The FastDay Forum

Hello Ballerina.
Yes, that is the book, and it is great. I have been chuckling away on the fast train, and now on the slow chug-chug for an hour.--- a bit like my weight loss this year!
I haven't been weighed for 2 weeks, as been away from home. Before I left, Atkins website reckoned I was 10 lbs underweight, but seeing as I want to get down to 130lbs by the new year, I have maybe set my sights too high, or low, if you see what I mean!
I couldn't envisage NO carbs, I mean even the mussels and wine for supper last night contain some! Oh yes, , and the chocolate with the coffee and double cream.
But, home made bread and shortbread, which I have made all my life, is now out of the question. I am so fortunate that my husband, who has lost 3 stones, and has no health probs, is as equally adamant about CHO intake. At 70, and a new-found BMI of 25, he has no intention of putting his health at risk. My BMI is 23.
He is relishing the cream, butter, red wine etc along with me. As a bread addict, he says he now has no place in his life for it, or beer, (grain based, of course).
If I reach the amazing 130lbs, the forum will be the 1st to know, but don't hold your breath.......say 2014, perhaps. But, my biochemistry, vitality and general health is fantastic, and that's what counts at age 65 . ( Like it was when I was 35).Many thanks for asking.

I love butter - I'll go without rather than have margarine. I hate when I go to visit people and there's no butter for the toast in the morning! It's either Waitrose or Lurpak salted that I buy - and the same brands, unsalted, for baking. I don't eat loads of it - just on toast and in scrambled eggs on weekend mornings - or if I'm making risotto or cooking fish to make a caper sauce.

With regards to statins, my mother took them until recently. She'd been told (post-menopausal) that her cholesterol was too high. After a few years, her cholesterol was lower but she was miserable. She was fatigued, her hair had thinned out, her joints ached and then we read an article which referred to most statin trials being on men and mentioning other women with similar side-effects. So she asked her doctor for a holiday from them and her doctor agreed 3 months - but if cholesterol went back up, she was to go back on them. That was around the time she started 5:2 (last Sept) and by December, her cholesterol was lower than it had been on the statins and all those nasty side-effects had gone. Admittedly, she'd also lost 14lbs and done more walking but still as impressive result to not have to go back on them again.

But no shortbread. Damn!

Then make it! It's the easiest biscuit in the world - if I really want a munchie, I find it almost quicker to make a little batch than I do to nip down to the shops! You just need the ratio of sugar:butter:flour (1:2:3) and mix it with a little salt. Roll it out and cut it into rounds and then bake it at 160C for 20 minutes. I switch out 1/3 of my flour for ground semolina to make it grainier and I leave my cut dough in the fridge for 30 minutes if I can wait long enough.

Thanks Applespider!
There may be a slight hiatus now while I go and make some ...

140lbs, just to clarify... you aren't eating all these things because you have some sort of health problem or because you are afraid that you will have a health problem if you eat them?

Applespider, love the 123 recipe! Thanks!

I am back on butter now after having previously been on a low fat diet before starting 5:2ing & learning a lot from everyone's experiences & the nerdy section on this forum. The long list of ingredients on the average tub of margarine is really off putting & eating over processed stuff is now a no no for me. I have organic butter & a little spreadable butter but have also rediscovered peanut butter that is rather toffee like & quite addictive on wholemeal bread

When I said earlier that my cholesterol level was a magnificent 7, that was when I was 3 stone heavier than I am now so, to be honest I don't actually know what it is these days as I have had no reason to have it measured in recent times but I still don't care. Butter all the way for me,

Ballerina x

Ah now, spreadable butter? This is stuff in a tub with stuff mixed with real butter? Is that ok?
I've always bought foil-wrapped blocks.
:0@

TML13.
I have a clapped out pancreas due to years of over medicalisation.
My husband has a perfectly functioning pancreas but has read the research about what unnecessary CHO can do, especially as the years creep on. In the 1960s, type 2 wasn't called senile onset diabetes for nothing! Trouble is, that the youngsters are developing it earlier and earlier, long before any senility sets in, all due to exhausting the pancreas prematurely.
The condition is insidious, and people do not realise they have metabolic syndrome, until the damage has occurred. I say......why antagonise the situation. but, each to his/her own interpretation of the facts. I wish someone had warned me of the consequences, but the NHS mantra was, and still is, to keep eating the CHO, albeit, suggesting there is such a thing as a healthy carbohydrate food. My research has convinced me that CHO is not needed for the body to function well, and like you can happily continue eating such things ( at least at the present time), a lot of people can not. I have no option, and my husband has no desire ( for CHO, that is).

Ballerina, can I delegate my postings to you from now on? I endorse all you write, so doubling up means I am getting repetitious, and I am beginning to sound like a boring old trout! Oh, no, forgot myself.....it's salmon for supper, not trout!
P.S. had a quick jump on the scales, and appear not to have put on an ounce whilst having a very indulgent, but low carb, time away whooping it up on jolly hols. No calorie counters in sight, I have to add.
Home for 5 weeks, so hope to continue the good work before a nice couple of weeks in Scotland in September--- glad to discover that single malt, taken in moderation, is very acceptable on a low carb WOE. Isn't life good? So much more fun than when bound to the restrictions of countless medications. Why have I taken so long to discover this healthy lifestyle?

Hi 140lbs,
No, you cannot as I enjoy reading your posts and hearing how you are getting on but talking of doubling up, guess who is also going to be in Scotland in September? Yep, moi!

Ballerina x

i never eat low fat anything or butter substitute or diet drinks. I love real butter (mine favourite is Grande Fermage aux cristaux de sel de mer de Noirmoutier - butter with salt crystals in it) and I've never given it up whilst dieting - it has never stopped me losing weight.

[wildmissus]

Butter - best thing since sliced bread........I mean with sliced bread and homemade bread of course.

I was brought up on margarine but ever since I read The Hormone Diet it's Kerrygold salted for me - it tastes delicious. Apparently marg is one calorie away from plastic and if you leave an open tub outside not an animal, insect or bird will touch it. The less we mess about and alter food the better it is for us.

I also love shortbread which is in plentiful supply up here with the Walker Shortbread factory close by.

Azure blue, as I don't know what is added to butter to make it softer I also avoid that. Just the old fashioned one for me and like Franglaise says, with sea salt crystals, oh, yum yum

Ballerina x

... And another one for Scotland in September Perthshire to be precise -
(But must swing by the Walkers shortbread factory to replenish supplies ... )
Also looking forward to some 'tablet' and Stornoway black pudding ...