welsh hills again

Well I promised to let you know how I am getting on with my decision to lighten up by following the 5:2 diet.   So here after my first week is my first bulletin from the front.  I have lost a couple of pounds which I am pleased with.  Of course it would be great to lose weight really quickly but it didn't come on quickly so losing it steadily and slowly is all right by me.  I haven't found the fasting days, where I am restricting myself to 500 calories, too bad.  I have done three now, spaced apart by two to three days, and I am beginning to see a pattern emerging as to how to do it. The morning after the first fast day I had a powerful headache, very unusual for me, and I am pretty sure I was dehydrated.  Since then I have made a big effort both to drink lots on fasting days and also to continue to take in a lot of liquid on the following day.  That seems to have done the trick as I haven't had any problem at all following the two subsequent days. ...

If to feel more free is the aspiration, and getting rid of some of the accumulation of stuff is already underway, what else could I be thinking about shedding?  We come round again to weight, fat, excess.  I am not hugely overweight, probably about a stone or so (fourteen pounds to my American readers) but I have been carrying this extra weight for about eight years.  I have never been one of these people who are rake thin and can eat anything but for most of my adult life my weight has hovered between nine stone and nine stone seven, not slender for my height of five foot four but not heavy either.  I would only ever be able to eat what I liked if I was exercising a lot and I cheerfully accepted a sort of discipline which meant that when my weight started to approach nine and a half stone I would exercise more, eat a bit less until it nudged back down again. All that changed when I became seriously ill with an ovarian growth nine years ago.  I lost a huge amo...