The FastDay Forum

Aw Fatdog, it's not the same without your partner in crime Izzy, it's good, just not the same! What can we do to get her back? She doesn't have to fast, we like her just the way she is, funny and feisty

Ballerina

I second what Ballerina says FatDog, Izzy does not have to go, absolutely fine to take a break from fasting but not from Izzy postings no no no, we will have to bring izzy back I think.

... methinks we should have a new thread to petition said honourable Izzy to stay on as an Emeritus poster The board will be a lesser place without her wise words.

YES, YES, YES, I'm up for that one!!!! YEH, an, "IZZY COME HOME" campaign ,

Ballerina x

Dearest Izzy,

I'm sorry, your wisdom is legendary, but this has to be the most unmitigated drivel you've ever come up with:

No petitions, I am so not worth it, and it would be a bit sad, seeing three names on it

You are so worth it. Don't you ever think otherwise. Your input is welcomed and valued by all here. And, be not mistaken, you will be much missed by all.

Whilst respecting your wish to take a break from 5:2, I'd love it if you'd still drop by with your wise words every now and again.

xxx FatDog

Seconded

Ballerina x

[janeg]

Please keep posting Izzy.
Please

Saturday, day sixty-nine, feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 122.0lbs (analogue scales corrected ~120.65lbs); 0.6lbs loss
... t.measures - ub. 29.25, w. 26.60, t. 33.10, h. 36.25 inches

Boingy, boingy, boingy... The scales hesitated and had a little ponder round about the numbers 122.6, 122.4 and 122.2 but, in the end, consistently decided on 122.0lbs. I'm not arguing with them. The analogues are reading just under 8 1/2 stone again so I suspect that there is a real decline.

Oh, and it's the end of week 18 on 4:3. - that's another pound down and a good touch off my waist and stomach. Slowing, but remember the trend, trend, trend...

Well, I was plotting some fine dining but plans eh? We ended up with a nice salad and a co-op cannelloni (oops) instead. Sorry, what was that about ready-made meals, I didn't quite catch it? And a rather too-quaffable shiraz.

On my return from my supermarket foray I was hefting half a dozen litres of soya milk, vino, food and other things - and found it exceedingly heavy, near defeated getting up the stairs with my back screaming blue murder. I realised when I got in that the load was about 10 kilos - just under the amount of weight that I've lost. No wonder my poor body was cracking up back in April! There's motivation if ever any were needed.

........ Calories 1505.50 Carbs 68.67 Fat 84.72 Protein 40.55 Fibre 12.29

==================================

Sunday, day seventy, feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 122.6lbs (analogue scales corrected ~120.65lbs); 0.6lbs gain
... t.measures - ub. 29.25, w. 26.60, t. 33.10, h. 36.25 inches

Boingy, boingy, boingy... sigh. Excess carbs? Vino? Scales (the analogues are still showing just below 8 1/2 stone)? P&V phenomenon? I don't care (much, really). Going down...

I need to use the monster head of broccoli that I acquired the other day (supposedly 335g but weighing-in at near 500g!) and am thinking that a broccoli cheese special would be good for this dreich autumnal day. (We were going to hear Orb at the Mela but as it's blowing a half gale we've decided to give it a miss.)

Bloomin' heck: I'm following up on the association between sleep disturbance and obesity. One wonders, if all else fails, whether one should beg one's doctor for some decent sleeping pills and sleep the weight off!

And the days accounts, oops:

........ Calories 1945.90 Carbs 49.55 Fat 105.97 Protein 46.81 Fibre 11.20

Was it worth it? Yes, I think so, although it leaves the week starting with a wee excess of calories (~52). That was pretty good feasting.

