My biggest dilemma is that I have to take medicine in the morning. I don't want to eat until around 11 am because I like to have a late night snack of 100 calorie pack of cocoa dusted almonds. I've been putting off taking my medicine but the one I can't put off is an anti biotic.

I guess I can share this ,lol. I have to take an antibiotic before have sex or I will get a UTI.I have to take it with food.

I guess half of a Greek Yogurt would be 50 calories. I need to look up string cheese and baby bell light.

How about you? Is the 5:2 plan working with your life? I also don't like working out with my trainer on an empty stomach.

Will this not work if you have 11 hours in between instead of 12? There must be some reason you have to have 12 hours off.

Genetics..... My family is a mixed bag when I had this surgery I was definitely the biggest in what's left of my family.

Addiction issues run rampant in my family. So I know it's a coping mechanism for me.

I can trace it back to being 5 years old (and very skinny) and watching my then almost separated parents fight about me. My mom would force me to sit at a table and eat, my father would yell at her for "forcing" me to eat. My father would have me over and yell at me about what she was doing.

He became obsessed with my weight in the years to come. He left me to live with the woman who was a drunk and all sorts of other things.. I would only speak to him once every couple of years (my moms fault he would say) I still remember standing in my moms kitchen on the phone with him asking if I was "still fat".

I saw my father at my brothers funeral 6 years ago. At that time he told me about a cousin I used to like when I was a child. He said she was coming to the funeral soon. He told me about what a beautiful woman she turned out to be bright and pretty! The funny thing? When she walked in? She was bigger than me!!!

I wonder what would of happen if my father had told me all those years ago that I was pretty or at least not called me fat??

As I read this I started to get really emotional and tear up. These are sins of our parents and how they affect who we are today. I've been replaying some past scenes in my relationship with my parents and how I take something like "your too skinny" as a really young girl and all the neglect I had too. I learned to fill boredom with P&J sandwhiches at an early age. My parents were so toxic I had to just plain outright divorce them from my life. Thank God they moved to Ohio and the only contact I had was over the phone and a few horrible visits.....Well that's over and I am in such a better place today. I just wish i didn't have this addiction for sugar and foods......

Today I will be fasting with 500 calories. I ate some baked potato chips yesterday and gained about 2 lbs......I know it's Water weight because of the salt. But I'm not too concerned about it bc i actually didn't have any throbbing in my calves last night and now I believe the throbbing was because my body does not hang on to fluids unless I increase my salt intake....Yayyyy no restless leg syndrome.

I am focusing on shifting from Protein Drinks to cooking and preparing real foods. After all, at least I can control what's in my food and eliminate all the sugar that's added to improve taste of processed foods. Oh and calories also.....Time to get unlost in my food habits.......

FYE, careful with those Mars bars I don't know if I could resist them. LOL

As I read this I started to get really emotional and tear up. These are sins of our parents and how they affect who we are today. I've been replaying some past scenes in my relationship with my parents and how I take something like "your too skinny" as a really young girl and all the neglect I had too. I learned to fill boredom with P&J sandwhiches at an early age. My parents were so toxic I had to just plain outright divorce them from my life. Thank God they moved to Ohio and the only contact I had was over the phone and a few horrible visits.....Well that's over and I am in such a better place today. I just wish i didn't have this addiction for sugar and foods......

Today I will be fasting with 500 calories. I ate some baked potato chips yesterday and gained about 2 lbs......I know it's Water weight because of the salt. But I'm not too concerned about it bc i actually didn't have any throbbing in my calves last night and now I believe the throbbing was because my body does not hang on to fluids unless I increase my salt intake....Yayyyy no restless leg syndrome.

I am focusing on shifting from Protein drinks to cooking and preparing real foods. After all' date=' at least I can control what's in my food and eliminate all the sugar that's added to improve taste of processed foods. Oh and calories also.....Time to get unlost in my food habits.......

FYE, careful with those Mars bars I don't know if I could resist them. LOL [/quote']

Thank you...

The good news is that I took everything I "learned" from them and did the exact opposite with my family and children I'm glad I didn't have children till later (30 first child 36 second)

It really gave me time to work through SOME of my ****.

My mom lives 4 hours away now and through years of learning and A.A. (after my brothers death) she accepts my boundaries...so its good.

Ok I'm on a regular day today and feeling ready for my fast day tomorrow! Which is good because I felt really out of the groove last week and it had me worried.

Cheri,

I make most of our meals at home,

but cooking? It's not really my thing... I need to find ways to embrace it more. I'm a one dish wonder kind of mom. Chili, stir fry, salads with shredded chicken,

Laura - first, I cannot believe you said you had your second child at 36 - you keep saying you're older than me but you LOOK the same age.

