Hi I am starting the fast 800 tomorrow and planning on going back to the gym after 4 months off which has I believe impacted my bsl and not in a good way . I also need it for my mental health . How do we tweak the calories in to accommodate the calories used during exercise? Can anyone help . TIA

If you are on the Fast800 then there is no tweaking allowed as the diet is carefully balanced for quick weight loss and shock the body into losing visceral fats (not just body fat) in an attempt to seriously improve diabetes symptoms and get you BSL down. There are a few things you can do if you suffer from weakness, shakiness, possible low blood sugar, that might help here. Try to take it easy the first few weeks of the diet until your body gets used to it – that doesn’t mean not exercising but take it steady. Plan your exercise to coincide with meal times so you are not exercising on an empty stomach and risking low blood sugar. Take a healthy snack with you but make sure it is BSD friendly and still within your 800 calories. Finally, if you do feel flaky then have something to eat – it is not worth making yourself ill but good planning and organisation can avoid the crashes or avoid grabbing anything to eat. Good luck.

Hi Fiona,
In the first couple of weeks you may feel better by taking it steady and letting your body used to being in fat burning mode as a result of reducing the level of carbs in your diet. – You don’t need to tweek cals to take into account exercise. If you keep your carb intake low enough your body will happily be burning fat to provide the energy needed, so the exercise will simply be speeding up the rate of fat lost. – Bear in mind that initially your weight loss figures will look good but some of that is loss of water, once you get into loosing weight by burning fat, apparently 3500 cals equals 1lb of fat.

Can I just add that unlike non diabetics on low calories, diabetics do not go into fat burning mode, they start shifting insulin out of the fat storage and flooding the blood stream. This leads to very low blood sugar which can cause sweating, numbing of the lips fingers and toes, shaking, brain fog, confusion, mental inability to function and unconsciousness and coma. It is not as simple as working your way through it. Non diabetics have a regularity programme in the body which quickly put any deficits like an imbalance of insulin and glucose, back into equilibrium, which diabetics do not have. Take care of yourself and follow what your body is telling you.

Sorry Fiona I forgot to say you should let the people at the gym know you are diabetic and you should always carry some glucose (tablets or sachets) with you or a sweet fruit drink (I prefer apple juice). But I am sure you already know this.

Hi Fiona,
Sorry, but I am uncertain if you are following this way of eating because you have been diagnosed as a diabetic or if its to loose weight?

Hi JGwen, Fiona is clearly a diabetic as stated on her profile which is why I butted in on the fat burning advice, it doesn’t work like that for diabetics as we collapse into a heap on the floor before the fat burning kicks in 🙂

You never butt in, sunshine-girl, but always increase our knowledge of the diabetic’s
experience. I have great empathy for what you all go through on a daily basis, and
always appreciate your wisdom and expertise 🙂 The last thing I would ever want to
do is disseminate erroneous information, so thank you, always, for adding to my
knowledge 🙂

Thanks all for your input just to add some clarity I have type 2 diabetes and have gained a lot of weight due to a misdiagnosed underactive thyroid. Change of Dr and now on medication for thyroid . Weight loss has been an uphill battle and my Dr is now talking weight loss surgery which I would like to avoid at all costs. For further clarity I am 167 cm or 5 6″ and weigh 97 kg. My heaviest ever. My goal is to lose 27 kg and feel slow and steady is not doing me any favours. I am also 50 and have been a gym goer for 14 years. At the moment I have metabolic syndrome which further adds to the problem. I will restart my gym routine slowly and have a contingency for low blood sugar episodes.
Thank you all again for your opinions I appreciate them.

This diet will help you reduce your weight much quicker than most other diets and allow you to have good, nutritious meals as long as you stay away from the bad carbs like bread, potatoes, rice, pasta, sugar and cereals (breakfast) and wheat type cereals. Dont think about using substitutes for the first 8 weeks (like brown rice or brown pasta etc) they are all high in carbs. It is the ridding of carbs that will get both your weight and blood sugar down and the 800 calories shocks the body into losing visceral fat around the organs which can help with the diabetes. Good luck.