest of you noticed recently? Do tell us about them.

Sunny so good to hear that your villa will be habitable in the very near future. Was that 2 years or more in the making?

So yes I have positives ……

☀️🛳️ Wonderful holiday with lots of sun.

🧺🧺 All my washing done. Ironing is for tomorrow!

🥦🫑 good to get back to green vegetables!

So my fourth positive, which is so unexpected, is that I LOST 1.6lbs on my three week holiday. Who would have thought!!!

Hope there are some more positives out there!

Like Sunshine-girl I don’t soak chia seeds and put them straight into my yoghurt or other foods. Unlike S-G they don’t send me running for the bathroom although the ground linseeds/flaxseeds I also put into my yoghurt do if I have too much in one go! I’m going through a hunger/wanting to eat phase at the moment and like you it started a short while after returning from holiday and getting back into the usual routine! Maybe it’s a “thing” (can’t say I’ve noticed it previously though) to add to the list of things to contend with that will go away soon.

thank you so much as always for the regular thread- I’m a bit off-piste with the healthy eating atm, hope to get my act together soon…love to all, Clare xxx

Lucy, you don’t have to soak chia seeds, just sprinkle them onto whatever food you want like yoghurt and they will swell in your gut. If you put them in something that needs warming up like porridge or soup they will start to swell before you eat them. If you whizz them in a smoothie you will get a really thick drink. I don’t know about other people but they send me running to the loo within an hour or so.

Thanks everyone. Annie…weirdly I have just bought some chia seeds but then I read you have to soak them or something so haven’t got round to sorting it out yet. Also I’m a bit worried about eating full fat yogurt and always buy 0 percent fat. Eat nuts and love a dairlylea triangle as snacks.
I don’t know why it is…but when I got back from hols I went straight back to it,no issues ,was nt too bad but recently the hunger is worse.
Hopefully it will settle. Had a sneaky weigh today and still stuck on same weight! Can’t get this ladt 1lb off from holiday or anything else in fact. Hopefully by Friday!

Hi everyone,
I’ve had a busy week again trying to get all the garlic planted before the heavy rains we’re having this weekend. I had to quit on Friday afternoon as the rain started and it didn’t take long before the soil was so greasy that I was losing my footing and in danger of going head over tea kettle. I have just over 2200 in now and another 200 or so to go. I’m hoping to get them in Monday or Tuesday when things have a chance to dry up a bit.
Anyway, the rain is giving me the chance to catch up on some housework and cook some meals. I did a big declutter on the living room yesterday and today have to clean the basement room where the wood burner is. I’m having the chimney sweep out on Friday and then so looking forward to being able to buy in some wood and start it up. It has been freezing (literally!), and as low as -5 C some mornings. At one point, the temperature in my house was 11 C, so I broke down and turned on the electric heat in the living room and bathroom. You can bet I’m not taking cold showers, as I need them to warm up!
DCT – thanks for asking about the interview. It went really well. Very nice people and they even said at the end that I would be a great addition to their team. They phoned me on Thursday and said the job is mine if I want it. I have the weekend to think about it. Unfortunately, driving all the way to the interview made me realize that I can’t do that commute every day. It is 1.5hrs each way, and while a nice enough drive in summer, it is scary in the winter. And I just can’t run the farm and look after my horses if I’m losing 3 hrs every day. I wouldn’t have time to keep going to pottery either. The class is almost over, but my sister and I have bought memberships to the studio so we can keep going, as it seems like an affordable hobby that way, and it seems to be helping my concentration and giving my brain a break from all the day to day worries.
I have really been trying, food wise. My kitchen has been a complete shambles this week, so cooking has gone by the wayside. I’ve been having soups and things that I can heat up in the microwave. I’m going to try to get it back to being functional today. I have definitely noticed the pattern that if I don’t keep on top of the dishes and keeping the counters clear, that my diet becomes less healthy. So I think working at that may help things. Luckily, with eliminating the tomatoes, my joint pain has kept improving. My feet were so sore all the time and I noticed yesterday that they are nearly pain free now. I’m taking to heart that lowering carbs further may help improve them even more.
Hope everything is going well for everybody.
Yowzer, sounds like you are on a roll now. DCT – I find it very hard to fast during the growing season when I’m so active, so it could very well be the extra exercise. Cathy – glad to hear your cataract surgery went well, and best of luck with your other procedures too. Will catch up on everyone’s updates later, but now I’m procrastinating on doing the housework and need to get on with it!

