No bread is an island

...entire of itself. (With apologies to John Donne!)
I live and breathe breadmaking. I’m an evangelist who would like everyone to make his or her own bread. I want to demystify breadmaking and show it as the easy everyday craft that it is. To this end I endeavour to make my recipes as simple and as foolproof as I possibly can.

I call my blog 'No bread is an island' because every bread is connected to another bread. So a spicy fruit bun with a cross on top is a hot cross bun. This fruit dough will also make a fruit loaf - or Chelsea buns or a Swedish tea ring...
I'm also a vegan, so I have lots of vegan recipes on here - and I'm adding more all the time.

Saturday 1 March 2014

Today I'm celebrating two years of Intermittent Fasting!

Thursday 27th February
I began Intermittent Fasting exactly 2 years ago, on the 27th February 2012 - to celebrate, I thought I'd put on record just how those two years of IF have affected me.


I can honestly say I have never felt so well. Even when I was in the forces and pretty fit, I never had the feeling of well-being and zen-like calm (most of the time!) that I have now.

Thanks are due mainly to the wonderfully supportive 5:2 fasting threads on Mumsnet (here's the current one), the very similar 5:2 Fast Diet forum, and the good Dr Mosley's Horizon programme - I'm now at my correct weight, losing 24lbs by October 2012.

I've reined in my chocolate and biscuit habits; I have more energy than I know what to do with; and now I've taken up weight-bearing exercises, in the words of my son, "Your body's beginning to develop some definition, there, dad," mentioning deltoids and pecs! And it's true - I caught a glimpse of my pecs in the mirror this morning! 

I've never had pecs, ever!

And I'm definitely stronger, being able to manhandle my heavy portable oven on my own - previously, I've had to ask for help.

So, all in all, life's pretty good. 

I did go to the doc last week - on an unrelated matter - and asked about blood tests since it's a year since the last time. He said I had some tests in June, which I can't remember, so I'll have to wait for a few months. But the last lot were excellent!

Oh, nearly forgot! Thanks to the chin-ups I'm now doing, I'm now an inch taller - regaining the inch I lost in my fifties and sixties! 

I'm now more confident than ever, that, barring accidents, I'll live a healthy life into the future - avoiding and major illnesses, including dementia.

I still fast one day a week - I doubt I'll ever give up that regime - sometimes for 24 hours, sometimes for upwards of 40 hours on one very low calorie meal. 


Friday 28th February 2014
Yesterday, late in the evening, I kind of thought I should hold some sort of a celebration to mark this momentous date.

I wasn't really bothered, particularly, but I thought "I can't let this go without marking this anniversary in some way."

About midnight, I poured myself a slug of Benedictine over ice - which was OK, but I really prefer wine or beer as a drink. So I poured myself a glass of my homemade red, which led me to thinking I should have something to eat. There was some leftover Thai curry on the hob, which I finished off with the wine - no more than about 150ml altogether.

Not so long ago I had such a supper maybe 5 times a week. At one stage I instituted a NES (No Evening Snacking) rule - then later on I relaxed this after I realised that, as a maintainer, on 6:1, if I had a supper, I could just leave out breakfast the next day. Right up until recently; I just called it an early breakfast! 

But the thing is that last night I more or less had to force myself to have something to eat and drink. It was fine, but I felt I was doing it out of 'duty', as it were!

So my conclusion is that (I think), my appetite is such that it no longer requires a supper. Whereas, back along, I would have had the wine and curry with relish. How times change, eh?

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