Having been very successful on the BSD, losing more than 15% of my starting body weight though not type 2, I thought I would go and have a general blood test at my GP as the last one was about 2 years ago (all well then, but thought should just have a check).

Requested this at reception and was given an appointment with nurse, who said ‘I can only give you a cholesterol test, we don’t do blood tests unless the cholesterol results aren’t right’. First slightly odd thing, but didn’t argue.

Just been back to get my results – never met doctor before, she was puzzled why I was there.

I explained what I had been doing. She made the usual wincing face as she said she’d never heard of BSD within all the diets there were. So I explained further, quoted the Newcastle and other research, the effect on OH’s blood sugar results, and said that it was therefore worthwhile her investigating. At which point she told me firmly that ‘whilst I might recommend it to patients, I simply don’t have the time to investigate these things…’

Why oh why did I not follow up swiftly with “so you recommend things you don’t know anything about? Would it not be useful to have a potential Type 2 treatment recommendation since as I’ve told you my OH is now off metformin?” But I didn’t.

And then she told me that my ‘bad’ cholesterol levels were very high at 9.7 and my ‘good’ cholesterol levels were also high (at 1.8 nearly twice the best level, which is a good result). So my ratio is 5.4. Which is ok and normal. But she seemed confused and mentioned statins.

I told her I had lost more than 25 lbs, and said that I had done this very swiftly. How long? She asked. Since May, I replied, and she replied ‘oh, over a long period then, not just a month’ !!!!! Seeing my starting weight was 10 stone 8 lbs, I would have thought that this size of loss would have been surprising. Why didn’t I mention it was 15% of starting body weight lost in just over 8 weeks???

But, given all that, all well, really – I have a proper blood test with fasting BS (yes I know the potential problems with that) and further cholesterol in mid October, with a follow-up discussion with her.

But I am usually very proud to be taken seriously by GPs and to have rational conversations with them. This one was unsatisfactory – should have had a BS test with the overall bloods, not just cholesterol; she should’ve been interested in potential Type 2 treatment; and it was a good idea she didn’t ask me what I thought about her threat of statins as the air would’ve turned blue.

Still, I suppose she acknowledged I was eating healthily……

I have subsequently researched high ‘bad’ cholesterol on LCHF diets, and see that there can be spikes. Wish I’d looked that up first.

wow – and I get hacked of with my GP – she sounds dire Igor!
And I know some people on here have had superfast losses, but I would expect a GP to be slightly surprised at someone losing nearly 2 stone in a month; I’m not saying it’s unhealthy – but unusual.
any alternative practices that you could register with, or request a change of GP within the practice?

Alternatively, if the practice has a patient advisory group, join that & be a thorn in their side!

After my appointment with the diabetic/community nurse a couple of weeks ago, she didn’t say so, but was clearly a bit peeved that I had stopped taking metformin, and asked me to get a new HBa1c test done & see her again in two weeks.
Had the test, and levels now within the normal range at 3.8. The appointment should have been today – I had a call yesterday, saying that the appointment had been made with the wrong person (sounds odd – I came out of the appointment and made the booking at reception, saying that I needed a follow up appointment with the person I had just seen), and rebooked for next week.
I checked my patient record online last night – no sign of the appointment next week! If they’ve seen all the normal results and don’t need to say so, why not just call and say that?

I would wholeheartedly recommend to anyone to get online access to your medical records – that way you know before you see the GP/nurse whatever what the results are, and can do any research, or think in advance about what questions you have.
Also, not exclusively, but when I google things medical, I usually put NHS at the front of my search, then you get their view on a topic before you read more widely.

Thanks, Frog.

She wasn’t as bad as all that, and as OH said to me, it’s more that I’m annoyed with myself for thinking of the things to say far too late.

I will stick with her, and be better informed when I see her next. I have, as you suggest, enrolled on the system to see my records, and I will therefore know what the results of the blood test in mid October are before meeting with her again.

