The FastDay Forum

On catch up ... hugs to all who are wobbling. As @CandiceMarie says we triumph too. @Sallyo it's UK football FA cup day and I'm watching the final on TV for the first time in years to be with my Dad who passed 2 months ago, (avid football fan from the days of Accrington Stanley in 1920/30's) it's really, really comforting! I just happened to turn on the TV it was not planned - amazing how one can turn wobbling grief/stress on it's head. I should be out enjoying our lovely weather and gardening, but not today, as I have found a better place to be. x

[Debs]

Hi ladies all,
Hazelnut, sorry to hear you are struggling, yes, comfort food runs deep doesn't it? Growing up, it was all about food as reward and it is tough to break that cycle.
I should be watching the FA cup but I can't find a tv channel showing it so I'm really annoyed. I shLl make sure we get a package that shows sport, I'm always telling OH how lucky he is that I like watching football!

SallyO, we shall be doing social and environmental penance for the rest of our lives when we come home to make up for being here. There is no health, safety or environmental care taken. When I was in the gym on the 26th floor earlier I could see men much higher up on a tall building walking around with no protection, horrendous. The city is rising out of the desert with no thought to water and power, it will be interesting to see what happens when it runs out.
On a brighter note, the food is great, I've been eating healthily, flatbread which doesn't make me feel as bloated or give me heartburn which is interesting, mangoes, yoghurt, foules medame, labneh, tomato, etc. Local food is cheap although generally prices compare to Aus. The Brits find it expensive which says something about Aus costs.
Work is going well, everyone is very friendly and helpful and very multicultural which is interesting!
I've still be doing16:8, although I will be fasting during Ramadan. One doesn't have to fast at home but it isn't done to eat and drink in public during that time. I think not drinking in this heat is ridiculous but htere you go. If you want to drink you have to do it where no one can see, water I mean.
The down side is that everyone stuffs themself after sunset, which isn't exactly the point of it! It is hotter than the Pilbara which is scary!!! Thank goodness there is a gym!! Looking forward to the UK for some grim weather

Sending hugs today @lizbean ..so pleased youre feeling close to your Dad x i didnt realise he had passed recently - so sorry if i missed it on here xx
@debs thanks for the interesting update..overall,it sounds livelier and better than where you were before x

AB@AzureBlue..my DD has bought gram flour in Holland and Barrett in the past xx

Thanks @CandiceMarie, I looked in our H&B but no luck. Flatbreads must be the 'flavour of the month' eh @Debs?
The search continues ...

Watching film 'Amazing Spider-Man', quite fun :0)

AB @azureblue i google d it and google tells me you can buy it in Tesco x
Glad youre enjoying the film..i' m waiting to see the last episode of Happy Valley at 10 pm
Think its been on before,but i missed it first time round xx

Thank you @CandiceMarie, Tescos has come up trumps with the gram flour, hurrah!
Also Waitrose had Lindt 99% chocolate on offer at £1.79 a bar (usually £2.39) so I stocked up with 3 bars, that will last me months :0)
Need a little sunshine now ... No?
Ironing it is then. It's all exercise after all :0)

Hope everyone has had a good weekend. I had a VERY active one with walking 18 holes of golf yesterday and then playing again today, but riding in a cart since storms were predicted and I didn't want to get caught out on the course in a storm. Much better to be in a cart and able to hurry back to the clubhouse.

No fast for me until Tuesday this week as I'm off work tomorrow to play in a golf tournament. They give us a wonderful roast turkey dinner after the tournament, so it wouldn't do to be fasting!

We are officially in strawberry shortcake season here, so there will be high calorie treats on my non-fast days. The berries are only in season for a few short weeks every year, so I have to allow myself to enjoy a bit.

Have a great start to your week!

Hi everybody! Lots of catching up to do as I was running around all weekend and didn't get around to checking in. @hazelnut20, I think you are expecting too much of yourself. You are not going to be able to turn into another person. If you have problems with food, well, it's like having problems with a parent or or sibling. You do the best you can, but there are those moments when a lifetime of history overcomes your good intentions. Since the central issue seems to be a need to make yourself feel good, the ultimate solution would lie in finding more effective ways to make yourself feel good and heal the wounds that makes you feel bad. This is not something you will be able to do by applying simplistic phrases found in self-help books no matter how logical they sound. The sources of the pain are deep, usually going back to early childhood when we crystalized the idea of who we were from what those around us told us. These core beliefs are so deep they tend to be hidden from our conscious minds. So we are operating on assumptions that are so obvious to us we never question them. Loving yourself is extremely hard when you have deeply hidden core beliefs that you don't deserve to be loved.

