Trish the different people you listen to recommend fasting for different periods of time. There are some that say women should not fast for longer than 14 hours. I think it depends on the person. We have to decide for ourselves what works. Mad can successfully do long term fasting. Sometime I can fast and sometimes not but I know I always feel better when I eat less. Some, even Dr Fung, say that you can have as much as 500 calories and still get the same benefits of fasting. My friend eats small meals throughout the day and would never consider fasting but she lost 30lbs and her A1c went from 8.1 to 6.1. I am waiting to hear from her tomorrow to see how her cancer treatment affected it. I don't believe any of the plans are wrong. It's what you can stick to long term and what works.

I took a nap today but the phone kept waking me up so not good sleep. I hope to go to bed on an empty stomach and sleep better tonight.

HI friends: yes younger DD came over and made me brunch. While she cooked I walked her dog (heaven for me). After we played board games for a little while.
Older DD did a video call from Germany. She will be home on the 31st, then goes off a few days later to sail a sailboat from Florida to Panama with a friend. Then home for a while. She has quit her job, the construction is taking too long and she will not get on the seas this summer. She is already entertaining other job offers. One of them would have her just working summers and working in a booking and planning office for the summer cruises all winter, so she could live here a few months of the year. I would be in heaven having her around more.
Fasting today is good, I am sleepy, going to bed soon, I worked in the night and slept this morning too, but its all catching up with me now.

Have a good night friends.

fatmad Glad you got to be with DD and able to talk to your other DD as well. I know you will enjoy having her home more.

Pipsicle It is always good to hear from you. My week wasn't all that good last week either. Here's hoping we both have a better week this week.

Carol Sue I'm learning that there are a lot of ways to do IF and keto and low carb. I got a new Free book from Amazon titled Dirty Lazy Keto by a William and Stephanie Laska. It was among some books including keto subjects they offered me. I joined a FB group called Dirty Keto so I decided since I could read this book free that I would get it. The Dirty Lazy caught my eye. This woman lost 140 lbs doing this and I don't know if her husband helped her right the book or if he just published it for her as I haven't seen him say anything in it.

Her thing is that she was tired of the routine of writing down and tracking everything she ate and she also didn't want to do a strict keto so she actually tweaked it to fit her lifestyle. She only counts her carbs and nothing else. Some days she will eat as little as 20 carbs and some days she may eat as much as 50 carbs and was able to lose weight. She says everyone needs to figure out what works for them. The main thing I'm learning is that whether you do low carb or keto it will work as long as we tweak it to fit our own lifestyle. It goes back to One Size does not fit all. She does say that you should eat more slow burning carbs which are the greens, zucchini etc and less of the higher carbs that spike bs.

Didn't eat the cottage cheese tonight. We've been doing the heavy cleaning before company comes in Sunday when we got home from seeing Daddy and for some reason my back was hurting when I got up this morning at 7 am. I was on the go all day. Doing all this work only made the back hurt worse. I made pizza for lunch and then had a snack of 2 beef sticks and a stalk of celery. I am through working for tonight. Bless his heart DH has done the most work and I don't know what I would do without him. I do appreciate him so much. I took a couple of his pain pills that is so mild they do nothing much for him, but usually works great for me so I'm going to sit back here and hope it works as good for my back as it did for the headache I had when I took it. I don't take anything but Tylenol so I guess that is why it works for me.

Any way I hope we can finish up the bulk of the house cleaning by the end of Wednesday. We have CHF for Daddy Thursday afternoon and I go to the beauty shop Friday. I hope to have very minor things to do before our company arrives Sunday. My house is finally getting organized and it should be easy to keep it that way so that I won't be embarrassed for anyone to come over on a moments notice.

I hope to get a good nights sleep tonight.

Mad your daughter lives a very full interesting life. Glad you heard from them.

I slept well last night. Feel rested. I want to tighten up carbs again starting today. I already decided on rotisserie chicken for today and I will make sides.

quick hello. 150 pounds this am. Although I used the bathroom already, tummy feels like there is more to go. A rebound from the loose stuff last week, when I think I had a wheat exposure. Reaction was minor, but obvious.
Trish: there are lots of ways to do IF, and low(wish) carbs etc. But look at what was really working for you. Being careful about carbs, but also understanding that high protein is not helpful was really doing things for you. I know you can't do really high fat, but you were eating low carb and higher fat than usual, and you had great success.
I really have to stay off the sweets, even a little affects me, no matter how it is sweetened.