To be fair, she was impressed that I said I was feeling wonderful, particularly in terms of waking in the morning all alive-o, ready for the day, and said that perhaps she should think about trying what I was doing. So long as alcohol was allowed on it.

😉

Igor, that brings me back to NICE’s reaction to the phcuk research when NICE said they couldn’t recommend this diet because it would be too hard to have to teach everyone about it. Some doctors are fine, mine is lovely but some can cut you down with a disapproving look.

Two other experiences of medical staff responses. My brother is a nurse who retired about a year ago, he was staying with my daughter and could hear us discussing our diets, she does paleo which is v. low carb too. Regarding my calories I could hear him tut tutting in the background but he never said a word. When they came out to visit last month I fed them both with my diet and asked if they wanted extras like chips, rice, pots etc. Both said no they would see what it was like. Both lost around 4 lbs in the 5 days they were here and my brother is going to buy the book. Daughter is okay on paleo and has lost 33lbs since April.

Daughter coming back over last week to collect the grandchildren sat next to a diabetic specialist nurse from a Birmingham hospital, she told her about my diet and the nurse said she was carrying out trials in her patient groups.

We will reign supreme one day.

I do find the medical establishment’s contradictory reactions frustrating, especially when there is scientific evidence to back up the findings. I’m not diabetic but my former partner was morbidly obese (29st when I met him) and in our time together was referred for gastric band surgery. When I attended the initial and pre op appointments with him, the pre-op dietician’s advice to shrink the liver prior to surgery was very similar to the principles of BSD, albeit using low fat or fat free versions of dairy; 800 cals per day, no carbs. So I took it onboard and organised his 6 week crash diet.. and he lost 3 STONE. That was before the band was even fitted. So the healthcare professionals (and especially those involved with obesity related illness such as type 2 diabetes) KNOW THIS STUFF.

What worries me is that the information is not disseminated through to the local GP’s, who could save the NHS a lot of money longterm by encouraging and supporting obese and diabetic patients to move to the BSD way of eating and living.

Rant over!

Unfortunately Janeycoughdrop, there’s good evidence to support just about everything. There have been several very good studies in the past couple of years that have confirmed long term reductions in BMR after weight loss so what to you give greatest credence to? For most human beings (including docs) that will be 1) whatever agrees with what you want to believe and/or 2) whatever you hear most often. Yeh, the nurses and docs know this stuff but the reality is that most folks won’t stick to it anyway. Everyone knows how to lose weight but unfortunately most of us just cant keep it off 😕

I actually think you’re wrong, StringHaven, in that most people don’t in fact know how to lose weight. Which is why it is so frustrating to see doctors simply telling patients to go away and do it.

People in my view simply divide into two sections:

those who try to eat well and add in vegetables, try and cut down sugar, and eat recommended healthy options
and
those who choose lots of pizzas and burgers and other things they enjoy and don’t worry too much about healthy stuff as they think it won’t be nice.

The first set of people keep listening to advice, and eat wholegrain bread, 5 portions of fruit and veg, cereal in the morning. They think, because they heard it some time ago, that too many eggs are bad for you, and that low-fat is the way to go. If anything else is mentioned as a ‘good thing’ they’ll try it. They may be overweight, because generally we all eat far more calories than our bodies need and it goes on year by year.

If they gain weight, it’s because they are eating far more refined carbs than they realise, and are experiencing the ‘spikes’ and ‘falls’ which lead them to eat more refined carbs, as Dr MM explains.

Those people have no idea how to lose weight, because if they try eating less of what they already eat, they get the ‘carb’ hunger and feel terrible because their hormonal response demands the carbs for energy, rather than burning fat cells.

The second set of people are already in the dreaded ‘spike’/’fall’ syndrome and will suffer even more, so that eating less is not really an option for them. Some of them may be fat but malnourished.