Recipe is pretty much as before - but I'll include it here, just in case yous think I'm faking it

broccoli cheese special version no 2.
broccoli, floretted 38c/C1.8/F0.9/P4.4/Fi2.6/100g
......... 292g 110.96 5.26 2.63 12.85 7.59
tomato, vine, chopped 20c/C3.1/F0.3/P0.7/Fi1.2/100g
......... 122g 24.40 3.78 0.37 0.85 1.22
tomatoes, tinned, chopped 15c/C3.0/F0.1/P1.0/Fi0.7/100g
......... 400g 60.00 12.00 0.40 4.00 2.80
onion, fine sliced, 43cal/C9.3g/F0g/P0.71g/Fi2.1g/100g
......... 116g 49.88 10.79 0.00 0.82 2.44
tomato puree, 410c/C18.1/F0/P4.8/Fi2.5/100g
......... 30ml 123.00 5.43 0.00 1.44 0.75
garlic, chopped, 149cal/C33.06/F0.5/P6.36/Fi2.1/100g
......... 9g 13.41 2.98 0.05 0.57 0.19
fennel seed, fresh ground
......... 8ml 0.00
olive oil, 824cal/F91.6g/C,P&FI<0.1g/100mL
......... 30ml 247.20 0.00 27.48 0.00 0.00
lemon juice, 26c/C2.0/F0/P0.4/Fi0.3/100ml
......... 5ml 1.30 0.10 0.00 0.02 0.02
soya milk, coop org unsw, 30c/C0.1/F1.9/P3.4/Fi0.6/100ml
......... 300ml 90.00 0.30 5.70 10.20 1.80
cornflour, 343c/C83.6/F0.7/P0.6/Fi0.1/100g
......... 25g 85.75 20.90 0.18 0.15 0.03
extra mature cheddar, co-op, grated, 415c/C1.4/F34.5/P24.4/Fi0/100g
......... 205g 850.75 2.87 70.73 50.02 0.00
nutmeg, ground
......... 4ml 0.00
s&p 0.00
hazelnuts, medium fine chopped, roasted, 695c/C7.0/F60.8/P15.0/Fi9.7/100g
......... 50g 347.50 3.50 30.40 7.50 4.85
total broccoli cheese special version no 2. 2004.15 67.90 137.92 88.42 21.68
dog's 1/3rd portion broccoli cheese special version no 2. 668.05 22.63 45.97 29.47 7.23

The first version of this remains the best. Tinned tomatoes simply don't cut it, and the greater quantity of them somehow 'diluted' the deliciousness of the fresh tomato / fennel seed combination. OH and VBF both still rated the dish over 9/10 though, so it can't have been too bad.

Monday, day seventy-one, repair day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 122.8lbs (analogue scales corrected ~120.85lbs); 0.2lbs gain
... t.measures - ub. 29.25, w. 26.60, t. 33.10, h. 36.25 inches

Naughty - that's going in the wrong direction! But given an excess of near 250 calories yesterday maybe that's fair enough. And the analogues went up too, so I can't blame the scales. But more troublingly on my progress tracker graph, that's beginning to look a little more like a plateau and rather less like a downward trend to me. Hmm.

And, unfortunately, it rather spoils the "week's loss" report for the end of week 18: 0.2lb gain on the previous week, but waist and stomach both shrunk.

I wonder how border-line my 'acting' TDEE of 1700 calories is becoming? The numbers don't make a lot of sense: total calories the previous week about 8377 and a 1.8lb loss (implies actual TDEE is ~2096) whereas last week 8805 calories and a 0.2lb gain (implies actual TDEE is ~1158). Meh. Go figure. Hurry up and do that dratted database FatDog, then moving averages and trends will be a doddle [ed. just kludged something on my spreadsheet, but it's really creaking at the seams now].

Need to use my cream - so I'll maybe have yet another bash at a CBB inspired savoury muffin-cake. Think I want a really good veggie soup to go with it. It is irking me no end that I can't remember which book I was inspired to buy because it had a soup recipe in it that made me think 'ooooh, I really want to do that'. Found a couple of recipes for Har(r)ira which are quite tempting, and zuppa de verdura. But not "the one".

I ended up just winging-it as 50p chopped mixed peppers, flageolet and sugar snap peas didn't seem to feature in any of the recipes I could find Don't you just love supermarket bargains.

Woof! Wag! Woof! Not only was my Mediterranean inspired stew seriously delicious, the lemon muffin cake was too! What was that? Nice tomato and bean sauces are a bad idea on repair days because of the carbs? Never! Ooops...

