Hi all,
I am starting the BSD in the morning. Do I have to stick rigidly to the meals as laid out in the 8 week menu plan, or can I eat any breakfast, lunch and supper on any day? I mean, do I have to start with day 1 followed by day 2, 3 and 4 etc, or can I mix and match different breakfasts with different lunch and supper menu. There are some food on the plan that I cannot stand and some which are difficult to get hold of in store in my local area.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
Hi Gra – no you dont have to follow the menu plans exactly, just try to make sure each day comes out around 800 calories. If you swap one day for another or completely miss a day then the calculations should be the same for the day. However, if you start swapping actual meals i.e. Mondays breakfast for Tuesdays but keeping the rest of the day the same, you might find you are skewing the calories so use a calculator to make sure you stay on track. Try to swap like for like. For example there is a lunch of mackerel pate which I swap for tinned tuna. You can also, when you get used to the types of foods you are allowed and like, make up your own menus just find an online calculator like Sparkpeople.com or MyFatSecret and key in the foods to find their calories. Good luck.
Hi Gra – firstly, welcome to the forum and your new way of life. Some people have commented that the calorie count on some of the recipes in the meal plan are not accurate, so I don’t know where that would leave you, re: mixing and matching, as I don’t know if the allowance for all breakfasts (or lunches, or dinners) are the same for each day. I’d suggest the best approach may be to workout the calories in the dishes you will be using and then you’ll have a picture of which meal options best fit together to achieve the 800cals per day.
Remember you don’t have to hit exactly 800 per day, as this is a marathon rather than a sprint, so there will be some days higher and some lower, but over the course of the 8 weeks it will balance out. I personally didn’t follow the meal plan at all, but created my own meals, but kept things simple, for instance – yogurt with berries and nuts/seeds for breakfast, salad and a protein source at lunch, protein source and veggies in the evening. However doing it this way, you have to calculate what your calories are yourself, but there are apps available – MyFitnessPal and FatSecrets for example – which will work all of that out for you, when you put in what you are eating.
Not sure if any of that answers your question or helps, but hopefully will give you something to work with. Remember to make good use of the forum too, as it’s a great resource for advice and support. We’ll be looking forward to reading about your progress, so best wishes for a good start on this way of eating.
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Hi, ladies! I’m just popping in for a quick word of advice regarding fruit. Some can be
surprisingly high in carbs, and those who haven chosen to be strict with our daily carb
allotment, leave fruit behind with the exception of a small handful of berries. A simple
apple contains 16-18g of carbs, and an anjou pear is 22.5g. I’m quite insulin resistant
so had to set a limit of <20g a day during the weight loss phase. Just a word to the
wise 🙂 Check everything before putting it in your mouth…carbs lurk in the most
surprising of places! One medium onion contains 9.6g…
Welcome Gra, and best of luck to you!
Allie
Hi Hummingbird,
I am also planning on starting tomorrow and I do not feel very prepared but I do feel I have most of the ingredients I will be needing. I do normally already follow a med diet but I need to be stricter with myself on the carbs intake and do feel my main challenge will be mind over matter as my husband cannot have a meal without carbs and will be difficult cooking them for someone else and not eating them. When you are in a position to share your menu plan I would love to see it myself, I agree that to start with it is better to keep the variety to a minimum as otherwise I find myself wondering what to cook next.
Good luck to you and Gra and to all those that are starting this new lifestyle change adventure.
GLORIA1971
Hi Gra,
I wasn’t able to follow the menu’s in the book as I am a vegetarian, I would agree with the advice you have already received on using one of the apps, I use fatsecret myself on my smart phone but you can use website versions of them. It makes life so much easier if you log all the ingredients of each meal before you start cooking to be sure that you stay within your targets.
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Sounds like a plan!!! Will go and sort out my breakfast and lunch for tomorrow now and will plan my dinner when I get back from work. planning on doing 20 minute walk at lunch and hopefully will still have some energy to use my newly acquired smart core gadget in the evening, fingers crossed. Will check in tomorrow night and hope that I am still sane and not trying to chew my own fingers.
GLORIA1971
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Hummingbird, that’s another surprise…all root vegetables are fairly high carb. Here in
the U.S. I’ve been using fatsecret, and it lists a medium 6″ carrot at 4 net carbs, 25 cal.
Grams are not the usual unit of measure for a portion, yet protein, fats, fiber and sugar
are broken down that way…It’s kind of demented, when you think about it! Therefor,
with respect to your fruits list, I don’t weigh in grams, but I can tell you that I have
a 1/2c greek yogurt for breakfast with 6-8 frozen raspberries, 1 tb chia seeds, and
1 tb raw unsweetened cacao nibs. That is about 1/4c of berries, and carbs are 4g and
@ 17.5 cal. I hope that makes sense?
This is the weirdest thing ever. I must be honest and admit that I was dreading how I would feel today but nothing of what I expected has happened. Have not felt ravenous at any point during the day, have been more active today than on any other working day and I have a deskbound job and I feel absolutely fine. I am expecting it to hit me at some point, but I hope I am wrong. Feeling a tad hungry at 22 hours but since it is shut eye time soon I know I will cope.
Milky coffee at 8:45 with unsweetened soya milk, soft boiled egg at 11:15, green lentils with anchovies, celery and cucumber followed by full fat plain yogurt at 13:30 , white fish fillets, asparagus, celery and carrots at 20:15, had 3 herbal teas and 6 glasses of water during the course of day.
Walked 20 minutes at lunch time, got up from desk every 40 minutes, got back home and did 15 minutes on cross trainer, 15 minutes on smart core gadget and still had the energy to dance for another 15 minutes to some Latino music.
Did I have some kind of transplant during the night??? This is not me. 🙂
That all sounds amazing, GLORIA1971. So glad it’s going well and you are feeling on top of the world – long may it last! Putting me to shame with all that exercise. Hope things continue to go well, but either way, do keep use posted on your progress.
Well, end of day 3 and couldn’t even finish my dinner as was so full up after eating a turkey breast stake and 10 asparagus spears.
Got concerned yesterday morning when I woke up at 4:30 am to go toilet and then got dizzy walking back to bed, got up half hour later to get ready to go to bed and must say I felt somehow unsteady,, ended having a slice of cheese when I set off to work as have a fairly long drive and didn’t think it was a good idea to leave the house with an empty stomach which I says do as it is t ok early to have breakfast, thankfully I felt better as the day went by but still stayed within the diet.
So far lost 2lb in two days and still going.