Second, there are so many things I can relate to that you've posted lately. I, too, wonder who I might have been if I had grown up with parents that wanted me and with people that loved me. I've worked through a lot of that stuff but the insecurity and that feeling that I am never doing good enough or that feeling that I have to keep everyone around me happy is something that while faded, is probably never going away.

I had a lightbulb moment a few months ago, just beating myself up and feeling like I'm not a good parent or I'm not doing enough for my family. What else I'd do I don't know, but logic doesn't factor into my self-abuse! In any case, out of the blue my five year old daughter just walked in the room, signed "I love you" climbed in my lap and told me she was having a great day and that she loves her Mom.

And I realized at that moment that I'll never be a perfect parent, but I am 1,000 times better than my parents - that I am NOT damaging my kids the way they did me. I never in a million years would have initiated contact with my mother as a kid. I never, ever cuddled or hugged her. I never told her I loved her and she didn't tell me she loved me for the first time until I was 19 years old and burying my daughter. She never touched us as kids unless it was in anger and she was punishing us. What does that do to a kid, how does that shape an adult? And that's just one of the many fine effed up things in my lovely train wreck of a life - at least, until I started working on ME, built a family with my husband and had my fantastic kids. I have completely reconciled with my mom and we have a decent relationship, though I'm more of the parent than the child. But that took a lot of work to build.

Ms. Skinniness I get what you're saying, too. The body and our habits really do tell stories about our upbringing. I have entire branches of my family tree that I cut off once I started realizing how damaging those relationships were to me. I can't believe how much letting all of those toxic people go has improved my life.

In any case, even preparing your own meals is a big deal. Did you know that overseas (at least in Eastern Europe) they believe American women do not/cannot cook? My housekeeper in Bishkek was floored by the fact that I can cook and bake.

For me, it's a quiet place. I started doing it as a kid to escape. I'd just grab a cookbook, find a recipe we had the ingredients to make and cook something new on the weekend. Now I do it to feed my family and find it incredibly fulfilling and enjoyable. I'd hate to earn my living this way but it's just amazing to me how enjoyable it is to spend time teaching my twins how to cook and teaching myself new skills and techniques.

Anyway, blah blah. I'm off to get my crown fitted - hooray for that. Good luck today, oregondaisy! I hope that your root canal is as painless as mine was.

Hope everyone is doing well. Dodge those Mars bars, FYE - no way you want any of that! To be honest, I've never had one of those...or any fair food for that matter, beyond cotton candy, funnel cakes or kettle corn. I suppose I've lived a sheltered life.

~Cheri

I think that's what matters now, is that we are trying and we care.

Perfection? Highly overrated and to hard to maintain the illusion of.

Thank you so much for sharing your personal struggles. I having an amazing mom and feel so lucky for that. My biological father on the other hand I have not seen since I was 12 years old and have no contact with him. He was very abusive, beating my mother and brother and abusing me in other ways. I have dealt with it in therapy, but can't even really think about or I start to have problems with regression, and being at home with young children, the last thing they need is for me to lose it. I appreciate your stories because it makes me feel not so alone sometimes, even though I only know you through the computer...

Anyways, I am half way through my fast day, coming up on supper with my old standby, chicken! Having an ok day so far keeping busy out and about, keeps my mind off the food! Back to normal tomorrow and I always look forward to it!

My parents are both gone. They struggled with their weight all their lives until they got old.Then I would have to force them to eat. It was strange. They both were very thin when they died.

I had a root canal today so it was easy to fast. I went to bed around 5 and slept until almost 8 so that took care of that head hunger.

I need to learn to log in so I can get the correct calories. I looked up Havarti cheese in my book and it didn't give me the weight. It has to make a difference whether it's cut thick or thin.

Laura which one do you use? I want anything that's easy. MFP doesn't seem all that easy. then do you weigh your slice of cheese if it's cut at a deli counter?

Thank you so much for sharing your personal struggles. I having an amazing mom and feel so lucky for that. My biological father on the other hand I have not seen since I was 12 years old and have no contact with him. He was very abusive' date=' beating my mother and brother and abusing me in other ways. I have dealt with it in therapy, but can't even really think about or I start to have problems with regression, and being at home with young children, the last thing they need is for me to lose it. I appreciate your stories because it makes me feel not so alone sometimes, even though I only know you through the computer...

Anyways, I am half way through my fast day, coming up on supper with my old standby, chicken! Having an ok day so far keeping busy out and about, keeps my mind off the food! Back to normal tomorrow and I always look forward to it![/quote']

I agree... I really like getting a deeper insight on everyone here. We have some much more in common than just the weight.

I hope the rest of your fast day went well.

I'm tomorrow!

I use calorie count its an iPhone app.

Here's an example of havarti on it

If I buy meat or cheese at the deli I weigh it yes, because it will have the calories by weight on the tag.