........ Calories 594.16 Carbs 24.36 Fat 41.51 Protein 27.78 Fibre 8.34

Mediterranean inspired stew variation no. 1
sugar snap peas, 40c/C4.2/F0.2/P3.6/Fi2.7/100g
......... 150g 60.00 6.30 0.30 5.40 4.05
carrots, organic, fine sliced ¼ rounds, 40c/C7.9/F0.3/P0.6/Fi2.8/100g
......... 137g 54.80 10.82 0.41 0.82 3.84
mixed peppers, sliced, 28c/C4.4/F0.3/P1.0/Fi1.6/100g
......... 180g 50.40 7.92 0.54 1.80 2.88
onion, red, medium sliced, 43cal/C9.3g/F0g/P0.71g/Fi2.1g/100g
......... 180g 77.40 16.74 0.00 1.28 3.78
garlic, fine chop, 149c/C33.06/F0.5/P6.36/Fi2.1/100g
......... 10g 14.90 3.31 0.05 0.63 0.21
tomatoes, tinned, chopped 15c/C3.0/F0.1/P1.0/Fi0.7/100g
......... 400g 60.00 12.00 0.40 4.00 2.80
flageolet beans, 77c/C11.8/F0.2/P5.3/Fi3.7/100g
......... 265g (tin) 204.05 31.27 0.53 14.05 9.81
new potatoes, cooked, smashed, 75c/C17.1/F0.3/P1.7/Fi1.6/100g
......... 142g 106.50 24.28 0.43 2.41 2.27
bouillon, marigold, 243c/C29.4/F8.1/P10.5/Fi0.7/100g
......... 7g 17.01 2.06 0.57 0.74 0.05 with about ~200ml water
olive oil, 824cal/F91.6g/C,P&FI<0.1g/100mL
......... 15ml 123.60 0.00 13.74 0.00 0.00
rosemary, dried
......... 5ml 0.00
thyme, dried
......... 5ml 0.00
oregano, dried
......... 5ml 0.00
chilli flakes
......... 5ml 0.00
bay leaf
......... 2 of 0.00
s&p 0.00
total for Mediterranean inspired stew variation no. 1 451.16 57.61 15.26 17.19 12.13
1/3 portion of Mediterranean inspired stew variation no. 1 150.39 19.20 5.09 5.73 4.04

Method: 1. heat the oil in a non-stick pot; 2. add the onion and soften a little; 3. add all of the herbs / spices and stir until the aroma is to die for; 4. add the carrots and soften, then the peppers and the garlic; 5. now add in the chopped tomatoes, smashed tatties, bouillon and flageolet beans - I let it bubble away under a lid for a little at this point; 6. season, then finally add in the sugar snap peas a few minutes before you want to serve-up (or they seem to go grey and tough); 7. serve with slithered parmesan over the top (10g will only set you back 39 cals odd).

As long as you're not low-carbing, you could even go for half of the stew and still have calories to play with on a repair day. This stew is definitely a keeper.

Lemon muffin-cake variation no. 1 - inspired by CBB p27 (one third recipe)
soya flour, 424c/C16.0/F20.0/P39.0/Fi12.0/100g
......... 70g 296.80 11.20 14.00 27.30 8.40
almonds, ground, 645c/C6.5/F55.8/P25.5/Fi7.4/100g
......... 55g 354.75 3.58 30.69 14.03 4.07
baking powder
......... 7.5ml 0.00
pure via (stevia based sweetener) 2c/C0.47/F0/P0/Fi0/0.5g/5ml
......... 15ml 6.00 1.41 0.00 0.00 0.00
lemon extract, 125c/C0/F13.8/P0/Fi0/15ml
......... 5ml 41.67 0.00 4.60 0.00 0.00
sunflower oil, 125c/C0/F13.8/P0/Fi0/15ml
......... 45ml 375.00 0.00 41.40 0.00 0.00
eggs, brown, 151c/C0.0/F11.2/P12.5/Fi0.0/100g
......... ~54g x 2 of 163.08 0.00 12.10 13.50 0.00
double cream, coop, 465c/C1.6/F50.5/P1.5/Fi0/100ml
......... 45ml 209.25 0.72 22.73 0.68 0.00
total for lemon muffin-cake variation no. 1 1446.55 16.91 125.51 55.50 12.47
1/8th slice lemon muffin-cake no. 1 180.82 2.11 15.69 6.94 1.56

Method: 1. mix the soya flour, almond flour, baking powder and stevia; 2. in another bowl, beat the eggs, oil, cream and lemon extract; 3. add the dry stuff to the wet stuff and mix well but don't over mix; 4. tip it into a greased flan tray and quickly make the pile cake shaped; 5. bake in a pre-heated oven at 180C for about 20 to 30 minutes; 6. remove from oven when nicely golden and let stand for 5 minutes before tipping out onto a wire rack

