The FastDay Forum

Just a few days before a new year commences.

It is a great time to reflect.. and I thought it would be lovely to gather your thoughts.

From a health point of view, from your weight loss and fasting experience through to life's loves and losses. I know through this forum that many have experienced both tragedy and relationship issues and hope that next year brings you comfort and a renewed happiness. Won't name names but you know who I mean.

For myself, for my Intermittent fasting experience, I did not lose the 2 kg I was aiming for but as I said elsewhere on the forum, I feel healthy and feel I look a healthy weight. That doesnt mean I wont still aim to lose more but hope not to gain, in the least.

The family here drink less, and eat less and across all four of us, I think we have "not gained" at least 20kg should we have not started 5:2 that fateful day, Apri 2013. My sister in particular is losing lots ( total of 7kg since she started in May of 2013) and I am proud of her as she had the most to lose.

From a non-health-eating point of view, 2014 was certainly an eventful year for people around the world and I was touched by so many awful things like the unnecessary death of Robin Willians, the death of all 298 people on board a Malaysia Airlines plane, the death of 3 people in the Rozelle fire above a convenience store, the capture of hostages by a madman in a Sydney cafe in the centre of the city resulting in the tragic loss of 2 lives, the awful death of so many young souls in Pakistan, the loss of 8 young souls in Cairns Australia, Ebola, public be-headings, alleged shootings of innocent people in America by police etc etc

I know every year has it's tragedies, but 2014 seems to have brought more than normal in the space of 12 months. Hopefully 2015 will be eventful for more positive reasons for all of us.

Share with us your thoughts on the year that was 2014.

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Postscript. and now the missing airline today! http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-28/a ... ct/5990458

The most striking thing to me about this last year is how swiftly it passed for me. I am going to be 67 at my next birthday, and though in the past it has seemed like every year passes more quickly than the previous one, it seems like suddenly someone has hit fast forward. I am starting to understand why my dad in his 90s was constantly bringing up complaints about things that had happened 30 years before and talking about them as if they had just happened.

Things that happened 20 years ago don't seem all that far off to me now, and I keep learning that things that I thought had happened last Christmas had actually happened two or three Christmases ago. All this makes me feel that there isn't all that much time ahead of me because this year I blinked a few times and a year had passed, so it will be no time until another decade or two is gone and I am a very old woman.

All of which is making me want to get the most of of my remaining time and spend it very wisely! On the one hand this is good, but it is also frustrating, as there are things I really want to do that I can't do for reasons that can't be changed, so there is a certain amount of accepting that well, you don't get to do everything you wanted in life, and I have had quite a lot of very good things, so perhaps it is time to let go of some of those desires and just appreciate what is already here to be appreciated.

The diet has been a pleasant surprise. I certainly didn't expect to be this much thinner at this time last year. Indeed, I didn't expect to ever diet again as it all seemed so impossible. I have also greatly enjoyed meeting the many women from around the world who post here, who share my language but have subtly different customs and attitudes. The next best thing to actual travel, to be sure!

The awfulness of the world. . . .so much of this isn't that the world is any worse than it used to be, but that the online environment makes it possible to hear about all the horrible things that happen everywhere all of the time. When I was younger, millions of people were starving or drowning in China, or dying of epidemics in Africa, but it wasn't mentioned in the hourly evening news report or in our local paper, or if it was, it got a line or two of print. And we never heard about the dreadful things people do to women in distant countries with barbaric traditions. But now every crime is magnified in the online echo chamber and the imitators immediately come out and perpetuate their horriblenesses, and I start wondering how, 30 years ago I could have thought that connecting people up online would bring in a new age of shared wisdom and worldwide connection. (I sent my first email in 1980 and my first international one a few weeks later and both were near religious experiences for me.)

That said, what has changed since my youth is that we are horrified by violence against women and children in those distant countries with barbaric traditions and don't tolerate it in our local towns and villages the way we used to. Cops no longer turn a blind eye to wife beating in my small town and there is a lot less pregnancy among the under 16s in the nearby poverty-stricken mill village. Even with the recent upsurge in politically sanctioned racism here in the US the reality is so much better for so many in daily life than it was 30 or 40 years ago. But the very fact that it has improved so much makes it a news item now when a Black person is the victim of the kind of brutality that was pretty much how things were expected to be back then.

