Countdown to Easter

[ItRainsItPours]

All welcome!

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

I’m a few lbs up this week but I’m not really surprised. The pain has dulled but I’m not fasting yet so eating breakfast and supper which is extra food. It is also now half term and we are going away. Will be eating out and generally not cooking from scratch etc. I think once I pack the dc back off to school will be the time to see if I can get back to fasting.

I hope you have a lovely time @ItRainsItPours

And all.power to you, @StealthilyEmbraceTheSilkyBeans we went to a National Trust place today, and it was very nice, but omg when the sun came out it didn't half lift the spirits 💞 you've done so well with your cycling through the winter.

Hello lovely peeps... I am going to say HELP!!!

I am on holiday in Spain for 10 days with some lovely friends and am keen to keep my weight as close to where it was two days before I left: 11.0.6.

I have brought my scales (!) - I'm going to take them anytime I go away for more than 3 days this year... and I realise that reporting on here daily like I did at Christmas would really really help. No need to reply!

I've just reread those Christmas posts - it is so good to be reminded that my resolve for 2025 is to be someone who has power over food, and that I analysed my eating each day into "conscious" and "unconscious". And I loved your comment @HarpQuartet about it being like chatting to old friends. It was so good to go through Christmas with @Clearingaspace and @ItRainsItPours . Definitely my model for next year! You are such terrific companions on our journey towards healthy bodies.

So... following my Christmas format:

SW (2 days before travelling): 11.0.6
CW: 11.3.0
GW: 11.3.0 ie to maintain this until I return

I have an autoimmune disease which means I often get overtired - and when I get overtired I get very VERY hungry. This happened two days before I left, so my weight on travelling was 11.2 (with a recognition that I listened to the wee red demon on my shoulder and demolished a whole box of chocolates). And yesterday, after travelling, as expected I spent the whole day recovering in bed... unexpectedly (why? surely sane me would have expected this??) I was very very hungry. I ate healthy stuff (a win!) but lots of it (dark chocolate, nuts, sardines)... so now I'm at 11.3

Today I feel much better. Yesterday I was too tired to even post on here!!

My plan: to build on successes from Christmas, and remind myself that I can do it again!:

• weigh myself daily and report on here
• remember I am a woman who in 2025 has power over food
• lots of food around that I can eat when needed - olives, cold roast veggies, clementines
• look at when I eat consciously and unconsciously

And to expect to eat in a 10 hour window, and 8 hours when I can (on Wednesday we go out for a long late lunch so that will help)

Thank you wonderful people for creating such a great space in which to reflect and honour my commitments

And responding to everyone's Friday posts:

@HarpQuartet That is a SERIOUS win. Not feeling deprived is to be embraced and celebrated. And such a great step to regaining your nice balanced attitude: I'll be crossing my fingers for you it continues this week. Let us know! And great to have the 0.9kg loss as a powerful endorsement. Do pop on here to celebrate any other successes (or temptations) along the way.

@StealthilyEmbraceTheSilkyBeans If you have the strength and time to focus on 800 cals for up to 12 weeks, it really does work. Michael Mosley is clear that seeing the scales go down fast, is very incentivising - and that more than 12 weeks at this level is unwise as most of our bodies will then adapt to lower calories. But equally I knew that doing it in the summer months made it much easier! And at other times, I had other priorities than lots of mental energy focussed on weight loss.

I so agree about calorie counting - it is indeed deeply boring! I now only do a rough count and dont bother counting vegetables at all....

We all know you can do it @StealthilyEmbraceTheSilkyBeans . Any woman who can cycle through wind and rain as you can, can do anything they set their mind to. I love that the angry you is surfacing determined to win ... yes, the end results ARE worth it!

@ItRainsItPours I so feel for you with the continued pain. It sounds like a powerful plan to refocus once the kids are back at school. Have a fabulous week, and I'm hoping the pain continues to recede. How about coming back on here the day they go back to school and telling us what your plans are for those first few days?

Hello @loveyouradvice , I can keep you company this evening 😊 and look forward to following your daily messages.