WOOOOOOOOFFFF! We have cake - lovely moist and tender cake... The tiny bit extra baking powder and 5ml additional liquid (lemon extract) must have done it. I was in a nash so didn't have time to try the other suggestions from our bakers other than using properly ground almond meal. Thank-you all so much. At last I have real cake - which I hereby dedicate to Izzy. Looking at the side of the Dr.Oetker packet I should probably be using *even more* baking powder. Next time.

n.b. Scotmid is doing an offer on Whitworths baking stuff just now - dried fruits and nuts things are '2 for £3.50' (usually £2.09 each pack) - hence the indulgence in real almond meal.

==================================

Tuesday, day seventy-two, feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 122.6lbs (analogue scales corrected ~120.75lbs); 0.2lbs loss
... t.measures - ub. 29.25, w. 26.60, t. 33.10, h. 36.25 inches

Boingy, boingy, boingy. I could get bored with this as that's ten days I've been going up-and-down within the same pound. I don't really want to tighten things up on feed days, as that rather negates the ethos of this WoE; I could be better on repair days but the couple of hundred pounds difference that that would make probably wouldn't really make a dent on the lack of loss.

Wow - listen to me there - that makes me an impressive sorry apologist for not doing anything to fix things, does it not?! *ashamed face*

<<Sighs and yanks hard on boot-straps>> (see footnote, +++) I suppose that I just have to recognise and accept that my TDEE is much lower now, and thus I need a revised plot:
* weekends may continue to be hedonistic feasts (though still low-carb), within 'reason'
* non-repair weekdays need to go below the 'new' TDEE less 150 (hedonism buffer)
* repair days should be nearer 25% of 'new' TDEE (this bit might be really tough)

However, what my 'new' TDEE is, is anyone's guess. Just to demonstrate how hopeless the calculator numbers are (in their defence, I am a very strange shape): back in May the calculators were most all reading about 1420 calories which, from actual intake versus weight-loss, would appear to have been at least 400 calories less than the actuality (over 1850). Right now, the calculators are suggesting 1290 calories; if I 'correct' this using similar proportions, I need to add 363 calories: 1653 calories - nah, way too high. Calculating the TDEE from actual numbers is wacky too (see yesterday) and needs rolling averages (which are still wacky, but slightly less so as they show a cyclic but downward trend, just).

I'm going to go for 1495 calories, for the very unscientific reason that it's my gut instinct - keeping around 1345 calories during the week 'feels' about right for me However, the new rules mean that my repair days, at 25%, should be just under 374 calories - eek! I'll need to do this gradually, maybe?

Aside: I rather like this TDEE calculator - http://calorieline.com/tools/tdee - I'm not sure how good it is at the actual calculations but it does have a lovely clear exposition of *what* your TDEE is / actually means.

Now, the coffee & cream and the muffin-cake & cream-cheese are done, what's for dinner? Not a scoobie.

[rant]And can anyone tell me why Scotmid has decided to discontinue their salted almonds? It really is a major blow as they regularly come to my dietary rescue![/rant]

Oh dear. Well, let's be exceedingly generous and call it "FatDog's Final Fling" before the dreaded cut in TDEE. You don't have to believe me, but I really did go supermarket shopping with the intention of getting something sensible for myself and baby food, or an equivalent, for the OH who has had a tooth pulled. Obviously, I thought of trying to blitz stuff for the OH, but neither the stick nor wee whizz does things that fine / soft (however much I flatter them).

Looking for 'baby food or equivalent' took an affy long time: tomato soup, rice pudding and apple sauce didn't seem like a very balanced meal. I spent an age checking the baby food and it looked revolting, asides from it being rather randomly and unexpectedly full of dead animals; soups - all lumpy; likewise the few ready-made veggie dishes. If you manage to find veggie meals without lumpy / chewy / hard bits in it please do let me know (there's bound to be a next time). So the strange menu ended up having to do.

