The FastDay Forum

Count me in, if you need help with anything

It can be a trial for other languages if necessary. I think it's better to have everything at the same place, with the same rules and the same seriousness. There are so many misinformation out there...

[carorees]

Excellent idea to have a French sister forum.

One job for a moderator would be to link across between the two forums so that people who can cope with reading in the other language can find existing information and to keep everyone together rather than the two forums going their separate ways.

I didn't suggest it to go a seperate way from this forum I really like and already helped me a lot. Plus I love the meting pot of people we find here, it's really fun and helps to keep an open mind. A French baby sister forum would be more like a tool, for people who don't speak or can read English AND for people who can read and speak English and can be on both forums and help smoothe the transition between the too.

I don't know if it still exist but, in France we used to have sister cities (one here is Arklow in Ireland or Schweinfurt in Germany). I see it a bit like that.

As an Australian living in France (and speaking French), I have a few things I'd like to contribute to this thread.

First, I happen to have written a blog post about speaking French like a Spanish cow and "comme une vache espagnole" probably comes from "comme un Basque espagnole" i.e. like a Spanish Basque speaker! http://www.aussieinfrance.com/2013/05/f ... espagnole/. I like the explanation of the four Thursdays.

Now that I am doing the 5:2 fast I am sharing it with my French friends, not all of whom speak English and it's a bit frustrating not having much material in French so I think that having a French thread is a great idea. I'd love to be able to volunteer as a moderator but simply do not have any time to spare.

However, I would be happy to contribute what I have already written in French concerning the 5:2 fast diet if that is of any help.

I am a translator by trade and have looked into the way in which Google Translate operates. It does well with short, well constructed sentences. This is because it is based on all the bilingual texts that have gone into its making. So people writing in another language should be encouraged not to use slang and make sure their sentences are short.

I took a look at the French forum by Doctor Cohen (http://www.regime-cinq-deux.com), who has been writing books about nutrition all his life. The website strikes me as being a largely commercial affair with a lot of very annoying advertisements. The actual material to help fasters is very meagre. His meal suggestions do not strictly follow the 500/600 calorie recommendations but are a way of not having to count calories (which explains his reference to group 1 and group 2 vegetables).

His lunch/dinner suggestions are 125 gr of poultry or fish, 120 gr of group 1 vegetables or 200 gr of group 2 vegetables, 30 gr of bread and a piece of fruit. That means that if I choose 125 gr of salmon (290 cals), 200 gr of green beans (70 cals), 30 gr of mixed grain bread (30) and a large banana (136 cals), I've already gone over my 500 calories for the day in one meal!

So I will definitely not be recommending his website and forum to any of my friends!