Countdown to Easter

[ItRainsItPours]

All welcome!

Supportive thread for setting goals including self care and fasting, and chat in between.

Thread now started (in this section with Prolon in the title) ... I felt very self-conscious posting it, rather than just attaching a discreet doc in here!

Applauding the whole different person....and no longer feeling envious of your sex life! I meant to say sadly excess sex is no longer an issue for me....though did NOT enjoy the cystitis and cranberry juice was curiously ineffective

Wow! Just realising - you have cured yourself of metabolic dysfunction @StealthilyEmbraceTheSilkyBeans That is really quite something. No wonder you're feeling better now - and you've changed your whole future expected life and health span!! possibly adding a couple of decades to health span if PA is right...

Is there anyone else you've found helpful beyond Peter Attia? I love reading books but am up for the odd podcast too.

How's everyone doing so far this week??

How are the fasts going @Clearingaspace and @HarpQuartet ? And if a couple of days have been not so good, what are your plans til Friday?

And our nurturing/wellbeing goals?

• My teeth care is improving but I have NOT yet made friends with the water flosser...it lurks ominously in the corner of the bathroom ..a showdown will come...who will win??
• My Tai Chi is pure joy - just 10 minutes a day and I love how my body and brain feel after it
• Walking - now regularly 8-11,000 steps, I now just need to increase the amount of brisk walking... a wee bit of gentle interval training!!
• Strength training... well I've started VERY modestly, just a couple of minutes here and there, and Chat GPT has created a simple plan for me to do three times a week... I'm gently excited by this! I've been meaning to do it for so long but have been delaying, not knowing where to start and also rather intimidated by the whole concept... I'm hoping, hoping that in 3 months time I will feel strong enough (and brave enough) to rejoin the gym and go regularly. And @StealthilyEmbraceTheSilkyBeans's images of healthy young hunks is VERY alluring....

@loveyouradvice lovely to read your check in - very well planned outwith all your exercise- this is really fantastic work!

*I haven’t fasted this week - I keep tapping fast on the easyfast app optimistically after lunch then deciding to have dinner and forgetting to restart
*I have been a little better about sleep but really need to get to bed earlier as I am soooo tired
*I have been logging my cals but finding it hard to go low enough for a loss
*I have been doing pretty well with teeth but yet to dig out the dreaded water flosser 😂
*getting my steps in and enjoying beautiful sunny but chilly walks in the park
*I have the prolon shopping basket on a tab on my phone as I just cant decide whether to buy it! I am also considering monjaro as it’s been 18 months of trying to lose weight and I am right back where I started- thanks a bunch perimenopause!! The experiences people have on monjaro seem to range from it having a huge positive impact on other health conditions (this is what is appealing to me!) to ending up very ill.

I hope everyone is well

Hi @Clearingaspace and @loveyouradvice , I'm a pretty low and lonely Harp at the moment (marriage loneliness - it's not a new problem, just a sad one) but I do feel lifted after reading your updates, and it inspired me to find a tai chi video on YouTube just now, which has helped stabilise my mood, along with telling my husband (who is a good man) how I'm feeling.

I think poor diet and sleep is really not helping me, so today I'm not going to eat any chocolate - it'll still be there tomorrow if I really want it - and I won't eat anything until 10am. My comfort blanket of toast and butter is calling to me, but I know it really isn't my friend.

sending you hugs @HarpQuartet . your tai chi session sounds amazing. Funny about toast being your friend - I so relate - it’s a lovely but toxic friend (not literally bykwim) that I need to cut out of my life!

@StealthilyEmbraceTheSilkyBeans i would love to feel vibrant more than to lose weight - Interesting that you don’t eat bread at all.

@HarpQuartet my heart goes out to you... so very very tough... and congrats on the tai chi. I'm amazed how even 10 minutes can make my body feel quite different, gently energised and connected. Do you have any a-bit-comforting food that you might eat that is somewhat healthier? And so good to focus on the "feeling good" rather than food...Sending you a huge hug

I'm realising the power of finding substitutes, not as good as the real thing (And yes, toast and butter is like the mean girl standing in the corner of the classroom taunting you!) but satisfying on some level?? Dark chocolate and toasted nuts, and fresh raspberries usually work for me... as does a delicious home made soup...

@Clearingaspace those walks sound SO beautiful and healthy. Do share with us how you plan to approach your sleep - I keep reading about how being tired does trigger all those hunger hormones and makes losing weight triply tough.

@StealthilyEmbraceTheSilkyBeans I find it SO inspiring to hear about how your healthy lifestyle is creating all these wonderful feelings of well being and possiblity ... far far more important than weight loss and utterly wonderful....

I've stumbled ... and fallen... Going to get back on it tomorrow, giving myself permission to go a bit easier today as out to friends for supper and still emotionally fragile.