FatDog then went dooloopy finding her own dinner - I was a bit desperate and slightly light-headed at this point. Dips called, along with something carbiferous to dip into them. I was religious about trying to keep the carb count as low as possible for my prospective deviance, spending a seeming eternity reading and comparing the nutrition labels. My favourite was a ryvita crackerbread which proudly claimed to be made from '104g of wheat in 100g' - right, uh-huh - I need to eat. I ended up with lightly salted nachos - at least they're gluten free, eh?

Unfortunately, I omitted to keep an eye on the calories and, in a rush to save the table-legs, served myself up half a tub each of red pepper humous, onion & garlic dip, and guacamole, along with 42g of the nachos. And watercress & spinach salad (as the salad was 30p the bucket [or OH?] can have the sweet chilli dressing). Caveat: salad isn't very good for dipping into humous. I'm still munching on these things now - three and a half hours later - and I'll be calorifically and scale-ifically damned... Now't *too* wrong with the carbs though - especially as allowance has gone up to 65g per non-repair day. *smirk*

........ Calories 1904.11 Carbs 55.54 Fat 148.84 Protein 23.09 Fibre 18.35

Ah, ha. The worst didn't quite happen. I couldn't eat it all. I had to doggy-bag nearly half of the nachos, over a third each of the humous and guacamole, and a tenth of the onion dip (sadly the least 'healthy', but it was, unfortunately, rather too good as a dressing on the salad). I'm not sure whether I should feel relieved at, or feel a failure for, not completely pigging out on an accidental pig-out :0

........ Calories 1726.85 Carbs 44.44 Fat 128.40 Protein 19.85 Fibre 13.93

Rather relieved, methinks - saved from myself, despite myself.

Ooooh - and I've an even better title for my help thread: 'Just say NO!'. I mean, it works *so* well for drugs and sex, doesn't it?

+++ Have, incidentally, just this evening found a wonderful quote from Upton Sinclair - albeit about another sort of bootstrapping - having been dogged by 'the black-dog' for the last few days, the start had an odd sort of resonance for me:

"BOOTSTRAP-LIFTING

"Bootstrap-lifting? says the reader.

"It is a vision I have seen: upon a vast plain, men and women are gathered in dense throngs, crouched in uncomfortable and distressing positions, their fingers hooked in the straps of their boots. They are engaged in lifting themselves; tugging and straining until they grow red in the face, exhausted. .."

From the Profits of Religion: An Essay in Economic Interpretation, 1917
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1558/1558-h/1558-h.htm


And if I post this now, I can't consume anything else calorific, can I?

... Well, it worked last time ... Sleep tight all xxx FatDog

Hi Izzy,

So nice to see you here and thrilled to read that you have lost a few pounds, lets hope this continues

Ballerina x

@izzy my dear, methinks you must be an angel. I read your post just before heading to bed last night and it lifted my spirits no end (actually, it moved me to sniffles)!

I'm delighted that you enjoyed the broccoli and that the revised muffin-cake recipe worked for you. Sneek 'preview' of the log I'll be posting tonight: an even better cake recipe! I'm having a slice after dins, come hell or high water, bother it being a repair day...

And I agree about sweetness - I comment on that in my log too (are you reading my mind there, as well as being angelic?). A cake recipe for 12 to 16 servings has 315g of pure sugar in it (plus a further 75g dried fruit): that's about 20 to 26 grams of sugar in a portion! Euch!

But I'm even more humongously delighted at your weight-loss : that is absolutely stunning! You must be dead chuffed. And I'm dead chuffed for you too.

And aye to the destressing - evidence for the stress / cortisol / weight-loss circuits is accumulating - so stay relaxed, xxx FatDog

Wednesday, day seventy-three, repair day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 122.2lbs (analogue scales corrected ~120.65lbs); 0.4lbs loss
... t.measures - ub. 29.25, w. 26.60, t. 32.90, h. 36.25 inches

Boingy, boingy, boingy. Aaaaarrrrrrgh! Not a very credible move given that I had a rather fulsome feed day yesterday. Here's hoping it's not just another P&V fluid manoeuvre. Ach, why not be optimistic - at least it's a move in the right direction!

I don't think that I'm going to get going with the "new regime" right now - indeed, I'm struggling to hold together the old regime's "slacker" repair day and suspect that anything more rigorous would lead to a complete melt-down.

I'm old, cold, hungry and miserable (that black dog hasn't left me for days now), the OH and some mutual friends are quaffing and nibbling in the garden whilst I'm skulking in the kitchen, and I've run out of herb teas.

