I’m thinking of doing weekdays on and weekends off. 800cals during the week and 1500cals during the weekend. Just wondering if anyone else is doing it and how they’re getting on.

Hi there, I was thinking of trying this way too!
I’ve been following the principles of BSD since around June 2017 and have lost 2.5 stone which I’m delighted about, but haven’t tried the 800 calorie part. I have Hypothyroidism and there is evidence to suggest that very low calorie diets are not advisable for those with thyroid disorders, though I’m sure some days, I’ve had considerably less than 1000 calories. So I was just thinking of trying it 2:5 which I feel would work well for me as I’m generally more disciplined during the weekdays.

The only time I stumble is around 4.30pm when I start to feel a bit hungry but we don’t usually have dinner until around 7.30pm, so I do sometimes have a snack around that time but it will be a BSD type snack, cheese, yoghurt etc. I try not to snack between meals as this was the first thing I tried last year thinking I’d never be able to go without the snacks I’d been having. But actually found it much easier than I thought.

Hi Georgina…I have been living this way of life since October 2016. I also have hypothyroidism and there are a few others on the forums. There is no reason why you can’t follow an 800 calorie a day diet, unless you have other problems, it’s always wise to speak to a Doctor first. My Doctor knows I am intermittently fasting and is pleased with my weight loss and health benefits. i.e. I am no longer labelled as Diabetic. I am now officially in remission. I have actually reduced my Levothyroxin from 175 to 125. I have lost almost 5 stone and I still have another 5 to lose. Is it possible that at 4;30 you are head hungry? This means that it is because you are used to doing it, you still feel you should. If you drop your calories to 800 you may find it difficult to add a snack. A popular snack on here is nuts. I just don’t bother, but someone else will advise you.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get on.

Nonna Mary
xxx

Hi Nonna Mary
Thanks for your kind reply. Interesting about the Hypothyroidism, but I have read quite a bit from people who say they’ve done low carb for some time and came to a point where they started to feel unwell and reintroduced more carbs and felt better. Though at the same time a few years back I joined an online diet where you could call someone for help. I did speak to someone as I needed to tweak their standard diet to take into account Coeliac Disease and Hypothyroidism. The person I spoke to did say to me that in general she said there is evidence to suggest those with Hypothyroidism (or thyroid issues generally) don’t metabolise carbohydrates very well and hence they lay down as extra weight. If only I’d believed her then!

The 4.30pm thing is possibly partially ‘head hungry’ (that made me giggle) but I think what I will do is on some days have my dinner earlier. My husband comes home around 6.15pm from work and 3 nights a week goes to a local gym and has a light pasta meal (not gluten free) when he comes home. So I could have dinner a bit earlier those nights anyway so that I would know I haven’t got that long to go. I definitely used to eat some things out of pure habit! Often buying a little something to eat when shopping to eat on the way home, I don’t really do that any more, just an odd occasion I might buy something but it will be Leerdammer cheese slices.

I’ve found it easy reducing the carbs and mostly I’ve always eaten the good fats for years but now finding it much nicer to be able to eat the ‘normal’ fat versions of cottage cheese and Greek yoghurt (both are not exactly high fat products anyway) and this was another change I made early last year and was surprised I didn’t put on more weight. So kept with those.

Really I prefer to try and do without the snacks as it seems better for your digestion to have a rest, I’m trying to keep to 5 hour gaps between meals. Breakfast is usually at 8am (ish) so lunch at 1pm so dinner could be at 6pm ish,

Well done on your fantastic weight loss. I had a total of around 4 stone to lose at the start. Losing 2.5 stone has made a tremendous difference in so many ways. Funny that you’re reducing your Levo. I’ve actually been increasing my NDT in the last few weeks, but feel I was undermedicated previously. I had adrenal fatigue and have been working on sorting that, so strategies have obviously worked.

