Hello!
I joined this forum ages ago, often read, sometimes dabbled, lost some weight but never kept it off.
So here I am again, back at near highest weight – asking for advice / views. 🙂
So, I started The Newcastle Diet 2 days ago using shakes. I feel that low-carbers will want to scream at me to do low carb not shakes. But, like many I have terrible eating habits that I have not been able to break. Really terrible habits so I am using the shakes as a dramatic intervention to try to break my terrible eating habits and make quick inroads to my morbid obesity.. After 8 or 12 weeks I plan to step the shakes down and move over to IF plus lowish vegetarian carb.
Anyway. lately been reading Roy Taylor, Dr Unwin, Jason Fung on top of MM and Fast 800 of course.
Sorry, long introduction but my question is: will following a 3x day shake plus 1 vege / salad dish a day, will that slow down my metabolism I used to read a lot about that but less so recently. Is it a myth By the way, the shakes are low cal (800 a day) but also fairly low carb at around 80 a day.
Any thoughts? Thank you.
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Hello Speedy.
I think lots of us have been there and done that.
Very few people have a ‘smooth path’ in lifeBreaking old eating patterns is never easy and I think it’s a very individual choice as to how you go about changing that. If shakes help you then why not. My only concern would be that it’s a very, very stringent way of eating (well drinking really!), and you might just not have the willpower to last 8 or 12 weeks. It will take a lot of willpower.
Maybe you should a little easier on yourself and have a ‘Plan B’ just in case. Shakes can never taste as good as ‘real food’. So if shakes get too boring maybe intersperse the shakes days with low carb healthy eating days?
Low carb is generally thought of as less than 50g a day and Keto no more than 20g.
On the metabolism question I think the jury is still out. The one thing that is certain is that in the long term this has to become a ‘Way of Life’ to be successful, rather than just a quick fix.
BTW you don’t mention whether you are T2 or not but good luck anyway.
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Hi Speedy,
I think that the evidence is quite clear that counting calories while you have raised insulin levels does reduce your metabolism. – They did extensive research following the outcome of a program called The greatest looser which was an american tv program where people had a low calorie but did not monitor carb intake diet an competed to be the one who lost the most weight. They did loose the weight on the program, but subsequently regained it all plus some . (The only one from series 16 that kept the weight off had an operation to close up his stomach after regaining some of the weight.)
I have heard a lot of positive recommendations of using a fat fast to get eating patterns under control. It means you are not limited on the number of calories, can eat whenever you want, but the carbs are cut right out. The advice is to do this for a few days which will help improve your gut bacteria. (The bad bacteria which digest sugar depend on you eating carbs for their existence and because they are able to signal to your brain that they want feeding it makes it hard to break bad habits.) Once you don’t feel like eating, carry on for a couple of days further and then your body will be used to using fat for fuel so it makes it much much easier to work on reducing insulin resistance though better eating habits.
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Thanks JGwen,
That’s very interesting. Do you have any links to research saying that? -
Hi Verano, I have to wait for the admins ro approve my reply to you.
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Hi Speedy, as Verano asked about T2, it would be of interest to us other T2s to know so we can help you more accurately. On the question of metabolism my own experience is that I am almost constantly on very low calorie low carb diet and can quickly put weight on if I go off course (like a recently holiday). However, I also notice that just one day back into ‘normal’ eating – not even fully back on the diet – I have already lost 1lb. There is also the theory that as you lose weight your body needs less to function so your metabolism is naturally slower. Some rather large people state slow metabolism as a reason for their weight when in fact it has been proved they probably have a very high metabolism. As Verano says this has to be eating as a way of life and a lot of people lose a little weight and when they fall off the diet they go back to their old ways which is only going to give them back the weight.
I would say dont worry about the what ifs, just do it.
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I forgot to ask which shakes you are using. I was in the UK last week and looked at several, thinking I might substitute one meal a day with a shake to shake things up again – sorry for the pun. Unfortunately, they were all so high in sugars and preservatives that I gave up the idea. Especially the SlimFast which appear to be terrible for T2’s. The best one I found was high protein Huel but it was so expensive. I have managed this diet using real food for the past 7 years (Verano and I started at about the same time) and I know it works for me so will stick with what I know.
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Hi Sunshine-girl,
I remember you from many years ago on here!
I wrote a detailed reply to Verano, but for some reason, it’s waiting for the technical people to approve it? I had some modem problems this week so might be that.
Yes, Type 2 and been on Metformin for a year but I’m sure I have been over the limit much longer.
I really can’t recommend these shakes enough. I’d love to read your opinion on them. Not supersweet as I remember shakes being in the past. Though still with some sugar.
They are from Shake That Weight in the UK. I won’t put a link as I suspect that was what scuppered my previous post. I looked at Huel too, but I found it overpriced really.
The Newcastle Diet, is first shakes and veggie 200 cal meal. Then reduce the shakes, then you are supposed to go on to a maintenance plan of your own chosing. For me that will be IF and somewhat low carb I expect.
I’m not a shake fan but I have to interrupt my dreadful eating pattern. 🙁
What do you think of the ingredients?