I want a slice of my cake with a little cream cheese, a glass of nice red wine, sleepy-time tea (none left, so cocoa would be fine) and then early to bed with a hot water bottle and a recipe book. That would bump me to near 1000 calories I suspect. Do I? Don't I? My sanity now is calling for comfort, but then I'll just feel sh*te for failing. Though I suppose, flexibility is meant to be 'the name of the game' and I could just do a proper repair on Friday and a half-repair today... Hmmm.

Cake and vino to the rescue - today is now officially completely a non-repair day. Along with bunging a long softy fluffy cardigan on, that's made things feel a little better. Followed by nachos and dips. Methinks that is the first repair day that I've simply abandoned (as opposed to planned not to do). Vino. Gorn completely off the rails! Quorn ham & peanut butter. Have lost it! 85% chocolate. I'm close to rebelling against logging stuff. Vino. Manic howling from off stage left...

........ Calories nya nya nya Carbs blah Fat flub Protein yeh? Fibre good stuff

Groowwwwllllloooowwwl wuuurrff.

==================================

Thursday, day seventy-four, feed day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 123.2lbs (analogue scales corrected ~123.00lbs); 1.0lbs gain
... t.measures - ub. 29.25, w. 26.60, t. 32.90, h. 36.25 inches

Gawd, that's not a "boing, boing, boing" move that's a bloomin' rocket lifting off! Fingers crossed it'll land soon and not stay in s*dding orbit!

There's an alternative of 123.6lbs, but I'll go with the lower figure as the higher is *too* depressing. However, the analogues are on about the 55 kilo mark (121.25lbs+1.75lbs correction) making them very close in agreement, unlike in the recent past, and thus the 123.6 number is maybe more likely

Oh, and just in-case you're thinking it's down to last night's lunacy (the full moon might be interesting this month) - nope the numbers for my un-repair day were:
....... Calories 1491.92 Carbs 57.68 Fat 94.74 Protein 42.01 Fibre 21.12

Given my present emotional turmoil, I've obviously not taken P&V's wise words on board as well as I should have. Forgive me whilst I repeat them (bonus points for anyone coming up with an abbreviated form that I can chant as a mantra):

"What this means is that we all live inside a 4-pound-wide grey zone, so that from day to day we fluctuate up or down (i.e. plus or minus) 2 pounds. This happens more or less at random, so with any one weight reading you don't know where your body is within that fluid range. Your weight can be the same for 3 days in a row, and the next morning you wake up and the scale says you've 'gained' 3 pounds for no apparent reason. For people who weigh themselves frequently, this can be maddening." (my emphasis)

I suspect that until now these fluctuations have been well masked by regular daily losses and, perhaps, just showed up as 'falterings' in an otherwise clear overall decline. Now that the loss has slowed down / stalled (I think 12 days within the same one pound is a stall) these "P&V fluctuations" are becoming evident.

It just makes me all the more amazed at the good folk who've stalled for months and stuck with it - you're an inspiration to us all.

I've been whittering on in the last couple of days about re-examining the calorie allowance but I've not looked at the carbs, and that carb figure is getting quite high - I wonder if it's crossed the Rubicon? It might be that I'm not one of the blessed and need to stay under the the 55 or 50 grams level of carbs per day. Bummer. I wonder what sort of havoc eating a diet designed for a fat burning system has on a system that is now carb burning. How about weight gain... :0

Need to ponder this. I'd like to change either the carbs or the calories so that I avoid confounding the variables and can identify the culprit. Do I have the patience for potentially extending the stall whilst I experiment for a couple of weeks?

I need to know if you'd be interested in such an experiment, good reader, so in a forthcoming post I'm going to make demands upon you: gird yourselves.

Food? Ah, well. Dog's dinner number 12, I think, chilli - not anything special (usual quorn, green beans, mushrooms, corn, tomatoes, chillies, onion, garlic etc.) so I won't trouble you with the recipe. BUT...

We have *more* cake! Inspired by the pistachio and sultana cake with orange syrup (halweyat) recipe in Sarah Brown's World Vegetarian cookbook and implemented using the CBB muffin-cake method. Without a doubt the FatDog's best ever cake (although there's certainly room for improvement); done on a whim (after dinner) and on the fly, I was seriously lucky that it didn't turn out like a rock or a puddle.