As we know, the path to progress is a wiggly, tangled thing, not a lovely straight line, and I had a viscount biscuit and a mint chocolate bar after dinner today, not because I was still hungry, but because I was feeling panicky that if I didn't eat them, I'd feel deprived later and binge (I have form).

The brain-body connection is a strange old thing. I've eaten past the point of comfort today, which is a shame, but not a disaster. I am very weird at looking after myself, a bit OTT hyper-alert looking out for the next big eating disaster and trying to forestall it.

So in the massive context of my entire adult life's eating, I'm in the "ok" zone.

It's nice to be in company that "gets" all this awareness and over-thinking xx

I love that - definitely a wiggly, tangly thing - what a great phrase!

Thank you for accompanying me @HarpQuartet ... I'll post more tomorrow morning - now to bed

I hope you sleep well

@HarpQuartet I so get that panicky feeling - does your strategy work?

I've found that IF has really helped me with cravings - far far fewer of them, and a gorgeous feeling of satisfaction if I've eaten a lot in a short window.

Mine used to be if I am really hungry just eat more of the "good stuff" - classically yogurt berries and muesli.... I want to reintroduce that. There are some times when damage limitation is the answer.

Today's report - and thank you for encouraging words @HarpQuartet

SW (2 days before travelling): 11.0.6
CW: 11.2.8
GW: 11.3.0 ie to maintain this until I return

I'll take that as a win - I ate well and moderately yesterday - except for a bit of unconscious eating when seriously delicious chocolate came out after supper! Hmm... nailing my unconscious eating is the key. So next time - have half a piece of chocolate each time, so the same number of "hits" (3 small mouthfuls) - and palm the rest to my husband who is being wonderfully supportive.

I'm sleeping and resting well so my appetite has gone back to normal - Phew!!

Goal is to eat between 10.30am and 9pm each day - shortening the window when easy. And SO GLAD I brought my scales: they really help me keep on track.

@loveyouradvice lucky husband getting the rest of the choc 😆

My "preemptive strike" eating is a partial success: good in that after I've had the chocolate bar (or whatever) I'm content to stop eating for the day (nice not to be plagued with food thoughts). Less good in that I'm often still a bit over-full when I wake up the next morning, which means I definitely didn't need it.

Obviously best would be: don't eat the unnecessary food, AND no intrusive food thoughts.

@loveyouradvice have an amazing holiday- I am so impressed by your commitment. Interestingly I was reading something somewhere that was basically suggesting we have to bring some consistency in holidays in order for change in lifestyle to be permanent and not just a diet.

i guess equally that means not being unrealistically strict in the weightloss phase which fits with your preemptive strikes @HarpQuartet

Hello both/all.... my commitment to myself (and to the rest of you) is to post here daily until I am "safely" home.....

I realise my biggest challenge is eating supper each night, lots of food convivially around a big table, chatting, drinking, our main meal of the day - my body seems to have moved naturally from a1/ 2pm - 8/9 pm window a couple of years ago to a 10-6 window now with hunger early in the day... I am not fussed if I eat nothing more after 4 or 5pm....

And yesterday I felt pretty spacey all day, not sure why but think that eating bread which I dont usually do might have had something to do with it.... Today I feel more myself, and have been able to be much more restrained so hoping this lurch is only temporary.....I have been reminding myself today that I CAN HAVE POWER OVER FOOD (which I definitely didn't yesterday)

SW (2 days before travelling): 11.0.6
CW: 11.5.2
GW: 11.3.0 to maintain around this level until I return on Mon 24 Feb

@HarpQuartet I'm intrigued that eating comparitively so little leaves you feeling full the next morning...do you understand why? And I think your strategy of pre-emptive strike is actually rather brilliant and one I might adopt ... although I can see how the line might blur and I might get rather carried away!

Thanks @Clearingaspace. I do embrace that concept of consistency - particularly as we get older it feels like the way to go. I love that in the first part of the day I am eating as at home (yes, I bought my bag of homemade muesli and have it with local fruit and yogurt)... and do rather yearn to be with people who eat earlier in the evening, but am embracing them and it for the huge pleasure of being together.... and gently learning to eat less in the evening (at least I hope so!)