Best wishes 🙂 -
Hi I just recommended purition shakes to s-g. I used them a while ago for the odd meal replacement. They’re low carb, low sugar natural ingredients. Take a look a the website.
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Hi, what brand do you use Verano? Do they also have complete vitamins etc? At the moment I am just sticking tightly to the Newcastle diet. I have also other eating issues so I know that if I start tweaking it will be the slippery slope to cheese sandwiches and Ferrio Rocher! But would be useful for after the initial phase. Thanks.
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Hi Speedy ‘purition’ ! That’s the name of them. Full of natural ingredients and there is a vegan range too. I had a look at yours and they seem to be more ‘processed’!
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Thanks very much Verano.
Mine are certainly more processed – but are complete meal replacements I think.
I plan to move to complete foods after the initial. I think all shakes are really ultra processed foods at heart. Thanks. -
V, I have looked at the Purition site and reviews. Some are bad but mainly to do with taste or smell. I was impressed by the ingredients and the 2% carb value and the no sugar. I have ordered their sample pack of 14 individual sachets but only things that shouldn’t taste sweet or give much of an insulin response like coconut or almond, macadamia etc. I will let you know how I get on.
Speedy, seems to me like this would be a good change up for you if you want to continue with the shake meal replacements rather than real food. Always remember you can ask for advice if you want to try a few recipes to give you some variety. Don’t for goodness sake get fed up with the shakes and give up, this is not a one size fits everyone diet – we are allowed to mix and match.
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Thanks Sunshine-girl. That’s very true and good advice. xx
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Speedy, I looked at the site you are using for shakes and they seem pretty good to me, maybe a little more sugar but nothing like the ones you buy in the chemists.
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S-g glad you’ve ordered some shakes. I found 3 in the back of my cupboard today with best before dates in 2021!!! Anyway I’m going to use them after all they are all dry ingredients. I do hope you enjoy them. I was keeping a list of my favourites but can’t find it now.
Will be really interested to see what you think. -
I have tried replying to you, but each time the admin system asks me to get approval. strangely that doesn’t happen on other threads.
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So just a line of text gets through. Which means it must be trying to post a link that triggers the system to require me to get approval from moderator for all posts.
There is quite a lot of research into the effects of calorie counting for a prolong period from the greatest loser tv program. – Any research program that runs for months involving humans is either expensive if residential or has unreliable element if self reported. So a tv program which is paying for overweight volunteers to stay in accommodation where their food and exercise program is closely monitored is cat nip to researchers.
If you type into a search engine the words research greatest loser you will find lots of articles and research papers showing how their metabolism was effected.
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Hi JGwen, I’m also falling into that ‘approval by moderator’ trap. Frustrating! So I cannot post this link to Jason Fung’s post about that US programme.
I believe what I am doing is fasting about 19 hours a day, eating 800 calls and about 50g of carbs. This diet, (short-term so diet) is phase 1 (8 or max 12 weeks) of 3 staged designed to get fat out of my liver and pancreas and hopefully reverse diabetes. Then a couple of weeks phasing the shakes out then moving to 5:2 / OMAD / fairly low carb long term.
I chose shakes as a have a severe carb addiction and want to break old habits.
800 calls is also what MM’s diet is called. So MM’s Fast 800 diet, was based on the Newcastle diet I am following. I can’t see really why it should lower metabolism as I initially worried. I dare not post you the link on MM’s page where he mentions the Newcastle Diet but the test is near a pic of a man holding out his now too large trouser waistband next to the text “What is the Blood Sugar Diet (BSD)?”
I wonder though if we are really just at cross purposes and I have not clearly enough explained the 3 stage diet I am following? My apologies if that is the case. -
Hi Speedly, I have been around on the forum for a long time and I like data and formal research.
I don’t think we are talking at cross purposes as much as I have obviously not made it clear the point I was trying to make. – In my experience and from information published by Dr Fung and talks given by doctors working with patients following Dr Fungs protocol it is clear that 50g of carbs a day will run the risk for slowing metabolism for people who are IR.I started with the Fast 800, through which I lost a lot of weight, and then put in time and effort looking into why it works so I could work out a way forward as I still had a lot of weight to discard. – I ended up using one of the cheap breathalysers to monitor when I was in ketosis and found that despite my best effort and discarding a number of stones I was still so Insulin Resistant that if I did not stay around the 20g of carb per day limit I would be kicked out of ketosis and it would take 3 days before I got back into ketosis. To use a cheap breathalyser to measure using ketones for fuel you have to take a deep breath hold it, start to breath out and then blow the last of your outgoing breath so you have breathed out as much as you can into the breathalyser, something I have not been able to do since catching Covid.
If you are looking at Dr Fungs work you will have seen charts on Insulin levels which show that it can take up to 50 hours of fasting for insulin levels to drop to base line.
There is a cardiologist who works with Dr Fung who openly admits that when he first started working with Dr Fung he thought there would never be a need for anyone to fast for more than ADF. As a result of experience he now knows that for some people it takes a period of undertaking 3 day fasts to reverse IR. That would fit with the time it takes to reach baseline and then the need for your body to spent time with low levels of insulin to enable your body to become insulin sensitive.
