Banting and banter - making less of ourselves into February!

[WellErrr]

Banting is my favourite old fashioned word. Means slimming, and I got it from Agatha Christie

*133.6 even

9st6.25 this morning, half a pound up but a fluctuation. Not doing too badly, but could probably do with being a bit stricter

I'm also half a lb up! I think it's from my HIIT class yesterday. clutches at straws

Has anyone tried quorn ham? I bought some there as I thought it'd be a healthy alternative to ham. OMG. It's so gross. I think I'll have to give it to the cats.

@Octopus37 me too although I am trying to think of it as needing to be consistent rather than strict. "Consistency not rigidity" as my guru Jordan Syatt would say!

@Twixes you're just in the process, stay on track.

Not tried quorn ham, doesn't sound great! I did a slow cooker quorn chilli that was fine, kids didn't notice it wasn't meat, although the 'meat free balls' weren't a hit!

"Consistency not rigidity" - I like that @everycowandagain.

Meals are going better the last few days, have cooked a pea risotto and a minestrone, had a brilliant fish grill at a pub on a walk on Saturday. The desert maybe wasn't worth the sugar levels, was actually too sweet, but the meal as a whole was lovely and memorable.

Am staying at my boyfriend's at the moment, there's motivation to cook well when there's someone else to enjoy it with and help chop. Will need to think about putting in place patterns when I'm at home too.

Enjoying hearing about everyone's nice healthy meals.

I hope that everyone is staying on track and resisting temptation!
I feel firmly back on track after the weekend - today is my first fast day of the week and so far so good. After listening to some really good podcasts by Dr Jason Fung I've refined my routine slightly, so on 2 days I fast all day until dinner but don't necessarily restrict myself to only 500 calories. Other days I keep to 16:8...except Sundays which I'm going to have as a day off.

I eat fruit @Heygirlheyboy being mindful to get my 5+ a day, a calorie is a calorie but I also want to create healthier habits for life

Well done! @everycowandagain

Today's menu
B - overnight chia, berries
L - omelette with 2 eggs, half fat cheese, peppers and peas
D - spag bol made with about 75% veg
S - maybe a biscuit later

Back on track today

@Dontfundhate - nice menu!

I also eat fruit everyday as it’s so nutritious. I think it would be odd to deprive yourself of all those vitamins!

Today’s menu:

B- porridge and blueberries
L- salad and hummus
D- homemade veg and chicken soup

S- Banana, Apple, yogurt

When I make spag bol now, I use 5% fat mince beef and bulk the sauce up with chopped carrots, celery, peppers, onions, mushrooms. Great way to get vegetables into the kids too!

Lovely menus guys! I bave had 2 weetabix, ratatouille and hallouni, apple and banana and whatever is defrosting for dinner.

I eat loads of fruit. I prob would avoid smoothies, juices etc, the rationale there is they are very high in sugar and calories without all the fibre you'd get from eating the actual fruit. I always have apples, oranges grapes and bananas in the fruit bowl and frozen blueberries, raspberries

• berry mix. Today there is a mango because they were 69p at Tesco! Dinner today for me and DH is Young's Gastro basa fillets which are only 240 cals but really big, meaty fish, with new potatoes and veg. Will do (oven) battered haddock for the kids they don't hold with fancy fish!

My DS has a school trip tomorrow and needs a pack lunch so I have relaxed my biscuit bar/crips rule - it is eye-opening to see how the supermarkets push multipacks of everything - so I could buy one Kitkat for 80p or a pack of 4 for £1, similar with crisps. I just need to not eat the remaining ones myself now....

Exactly Patchwork and that is how I got into the habit of eating multiple bars at a time :(

Ditto for me on the multipacks. I recently bought a multipack of crunchies and twirlywirlys and ate two crunchies at a time The thing is I couldn't find twirlywirlys anywhere so had no choice to buy a multipack! They're supposed to be low cal right??

Food for me today:

Breakfast: skinny coffee
Mid morning: overnight oats with apple and cinnamon
Lunch: mug shot
Dinner: roast chicken but I'll be avoiding skin and will load up on veg

Exercise: back to spinning 🚴🏻‍♀️

And a slice of quorn 'ham'

@Patchworksack I would also avoid fruit juice as it’s so full of sugar. Agree re the multipacks of chocolate bars, they shouldn’t be so cheap!

Can someone who does fast days, please a couple of sample menus? I’m thinking of trying one or two fast days a week (to offset my weekend!) but not sure how to approach it. Thanks.

@wineloffa - yes, good point.

Wine It takes a bit of trial and error to see what suits you. I prefer to fast all day and then have a reasonable dinner. Tonight I'm having spinach soup, a bretzel and some cheese. I'm not counting to the 500 calories any more and just aiming for a 24 hour fast, so essentially just miss breakfast and lunch and then have a normal but lightish dinner.
There are so many variations though - a friend has done really well with 5:2 and I know that she splits her 500 calories into 3 really small meals. If doing that, I think the key is to aim for high protein, low carb. Anything with eggs is great!

A friend does 5 800 cal days and two non-fast. The ratatouille I mention is from the fast days. She's got some delicious recipes. Now she's lost the weight she just eats whatever she wants on the other two days.

Have gained back the 1lb i thought i lost on the weekend. Might try a 20min workout this evening (might not ha) Am really craving a chocolate bar after a long day.

@Heygirlheyboy so to maintain she does 800 x 5 and whatever you want x 2 days? I don't think I could do 5 days of 800!

I think I heard somewhere that Chris Martin fasts one day a week to maintain his weight. He probably does loads of yoga as well and I can't imagine him stuffing his face with pizza and ice cream!

When I was in great shape 5 years ago I mostly did what you do @TheHoundsofLove. I had never heard of 5:2 at the time, just kind of ended up doing it to get results (wedding imminent!). I used to have a big milky coffee for breakfast and go all day with no food until dinner time. I called them my 'no food days' and I'd suffer quite badly with hanger! I don't have the discipline to do it now unfortunately. I blame the many, many nocturnal awakenings of one child and the crazy early morning riser the other one is. My day is just too horribly long to go without food until dinner time. I'm not sure how healthy my relationship with food was either, good thing it didn't too long!

heygirl that sounds pretty extreme to maintain weight. I thought 5:2 was 5 days of eating normally/not counting calories and 2 of 800 cals, then most people maintain on 6:1.

I suppose it depends on so many factors though. If someone is very small, very sedentary, menopausal etc.. they may only need 1200ish calories to maintain, so 5x800 and 2x2000 works out about right, just arranged over the week slightly differently.

Thanks for the fasting advice! Very interesting. I think I might try it on one day a week first. Don’t think I could exercise on 500 calories though? Surely you’d have zero energy?

Wine I tend to combine fast days with my rest days just because that fits into the week pretty well. But, on fast days I still go out on my bike, walk my dog and am generally active - I feel okay and don't notice a particular reduction in energy.