Just finished reading the 8 week BSD book after being recommended by The Lovely Wife (TLW). Although not diagnosed as (pre)diabetic, I’m sure I must be close to it at 170cm & 90kg! Loving the idea of the 8 weeks followed by the Med diet as an ongoing target. Looking for inspiration on what to eat – especially as TLW is pescatarian and I do the cooking. Keen to record weight loss here and for support from those of you who are further along on the path.
Not a great time to start as F-in-L’s 80th birthday meal tomorrow and a week’s skiing over half term but I don’t want to wait another 3 weeks to start. So, wish me luck!
Breakfast today – musrooms, toms, rasher of bacon (naughty!) in olive oil. Feeling full so far!
CC
Day: 0
Weight: 90KG
Target: 72KG
Mood: Positive!

Hi Custardcrumble,
Welcome to the forum.
As a vegetarian I have never followed the recipes in the book and have been eating this way since October 2017. I just use the fatsecret app to record what I plan to eat and check the carbs, protein, fat ratio. There are many others of us who have used the same method. – Although the book doesn’t give advice on carb levels, some of us have found that dropping to 50g of carbs a day works well for weight loss, others needed to drop to under 20g a day to get consistent losses. – For protein the advice you will see is 0.6 to 0.8g of protein per kilo of target weight, and make up the rest of your calories with fat. – Once you are down to your target no matter how long that takes you can gradually increase your calories to the level to maintain it.
Many of us came to this Way of Eating (WoE) is a shorthand you will see often in the forum because of a focus on the reading on a scale. As we read and understand more about the subject we realise that actually a healthy body composition is more important than the reading on the scale. The reading on the scale consists of bone, muscle, water, organs and fat. Weight loss isn’t linear and so many people get disheartened if they don’t see a daily drop in weight. I would recommend taking measurements and even photos, so that you can see progress during the times when inch loss occurs but there is no change in the scales. – Sometimes your body will be busy improving bone density and muscle strength as well as burning fat. So the scales will not change but your shape will, and don’t assume that the fat loss will only be from your spare tyre. Most of us have seen changes in face, shoulders, arms and legs before the area of the spare tyre.
There are some threads that I would recommend you seek out. There is a busy one week at a time thread where there is a mixture of newcomers and maintainers sharing our experiences. A great place to ask questions.
There is also the take a look at this thread were people have posted links to helpful podcasts and articles. – I would strongly recommend searching out the links to Dr Bikmans videos that I posted early last year on this thread. – It so helps shed a light on the science behind this WoE.
Good look on your journey.

Dear JGwen, thanks for the comments and advice! I have indeed measured my tummy as I think it’s there and my face where the changes will be most noticeable (not sure how to measure face but a photo should suffice!)
Good tips on carbs, fat and calories – this is all new and it will take some time to get used to these figures – thank you!
I’m heading over to check out the other topics you mention whilst I’m in learning mode!
So inspirational that you’re 2 years down the line and maintaining this WoE 🙂
CC

Hi CC – welcome aboard and well done for recongnising that there is never an ideal time to start this way of eating. Given the events you have coming up, you should be able to quickly learn how to incorparate this new regime into your life style. It can be a bit of a steep learning curve, getting to grips with how to make good BSD/low carb food choices when eating out, but you’ll be surprised how quickly it becomes second nature and just ‘what you do’.
Fish and vegetables/salad should mean you can keep things quite simple, ringing the changes with spices and herbs and that breakfast sounds fine, as long as you are keeping an eye on the calories and carbs, even in things like tomatoes.
Hope to see you out and about on other threads on the forum and would encourage you to join any that feel relevant, as you will receive a warm welcome and plenty of support and advice as needed.
Best wishes to you for every success and I’ll look forward to reading of your progress.

Thanks SunnyB! It’s a little daunting on the calorie front – I’ve not really counted them before, always concentrated on saturated fat! Seems to me like smaller portions of meat/fish alongside a big pile of veg should do the trick. Just found out that an apple is about 72kcal… Did taste amazing on an emptier than normal stomach though!
CC

Watch out for the carbs in apples, it’s surprisingly high! In 100g of apple there are 14g of carbs. Fruit wise, berries come out the best on carb content.
The low carb approach completely turns the low fat/high carb rote we have all be ‘fed’ for all these years on it’s head. Now you need to be think in terms of medium protein and full (good) fats, with low carbs. I encourage you to look at the carbs in both fruit and veggies too, as things like onions, leeks and root veg are pretty high and they all add up. Don’t panic though, we’re here to offer advice and support.

Hello SunnyB 🙂 So many “longtimers” who contribute here spread their gentle nurturing, reassuring information and explanations among us 🙂 How fortunate we are to have such wisdom, comfort and support in our midst. Too many names to recall and record . . . because I may omit one or to and therefore slight unintentionally. Nevertheless, to . . . SunnyB, CalliforniaGirl, Clarinet Cathie, Wendleg, Allie, KazzUK, JGwen, Jennie10, Verano . . . and on and on we go 🙂 . . . ALL have contributed to my success over the past seven months . . . and most have no idea how much, what with or when. Im most grateful for your acceptance of, and nurturing/supporting/encouragement of and to the Quacker 🙂 So . . . Newcomers . . .? Please rest assured while ever these people – (and the many others Ive not recalled at this minute to mention) – are ALL here to help advise and share! I CAN ATTEST to and proudly shout out . . .THANK YOU ALL . . . and . . . we ALL are in good hands 🙂 Quack! Quack!

Duckie – one word …. humbled!