I realise that in comparison to a “standard” western diet, low carb is a very healthy eating style and may seem like it is intense combined with TRE but you need to assess at the end of the 8 week period if it has been enough to reverse your IR and be prepared to incorporate a period of fasting if need be before easing off to 5:2 and low carb.
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Speedy looks like you have diabetes, I’m assuming T2, so you need to be a little more careful with fasting depending on the medication you’re taking. Probably best to finger prick to make sure your blood sugars don’t fall too low. I know that finger prick tests aren’t the same as an HbA1c but you will get a good idea how your BS is reacting to your lower carb diet. Depending on your GP/practice nurse it may be worth taking some advice from them about reducing medication.
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Thanks Verano, yes, Type2. I have spoken to the practice nurse who is happy with what I am doing. (I take Metformin and that seems to cause few problems.)
It’s advised in the Newcastle diet instructions that you do this. And am doing finger pricks too of course.
One week in tomorrow. Not easy so far but not too hard.Hi JGwen, thanks for your very thoughtful reply. Like you I have read a lot of good research over many years. Interesting really that there are so many versions and variations. But, I suppose many approaches will work to some extent in different situations.
I would eventually like to use a CGM. I was really interested in Tim Spector at Zoe found that his highs were caused by very different foods to his wife. I think that is really interesting and will become a game changer in the future for many.
Perhaps I have a bit of brain fog 🙂 but I think we are – more or less saying the same thing.
Honestly I cannot imaging coping indefinitely on 20 carb grams. Short term fasts yes, but not long term. Being veggie for 50 years the long term Mediterranean diet speaks to me interdispersed with fasts as necessary.
I’m sorry to read Covid had a very large effect on you. It did to me as well. At least I assume it was Covid. I hope you get better and better over time. -
Hi speedy I missed your earlier post to s-g. We have both been here since 2016. Like you I was on metformin but the highest dose. The nurse was threatening another drug as well! I just happened to find the BSD at the same time.
I was eating around 40-50g of carbs a day. My blood sugars dropped into the normal range quite quickly but back then I was guided by the practice nurse. I halved my metformin after 6 months then a further six months later I dropped it altogether. If I was doing it again now I would probably have stopped the metformin sooner.
I have now had normal blood sugars for over 6 years. I do have bread, or pasta now on a very rare occasion and really enjoy it, but am still relatively low carb.
Once you have reversed your T2 you will be able to see what works for you. To stay drug free and keep your BS in the normal range you will need to break your carb habit. I’ve learnt over the years that it’s not weight, per se, that causes high blood sugars, but rather a high carb diet. So unfortunately you will always have to watch those refined carbs!
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Hi Speedy
I think that the difference between what we are both saying is the difference between Insulin Resistance and the focus on blood sugar levels. – It is possible to get blood sugar levels under control but still be IR. If you are insulin resistant, as you know your body can not access your fat stores. and because your background insulin level is high your body will want to store any sugar straight into your fat. – That means a life of very restricted carb intake if you want to control your weight.As you are a T2D you will have gone through IR and reached the point that your body can not make enough insulin to overcome how resistant your cells are to insulin. While its possible that getting blood sugar levels under control would be enough to also reverse your IR, its unlikely. If you have a period of more intense intervention during your journey as recommended by Dr Fung. with a focus on healing IR, then maintenance becomes much easier. You can have the occasional higher carb dish, your body can store the sugars and once they have been used for fuel can easily revert to accessing body fat if you are not IR.
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Thanks Verano, I’m glad to read you are doing so well and maintaining it.
I know! Just one week in and for the whole week I would give it all up for one of the bready cheesy spirals sold at my local supermarket. I was up to 5 of them a day plus ‘healthy’ crisps and ice coffees from the same place. 🙁
I bet each doughy spiral was about 250 plus cals and goodness knows how many carbs! 😮 I am not going to that shop anymore.
I know from the past and withdrawing from Cola that the cravings do reduce but won’t ever be fully extinguished I think. Though I might even consider hypnotism!
What an unhealthy food environment we live in, or have allowed to be created. I regret all the years of thinking of those foods are nice treats when they are anything but. I also regret all the precious time wasted being over weight and blaming myself for being weak.
I honesty believe, for some people, carbs are as addictive as hard drugs. I have been seeing a psychologist for ages and he used to say that the addiction pathways are not the same as for drugs and alcohol. But I don’t believe that at all and he has changed his mind somewhat.I think we are now at the stage with high carb / fat / salt foods; the so called “Magic Ratio Of Fat To Carbs Makes The Perfect Comfort Food” that the food industry endlessly recreate to get and keep us hooked, then spit us out to the pharmaceutical industry, that we were at in 50s / 60s with tobacco. Already the food industry is, like tobacco moving on from us and into the less developed world with its products (eg the Amazon river / Nestle boat) just as the West is perhaps finally showing sings of understanding what has been happening.
Maybe I sound like a crazy person! I don’t think I am – well, maybe just a little! 😉 -
Thanks JGwen, I suspect you may be right – but I hope not! We shall see.
