The FastDay Forum

Thanks @Stowgateresident for your holiday good wishes, we are really looking forward to the break away. I love the caravanning lifestyle - so many less "worries" than when at home and with more comfort than camping!!

I do know what you mean by holiday eating. I have exactly the same problem, though less when I am doing my own catering compared with other holidays. When food is provided, I find it by hard not to overeat, not helped by there usually being very few veggies on offer compared with what I am used to. And generally lots of fatty carby delights!! As you know, I have always admired how you can get back to 5:2 after your holidays and lose any weight you gained.

How old are your grandchildren? It's great that they love fruit and veggies. My younger son has always been like that, but his older brother (the one still at home)... I give up. Takes after his father who does not eat fruit, apart from the banana a day the doctor told him to eat. They only eat a very few salad veggies, and only if I serve them - they never would put any into a sandwich. They have a very high carb and not good fats diet - but needless to say don't have any weight issues. Mind you, hubby is no longer the skinny thing he was when we got married....

Best of luck in sticking with your plan and shifting those few pounds!

Well, I'm back down again to the weight I was last Friday, so I need to do my best not to gain any weight over the weekend. I'm going to be somewhat careful about what I eat, get my 3 mile walk in both days and drink lots of water!!!

We haven't heard from a few challengers...
@Tracieknits, @BABrisbane, @nycnyc2013, @Fat_Teacher, @autumnkathleen how are you doing?

Down 0.4lbs this week. 1.8 lbs to my goal for the challenge. See you guys on November 1st! Good luck, everyone!

Great job @FancyFinch - I hope you make your goal, but even if you don't, you've done fantastic.

I did really well last week, getting more water in and get a 20 minute walk in every day at work. I definitely didn't do great this weekend, but didn't think I did that bad. However, according to the scale I did. It is up quite a bit, too much to mention. I am going to hope it is just do too high sodium/water retention and am going to weigh myself tomorrow and count that one. I do also have a cold, and my body maybe holding onto weight to fight that. I am thinking I might want to switch my weigh in day, but as I've said before it should all even out eventually! I did miss my walk on Saturday, so that didn't help. I do need a better game plan for weekends and have started contemplating that!

This week should be pretty good. I will keep working on getting in more water and walking. I do have plans to go to Trivia Night on Thursday night. I'm excited about going, but it will mess up my eating plan a bit. It is at a brewery, so I will probably have one beer and the only food option is pizza. Maybe there will be salad too! I will fast that day, just having a banana and peanut butter for snack in the afternoon.

Anyway, we'll see how it goes! I still have hope of making my challenge goal by next week! Good luck to everyone else!!!

[Tracieknits]

So sorry I've been missing in action -- I've been so busy!

For one, I started a new job, working for a music merchandising company run by my sister in law -- rockandrolltshirts.com
I've also been helping a friend with her political campaign for county supervisor.
And my son is into his college search now, so we've started researching and visiting universities.

My weight is stable, which is very frustrating because I have been being *SO GOOD* I even broke down and bought the keto urine test strips to see if I'm in ketosis and sure enough -- I'm not losing weight in ketosis. Which of course just made me go off the deep end and actually eat a few carbs last week. I do suspect it's somewhat hormonal, as I've been PMSing horribly. But, I'm not gaining, and that's a good thing. I usually gain a bit in the Autumn.

I'm hoping things will calm down after the election Nov 7 and I'll have time to come back online more.

good luck everyone

Good to see you back @Tracieknits, I assumed and hoped your absence was just due to you being busy. Good busy though! College/university searching in the U.S. (and the U.K.) seems to be quite a task. Though it looks quite fun (but I am solely basing this opinion on having watched Modern Family...!!). Different in Australia, where most people go to the closest uni they can get into that offers a course they want to do - generally not much research is needed, rarely would you visit a uni to check it out, and you submit your preferences to a national body and get allocated a place (or not) based on your results.

I hear your frustration over your weight plateau, but I know you know that these happen. I will resist making any suggestions as I also know you know what works for you, and your track record is great.

@Cblasz, you know about those scales...!! If you feel you did okay for the week overall, then that is the important thing. And it is hard when you have special events where food options are limited but you are looking forward to it and again, that is the main thing. Are you part of a team for the Trivia Night, or is it just whomever you are sitting with?

