Monday 13th January weigh in.

Well done to you glassortwo an example to us all, I have very old unreliable scales, but it looks like I have lost about 2 lbs. Very pleased and encouraged but it has been hard and I have felt hungry a lot of the time. Am out to lunch tomorrow so will have to be extra careful and not be tempted by anything fattening, and am definitely not having dessert!

I have been away on holiday, staying in Arizona with my brother, am now back, and surprisingly, I am the same weight as before Christmas, but now for that ston.... I am back on 5-2, good luck everyone

I mean stone!

I started back on a 4-3 diet on Sunday. I tried to do this diet last summer but after 10 weeks I was disappointed to find I hadn't lost anything. My ankles were swollen (in the hot weather) and I went to my doctor who told me that I wouldn't lose weight because of the water retention - but she wouldn't prescribe me a diuretics, so, I gave up on the diet, and put on another half stone. Now the ankle swelling's gone down, so I'll try the 5-2 (or for me 4-3) again. I really want to shed around 3 stone - has anyone else had the weight gain/water retention problem? If so, is there any proven way to get rid of excess water other than prescribed diuretics?

bet you had a super time Grannyeggs !
Re your weight , because it was hot over there [well I assume it was unless they also got some of that awful weather] I think you tend to sweat the weight off I know I do !

Goose, good luck with the diet. May I ask you, why 4-3? Three days without much food sounds hard to me,I find 5-2 bad enough.

I had a great time thanks Nonu

I've just had a couple of deli wraps to use up some salad and read that deli wraps are calorie packed [@300 each]. Mind you I only had lettuce in it with low calorie mayonnaise. Goose; don't push yourself too much; how about doing it 5:2 then increasing it after a week or so?

*Goose , do you use "LO_Salt" on your food and to cook with ?
Has 66% less sodium than ordinary salt and can help with fluid retention !

Crikey, glass! Well done!

Haven't weighed myself in months. I was muddling along happily on the 5:2 but due to family commitments I had to abandon it six months ago. Circumstances changed recently and there are now less demands in my time. So today was my first day back in track.
A mug of Super Green Soup for lunch and a sandwich for tea today. I'm hungry but feeling virtuous and determined to get back into my size 12 jeans by summer

Whats Super Green Soup? It sounds very healthy [vision of a halo pinging above ones head as one drinks it in a light bulb sort of way].

Just got a recipe for it; will get the ingredients tomorrow...

I but mine from M&S .. only 120 cals per half pot. But if you have a recipe I'd love to try making it,

It said watercress, onion, garlic, leeks celery and stock. I suppose you could add anyhting green [peppers?]beans etc. Sounds easy even for me [might give me wind,though?] Would it ruin it to add potato to thicken it a bit, i wonder? Probably wouldn't be such a detox.

Cabbage would be good (for added wind) and you could add peas to thicken it perhaps?

That's brilliant Glass!

Sprouts ...

A step too far Tegan and well done Glass

Hi Grannyeggs…I decided to do '4-3' instead of '5-2' because I'd proved to myself previously, that once I put my mind to it, I can do it. I 'fast' Sun, Tues, Thurs, which means I have two days 'non-fast' (Fri/Sat) to look forward to, as well as the normal one day between gorge-fests! I also leave an option for one day to eat around 700 calories instead of 500 if I'm finding it too hard to stick to. Basically I sort of 'pick 'n' mix how I go about it, and have made up what works best for me. Always leaving the 700cal day open as an option helps (my normal cal intake probably would go into 1000's

Sounds like the of cabbage (? Cambridge diet,)

No, just a soup with all things green in it. I'll probably go for a soup that's red or orange on my next fast day.

I thought the Cambridge Diet was one with lots of yucky packets if dried stiff to mix with water, or have I made that up or were you thinking of the Cabbage Soup Diet Galen?

if dried stiff of dried stuff.

Yes!

I'll never forget back in the days when I had a social life someone saying that they were doing the cabbage soup diet; as she walked away my friend [who had a habit of being somewhat acerbic] turned to me and said quietly 'cabbage soup diet obviously doesn't work'. I know it was cruel but her timing was always so brillliant. We were both failing miserably on the diets we were on at the time [that and giving up smoking].