I also think that what Roy Taylor says about each of us having our personal fat storage limit is true and plays a very important role in this. (Explaining why some Thin outside Fat Inside people become T2 diabetics and some rather fat people do not.)
I even think I know what mine limit is! I was always very overweight but very fit and active generally – till I hit a particular high weight and after that started to get all the usual metabolic symptoms. I even lost weight and got back to being the other (good) side of that number and went back to feeling well and being able to do things again. But the call of the carbs was too strong and I went back over to ‘the dark side’ of my personal limit and all the old metabolic illnesses came flooding back. This is where I am now and why I am making this ‘last ditch sprint’ to get back over that line before I have done myself too much damage.
I am in fact, as Roy Taylor says it often is, about 15 kilos over that personal level limit. And yes, assuming I can make that spectacular action-film like slide under the closing door! I will be following the far more healthy ideas of Jason Fung etc.
Following Dr Taylor’s person fat limit logic, the thing you have to do to really clear up T2 and IR (if you are one of the lucky ones whose β cells have survived well enough to revive when the fat is removed from your pancreas) is to reduce your weight to below your personal threashold. And for some that can be right down at BMI 23ish so hard to do physically and probably socially.By the by, I also came across a very interesting talk by Dr. Satchin Panda in one of Dr Rangan Chatterjee’s series of long form interviews. Dr Panda is not a medical droctor but a biological scientist who does research into circadian rhythm and has lots of really interesting insights into how our patterns of living, light exposure as well as food, can affect our insulin response. The talk is dated 26th October 2022 on You Tube. IIt is the best one of Dr Panda’s talks I have found. and I bet you would find it interesting – if you do not already know it of course.
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Speedy
Yes week 1 over and you didn’t succumb to a single bready cheesy spiral … brilliant … first hurdle jumped over. I have to tell you being low carb isn’t as grim as it probably sounds to you at this moment. There does come a point when high sugar foods just become unpalatable. I taste certain things now and just have to discard them as all I can taste is sugar! Don’t despair life is good on the other side!You mention Cola and withdrawal symptoms. Just one thing to be aware of is that ‘diet’ drinks are actually not that much better. If you substitute diet cola for regular yes you are getting fewer calories but the body can’t distinguish between one ‘sweet source’ and another! I’m sure JGwen will probably have the science behind this as she’s got an amazing in-depth knowledge of the research on lots of topics.
Anyway, no you don’t sound at all like a crazy person just one that’s informed about how we have all been duped over the years …. eggs are bad, eggs are good, fat was demonised, but good fats are good, eat six small meals a day, eat one or two and practice TRE!!! I could go on and on. We have been so manipulated by the food industry that I think we have to go along with ‘if it wasn’t in your grandma’s kitchen don’t eat it’. In reality if you only eat food with ingredients that are ‘real’ you can’t go far wrong. I used to eat a low calorie mayo because I didn’t like the full fat version then one day I looked at the ingredients. Wow I didn’t recognise so many of them! Now back to the ‘real’ original version but just have half as much.
Have you read the Chris van Tulleken book? I’ve just started it and it really is an eye opener.
You really sound as though you have head around this whole issue so now it’s just a case of ‘doing’!You will be fine, one day at a time, plenty of help here when you falter, as you surely will, but don’t be too hard on yourself. One less than perfect day is just that, one day. I remember somebody on these boards years ago once saying something like ‘if you were driving and went through a red light you wouldn’t think ‘heck’ now I’ll speed, hit a brick wall, write off the car!’ Or words to that effect but you know what I mean. We are all human.
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Hi Verano,
I’m going to hold you to those bread spirals becoming unpalatable! And yes, I also really dislike artificial sweeteners – tolerating them for these shake weeks but’s that all. The after taste is ‘orrible! Oddly / happily I don’t seem to be getting it from the shakes I’m using. Maybe because I’m trying to keep Tim Spector’s 30 different veg / herbs /spices a week for gut biome health. It is possible with one salad a day with herbs.
Loved Chris van Tulleken’s book. It’s excellent ,though rather more forgiving to the food industry than I would have liked him to have been. The story of him and his brother is so recognisable.
Good car analogy 🙂 and yes, just a case of head down doing it now!
PS, I really liked your comment on another thread; “What will my life look like in one year if I continue versus if I stop?” Ilive abroad and can only move home if I get fitter. 🙂 -
‘Live abroad and can only move home if I get fitter’ please get rid of that pressure. You are you on the inside irrespective of the outside! Value yourself.
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Hi JGwen,
Can I just ask you you mentioned ‘cheap breathalysers AT6000’. They are driving breathalysers! I had no idea!