Good evening!
Well we are home from our travels and have arrived back, to what is now a cold, wet, blustery evening!

Pootle you are doing so really, really well. I too remember the days of ‘lettuce weighing’ but don’t worry they pass and you will still stay in control!

Margaret I know exactly where you are coming from …. you could sit down at a table/worktop to chop! It’s amazing how many ways you can find to avoid standing while you’re cooking, when you have too!

Julia I agree with you absolutely about seed oils but I do buy a rapeseed oil that is cold pressed which I think is ok, apart from the fact that when used to shallow fry it ‘spits’!

S-g glad hubby is ok. Just want to say as I read through this thread I was amazed at how well your BS came down just in one week. Makes me think that the peaks and troughs even out, into the ‘normal’ range, as long as they aren’t very high/low all the time. I also agree that cooking as much as possible from scratch avoids the UPFs and as you say the processed foods, liked canned tomatoes, are just fine.

So to my three weeks away two spent on a cruise. I’ve learned a few things. I don’t like chips. I never order chips but my OH does and I tried one or two …. I don’t like the taste. Tick!

I can have the odd pastry in the morning without having a raging need for carbs for the rest of the day. Tick!

Pasta, I had a few. Some nice, some just stodgy with one being ‘lovely’. I can live without pasta 99% of the time and will only eat a really really good one. Tick!

Bread. Yes I ate a bit, well a lot. BUT, it was mainly ‘artisan’ and really only the last four days in a hotel where choices were limited.

As for the rest I had a fresh orange juice which I don’t think I’ve had in the last 8 years and you know it was lovely! Doubt I’ll have another for maybe another 8 years but I did enjoy it.

Maybe that’s the secret…. have the ODD thing that you enjoy every couple of years or so. Don’t deprive yourself but only have a really carby food as a ‘real treat’ .

So tomorrow I’ll weigh and on Tuesday, my normal, weigh-in day I’ll start again for the last week of the month.

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Hi everyone, hubby is okay, his arm is a bit red a sore but he has been treated with cortisone cream and antihistimines. I will have to telephone the hornet people tomorrow morning as they were closed on Friday.

Sorry to hear about your knee surgery Margaret, I thought you were going private.

Not happy with my weight going up and down. Only a couple of points on the kg scale but annoying. I have had 3 days totally vegetarian and yesterday only had 700 cals as there are hardly any in cauliflower and aubergine balti with cauliflower rice. 2 boiled eggs at breakfast and a readymade soup for lunch. I know it will come off eventually and hoping for a loss by Tuesdays weigh in.

Nothing to report

electron beam sterilizer

Sorry to hear about your husband being stung by a hornet S-G that must have been a shock! And I hope he has recovered now? We had black hornets when I lived in the Middle East & I hated going out to hang up the washing never knowing if I was being dive bombed by a hornet or one of the black flying insects.
Well I still feel quite upset about my knee & waiting in limbo until I know how or when my surgery is to be done. I’ve had a sweet tooth attack & have gone off piste with an occasional shortcake biscuit or icecream & not surprisingly I have gained 1.5lbs. I tried most days to at least keep below my BMR calories & of course TRE & I also on BBCiplayer rewatched MMs original tv programme Eat Fast & Be Healthy I think it’s called. It was good to get back to basics & the premise of the original research.
Oh well onwards & hopefully downwards in weight next week.
Margaret xx