Looking forward to checking in tomorrow....

Good morning all

Embracing I HAVE POWER OVER FOOD really worked yesterday.... but I'm still very erratic. Im not entirely sure how/why it is so easy some days and feels so irrelevant (or rather I make it so) on others....

Better news on the weight front after a day of eating very consciously throughout...

SW (2 days before travelling): 11.0.6
CW: 11.3.4
GW: 11.3.0 to maintain until I return on Mon 24 Feb

Oh well done for logging and power over food! its interesting @loveyouradvice - there are definitely days when i know the way i am eating means that my weight will be up the next day and i just seem to switch off that knowledge.

yesterday i was very focused and logged my food, trying to meet nutrition needs, and even declined a krispy creme that was bought for me when i was out in the early evening with dds and dsis. Then when we got home I thought a slice of sourdough wont hurt and it all went south - up another 1lb this morning. I don't want to write my weight down tbh. I will try again today to keep the power going a bit longer!

@loveyouradvice you're doing so well, gold star for you ⭐

Apologies, I'm on a course this week and I should have known the very long days would leave me depleted and without any brain space left to check-in here.

Wrt the preemptive strike approach: when I eat the right amount of food for dinner, I wake up feeling comfortable and with enough energy to see me through the first few hours of the day. It's the extras (the preemptive strike) that make me too full, and thus uncomfortable the next morning.

If I have extras and don't wake up with an uncomfortable stomach, then I probably hadn't eaten quite enough throughout the day!

I'm getting better at judging it. I didn't have (didn't want) the chocolate brownie that was offered after dinner yesterday, and I've woken up feeling comfortable. So obviously that's best of all: to have my fill of nutritious food and need nothing more.

These are fascinating insights @HarpQuartet ... and I am so very glas you feel comfortable today. Judging things right for each of us is so clearly the key

Today I feel shame.

It is quite strong and powerful.

Yet I know that all I did is let myself get too tired, not withdrawing from the gathering early enough to rest and rebalance. Consequently I ate food in the second part of the day I had not intended to. Too much of it. Some of it chocolate, but not much. My anchors and powerful internal voice had deserted me.

SW (2 days before travelling): 11.0.6
CW: 11.5.2 (ie 2 up from yesterday)
GW: 11.3.0 to maintain until I return on Mon 24 Feb

And I know I will not finish this holiday feeling proud of myself... strange and interesting that those are the two emotions involved in managing my eating (not in why I eat though). I recall holidays in the past with others when I returned feeling proud of eating well - as I did at Christmas.

This holiday feels like a yoyo. I am going to seek feeling proud of coming back from yo-yoing and of starting to cherish my health again for the remaining days - four of them.

I am in the same position @loveyouradvice . I am away, have a stinking cold and we are eating out lots. I am eating all the types of food we don’t have at home but telling myself it is a high days and holidays situation. Back on the wagon on Friday so will easy on easy off.

@loveyouradvice I just want to share with you that I too am familiar with shame - it's a horrible emotion and I just hope it passes quickly for you xx

Similarly for you @ItRainsItPours I hope your stupid cold will bugger off pronto xx

I said I'd do a Fri weigh-in but wasn't able to this morning. Yesterday I was a tiny bit up on the week before. Basically stable.

Wishing everyone a good day xx

well somehow I have got food poisoning so one upside is that I suspect that means weight loss... meanwhile, wet rag time and not going with friends to the chocolate factory this afternoon....

Hope others are feeling better than me!

Guilt/Pride axis a discussion for another time... not seen it so clearly before....love further thoughts from you when feeling a tad better

Oh no, are you feeling like death warmed up?! Wishing you better very soon.

Thank you @HarpQuartet - I just felt as if I wasn't really there yesterday, but today after 9.5 hours sleep I'm beginning to feel rather better - just a bit fragile around the edges, so reading a book on the sofa while the others take a long walk

SW (2 days before travelling): 11.0.6
CW: 11.1.0 .. will be interesting to see what this is when I am eating again
GW: 11.3.0 to maintain until I return on Mon 24 Feb