When checking for ketosis or not, how can you tell from the results? Sorry if this is a dopey question. -
Hi Speedly,
Regarding fat cells, Dr Bikman is a very good source of information (I like his podcasts and talks at conferences more than I like his book, the book is a bit basic in comparison to the talks he gives.) He is a professor who both lecturers and oversees research into metabolic health at a cellular level. Most people have a fixed number of fat cells when they reach adulthood. – There are a few people who continue to be able to increase the number of fat cells which explains those who can reach 400 to 500 lbs. Dr Bikman also talks about the impact of Insulin on the ability of fat cells to go from white fat (storage only) to brown fat cells. Brown fat cells are used by the body to generate heat, and are the reason that when the system is working as it should your body burns off excess calories from a meal by getting warm. – This does indicate that those of us who started our lives on a high carb diet and were fat as children will have grown more fat cells than children who had a low carb diet.The positive thing to remember is that if insulin sensitive then autophagy rates are increased which increases the rate of cellular recycling – the process of breaking down damaged cells and replacing them with healthy cells. I came across an interesting paper the other day which researched the impact of fasting wound healing (the key words for a search engine) . When you fast both autophagy during the fast breaks down damaged cells and raises growth hormone so that during your refeed if its healthy ingredients you are taking in your body repairs damage.
When you consider that your body is recycling all the cells, over a period of time it does give hope that if we reach IS and maintain it for some years we will have cleared all the damage from processed food.
You ask about the cheap breathalysers. If you search the old Take a Look at this thread where we used to share links to articles and studies you will find my posts with links to articles on using the AT6000 for checking on ketones. When you are burning ketones for fuel your body releases the byproduct in the breath. (Pee sticks only measure excess ketones, so are not a reliable method of testing for burning ketones for fuel). Cheap breathalysers can not tell the difference between that and the alcohol, so you can use them to test for ketosis. Higher quality breathalyzers used by the police only record alcohol. There is a nack, you take a deep breath hold it, then as you breath out you want to get the last of the breath into the machine. But the mechanism used in the cheap breathalyser is the same as used in the expensive keto breathalysers. I like the fact that unlike using a blood tester you can test as often as you like during the day with a breathalyser.
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Sorry, me again. The reason our body responds to artificial sweeteners.
Lets start with blood sugar levels. We are used to seeing these expressed in medical terms, but the health implications are much clearer if we think in terms of teaspoons of sugar dissolved in total blood. The average adult human has between 8 and 12 pints of blood Normal blood sugar level is equal to 2 teaspoons of sugar dissolved in our blood. The blood sugar level at which we are classified as being diabetic is just an extra 3/4 of a teaspoon of sugar dissolved in our blood and at this level damage is being caused to our cells.
So our body wants to tightly control sugar levels, which it does by responding as soon as our taste buds report that we have eaten something sweet, triggering a rise in insulin….
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Thank you so much JGwen, really very interesting and useful. x
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Speedy how are you doing?
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Hi Verano,
Thank you for asking. 🙂 I have been meaning to post an update the last couple of days but could not sign in or find the thread for some reason. I hope all is well with you, how are things going?
Apologies in advance, this is going to be a very long post! As they say; It’s Complicated!Tomorrow is 4 weeks since my start date with the shakes. I have lost 8 kilos and my blood sugar is now in the 5-7 range instead of 7-11, so much better. I’m quite pleased with that ( it’s a good amount of weight and though I am large so it is not yet visible, I can breath more easily and don’t feel full or ill at the end of each day as I used to.
Though the diet is so boring that I might have hoped for a much bigger loss in compensation! 🙂 )
It’s not difficult to follow the diet. It is filling, just dull. Constipation was a BIG and difficult problem at first so I now take drinkable fibres and a vile tasting ayervedic herb recommended by friends and these have helped.
One big reason I chose this shake diet (that goes against all I know about weightloss) was to break my need to shop and cook; to break that cycle which just seemed to deliver me up to Supermarkets’ UPF flytrap. 🙁I noticed that the anxiety that I guess I usually bury under carbs has become more difficult to cope with. My planned exercise routine has not materialised (yet). But it must do. Not for weightloss but for strength and general health.
Instead I have been listening to podcasts etc and planning my transition back to better eating after the 8 or 12 shake weeks are over.Then two days ago, I was just suddenly fed up with the artificial taste of the shakes and rebelled. I felt artificial and broke my diet. And again today. Not too badly yesterday; with mushrooms, eggs, spinich, onions, watermelon – just food.
I had been craving supermarket cheesy pinwheels and Kitkats. So today, in a sort of pasive aggressive action towards myself (I think unless I am fooling myself??!) I bought them and ate them, asking myself ”what is so good about these?’. Of course, ‘nothing special’ is the answer. Otherwise I had been planning a short binge at the end of the 8 or 12 weeks. But I thought, expose pinwheel and Kitkat’s ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ now rather than let them sit in my mind gaining strength?
Was that was the correct strategy or just beng duped my my addiction? I don’t know. I’ll see if I can get back on the Shakey horse tomorrow!As part of my reintergration after the shake 8 or 12 weeks, I am investigating a virtual gastric band, so by hypnotism.
I can imagine my methods (shakes and hynotism) sound dreadful and cranky. But after more than 50 years of being overweight and about 15 of being fit in my life, I know I am severely addicted to carbs UPFs and have to do something drastic to break this pattern I am stuck in.
I’d love to hear of others have tried hypnotism? Must search it.