Hi Georgina1955 and welcome. Many congratulations on your loss so far. Just to say that your 4.30 dinner idea sounds a good plan. I have been following BSD since October, and have found that two meals a day – a brunch around 1030 and a light dinner around 1630 works well. My husband is gradually getting used to eating without me! Very best wishes for your next steps.

Hi Caronl
Thanks for the welcome. I’m delighted with my loss so far given that I haven’t done the 800 calorie part, just been ‘pottering’ along, but consistently losing a little bit nearly every week. Occasionally there’s been a very small gain, but I’ve tried not to get too hung up on that which is when it’s easy to say ‘it’s not working’ and give up altogether. One tip I was given years ago during the Rosemary Conley phase I did was that if you ‘fell off the wagon’ it was usually only 1 day, not too much of a crisis to give up every thing else you’ve done so far. Just get back on the horse next day 🙂

I think in a way I have some rather odd advantages.

Firstly as I have Coeliac Disease, I already cut wheat, rye, barley and oats. I don’t eat any commercially produced gluten free products as they’re mostly laden with added sugar or in the case of the usual GF breads seen in the supermarket, it contains many unnecessary additives. I do buy gluten free bread, but I get it by mail order from a fabulous artisan bakery in Kent and it doesn’t contain any ‘rubbish’ Also the loaves are very small and I slice them very thinly, I batch buy, slice and freeze it. So just take a couple of slices out of the freezer when I need it. It’s lower in carb value than other GF breads anyway, because of the ingredients they use.

Secondly, I have for many years had a low tolerance for caffeine and any other stimulants, so I don’t drink coffee or ‘normal’ tea and haven’t done for over 20 years. I’m happy drinking herbal teas, which are much more readily available now in most supermarkets. I do look for those with the least ingredients and particularly avoid those with liquorice which can raise blood pressure – I’m already taking medication for raised blood pressure, so don’t need to make that worse.

Thirdly, about 9 years ago, I did ‘dry January’ with my husband, in fact we did it 2 years running as we felt we drank too much towards the end of the year and around Christmas, also my drinking wasn’t particularly well controlled. My husband can have a bottle of wine which will last him a week, whereas I’d have a couple of glasses and think it wasn’t worth leaving the last bit in the bottle – might as well drink it! But the 2nd year we did it, at the end of January, I made a joke about maybe seeing if I could do a year without alcohol. My husband said he didn’t think I could do it. Well that was it, I did the year and then it seemed rather daft to go back to it, so I live alcohol free and have done for 9 years now. I’m just not even tempted at all.

Also with Hypothyroidism and adrenal fatigue, sugar (and sweeteners) are best avoided, so I cut all refined sugar from my intake about 9 months ago and I just don’t eat anything with sweeteners in anyway. Not even stevia the supposedly ‘healthier’ alternative. Yes it is made from a leaf, but if you look into the extraction process to get the sweetener from the leaf, it renders the end product anything but natural.

I was also used to drinking water each day, so I’ve just increased the quantity. I bought a reusable stainless steel water bottle and I fill it with water (filled from a Brita filter jug) and pop it in the fridge at night and get it out in the morning and put it on the worktop in the kitchen to remind me to drink it. I’ve since bought 2 more stainless steel bottles which were going cheap in Sainsburys, so I fill all 3 before going to bed and put them in the fridge ready for next day. So that’s 1500ml in water plus several herbal teas.

Wonder if you may have misread the dinner time as I’m going to start having dinner at 6pm instead of 7.30pm / 8.00pm when my husband is doing gym night, then we will eat around 7.00pm when he’s not doing the gym.

Hi everyone, I’m finding this thread very helpful as I too have hypothyroiditis. I have been living the BSD lifestyle since about October 2016 and have loved it, felt incredible energy, lost weight very easily and maintained the loss well, nearly all my blood test results are exemplary. However, I did start to get migraines, brain fog, leg cramps etc about 6 months ago. I have also read the various horror stories on-line relating to low carb and hypothyroid, but digging a bit deeper found a variety of opinions. I have recently discovered that I have a sodium deficiency – I now add sea salt to just about everything, it definitely helps even though like so many things it seems so counter-intuitive to be ADDING salt!