So basically, you have to stop being so tough on yourself. You are doing an extremely hard thing, trying to change life-long behaviors. Getting angry at yourself for not being perfect just makes matters worse. Give yourself some credit for how hard you are trying and what you have already accomplished. If a friend were in your situation, you would never say the things to her you say to yourself!

@ieramul The pleasure of food for me is a life long thing, as strong as my feelings for music or a favorite book or outing. I can still remember wonderful meals I ate as a teen, and various high points all the years since. The food in my childhood home was dreadfully bland, but my roommate when I got an apartment while at college was an accomplished cook and taught me all the techniques involved in cooking and baking. We would have dinners where groups of us got together and cooked five our six courses out of all the best cookbooks of the day.

When I had a family, our finances were very tight as I gave up a high paying job to stay home with my kids. So I would cook all the things I missed from eating out at restaurants. My kids grew up eating home cooked Chinese food, homemade lasagna with sauce from big vats that bubbled on the stove, homemade eclairs, etc. And as soon as my kids were old enough to help, they got cooking too. Now my son runs his own artisanal fast-casual restaurant where they even make their own mayonnaise from scratch every morning. Every morning I read the tweet where he lists the specials of the day and get a warm fuzzy feeling at how creative he is. My daughter isn't in the food business, but her partner is a top manager at a very expensive fine dining restaurant in a major city and she has eaten at all the finest restaurants in that city as part of his job. Eating good food has been a strong bond between me and my (thin and fit no matter what he eats) OH too. I did a lot of cooking for us when the kids were still growing up, and now that we can afford it, we eat out a lot, though we prefer unpretentious, delicious casual food finds rather than the stuff served on square plates garnished with adjectives. I cook and bake for my sweetie now that the kids are gone as a way to express my affection, and he does the same for me, and is constantly searching the internet for wonderful artisanal treats he surprises me with.

So when I notice that my sense of taste isn't as sharp as it used to be, well, it is like a musician realizing they are starting to lose their hearing. A very big deal.

@Sallyo, My mom was demented for many long, traumatic years, and it has taken me another five to begin to get over the awfulness of what she went through. People who haven't been through this don't have a clue. This is one reason why I don't worry about heart disease like so many people I know. My dad who had heart disease had one tough year during much of which he still made sense. Then he was gone. My mom had a decade of increasingly humiliating and painful mental and physical deterioration. You wouldn't have let a dog live in the condition she was in, but thanks to the political impact of religious fanatics here in the U.S. we had to. This experience has really colored how obsessed I am with health. My mother had never taken a disease related pill in her life until she was 89. Had she been less robust, she would have spent a much shorter time demented. So yes, you can be too healthy!

@Peebles thank you so much for your explanation likening it to music, which I can relate to. I am afraid, fine dining is lost on me but as I have never experienced that "joy" I don't really miss it. Don't get me wrong, I do like food but it is usually very plain, basic home cooked food. One of my favourite food is a jacket potato (or boiled) with a dollop of butter or a lentil stew, or a pasta with a fresh tomato sauce or a piece of freshly baked bread with butter and chives topping.
How wonderful for you to see your children making a career out of their love of food bacause of you. Lovely.

Hey @peebles - thanks for taking so much trouble to help me see things for what they are. I really appreciate your input and it has helped me get things in perspective. You are right, I am way harder on myself than I would ever dream of being to anyone else! I berate myself all the time - it is habitual and even though I know it is damaging....I am seemingly hard-wired to do so.

That said, I am trying to see myself as a "work in progress" right now. I seem to have more self-awareness than I have ever had, which is a good thing. Occasionally, I even challenge myself over food...yippee!

Thanks again xx

@hazlenut20 this book came to mind when I read @peebles comment about deep-seated self-criticism. When a family member of mine needed help to get out of depression, the doctor provided this book right away. Feeling Good by David Burns.

http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New- ... eling+good

We learned so much from it, especially how negative inner dialog produces the unhappy mood.

I recommend it to you and to anyone else who is feeling negative about her/him self.

@marybeth ive just ordered it for less than a fiver and free p n p from Ebay.
I have low self esteem which leads to a lot of negative self talk and sabotage! Maybe this book will help turn things round x

@marybeth ive just ordered it for less than a fiver and free p n p from Ebay.
I have low self esteem which leads to a lot of negative self talk and sabotage! Maybe this book will help turn things round x

Oh, Candy @CandiceMarie , I do hope this book is helpful for you--you do so much to cheer everybody else up!

@CandiceMarie @hazelnut20, OH just looked over my shoulder and said "Tell her especially chapter 3!" Or whatever chapter has the definitions of cognitive distortions. He recognizes himself in this chart!!