One book that has hugely affected me is Ultra Processed People by Chris van Tulleken. He so utterly accurately describes my food life. Even the diabetes nurse who calls me every week to support and check in, says her practice no longer blame fat people and suggext they use more will–power, but they recognise it as an addiction with its own offf-kick problems in our sick food environment.In my first conversation with a hypnotist, she suggested that as an alternative to a virtual gastric band, had I heard of Michael Mosley and FAST800 🙂 She could not know that, like many, I have been round and round the weightloss mulberry bush many many times. She also suggested seeing a nutritionist, but again, and I know this sounds arrogant, I feel I often know more that the nutritionists I have seen; I know what to to I just cannot do it! So the shakes and hypnotism are simply a means to an end.
So, to round up this long and very self indulgent post, I hope I can get back onto the shakes tomorrow, having, I hope I have unmasked pinwheels and kitkat for the frauds they are. And hope I am on track to lose another 8 kilos within the next 4 – 8 weeks and get my blood sugar seriously back under control.
Again, thank you for asking and best wishes. xx -
WOW! Certainly a lengthy post!!
Just good that you’re still here.
Let me respond tomorrow when I’ve taken it all in!!
My first thoughts are that shakes are not really the answer in the long term, however long that might be!
Real food is the answer … when you’re ready. -
Good morning.
I think you have answered your own questions!Shakes are very difficult to live on. I’m amazed you lasted 4 weeks. They are so boring as you’ve discovered.
Pinwheels and kitkats are frauds.
UPFs are addictive.
You probably do know more than most nutritionists. You have been living with a weight problem for many years and my guess is that you’ve tried every ‘diet’ ever dreamt up! As most of us have!So …… my gut feeling is that you enjoyed mushrooms, eggs, spinach, onions and watermelon … as you say … just food! Why would you want to get back on the ‘shaky horse’ again? It has helped you lose 8 kilos, which is brilliant, and your blood sugars are down. But, it’s a very short term solution. It’s given you the kick start you need but maybe now it’s time to move towards a new ‘Way of Life’.
Low carb eating for those of us with T2, in remission or otherwise, is the only way to keep blood sugars stable. Weight, per se, doesn’t cause T2 but rather it’s the diet of UPFs that causes the weight gain and also causes insulin resistance. In its simplest form the Fast800 just cuts out bread, rice, potatoes and pasta and it has to become a WOL not a ‘diet’.
Weight gain doesn’t happen over night and it won’t disappear overnight either. Am I preaching to the converted here? You know there’s no magic bullet or quick fix. Low carb eating in itself will help break the addiction to UPFs and you will lose weight. It will take time. You will start to enjoy real food again. Take a look at the dietdoctor website for some great graphics of the number of carbs in drinks, fruit etc. etc. Try to limit your carbs to maybe 50g a day, if you can, in the first instance. If not then less than 100g and gradually reduce. If you add up how many you were eating in a day on your old ‘diet’ you will be shocked.
Sorry if these aren’t the words you want to hear but getting back on to a ‘shaky’ regime will only lead to despair and failure and the pinwheels and kitkats will start to look appertising again!
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Thanks for your thoughts Verano, I’d estimate on my old diet I was eating 1000 carbs most days?
I wasn’t really asking questions as such, more saying where I am at the mo.
Of course I know that shakes are not supported here , and I really dont either, but they are, for me a means to an end. (And by MM I assume.)
One thing that I think is important but not so much mentioned is our personal degree of fat that our bodies can handle. I know of it’s existance before I read about it because I felt myself go past it! Up to a certain weight I was fat but well; 🙂 above that weight, wow! 🙁 nothing felt good or easy anymore plus my blood glucose went too high.
That for me is a very critical point and why I am using shakes to quickly get below that weight (also to avoid going to the supermarket as I am, as many are, powerless in that, what I would call, pretty evil environment. 🙁
And shakes do that for me. Even with the last couple of non-compliant days behind me. I don’t like them or believe in them they are just a temp tool. I need to be the other side of that line asap.
I am a drug addict, a cocaine addict, except that with me it’s not cocaine, but UPF. And we all have to eat don’t we.
I see the shakes as a little like my methadone. I have to break those neuron connections in my brain that fuel that addiction; those pathways mean I cannot resist UPF. I cannot do it by myself. So using shakes and I hope hypnotherapy to help me reprogramme my brain.
I think, with so many of us, eating is almost nothing to do with hunger or even nutrition.
It’s about habit, history, emotions, comfort, and mainly deliberately induced addiction by food companies.
After decades of not sorting this out, I feel I have to use every tool I can find to beat this addiction! So, it is shakes for another 4 or 8 weeks then, if possible, a hypnotherapy gastric band and different shopping habits to help me transition to the sort of clean, low carb, non UPF you describe.
I”ll do an update in another month or so.