I have to decide if I am continuing to fast today. I am working so am hoping that the distraction will help me to power through. Not hungry, it was the low mood that got me last week. I will take a "good fats" bar with me today and go for the continued fasting.

Carol: enjoy the chicken. I think a good home made coleslaw without a sweet dressing, just mayo and spices would be just right.

Have a good day friends

I have lots of frozen veggies I have to use up plus DH will want potatoes so no cole slaw.

fatmad I agree with you. I think the book I'm reading now is helping me with my choices. I am still low carbing. It just helps re-enforce what I already know, but it is nice to hear it from those it works for even when not as strictly low carb as some push. I know a pure 100% low carb is probably the best for some, but I know I can't do that. I can do a more moderately low carb.

Weight is up a bit but I'm sure that is sodium in the foods lately and not enough liquids. DH has the scales almost with the other scales so my weight is way up on them, but I decided to just go with it. The nice thing is that my FBG before coffee was 114 so no real damage as weight may be that the scales were off and water weight. Plus I haven't had a good BM in 2 days. Probably a huge salad would remedy that. I've decided to go more of a Dirty Lazy Keto/LC woe and make my highest carbs around 50 grams if it works for me. If not I will adjust that too. I never found a cracker that I like so I'm going to make cheese crackers. I only want them to eat with my 2 c salad so that will work. I found sliced sharp cheddar cheese at Sam's so I will cut one into about 8 pieces and bake to turn them into crackers so I can stay low carbish. I will save CAD rules for days when I have to eat a higher carb meal. There are just too many good benefits of Keto/LC woe to change what I'm doing. Doing CAD all the time makes it too easy to stray into a higher carb eating without realizing it.

The coleslaw sounds good. I tried the recipe Liz told me about again. The mayo I used before was lite mayo. I got regular Hellman's yesterday and that might make a difference. I need to look for a sweet relish made with Splenda to go in it too.

Carol Sue Eating more carbs is what Dr. Berg pushes especially live salads, but I think steamed veggies work just as well. I'm trying to use up the ones I have in freezer now. I will probably keep my salad at main meal. When I was doing SBD, I never went low fat. What I did was use the good fats so that is what I am going to do here. This book basically says that too. She says just add the good fat like butter etc to your veggies. That is what I am doing. Instead of drinking the coconut oil or MCToil BPC, I allow my H&H to be the fat in my coffee. That is how I drank my BPC this morning and had 1/2 an avocado with my eggs and added what I call breakfast boneless pork chop in place of the bacon for a change. So yes I'm still low carbing.

Had a good nights sleep. Another busy cleaning day today and lots of wash tonight. We washed the new towel set we bought for guest bathroom and washed the sheets and comforter for the guest bed too. So that part of the house as well as the library (was supposed to be office) is ready for company. I don't know how much more DH needs to do to his movie library. All I have to do is wash the rugs and towels in our bathroom and sweep and mop in there. I will work on the kitchen today and tomorrow and of course that will have to be redone any way Sunday before company gets here.

This has been really good for us because now we have the house organized and it will be easy keep it up plus we are seeing things we want to do or change to make this our home. Daddy got sick before we got this far and we just never had the energy to get back to it. It is really beginning to be fun to get this house like we want it.

Guess I better get busy. I hope everyone has a great day.

I have not been doing well with " dieting" so I have decided to focus more on nutrition and exercise. I won't abandon the scale and won't allow myself to gain but I want to improve muscle strength and mobility and also gut health. I am beginning to think I'm having trouble in that regard. If my weight goes down I will be happy but my priority now will take a different turn. I just want to post this to make myself more accountable.

I did well with exercise yesterday but not nutrition! I thought my muscles would be sore but they are not. Today I will do only the recumbent bike. It is what I'm able to do the longest and it is very easy on my back and is low impact.

I had rotisserie chicken and vegetables for dinner but tasted a cake DH bought we some candy that was reduced at the store. The cake wasn't great but the candy was. I do need to stop that!!! We might go to Tx Roadhouse today. I can do well there.

It is still winter here. I put my winter coat away but had to get it back out yesterday. I have flowers I got for Mother's day but it's too cold to put them outside. We will probably go right into summer from here. No spring at all. Lots of rain. TRISH I heard that TX is getting a lot of rain too.

Hope all are doing well.

