Well I have managed to complete the 8 weeks of my new way of life and I cannot believe the results. I have tried other diets, lost and regained weight and started off on the 12th September at my heaviest since I was pregnant with both my kids.
Living in Spain you would think the Mediterranean diet would be right up my street, but I work in a British shop which sells any amount of Cadbury’s chocolate, not to mention we have a deli counter with pasties, sausage rolls and donuts 🙁 …. Needless to say it’s like my own personal torture chamber in there!!!
I didn’t know when I started if I was going to stick at it, as a complete sugar addict, that first week was hell. But reading other peoples’ posts made all the difference and actually kept me sane!!
After 8 weeks, and I have to admit, I haven’t stuck to it religiously, caving in on the odd occasion for a piece of dairy milk or a small bowl of ice cream, but I weighed myself yesterday and have had a total weight loss of 11.5kg or 25lbs 🙂 plus have lost 4inches from my waist!
My BMI is currently 27.5, so I still have a bit more to go, and I am just looking for a bit of advice really… Should I try to stick at 800cals a day or just do that for 2 days a week? Would love to be another 5kgs lighter by Xmas 🙂

Hi DeeB, on the official Facebook page, Dr. MM suggests 12 weeks as a limit. Lots of people on here go on for much longer. If you feel up for going a bit longer on 800 cal, you could try another four weeks to take you to 12. Or you could move over to 5-2, which is sensible Mediterranean-style eating for five days a week and two days of 800 calories. You might manage 5 kg on four weeks of 800 cal going by your previous eight weeks, but possibly not on 5-2.

Well done you! It must be doubly hard when you are surrounded by the stuff you shouldn’t eat. I’ve stopped bringing my purse to work to avoid the charity sweet box (which almost ended in disaster when I stopped to fill up the car on the way home 🙁 )
I’m not qualified to advise on how to continue, but if it were me, I’d stay low carb and not worry as much about calories. I think it is more difficult to overeat if you are low carb.
Good luck 🙂

Thanks Snoop… I’ll have a look at the FB page and maybe try another 4 weeks, see if I can get to somewhere near a normal BMI. I just want to shift as much weight as I can as I know that on Christmas Day I am going to try and be good, but will fall foul of the chocolates that will be in the house!!
Andrea, you are not wrong about it being doubly hard being surrounded by temptation, but once the weight started to fall off, and the customers started to notice that I was getting slimmer, that encouraged me to keep going. And I think that this is something that I can stick to long term, I doubt that I will go back to my old ways of managing to scoff my way thru half my weight in cadbury’s or bread!!! 🙂

I’m doing 12 weeks and then swapping till Christmas to two days off and five days fasting (so 5-2, as opposed to 2-5) till Christmas, when I’ll take a break and restart for another 12 weeks in January. I’ve still got a lot to lose. There are lots of people here who just keep going, so I guess you could do whatever you think would suit you best.

Big congrats to DeeB – 11,5 kilos in 8 weeks is truly remarkable – well done!

If I were you, I would continue on the diet, but put more emphasis on strength training exercises from now on. You need to make sure that you have an adequate muscle mass to burn off your calories once you start increasing the calorie intake. I see possible loss of muscle mass during the diet to be a huge possible cause for failure to maintain the reduced body weight. MM has written a book on Fast Exercise that contains very valuable information and recommendations. I think it is a must read for anyone on the BSD diet for weight loss.

Again – big congrats for your super achievement this far! 🙂

Thanks Morten…It is the one thing that I haven’t really increased is exercise over the last 8 weeks. I feel a lot more comfortable about the idea of going to the gym now that I am somewhat slimmer. I am more or less managing the 10k steps a day, apart from on Saturdays, my only day off, I seem to do as little as possible lol!!

I have just completed 12 weeks on BSD and have started to include fasting. I have noticed that on the days I’m not fasting, despite sticking to the 800 calories as before I’m not loosing weight. I’m considering fasting alternate days because I still have over a stone to lose. I have PCOS which makes losing weight even more difficult. I run 3 times a week as I have for over 2 years, I’d appreciate any advice!

LauraLou,

That you are not loosing weight on the days you eat 800 calories could be caused by water retention…..?

I believe that the single best strategy to reduce those last pounds of useless fat, is to work out to increase your muscle mass. High intensity interval training (HIIT) is probably the second best strategy, and in combination these two strategies are very useful. It is a bit of work to get started, but the effort really pays off!

In the past I used to run a lot – Long Slow Distance – it is very nice, but it is not a good strategy to loose weight. When you have reached your target weight however, running is good for a number of reasons, and also a good strategy for maintaining weight.

I may sound bombastic, but this is something I feel is really really true.