Looks as though I'm on a bit of a diet holiday here and, I confess, some of the chilli figures were guestimates (I rebelled and for the *very first time* I "weighed by eye") so overall this is a somewhat speculative summary:

........ Calories 1919.47 Carbs 106.39 Fat 97.12 Protein 41.88 Fibre 22.49

Weighed the cake stuff though, thank goodness, as I'm doing this again very soon.

FatDog's best cake ever variation no. 1 - inspired by Sarah Brown's halweyat recipe p115
soya flour, 424c/C16.0/F20.0/P39.0/Fi12.0/100g
......... 75g 296.80 11.20 14.00 27.30 8.40
almonds, ground, 645c/C6.5/F55.8/P25.5/Fi7.4/100g
......... 52g 354.75 3.58 30.69 14.03 4.07
baking powder
......... 15ml 0.00
pure via (stevia based sweetener) 2c/C0.47/F0/P0/Fi0/0.5g/5ml
......... 15ml 6.00 1.41 0.00 0.00 0.00
salt
......... wee pinch (not sure why I did this... no harm done) 0.00
pistachio nuts, rough chopped, 603c/C8.2/F55.4/P17.9/Fi10.3/100g
......... 25g 150.75 2.05 13.85 4.48 2.58
dates, medium chopped, 277c/C68.27/F0.15/P1.81/Fi6.7/100g
......... 75g 207.75 51.20 0.11 1.36 5.03
orange zest, 97c/C14.4/F0.2/P1.5/Fi10.6/100g
......... 20g 19.40 2.88 0.04 0.30 2.12
orange, innards, blitzed, 49c/C10.34/F0.15/P0.91/Fi2.2/100g
......... 220g 107.80 22.75 0.33 2.00 4.84
vanilla extract, 125c/C0/F13.8/P0/Fi0/15ml
......... 5ml 41.67 0.00 4.60 0.00 0.00
sunflower oil, 125c/C0/F13.8/P0/Fi0/15ml
......... 40ml 333.33 0.00 36.80 0.00 0.00
eggs, brown, 151c/C0.0/F11.2/P12.5/Fi0.0/100g
......... ~54g x 2 of 163.08 0.00 12.10 13.50 0.00
double cream, coop, 465c/C1.6/F50.5/P1.5/Fi0/100ml
......... 60ml 279.00 0.96 30.30 0.90 0.00
total for FatDog's best cake ever variation no. 1 1960.33 96.03 142.82 63.86 27.03
¼ slice FatDog's best cake ever variation no. 1 490.08 24.01 35.70 15.96 6.76
1/8th slice FatDog's best cake ever variation no. 1 245.04 12.00 17.85 7.98 3.38

Method: 1. mix the soya flour, almond flour, baking powder, salt and stevia; 2. in a large other bowl, beat the eggs, oil, vanilla, cream and orange juice; 3. add the nuts, dates and zest, and then the dry stuff to the wet stuff and mix as lightly and fast as possible; 4. pour it into a greased flan tray (yes, it pours); 5. bake in a pre-heated oven at 180C for about 25 to 35 minutes; 6. remove from oven when nicely golden and let stand for at least 5 minutes before tipping out onto a wire rack, and then stand another 5 minutes.

Miserly quantity of pistachios, because that's all I had. Make sure you have a nice sweet and flavoursome orange - ours was a little bitter (the satsumas we used in the carrot mezzas a while back were wonderful by comparison). SB's recipe calls for 175g sugar to 250g flour in the cake (and then has another 140g sugar in the syrup) - so our minimal sugar and bitter orange might not please a carbivore's palate - I liked it. Don't chop the dates and nuts too fine as you'll lose some of the bite (whoops, whizzed that a touch too long). I did wonder about adding a little cinnamon or cardamom but decided that they might overwhelm the subtle flavour of the pistachios.

Oh, and the cake is not frightfully low-carb, lower-carb, but not low-carb. Using 45g of dates rather than 75g and replacing the fresh orange with orange extract would nearly halve the carbs per slice (to ~6.5g). And they're big slices mind. And *so* worth it

==================================

Friday, day seventy-five, repair day

Weigh-in at start of day wt. 123.4lbs (analogue scales corrected ~122.75lbs); 0.2lbs gain
... t.measures - ub. 29.25, w. 26.60, t. 32.90, h. 36.25 inches

Should have gone for the 123.6lbs yesterday then I could have consoled myself with a 0.2lbs loss this morning, as it is, it's a gain. It's the P&V grey zone, stupid... not very catchy but it'll do until someone comes up with something better. I might bung that in my posting footnote thingy.