Fasted about 54 hours, and ate before I went to bed, so ate at 3 in bed for 4 am. I just had a bit more now, and that will be my 2 MAD for today.
I expect to be working again tonight, and hope to be in bed at a more reasonable time.
Carol: I think focusing on gaining strength and eating well is a great plan. Do have a scale or something that measures body fat?
It would be a good idea to do that now, and then watch that with your weight. You may gain a little if you are exercising more if you make more muscle, and you should not be worried about it. The goal is to lose weight in the fatty areas, not muscle and bone mass. So keep up the exercise.
If you don't have one of those things to measure body fat, try the tape measure in a few key areas, like belly and hips. I guess belly measurement isn't good for you with the issues you have had, so maybe hips and thighs would be better.

Heading out to work soon, have a good day.

Not much happening here. FBG was 114 and before dinner was 105. Today FBG was 129. Not sure why but it is better than 130s and 140s so that is good. Weight was back down to 217.4 this morning. I just left the scale where it was and just going with it since the most important thing to me is that it is moving downward. I am OP and that is a biggy for me right now. I even did 15 minutes on the recumbent bike. I need to do that regularly for the health of my knees and my back. With all this bending etc cleaning, my back has really been hurting. I am hoping all this bending and twisting will make my back stronger.

Haven't talked to Daddy in 2 days. Either his phone is off or he is out in the halls visiting or involved in activities. DS hubby is taking her to the doctor this afternoon and she said they might go by there if she feels up to it and turn it on. They are all getting new phones when she and BIL go visit her daughter the end of the month. She hopes Daddy will be able to handle the new phone better.

I had a different brunch this morning. I cut up a small tomato, a little bit of cucumber, 1/2 avocado and about 1/2 c 4% cottage cheese and mixed it together and it was really good. So I have something to have for brunch other than eggs. I'm hoping if I mix it up a bit that I will be less boring and maybe get me out of the a diet rut. I bought some SF barbecue sauce so I'm making barbecue chicken tenders today. I guess I'm going to end up with a DLK/CAD/IF combo and hope I can work my way to 2MAD. I've just got to get through this weekend with company and then I have about 6 weeks plus with no doctor's appointments. Then I will work harder at getting more lowcarbish so I can deal with the transition to burning fat.

Carol Sue I think you will be okay. We have days that harder than others.

Fatmad Great job with the EF. You are getting back into the groove.

Pipsicle, Liz, Reves and lurkers

Have a great day.

Mad I do have a scale that measures body fat and might do that out of curiosity. But I'm not really concerned about the numbers except for BG. I want to be able to walk. My mobility is going downhill and I am not ready for that.

I didn't want to exercise today but pushed myself. 20 min on recumbent bike, 5 struggling min on elliptical and 5 min on arm exercises. I feel better after I do.it. I don't expect a huge gain in muscle, just to be able to.move and get around as long as i can.

I will never give up on weight loss. I cannot kid myself. It is always on my mind. But mobility is too.

You may have better results if you eat more carbs. Many of the healthiest foods have carbs (e.g. vegetables, legumes, fruits, whole grains), and they have many proven health benefits. Just be sure to avoid refined carbs (e.g. white bread, white rice).

Check out this study. 20 men with diabetes went on a high-carb high-fiber diet. Within 16 days, their glucose levels dropped, their cholesterol dropped, and more than half of them were able to discontinue their insulin therapy.

On the other hand, diets high in animal protein are associated with a much higher risk of diabetes mortality, as shown in this study.

Good for you to do the exercise ! I struggle with that every day, but yes, it feels much better to actually do it. I have a hard to time to complete as much as 5 minutes on elliptical. I cannot use bike, even recumbent, but I can walk, only about 15 minutes so far but I walk every day, sometimes twice, and I am working to improve it. I completely agree about the importance of mobility. It is worth the hard work (as I tell to myself every day!)

mjf I appreciate the suggestion of a high fiber diet, however, I tried high fiber diet years ago and every once in a while I try it again and I love the fact that there are so many foods to choose from that I really like. The sad thing is that using my diabetic meter I soon learned that I cannot do a high fiber diet because my stomach will not tolerate it plus foods that supposedly would lower my bs actually spiked it. I do eat a lot of non-starchy veggies, but even have to be careful with the size of servings because my stomach will not tolerate too much of it. I don't do grains very often and very rarely eat white bread or any rice at all. It was hard for my SC doctor to understand that I could not eat a lot those foods that were supposed to lower bs because they not only raise my blood glucose, but they make me lethargic. As he said "the numbers don't lie". I am blessed to be basically healthy. My doctor tells me that I do not have high blood pressure or high cholesterol and what little medicine I take is only for prevention. I'm just working to keep things that way.

Have a good evening.