I’d love to hear others’ views and stories on any of these topics. I definitely feel far more comfortable on the low carb high fat way of eating but just have to remember the salt!

Hi Daisiesmum
Yes there are a variety of opinions about low carb / low calorie and Hypothyroidism. But the one thing someone told me a few years ago when I’d joined a different online diet group (pre raised blood sugar) when I called them to ask about a plan for gluten free, told the nurse I spoke to I had Hypothyroidism. She asked had I heard that in general people with Hypothyroidism don’t metabolise carbohydrates very well. Gosh if only I’d taken that on board at that time! I think it must be true as everyone I’ve ever spoken to about Hypo. has a weight issue and its either related to medication not being ‘optimal’ or eating too much. In general it’s always down to meds not being optimised properly. If you’re in the UK the general theme seems to be (and this was my experience) that you get told by your GP something came up on a blood test and your thyroid is underactive. They then tell you to take these tablets (Levothyroxine) and all will be fine and one GP did actually tell me I should be losing weight on it. But I took Levothyroxine for many years and still never felt ‘well’.
I use salt quite a bit, we tend to use Himalayan pink salt on our dining table as we tried it several months ago on a whim and found we both liked the flavour.

If you were lacking salt, perhaps you had (or still have) adrenal issues. Salt can often be helpful with those.

I like the addition of the extra fats too. Though I got a fright last year in October, as my husband took me to hospital with symptoms of a heart attack. My fear was (despite that I’d read it wouldn’t happen) that I’d eaten too much fat for a while and clogged up my arteries. I had all manner of tests over 2 days including an angiogram (all very scary as they did prewarn me that I might need by pass surgery!) but my arteries were deemed to be clear. This means there is minimal plaque there, but they could not give a definite answer as to what happened to me. They thought it might be a ‘plaque rupture’ which can cause a clot to go off into the artery and cause a blockage, but no definite answer. Either way I had to be treated as though I’d had a heart attack and had 9 weeks off work! Eventually left the job I was in as it was a very stressful environment, now looking for another job. But pleased to hear my arteries were clear and I’d already been eating fats as per the book from around June last year. They could only say that whatever I had was cardiac related as my Troponin level (an enzyme released into the bloodstream when cardiac function is being threatened) had risen considerably, but dropped back during the next few days.

Oh, thanks Georgina55, very interesting info. It was a few years ago now(well before BSD), but I too have ended up in hospital with ‘heart attack’ symptoms, but all relevant tests were negative, the gripping pain turned out to be a combination of acid reflux flaring up at the exact same time as costochondritis (sp?) from exercising too vigorously!

My thyroid problem was diagnosed 36 years ago when I was living in Canada (I’m in the UK now), I felt so much better once on the meds and never gave the actual condition any thought at all. My weight continued to fluctuate, but I did notice that the thyroxine pills caused my appetite to increase and that I could eat more without gaining weight, lol!

It seems to be keto rather than low carb diets that are questionable for thyroid patients. I have just gone back to low calories for a couple or three weeks as I still haven’t managed to shift the 4/5lbs I gained over Christmas, (all those nuts) ha ha! I too use himalayan pink salt for the taste, it does have trace minerals as does sea salt which I also use. I prefer to always eat food that is as natural as possible (unprocessed).

I don’t eat sugar unless it’s naturally occurring, or sweeteners because I don’t like the taste. Since giving them up I can taste the natural sweetness in things like tomatoes and fruits like berries seems deliciously sweet to me now!

I’m a low carb high fat convert, all my meals are so tasty and keeping my blood test results and weight under control has never been so easy despite the Christmas blip!