Hi, My husband and I just started the Blood Sugar Diet on 8th September 2017. My blood sugar has dropped from 5.5 to 5.0 in one week! Until yesterday I had lost 5 pounds but this morning I had gained two pounds since yesterday. I guess that happens sometimes and I can’t think of anything I did “wrong”. To be honest, I’m terrified of getting the diet wrong. I faithfully go by the book, literally, but I’ve seen mention of things on the forum here that I can’t find in the book. For example, how many grammes of carbs are we “allowed” per day, how many grammes of fat should we be eating. I can’t see that information in the BSD book. I’m also a wee bit confused about if I should stick to the 800 calories a day for 8 weeks or do we switch to the Mediterranean Diet and do 5:2 after two weeks. We’re desperate to “get it right”. Any advice would be much appreciated!

The good news is there is very little you can do to get it wrong. Off the top of my head, a gain is usually either water or retained solids, make sure you are drinking a lot (3 litres or so) of water, and make sure you are getting sufficient fibre can help with both. Regarding the macros and percentages that are often mentioned, many of us tweaked the basic diet to better suit our own individual circumstances. More protein is required if you are particularly active, and a cap on carbs at 20-50 g can help the insulin resistant to lose weight more easily as it makes it easier to enter ketosis or fat burning. Many people have lost weight successfully by following the meal plans in the books, and many like me just adopted the principles and winged it on our own.
Regarding switching to 5:2, only do that after 2 weeks if you have reached your target weight, the full 8 weeks is necessary to stabilise blood sugar as well as educating your palate, teaching yourself portion size, and clearing yourself of any ‘carb flu’ symptoms you may suffer from as a result of the withdrawal from processed food and carbs, which can last for a couple of weeks.
I used Martin Ankerl’s keto calculator (I think there is a link somewhere in the forum if you use the search box, or just use Google) to set myself some basic macros, which I then tried to stick reasonably close to. If you have any other questions just ask, but also just remember to be kind to yourself. Even if you have a day when things don’t go to plan, just restart your efforts as soon as you can. You don’t even have to wait for the next day, just the next choice. Keep us posted with how things are going, and if you want to prepare for what is coming for you I suggest you read more of the success (and otherwise, sometimes) stories on here.

A wee update from us. A belated thank you, Mixnmatch, for your advice, the diet worked for us. My husband and I both lost 13 pounds over 8 weeks, my blood sugar is lower as is my blood pressure and a loss of 3.5 inches off my waist. We have continued with the diet but to be honest, we’ve kind of lost a pound, gained a pound – repeat. We are still on a loss of 13 pounds total each and we want to continue with the diet plans. We feel we want to move over to the Mediterranean diet, or maybe the 5:2. Can anyone advise where we can find the guidelines for the Mediterranean diet? The book we have is the 8 week blood sugar diet book so we need more information on the Mediterranean diet – I’m happy to purchase another book, I’m just not sure which one to go for. I’m in the UK. Thank you!

Hi Nittenlass

A superb result for you both, absolutely well done!

You can buy Michael’s The Fast Diet by clicking on the resources button above which will take you to Amazon. This is probably more of a slower way of following the same BSD principles but have two days out of 7 on much less calories. There are many authors that have produced books on The Mediterranean diet so I would read the reviews and pick out the best from there.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

Kazz

Hi Nittinlass,

A sentence in your post reminded me of something I read on another forum.
This phenomenon of “gaining a pound, losing a pound, repeat”, weight going up and down a bit, has a name. “Bride’s nighty syndrome.” I like this name!

Good luck with curing it! xx