AJ has moved to refeed!

[JJ*]

Just wanted to drop in and add my congrats to the pile! Have followed your diary entries and pix and just great that you have "made it" to the next phase in your journey. You are an inspiration the solid and committed way that you have pursued your goal!
I know that you will be taking it all in your stride, but heres hoping that everything runs as smoothly as it should and you are into maintenance phase for the wedding...

Congrats...

[polly]

hi AJ
congratulations on starting refeed, I will be following your journey with interest! thanks for all your comments and support
Polly

[TwoZeds]

Congratulations AJ, what an achievement!!

[SuzieQ]

WOW Congratulations on reaching refeed AJ, scarey I know but you will do great - you always do . I'm sure you'll have a few more friends join you soon!

Suzie

[Hervey Bay Shrinker]

Hi AJ,
CONGRATULATIONS on reaching refeed!! You have done so well, you have been very dedicated to all of us giving your inspirational encouragement posts and I am sure I can speek for everyone in the forum to say we really do appreciate it. I guess by seeing so many of us here at your refeed diary, you now realize that it is not a lonely place to be, we are still following you, you cannot escape!! HEE HEE HEE! Good luck with the refeed program and hope it all runs to schedule for the wedding. I too look forward to seeing your photos in your beautiful clothes. I bet your excited to show off the new AJ to everyone at the wedding, some people will be very suprised I am sure. Once again well done, and I will keep checking out your progress.

Hervey Bay Shrinker.

[Annabelle Joy]

Up 300 gms this morning. Not too worried about that after a good drop yesterday (often followed by a slight rise the next day) and an hour less in bed. When I went to bed DH said "It's tomorrow". I thought I was a bit earlier than usual, but forgot daylight saving and by today's time it was after midnight.

Yesterday went okay, although I felt quite bloated before dinner, after having rockmelon as a mid afternoon snack. How can rockmelon make me feel bloated? The extra protein and veg weren't a problem, but the extra fruit was a bit much. I'm now having a full fruit with yoghurt instead of half a fruit as previously. I've been having the other half fruit as an afternoon snack, yesterday increased to full fruit. My fruit allowance has been three a day (lucky me), the other two with lunch and dinner. Today I'll try half a fruit mid morning and the other half mid afternoon. I'm now thinking that I'd like refeed to be a lot longer than it is to introduce these new foods more gradually. My stomach is already feeling constantly full after only one day and relatively small increases.

I did a rough calculation of the calories in the final day of refeed, and it's only about 1500 in mine, which is probably about what I should be eating at my age. That includes (for me): meals twice the diet size, five fruits, two slices of bread, one with butter, a small serve of pasta, rice or similar, two plain sweet biscuits and a glass of wine. So even though the quantities seem huge, Cohen food doesn't contain a lot of calories.

Protein, veg and fruit additions today are the same as yesterday, but I get to add a slice of bread. I'm doing a Thermomix demo at home for some neighbours this evening, which includes making bread rolls. Sunday night I have feta and cauli soup as my weekly treat, so will make that ahead of time, and have a small roll (slice of bread size, 30 gms) with it. I'm going to have to put all the extra protein into lunch, will increase the cauli in the soup a little, but am conscious of keeping meat and veg increases in proportion, so most extra veg with lunch. Cheese and yoghurt proteins can't be increased.

So, the plan for today is:
Breakfast: yoghurt plus full fruit
Mid morning snack: half a fruit
Lunch: protein and veg, around 25% bigger than usual, plus one fruit
Mid afternoon snack: half a fruit
Dinner: feta and cauli soup, slightly more cauli, bread, one fruit
My CB allowance has been eight, although I usually eat six. Today it's cut back to five because of the bread.

Today will be spent preparing for the demo, and doing some Thermomix paperwork, plus the demo tonight. I've solved one of the computer problems, the other one is more difficult. I need to buy a new DVD drive for it and try that. I've told him I mightn't get it done for a while. Busy week this week.

Thanks for calling by, Katrina, Connie, Em, Justine, JJ, Polly, Chailee, Suzie, HBS and anyone reading this.

Thanks for the support and congratulations, Katrina, Em, KK, Polly, Chailee, Suzie and HBS. Good to see you over here. I hope I can give you some idea of what to expect when you get to refeed without making your mouths water, and tummies cry out, too much.

Connie, when I was told that I mightn't get the hunger that I was looking for as I had a poor recognition of hunger and fullness, that made a lot of sense. The adding weight bit is a safeguard. I hadn't seen any mention of that anywhere, so it's something I thought might be useful to others also.

Justine, my clinic has given me a nice chart to work out each day's meals. It seems fairly straightforward, but definitely worth reading and rereading the info at the beginning of the Plan. I have bread for the first time today, just one slice and I'm going to make a little roll. I don't normally eat a lot of bread, so will probably not have it every day anyway.

Have a lovely, stress free, day, everyone.

AJ

[FotoHijinx]

Hi AJ - congrats on starting refeed - enjoy all the new stuff.

Cheers from Streaky Bay.

Irene

[reecy]

congratulations AJ for making it to refeed, looks like you beat me in the end, but it wont be long till i join you i ordered refeed yesterday so will see how i go !

i cant wait till refeed, i will be keeping a close eye on your diary to learn a few things before i start.

good luck

Reecy

[SuzieQ]

yummmmmm I'm drooling AJ!! Sounds like you are enjoying refeed so far!