I had about a week where I was very happy with my eating behaviour, but not the last few evenings... And I decided not to fast today. Holiday starts tomorrow. Yay! Will see how I go re the evening eating while away...

Well, the scale is down from yesterday, but only slightly down from last week (which was up!) I can't seem to make any significant progress. But I will stick to my plan for the week and we'll see. Every once in a while I will lose 2 lbs. in a week out of the blue, I can hope that happens next week!! I only need to lose 1.3 to reach my goal!

[Tracieknits]

Well Cblasz, I wish you luck on the magic 2 pound drop coming out of the blue!

Sassy -- well we're sort of doing the same thing. Aidan's decided he wants to stick fairly close to home, and we have an excellent public university program in New York - SUNY (State University of New York). The only problem with it is that it's got maybe 30 schools ranging from community colleges that allow everyone in all the way to extremely competitive and prestigious. The one closest to us, SUNY Albany has a program Aidan would love to get into, but it's quite competitive and his grades last year were not enough. So we are exploring other schools that aren't too far away and are somewhat less competitive, and have programs he may be interested in. The one we visited last week was SUNY Polytechnic, which is about 1h45m drive from our house and which he liked very much. We'll visit SUNY Albany and SUNY Plattsburgh in November. In the meantime, this college visit seems to have renewed his enthusiasm and determination to pull up his GPA.

I probably need to put more exercise into the mix. And less drinking. But If you can stay sober whilst having a mangled apricot hellbeast steer your country into the toilet, you're a better woman than I

I guess I don't really mean "out of the blue", just that sometimes my body will catch up with the work I've done. I keep doing the right thing and losing just a little, but every once in a while I'll have a big loss. We'll see!!!!

Hi @Tracieknits, quite a description of DT...! He has done wonders for the amount of U.S, content in our media, not a day goes by when there is not some new "excitement".. Best wishes and good luck to Aidan in finding a course that he is happy with. If he does go to the Uni almost 2 hours away, would he travel from home or stay on campus?

@Cblasz, our bodies are such complex things. When (I feel) my weight has been stable for a while, I sometimes think that it does "cope" with varying food intakes without depositing any fat - but if I continue to overeat day in, day out, then at some point - bam! - a significant fat deposit happens. I guess it could happen in reverse too??

Who knows what will happen in the next 5 to 6 days, but let it be known that I at least reached my goal of 155.2 lbs this morning, and after two NFDs no less! Crossing my fingers that it stays down!

Well, I'm excited to say that I'm down 1.1 lbs. today. I'm going to wait until tomorrow though for my final weigh in for this challenge. I'm only .3 away from my goal! I'm thinking of making Tuesday my new official WI date anyway. It will still account for my weekend eating, but give me a day to get rid of any excess water weight!

Looking forward to seeing other people's final check ins!

That's fantastic, @cblasz! Way to go!

I'm down 1.4 lbs this week arriving at 155.6lbs -- oh, so close! Only off by 0.4 lbs, lolol! Today is a fast day, so I'm going to count tomorrow as my final weight, as well.

Hmm, well, the less said about this challenge for me, the better I think... I did have times when I managed quite well re fasting and not overeating in the evenings, but the challenge ended with the start of my holiday. Catching up with friends and traveling do not go well with watching my diet... However, now the new challenge is starting I will see if I can try a bit harder in the run up to Christmas... (Seeing the photo of me in my swimming gear yesterday should be a motivating factor... )

@Fancyfinch, whether or not the scales show a further decline tomorrow (and remember that .4lb is about 200ml, equivalent to a glass of water) you have done very well and should be pleased with yourself whatever the scales say.

And @cblasz, at least the scales are showing you what you are hoping to see.

Unfortunately, today's fasting day turned into a non-fasting day due to the appearance of my monthly cycle and it's accompanying weakness and fatigue (which makes it a bad time for me to be fasting). Why must it always be so punctual?

@sassy1, you are right. I am incredibly happy with my progress during this challenge and will accept the weight from this morning as my final weight for the challenge.

I will see you all on the Christmas message boards on the first of November, to give my body a couple of days to rejuvenate before focusing again on progress. See you then! Fantastic job, everyone!