An emotional crash-and-burn and although I started with just overeating healthy stuff, which is now my comfort go-to and often restrained enough to not really impact my weight... but it was a humdinger, and three Lindt chocolate reindeer got consumed.... short term comfort but not really enjoyable nor conscious. I'm focussing on picking myself up fast rather than changing my behaviour at the moment... and on creating a more supportive home environment with DH

So I'm waiting until 1 to break my fast and will be eating "normal maintenance" and resolved to do both my Tai Chi and my new 10m strength exercise programme today, having done neither yesterday... And then, whether at the weekend or on Monday, I'll have a longer fast/lower calories and hope I gently float back down to 11 or therabouts

So .. figures...
SW: 14.2
CW: 11.2 so 4lbs up from last week, and 2lbs up from 2 days ago
GW: 10.12

And wow the POWER of this group - the old me would not have got on the scales today, delaying it for a couple of days.

@StealthilyEmbraceTheSilkyBeans words keep coming back to me, about emanating confidence and vibrance to the extent a colleague mentioned it...

I am so aware that when I am eating well and feeling proud of myself and my body, I am such a different person, enjoying the power of striding out and engaging with life....

While after the last couple of days, I feel like a muted version of myself, reluctant to engage and just wanting to curl in on myself... and when meeting people, I feel like I'm pretending to be me, rather than really being her....

It's both psychological and physiological for me, recognising that eating too much sugar and just too much, creates a sludgy-feeling body too.... and a resistance to doing the beautiful body-nurturing things I've decided to do, such as the Tai-Chi etc....

@loveyouradvice If it really was chocolate reindeer and not bunnies does that mean it was chocolate left from Christmas? If so this is a triumph! If not then I love how you buy these small holiday treats and I hope you can savour them without guilt like at Christmas!

I hope you are back to feeling confident soon and in no way should you be allowing small slips to stop you feeling good! I am trying to make a tiny bit more effort in my appearance as it is now, rather than postponing until I lose weight, even though I am the biggest ever 😭😭😭😭😭 because I see women looking gorgeous all the time in different shapes and sizes so I don’t see why I only feel confident when I am slim.

I am have to be honest though, I am becoming extremely worried there might come a time when I wish I was 205 lbs - because the far from target 175 I was last year seems miles away and I wish I was there again!

So goals for this weekend
*appreciate nature on walks over the weekend, including rain if that ends up showering down, or soaking up the vitamin D if lucky to get sunshine
*take vitamin D and iron for tiredness as well as being in bed before midnight - if I feel sleepy I will get up and not snuggle against my velvet sofa!
*Ghost Toast
*eat fruit and veg
*log cals and just try to use more than I consume
*log fasts and double check in the evening that I am still on track
*remember hrt
*get on exercise bike or treadmill or lift weights for at least for 5 minutes

Hi all, I am back home after a week away eating fish and chips, cake etc. Did lots of walking and had a dip in the Irish Sea. Was nice to have a break but will have to step on the scales tomorrow and see what the damage is.

How was your weigh in @ItRainsItPours

Amazing @StealthilyEmbraceTheSilkyBeans - maintaining during stressful stuff is wonderful and you can really focus your mental energy on your dd. Weirdly my dc2 who is also taking a levels this summer has been a bit more easy going lately, but I think getting the results and starting uni might be when the stress steps up.

how are you both @HarpQuartet and @loveyouradvice

so I haven’t ticked all my targets sadly - damn you velvet sofa - but I have logged cals and avoided toast and am down 3lbs. Maybe bread is like a sponge and soaks up lots of water?! I think if I can lose while eating 3 meals for a while I will do that and only fast 12 hours.

I actually only gained a lb, thanks for asking. I think that is very much worth it for a few days eating complete garbage.
I seem to be maintaining at the moment but could really do with losing again. The upf sweet food is my downfall so today I made some dark chocolate and dried fruit cups. I will try to have those in place of the biscuits that have crept in recently.
Well done on avoiding the toast @Clearingaspace 3lbs is loads and shows how bad it was for you.
I totally relate on the exam stress @StealthilyEmbraceTheSilkyBeans I have a lazy boy who is supposed to be spending his holidays revising. He is far too dismissive of the need to study. Hard to sit back and watch without getting stressed.

That’s great @ItRainsItPours - 1lb really is just daily fluctuation. My ds was similar - it was like he physically couldn’t revise and attempts to help just stressed him out. . He did ok but not amazing at gcse but managed to do fairly well at Alevels and go to a decent uni. It was frustrating as he is smart and the amount he was revising made it seem like he wasn’t achieving his potential. A couple of teachers recently have mentioned ADHD to him which could explain why he hated studying at home where there were screens and things calling him.

Hi, nice to read all of your messages. I'm ok thank you. Have had a really nice weekend and listened to a podcast about willpower (Doctors' Notes on BBC Sounds) that was so relatable and kind that I got home, put on my trainers and did run 1, week 1 of couch to 5k.

That sounds horrendous and amazing at the same time @StealthilyEmbraceTheSilkyBeans 🤯

well done on c25k @HarpQuartet!

Have you had any salt @StealthilyEmbraceTheSilkyBeans - maybe that would help? it’s weird to me how this happens as I also had a phase where long fasts were easy - but now even 18 hours feels a long fast! Hope the rest of your fast went ok.

I am still avoiding bread/toast and I really thibk not having it helps with my food cravings in general. Fingers crossed that continues