This is now my fifth week of the diet. I have kept to the 800 calories religiously, watched my carb intake, reduced diary intake, drank at least two litres of water per day and I haven’t lost any weight in six days! I am extremely focused and was so excited and the prospect of loosing 3 stone in 8 weeks but I just don’t see how this is realistically achievable? The programme has made me look very carefully at my previous diet and I now realise the importance of understanding what I should be eating but without loosing the initial weight, this becomes a very long and laborious process which is proving to be more difficult as every week goes by. Has anyone else encountered such a plateau and is there any hope?

hi
I know it’s frustrating – type “plateau” in the search box and you’ll find a million threads.
Mine kicked in on day five rather than week five
You could still be getting slimmer while not actually losing weight (and improving blood sugars if that is an issue for you)

Common things – increase exercise, increase water (yup, even more than two litres!), reduce carbs further
could either constipation or time of the month be an issue?

You shouldn’t need to reduce dairy, just make sure you’re eating full fat dairy – fat is good!
Are you using a reliable way of logging food and drink – logging cals is easy, once you add more variables its harder to track, lot of people use online trackers to record food – Fat Secret (my favourite) , My Fitness Pal, Calorie Count, there are lots out there.

Stick with it – it will start coming down soon!

It is rare that the scales drop evenly every week, even on such a restricted calorie intake but that doesn’t mean you aren’t losing at all. You will be losing fat fairly consistently on a daily basis but this can be masked by changes in fluid balance.
It’s funny that when we see an unusually big drop in weight we get excited but also expect it to keep on happening and get despondent if it doesn’t. Most of us do this! Just be aware it takes time to even out, sometimes a couple of weeks. The advice is to measure yourself too as this is more representative of fat loss and won’t fluctuate in the same way as weight.
Remember it takes up to 8 weeks for the visceral fat from the pancreas to shift (hence the significance of 8wk bsd.) Loss of visceral fat drives the health benefits. Weight loss is secondary to this and whichever version of the diet you follow it will happen.
This way of eating is for life- not just a quick fix for years of overeating- however fast800 is pretty much the most rapid, healthy way to lose weight I am aware of.
Stop setting long term targets for now and just see what the first 8 weeks brings, then you can be excited by the REAL changes you are seeing/feeling in your body, not some arbitrary number on a scale. At that point you can decide if it’s been worth it and whether you wish to continue.
In the meantime, as Frog suggests, spend time reading some of the forums- everyone’s journey is different and there’s some great advice here. They definitely helped me when I stalled after the first 6 weeks. And I often get upset about how long it’s going to be before I reach my healthy bmi, but then I remember how good I am feeling NOW compared to 3 months ago and how I have already started to enjoy my life for the first time in ages.
I hope you will get the same feeling soon. Good luck.

Thank you Tizzie for this post. Having one of THOSE days where I overreacted to weight going up today for some reason despite having less than 800 cals yesterday and having not broken the diet in 15 days. I should be still celebrating having BGLs in normal range since day 2. These forums do really help keep perspective when the old doubts re-emerge.

Can’t say this too much to everybody – what about THE MEASUREMENTS????

Did you measure before you started, and if you didn’t, have you some jeans or other clothes which fitted you (or were really rather tight on you) which you can now try on now and see how different they are?

The weight loss is very variable – as you know, small losses which hardly seem like anything, no losses at all, how depressing is that?
But the MEASUREMENTS oddly enough seem to still keep going down and if your weight plateaus, you can often see your waist being smaller, clothes feeling looser and indeed sometimes your face looks a bit thinner!!

This certainly happened to me, and I felt very discouraged from time to time but still lost more than 15% of my starting body weight over my own (now finished) BSD journey.

It might also be helpful to look at what your initial target weight loss is – Dr Mosley says aim for 10-15% of starting body weight, so perhaps start at the lower end of that, divide the loss into 8 weeks and see how much that is per week. You can then chart how you’re doing on that measure.

Did I say MEASURE again??? I meant it.
Good luck and onwards and downwards 🙂

Thanks so much all for taking the time to respond. I am feeling so much better and can see a different perspective. The scales may not be playing ball but I did buy a pair of jeans two sizes smaller than when I started 5 1/2 weeks ago and they fit like a glove so indeed it is onwards and upwards. Thanks again and best wishes for our BSD journey. I am more focused than ever x

I think my scales have a technical hitch! they have remained stubbornly the same figure for WEEKS. This morning after reading a few posts on different threads I decided to wear a skirt ( usually slop around on trousers/jeans now I’m retired ) and see… I wasn’t sure if it fitted better than last time I wore it but when I went to fasten the belt realised I was trying to use a hole that hadn’t been opened before. Hah! take that scales, things are happening even when they don’t seem to be happening. Great to have somewhere to report this and also encourage others. I mentioned to an older neighbour with Type 2 that there is a way of reducing/coming off meds. But she just kept shaking her head as I gave her a potted explanation so ( a trifle exasperated! ) I left her to her closed mind and more determined than ever not to slip into that rigid mentality as I grow older.

Your scales WILL shift eventually weescotty, but great news re the belt!!

With regard to people taking advice, I think it’s a personal decision to take action and if you’re ready, you’re ready, and if you’re not, you’re not. I read a review on Amazon of the Blood Sugar Diet book the other day, and I quote: “boring and not helpful”. There’s no reply to that, is there.

If people ask me, I share, but I usually start by saying “if you want to do this, then do it, but I’m not telling you to do it, and if you’d rather I stopped talking about it, then I will”. At least then, if I get a “no POTATOES!! no PASTA!!! no BREAD!!!!!” response, I can change the subject and not get irritated myself. Just so surprising that people ask “but what CAN you eat????” and there’s not time enough to tell them the whole list……

🙂 🙂 🙂