I see the upsurge in religious barbarity of all sects as a reaction to the fact that all over the world more and more people no longer tolerate the abuse of women that has been for so long part and parcel of all the big organized religions, and that is, ironically what is making a certain kind of person gravitate to the extreme, backward-looking religions with their fantasy of a much better world where women knew their place, which was pregnant, silent, and enslaved to men. The terror of science, the anger that the local priesthood/mullah/etc can no longer abuse who they will and act with impunity, all show in a certain way how far we have come.

But people don't give up power easily, and so we are in for a period where there will be some ugly battles between the way of the future and those who cling to the fading prerogatives of their past.

2014 has been tough. My mother is driving me insane and, dare I say, I stay around by duty more than anything else but, on the other hand, I am in a relationship that grows stronger by the minute with a man I see myself getting old with for the first time ever and I couldn't imagine that possible. At 40 I am finally at peace with what I want as a woman and really accept that, even without children of my own, I am a real woman not half of one, as some people say....

On maintenance for more than a year now, it's been quite easy to keep my 2 fasts a week, I really don't see that as a diet or a chore, I see it as something that's truly part of me, like somebody who would decide, choose, to be vegetarian by conviction or even taste. I don't spend less in food, however. The reason is simple, I buy less but I buy better quality products. The meat and vegs are organics for example.

There's just one thing, I don't realise I am 40, I don't feel 40, at all. I feel 20 something. Maybe that's the reason why people don't guess my age properly. They usually think I am 28-29, which I find nice, let's be honest here

I won't say anything about the world, I stopped reading the news (and don't have a T.V.) because of it years ago. Every year seems to be worse than the year before and, yes, I admit and assume it, I am an awful case of head in the sand.

@peebles Thank you so much for your post--you've said so beautifully everything that I (age almost 74) am feeling myself. I could add that my health is very good, I'm living downtown in a vibrant small city where I am never bored (a curse of old age). Moving here from a somewhat isolated rural situation that we weren't born into (was fun to come home to while we were working; not so much fun after retirement, not to mention the burdens of home ownership getting to be too much. Luckily, we're not hung up on the "ownership" thing and find renting a spacious apt. in a new building to be just right for us)

OH and I are saying "so far, so good" --May 2015 be a good year for us all.

2014 has certainly been a memorable one for me - but not always for good reasons. OH became ill out of the blue, I lost my FIL and I started a new job on a different continent and away from loved ones. I have experienced profound loneliness and sadness but I have come to appreciate how resilient I am and on many levels it has been personally enriching. I agree it has flown by, but this is one of those years when I am truly glad that it has passed with speed.

My Californian experience has been rewarding in more ways than I dared to imagine it would be. It has given me a confidence I never had before. I have taken advantage of everything California has to offer, and have certainly turned native on the healthy eating front. I was always a picky eater, but now I have become extremely fussy about what I eat because the food standards are so very different to the EU. I have substantially reduced grains, sugar, alcohol and dairy from my diet and next year plan to try and eliminate sugar and alcohol as much as I possibly can. Most of what I eat is organic.

Unfortunately California has increased my dress size by 2 as I have struggled with portion control and lack of exercise. However I count my blessings that I still have a 27 inch waist at my age and thankful that large bums are 'in' this year! Fasting has probably saved me from being even bigger. Next year I must get back into the healthy BMI range.

Spending more time on my own means that I have been able to re-start my nutritional therapy studies which I am able to do on-line. This has become something of an indulgence to me and saves me from working all of the time.

Reading the news makes me anxious especially as a traveler; I get stressed every time I think about some awful tragedy or threat, but we have to live our lives as best we can and I still want to broaden my horizons as best I possibly can.

Now is a good time to count my blessings for this forum. You have been my virtual family this year whilst I have been adapting to a different life and 'commuting' every 8 weeks or so back to the UK. I also had the very good fortune to meet some of you this year and therefore feel a little closer to the people I have met; @silverdarling @callyanna @pennyforthem @ballerina. I have also chatted to @debs, @wendy darling @wendyjane and @carorees on video and had frequent exchanges with @carieoates and @candicemarie. Technology is indeed a wonderful thing and I could not do what I do without it.

Thank you all for your friendship, support and humor this year and for making this such a fabulous community. I wish you all a very happy, peaceful and prosperous 2015

A nice compilation of the year that just was... by Guardian.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign ... MP=soc_567

Any more thoughts on the year that was?