Best wishes, 😉 🙂 x -
Hi Speedy, I don’t want to add to what Verano has said or interfere with your plan of action. Just to say, you mention exercise and feel you are not quite ready for it. I used to be quite the exercise bunny, doing heavy duty aerobics 4 or 5 time a week. Then I had a serious condition which meant I wasn’t allowed to do ANY exercise for fear of bursting my carotid artery and having a stoke. I am now on the road to recovery but having not done any exercise for nearly a year (except swimming which I do gently) I now find I am not able to do aerobics, out of breath, then my daily yoga, couldn’t manage as some of the positions made me breathless or caused cramps or just couldn’t get into the positions I would normally have found easy.
From research I have found chair yoga. The programme I am using is called Yoga-go 30 day chair yoga. You have to pay but it is only about 50p per day on a 30 day trial. I would normally have said yoga is for wimps, chair yoga is for old ladies but, even the easy moves were difficult for me. Now I am into day 9 and I am already starting to feel some improvement in movement, stretching and getting into poses.
Just a thought if you wanted to start of easily. It might be easy but yoga has so many benefits for both body and mind and you sound like the sort of person who will give anything a try.
Good luck.
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WOW 1000g of carbs a day is a lot but I guess it was easy to get up to …. toast and cereal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, potatoes or pasta or pizza for dinner, plus, plus all the snacks etc. Cutting down to less than 50g a day is a huge feat. I think all of us who follow a low carb way of life should just take a moment to give ourselves a huge pat on the back!
Anyway, pleased you have a clear path forward. I hope you manage with the shakes for as long as necessary. If it gets too boring it might be an idea to build in a planned day of ‘real food’ every so often to relieve the boredom. That way the pinwheels and kitkats etc. are far less likely to rear their ugly heads!
Best of luck. Keep in touch.
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Thanks sunshine-girl. I’m sorry to read you have been so poorly, but great you are on the up. 🥰
I like that idea – thank you so much. I started doing yoga at about age 4 with my Mum. There was a TV programme in the afternoons in the 1960s called Richard Hittleman’s Yoga for Health. (Odd how these things stick in your memory!) 😀Thanks too Verano, that is also a Good plan – and good preparation for my longed for last shake day. 😁
xx -
Hi Speedy,
One piece of data that may help is the knowledge that the bad bacteria which feed on sugar are able to signal to your brain that they want feeding. – When we go low carb we are starving them out of existence and they obviously don’t want that so fight back with cravings.There are things we can do to make the change easier. – We can change our gut ph, which will kill some of the numbers off. We can feed the good gut bacteria so they will crowd out the bad bacteria.
One trick I know of (that I have used after christmas in the past) is a combination of lots of salad (fiber to feed the good bacteria) and coconut. – Coconut is a natural source of an acid which kills off the bad bacteria and helps to heal the gut lining.
As you get the levels down, it gets easier to picture the bad bacteria as being like the ugly ones in the TV adverts for toilet cleaner and then you don’t want to feed them.
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That’s really interesting JGwen, I didn’t know that. Thank you. Very nice visualisation.
I really am struggling to get out of this dip of eating crap again. 4 days back on UPF “food” crap again. 😣😯
Felt so much better up till Monday and not finding it hard at all really. 😯 I am not even enjoying the taste of the c*ap! Just the ritual of ordering, buying, giving in. Then the uncomfortable full / sick feeling afterwards. Then the resolution to start again and be better tomorrow. I am sure it’s psychological and not to do with hunger etc. 😥 -
It’s a while since you posted.
Are you still with us?
Never too late to start again if you’re not!
Hope all is well. -
Hi Verano and everyone reading this thread,
Thanks for the message. I have been meaning to give an update.
It’s not been a successful story for me. But useful I suppose; a continuing story!
So, I did the shakes + a tiny plate of veg daily for 4 weeks. I had planned to do it for 12 weeks. It was not hard really, I lost about 8 kilos over the month and I felt great! Really a lot, a lot heathier. Of course, I had been eating the worst diet directly before so the full list of vitamins and 800 cals a day were probably an improvement.
Toilet events’ were rare and horrendous! So I started having a fibre drink — pysicilcum?? and that helped a bit. TMI!
One thing that did worry me was, I have for years and years had ‘scintillating sarcoma migraine auras’ about every few months. But in this month I started to get them very regularly. That worried me a bit.
I think the end of the initial month was just one of those actually meaningless miles-stones, like bidders in an auction often stop at 100 pounds. I took a couple of days off – and of course never restarted.
You have to understand I believe myself to be severely addicted to UPF and I think that my addiction saw a crack ( 🙂 ) in my resolve and was in there like a shot. That is how my addiction is.
Then it was horrible winter, dark days and evenings, no dog companion anymore, season of SAD, Christmas alone and riduculous energy bills so electric blankets instead of the boiler! Hibernation time in short.
And I have eaten since stopping the shakes all crub that supermarkets strive to sell us. 🙁 Even writing this, I am fantasing about a humungus dish of Frosties with banana and milk. Even writing those words mean that I will probably go to the shop tomorrow and get some.And now, better, lighter days, so,as in most of my last 35 years, I am looking for my new diet. I don’t call it a lifestyle. That seems to me like a term suited to those of us who are not really addicted.