Having to do the numbers for yesterday's mayhem - it's marvellous fun cooking with gay abandon and guestimating, but it's a bit of a pain sorting out the mess later.

And the numbers are *alarming* - I'm surprised I didn't gain several pounds, not just parts thereof. I *must* get some ketostix, I know they're unreliable but I'm intrigued as to whether my carbocalypses are knocking me out of ketosis, and I really can't afford the blood meter / sticks just now.

Further motivational slump leads to cheat's dinner courtesy of co-op bargains: cauliflower cheese, green beans and a couple of baby new tatties. With a slice of my cake for pudding (it is Friday after all, damn-it).

And the best laid plans... Blew it with comfort eating - something I've rarely, if ever, suffered from before. And what's best for comfort? *More* tea and cake.

Not quite sure how, but managed to resist a further break-down involving dips, nachos, chocolate and more cake. Damage limited to:

........ Calories 968.58 Carbs 54.13 Fat 59.83 Protein 49.08 Fibre 19.92

And, you know what? I'm going to forgive myself. In fact, I don't even need to do that, as there's nothing to forgive.

Looking forward to next week when I'll straighten things up again.

Ha, you forgot didn't you? I said I was going to make demands upon you, dear reader, and here they are - upon your patience, your wisdom and a moment of your time to respond (please, very, very pretty please?).

What we're pondering here is a 5:2 low-carb vegetarian plateau-breaking sledge-hammer. Sledge-hammer because, back in the dark ages when I was a young FatDog trying to fix computers, we used to have a saying that 'if it doesn't work at first, use a bigger hammer'. And everything had to be done by yesterday. I know, bad.

So what is the approach to be:

* Reduce calories - revise TDEE, e.g. 1495 calories on feed days and 400 on repair, and be more stringent about sticking to the allowance on feed and repair days? Probably the sensible thing to do - but where's the fun in that? And, let's face it, one needs a bit of fun to keep going when the going gets stuck.

* Reduce carbs - step back to a lower limit, say 50g, and make sure that carb calories are never more than 16% of calorie intake in a day (makes a repair day 500 calories a nice handy 20g carb max, or 16g at 400c)? Also sensible but would create a greater stir - new recipes - as that 16g of carbs target will be a hoot.

* Have a week of green smoothies to shake things (and my faltering will) up a bit? Would give me an excuse to do a bit of retail therapy too (that I can't-but-will afford : my birthday's not far off, so maybe I could work on the OH) as we'd need a decent sized blitzing machine.

* Just go with the flow - don't change anything and hope that things work out? Not an option I relish as a) the trend-line is threatening to head back up the way and b) I'm getting *very* angsty and the black dog keeps threatening to bite.

* A combination of the above? Would make identifying what actually worked very difficult / impossible - not at all helpful for others following this path. And what I'm doing might be mad, but it is still an experiment (albeit n=1).

* Something else that you'd like to suggest?

I wish I could do a poll - then you'd only need to do a one click response! I did think about sticking each option in a separate post and asking folk to 'thumbs up' the one they liked best, but didn't think Moogie would like me sabotaging the recommend system.

Anyway, "interactive virtual dieting" - go on, you know you want to play - surely it couldn't get more exciting on a dreich Saturday afternoon

Hi Fatdog, well, when I had my never ending plateau I thought I'd just stuck it out but on thinking about it I remember having a couple of spectacular blow outs as I was so fed up and hey presto, I seemed to kick start the whole process again, good luck with whatever you decide, izzy managed it by shunning us so you see, nothing is a no go area

Ballerina x

[Betsysgr8]

Perhaps, as Ballerina suggested, you just need a couple of blow-outs?

Maybe pick a couple days this week and just go nuts with having what you think you want in the way of carbs, follow this with the reduced carb program for a couple of weeks.

I'm wondering if the 'black dog' is a carborvore? Maybe you increased carbs a bit too quickly from week to week, maybe you should try doing the increases every 2 weeks?