Suzie

[lucylou]

Hi AJ

I'm away from the forum for a couple of days (have the kids staying with me) and here you are at refeed. I'm afraid at first my abandonment issues raised their pitiful heads but then I started reading your refeed diary and realised what a wonderful resource this is for all of us approaching refeed, especially those of us who do Cohen's by email and don't get a chance to get to our clinics. I hadn't heard the quote that Connie highlighted before and that's a very useful thing to know.

So congratulations. I hope it all goes smoothly and that you an relax and enjoy the wedding. I'll be reading with great interest.

x

Loulou

[Francesca]

Hey AJ

It took me a couple of minutes to properly digest (mentally!) your Day 2 food list - it really sounds like a lot of yummy food! You must be having a great time!

Are we required to eat everything that's allocated for a specific day while we are on refeed, or can we eat less than the maximum allowed. I find it hard to imagine that I can maintain my weight with that quantity of food!

[thenewvee]

While your increases don't sound like much more, when you are used to the Cohen's portions for an extended period of time, I bet it takes some getting used to eating so much food! So long as you are experiencing a good full!!

The bread roll with your cauliflower and fetta soup sounds like it will go great! Hope you enjoy it and find that the bread does not have an adverse effect on you!

I'm following your refeed as well, cause I want to learn as much as possible now so that I'll be more prepared for it when I get there! So thanks for sharing with us AJ!

Vee

[janine]

I was also offline for a couple of days (forgot to take the power pack for my laptop to Sydney) and was so excited to find you in Refeed.

The Refeed instructions take a lot of digesting (literially and figuratively), especially once you start to mix proteins. Your original fruit and CB allowances were more than mine, so you will be eating all day to eat the allowances for the final days of Refeed! Take it easy. It can be quite overwhelming, to say nothing of causing bloat!

I'll follow your Refeed with great interest!

[Jenniwren]

Hi AJ,
Glad to see you are enjoying re-feed and
are full I hope our body enjoys all the new
tastes that you are giving it at the moment.
Enjoy your bread roll with your soup it's sounds
yummy.
Take Care
Jenni x

[Sjl]

Well done AJ, good luck for the rest of your refeed.

[drexyl]

I'm away for a bit & now you're on refeed! Congratulations AJ!
You must be totally stoked to finally be here!
Good luck & hope it's all done & dusted before the wedding!
Love your work AJ!
Toodles from me xo

[Annabelle Joy]

Down 100 gms on yesterday, up 200 gms on Saturday. I weighed before bed last night and was up 3 kgs (usual is 1 1/2 to 2 kgs), was afraid to get on the scales this morning, but it had all gone again. I had a busy day yesterday, getting ready for the party/demo last night, then giving it. When I'm busy like that my body doesn't process the water, stores it away somewhere, and I usually see the effects on the scales the next day. During the diet that wouldn't bother me as I knew it would soon go. In refeed, when weight gain can be the effect of the food, it is important. Big relief this morning.

Yesterday I made bread for myself. I made eight little 30 gm rolls, the weight of a slice of bread, and a cute little loaf, which I've frozen. They're a mix of mainly baker's (white) flour and a little bit of wholemeal, made by grinding up wheat. The recipe is the one I use for Thermomix demos. I made rolls in the demo last night, and included a 30 gm one for myself.

I managed the food better yesterday. Splitting the extra fruit seemed to help. I didn't notice any bloating effect from the roll. It may be that I ate it with my soup while the guests were eating their risotto, and then continued with the demo and had other things on my mind. It may be that my bread contained only five ingredients whereas the bread that you purchase usually contains anywhere from 12 to 20 ingredients. It may be that I can eat bread, although I have tended to avoid it over recent years.

Our guests enjoyed their evening. I think some of them have gone away and will think about buying a Thermomix, and maybe will in the future. I'm fairly sure they will talk about it, and at this time that's what I'm trying to achieve. Well, some sales would be nice too. They all loved the flavour of the food, and how fast it is for preparing things.

Today's going to be difficult for me. We are going to Melbourne to visit DS and DF. I hope to be back in time to go to the coffee meet in Geelong this afternoon, then I have a Thermomix meeting in Melbourne this evening. DH doesn't want me to go back to that. I will need to take two meals plus all snacks with me. Today is the same as yesterday, but with an increase in protein to bring it back in line with vegetables. Quantity increases are interesting, not necessarily proportional.

Time I got going. I'll be back sometime to acknowledge yesterday's posts, but it may not be until tomorrow.

Have a lovely, stress free, day, everyone.

AJ

[janine]

Hi AJ

With so many irritable bowel issues over the years, I had tried cutting out all sorts of things, including bread and dairy products but nothing ever resolved the issue although cutting out milk made some improvements.

Post-Cohens I am fine with bread and eat heaps of cheese and yoghurt. The simplicity of food during the plan and then the slow introduction of new foods is excellent for ironing out these things. Although I did find that I had a few false alarms during Refeed. Tried the foods again and I was fine.

[pandora]

Wow, wow, wow, AJ, I am so delighted for you as you so deserve this! Being like moi, one of the "elders" on the forum and here you are almost 40kg lighter! Enjoy yr refeed and stick around and encourage people like me as you always do! love Pandora

[Mette]

Wow... that's SO much food! Sounds a bit daunting... Looks like your weight is still going down a bit though.
Hope you have a good trip to see DS and DF! Take care pretty lady!