Hi all

I’m hoping you can help as I’ve reached a point where I’m at a loss to figure out what to do next.

Last year I spent 18 weeks on the 800 diet after being 96kg (173cm,42yrs,male) and I reached 79kg.

However as soon as I came off the diet, I began gaining weight. I wasn’t even eating a lot, around 1200 calories with more carbs.

But within a few weeks I had gone back to 83kg. I didn’t go back on 800 but attempted to eat clean.

I carried on gaining, a half kilo per week and then panic set it and had habits returned. I few months later and I was 85kg.

12 months after being 79kg, I’m 91kg.

I’ve just watched a program on channel 4 where it talks of this diet but nobody mentions what happens after the initial phase is over.

Can Dr Mosley or anyone else comment on this whose managed to complete the 12 weeks on 800 calories and better still, has kept the weight off?

Thanks

Adi

Hi freeka, I have been there and lost some of my excess weight but I have never put it all back on, just 3 or 4 lbs. How have I done it, first of all I never went back to eating carbs and that is probably the most important was of keeping the weight off. You can get away with a few more calories but they have to be the right foods and you say you are back eating carbs. They (carbs) are a lot more calories than you think but not only that, they increase your carb craving so you will continue to eat more. Also, the weight can be fluid weight as carbs make your body hold on to fluid – I think the calculation is for every 1g of carb you eat your body holds 3g or water.
I guess phase 2 of the diet should be careful eating, low carb, and probably do the 5:2 so you are able to not be quite so strict but check up on yourself 2 days a week. I hope if you continue to watch the programme, at the end he will tell them how to go on to maintenance and give you some tips. Plus, there are others on here who have done just that – look in the search engine for maintenance to read more.

Hi freeka,

As sunshine-girl says, the key is the level of carbs not calories. – The people who maintain keep their carbs low and increase calories by increasing fat. Think of it this way. – If you keep your carbs down then when you want to use body fat for fuel your body can easily access your own fat stores, when you don’t want your body to be using your own fat then you can add melted butter over your veg, or more cream in your diet to increase the calories.

I got to my target weight and kept to it for nearly two years. Some weight crept back on, then in lockdown I put on more. Not all I’d lost, but enough to put me back in the overweight category. I know exactly why it happened. Carbs.

For two years I had very few carbs. When I really wanted something, I had it, but only a small portion and I did extra exercise to ‘pay’ for it. Then gradually I paid less attention to that, and ate some carbs as a normal part of my diet. Then in lockdown we started baking, drinking more wine and doing less exercise. Obviously I gained weight.

We can’t ever ‘stop the diet’ and go back to how we ate before, as that’s exactly what got us needing the diet in the first place. Instead we need to move to the maintenance phase, experiment a bit to see what works for us, and keep paying attention to what we eat.