Seriously, I think I see that it's kind of split. Most people either come from damaged backgrounds or else they had bad habits reinforced by family.

I had a decent fast day. I apparently can't sleep well, though, so I might skip weighing today. A few things directly affect the scale for me and lack of sleep is one of them. Crazy.

Normal day today, though, full of baking because we have a guest in now (in addition to the stepkids) and more coming over the next week. I'll bake extra bread and freeze it so that I'm not as busy when folks are here. Otherwise I won't have time to do the tourist thing with everyone. Ugh...I'm grateful for the number of free activities to do here, but kind of wish we weren't in such a tourist destination. My kind of vacation is the one where I lounge around and do a bunch of nothing. I don't relate to these relatives and friends that want to go see stuff every day. I mean, is it a winery? No? Then what is my reward from walking around all day?

~Cheri

I did well with my fast yesterday. My weight dropped slightly, but still up from the lowest, but I just checked my calendar and I am exactly 14 days into my cycle, which always makes a difference. I am not expecting any big loss for the next few weeks

I am happy that I decided to jump on the 5:2 wagon, even if it doesn't result in any weight loss, I have gotten to talk with some pretty amazing people!

Good luck to all you Tuesday faster, Laura and Georgia I know for sure!

Yep here I am! Fasting today. I'm glad you joined too I have had a week or two with no loss either. But I know this is the right thing for me so I will keep at it.

I was down a pound yesterday the first in two weeks so we will see how it goes after today.

Something weird I belong to the c25k thread also

I told them but I will say it here too.

About an hour after running yesterday I was sitting down and when I got up I had a dizzy spell and a mini black out and ran into the oven.

Well this morning I got out of bed to let the dog out, it happened again and I fell into a wall! Have a nice knot on my forehead now, but I'm happy it happened before I got to the stairs!

Coops I think if you keep at it, you'll break your stall. If you're not eating more than you should on your non fast days, there's no reason you shouldn't. Do you know your TDEE?

I am having mine checked at the doctor's on thursday by a machine and I am really looking forward to that. Then I'll know how many calories to eat on my non fast days.

Can someone clarify the feast days? It says eat whatever you want. They mean within your TDEE, right?

Yep here I am! Fasting today. I'm glad you joined too I have had a week or two with no loss either. But I know this is the right thing for me so I will keep at it.

I was down a pound yesterday the first in two weeks so we will see how it goes after today.

Something weird I belong to the c25k thread also

I told them but I will say it here too.

About an hour after running yesterday I was sitting down and when I got up I had a dizzy spell and a mini black out and ran into the oven.

Well this morning I got out of bed to let the dog out, it happened again and I fell into a wall! Have a nice knot on my forehead now, but I'm happy it happened before I got to the stairs!

!!! Low blood pressure?

Low blood sugar?

I fasted yesterday, after two days up by 1.8 pounds. This morning I was in the same place. Hope to knock those off soon! fingers crossed...XXX. Ok, here is a graphic showing my fast days and weight loss so far. Started June 11th-was down 8.8 pounds + 1.8 = 7 pounds down in 5 1/2 weeks

Anemia, Laura? How's your Iron?

Supersweetums, I'm also at that point. I didn't sleep well last night, either so I dodged the scale today.

Great work on those pounds shed, FYE! I feel like it's going slow for me but I'm actually doing better than I did shedding those last ten pounds last time.

It feels like the weekend to me. Crazy. My husband was home today so we could get our final shipment from Bishkek and it's weird having him home in the middle of the week!

Good luck to those fasting today. I would tell you what I'm making for dinner but you'll want some.

~Cheri

Cheri what state do you live in now?

I have a appointment with a new endocrinologist today because of some parathyroid issues.

So I'm sure they will do more blood work and I'll ask about the dizziness.

Fasting so far, is good today just ate some eggs.

I'm on a 'normal' day today, but apparently not a good one. I just totted up my cals for the day and came out with...2069. If I remove candy and champagne (a mid-day work celebration, oy), I end up with 1368. WTF? I had a weird sweet tooth today and then I got that f*** it thing and just ate whatever I felt like. Bad mojo today...

I'm not fasting again till Thursday, so tomorrow I'll try to have a better 'normal' day, though I have another social thing tomorrow night. Sigh. The wine calories are killing me, but I pretty much suck at social occasions if I can't have a drink or three.

Laura -- loved your pics in the previous page of this thread, haven't seen your progress before, you look great! The midsection is soooo much smaller, you look happier too. Does my heart good.

I am too tired and grumpy to get into the family saga...suffice to say that my generation is the first one with fat people in it (primarily my sister and me) and the rest of my family are OBSESSED with weight and used to monitor what I ate, how much I weighed, etc. UGH. I was fat in my head loooooong before I was even slightly fat physically.

Yeah, time for bed. Good luck Tuesday fasters!!!