I have for years talked about fasting and how easy it is. I found it so when I did 5:2 in 2016? fairly sucessfully. So I am now hoping / planning to do 24, 36 and / or 48 hour water fasts once or twice a week and eat veggie lowish carbs the rest of the days.
I can imagine that many will read this and think that you expected this all along. And you would be right, you predicted I would not keep the shakes up. But what was fantastic about that diet was that it took the choice away from me, the need to shop and cook. It distanced me from the addiction, kept me safe from oi.That was fantastic and was what enabled me to keep going for 4 weeks – friends were surprised I kept it up so long! But at the first moment’s hesitation, it was in there and I was back where I had started – and even heavier of course.I don’t know how the next months will go. I know I am similar to a cocaine addict in my ability not to keep eating rubbish. But I can’t give up and give in yet, I hope I am not too late. I know this sounds self pitying, but it is my truth.
I am so full of admiration for those who chip away and get there. xx -
Hello Speedy.
I really sympathise with you. I understand how difficult it must be with winter etc. etc. It’s never easy to change life long habits.
You do have Type 2 and you did get your blood sugars down to 5-7 when using the shakes, low carb. Forget ‘weight’ and ‘dieting’ for the moment and just concentrate on your diabetes. Unfortunately, diabetes is a progressive disease. It’s like being on a hamster wheel : you just keep going rounded in circles but faster and faster. Metformin is the start and then come additional drugs and finally insulin. If you’re lucky, very, very lucky , you’ll manage to keep all your toes etc.
I know I’m preaching to the converted here but sometimes we push the consequences of diabetes to the back of our minds. Very recently a friend’s son in his early 50’s was diagnosed with diabetic neuropathy. He can’t walk because he has such bad pain in his feet and the medics don’t seem to be able to control it. He can’t work and his life has become generally miserable. I came to this group because a close friend of mine lost a toe. He continued to fool himself and eat chocolate etc. lost another toe and finally had a long battle to keep his leg, which fortunately he did.
Sorry for that but the truth of tfs matter is that controlling your T2 should be your main priority and kitkats and wagonwheels aren’t the way to go! As you know!
Maybe reread Chris Van Tulleken’s book again. Another suggestion is Dr Andrew Jenkinson ‘Why We Eat (Too Much) . He has also got a new book out now just can’t bring the name to mind.
Most importantly can I suggest to you that you look at Dr Bikman’s ‘InsulinIQ’ website.
Finally, I just want to wish you luck. We are always ‘starting again’. We none of us have a linear path in life. Work out your priorities. Make a plan. Enjoy!
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Thanks Verano, 🙂
You are right – and it is def for my t2 that I want to lose weight, to unclog my liver and revive my pancreas. Any resulting baggy skin etc can be tucked into my all encompassing clothes! :
The shake diet I did were from both Dr Unwin and Prof Roy Taylor and their Reverse Diabetes Low Calorie diet to do just that. That is my focus believe me! But I know you are right, it’s easy to put it to the back of the mind.I’m having an annual blood test this week – very scary 😮 but it will give me probably the worse ever case,, and a baseline.
Thanks for your encouragement though. I know it’s a struggle for all of us. I don’t know of Dr Bikman’s InsulinIQ but will look.
I mostly listen to Chris Van Tulleken, Jason Fung and Pradeep Jamnadas. They say basically the same but CvT also appeals to my politics! 🙂
xx -
Hi Speedy, 8 kilos is a good loss but you have realised that the shakes are not sustainable and you now have to try to get onto real food but good low carb foods. Can I say, without being too brutal, you are only addicted because you keep feeding your addiction. If you stick with a low carb high fat (good fats) diet the cravings for rubbish soon go away with just the occasional twinge. Think of it like giving up smoking – in fact giving up heroin is easier than stopping smoking. You may go a few weeks without a ciggie but think you can have just one – and bang, you are craving fags again. The difference is food is always there and you have to learn to live amongst it and control it rather than it controlling you.
Both Verano and I are T2 with Verano managing to get off all meds and keep the T2 in remission. I have been on insulin for a long time and believe me you don’t want that. For a start you will gain tons of weight – why do they tell me to lose weight and then give me a drug that increases it. It is hard for all of us and we all have our struggles but it is a matter of life and death or injury and debilitating illness that we are battling which is what keeps me on track 99% of the time.
Please come back and let us know your results, you are important to us and we care.
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Thank you for your kind words sunshine-girl. I will let you know.
Do you think you will be able to get off insulin? The nurse I see offered me that weightloss injection Ozempic?
Some of my friends said ‘Oh take it! take it!’ But the idea of it scares me. I read it is very popular with ‘celebs’! A retired GP friend advised caution!
xx -
Speedy …. the secret with low blood sugars is low carbs … weight loss with a high carb diet = high blood sugars.
So , in my opinion, if you take Ozempic or others, unless you reduce your carb intake your blood sugars will remain high. Weight per se is NOT the most important factor in treating T2.
My weight would be considered ‘very high’ but my blood sugars are within the normal range because I eat low carb. As you said you need to find your own ‘set weight’. Then eat low carb.
I agree with the people who advise ‘caution’ with Ozempic etc. as we are yet to see the long term results.