The good thing about the BSD is that it explains how to change the hormonal response to food. Yes, it asks for fewer calories because it is helping get an immediate weight loss response to encourage its participants to continue. But for most people – definitely not all – the hunger is not so bad as they expect. And the body’s hormones start to switch to gaining energy from the fat cells, rather than demanding more and more carbs to burn.

I appreciate you know this, you’ve read the book.

But I don’t believe many doctors or nurses know about quitting refined carbs, although there is now a great deal of research about the value of low carb diets. And I really don’t think most people have any idea how to lose weight – it’s a certain amount of commitment, of course, but if what you eat continues to make you want to eat more, because of a hormonal reaction, then it’s not much use calling yourself ‘greedy’ is it?

You have only to walk round any public place to see how many people don’t know how to lose weight. Because i believe many of them would love to, and they’re not ill-educated or greedy or insensitive to their shape.

And to say that there is good evidence to support almost everything? Well, I do disagree with you there. It depends on your definition of ‘good’ of course.

I think the problem is that people diet rather than make life changes, which is why they fine the weight goes back on again. It is not reasonable to expect you can go back to whatever you were doing before and keep the weight off. And I agree with Igorasusual, most people don’t understand how to lose weight. If they did, company’s like WeighWatchers and SlimmingWorld would be bankrupt.

For me- as for any others – the BSD has been a revolution. I no longer think about food in the same way as before. My tastes have completely changed and I am feeling healthier than I have in years. The sooner to low carb message spreads the better for all – it is not the fat in the burger that is the enemy, it’s the carbs in the bun.

If the definition of ‘good’ evidence for everything is the quantity, then yes there is, if the definition is quality, well not so much.

Fascinating all. I am going to put my penny worth in. I have eaten ‘really well’ for a long time. Almost never cake, never biscuits or sweets, and heaps of veg and fruit ( and wine!) I never well almost never ate white bread, even ate wholemeal pasta. No junk food at all. But if I tried to diet I was starving hungry immediately. Plenty to lose as my BMI was about 34

Never lost an ounce till a year ago when I lost about 10 pounds in a month on a good shakes/soup and low carb meal diet. For personal reasons I stopped and did nothing more until June this year when I read MM’s articles and ordered the book. And started trawling through the forums.

I am not diabetic, or as far as I know, pre-diabetic but my BP and cholesterol were too high. I am on a BP med, and I am supposed to be on statin but they make me sick. I am going to keep doing this until I can tell docs I should be off BP med and do not need statins .

My GP is fairly laid back, never volunteers much. Just says yes it is very hard to lose weight, when I would suggest that I should lose some.

Janey you did well with your ex-partner. A few years ago an enormous friend had to have major and delicate op on his kidney and surgeon insisted on dramatic weight loss before the surgery. He was diabetic also and his partner also very big but not diabetic went on the VLCD with him for support. You won’t be surprised to know that his diabetic symptoms disappeared completely. The operation was a success and the pair are now about 50 and 40 kg lighter than they were.

I would think it logical that if we lose a significant amount of weight the number of calories needed to maintain that lower weight must be less. Surely this is just scientific fact. There are plenty of website calculators that will tell you how many calories you need to maintain 120 pounds as opposed to 150. If , no sorry when, I reach my target I know my calories will have to be 350 or 400 fewer than I ate to maintain a bmi of 34. Or I could eat the same number as before and run several miles a day!

Sorry wanted to add, you are all right. The docs do know about the success of VLCD. They must think it is too hard for us, unless the life threatening situation is immediate, not longer term. Surgeons have used it for quite a while.

ps I am too old to run! But I do think this diet teaches us how to eat like a thinner person, especially as we are eating real delicious food.

My doctor did not know about the Newcastle diet – so I changed to another doctor working at the same clinic. He also didn’t know about the diet but was willing to read up on it. The Newcastle research is powerful stuff and it’s a crime that doctors aren’t more informed. People also need to hear that this diet works and after the first week or so it’s actually not that hard to maintain. Your body gets use to fewer calories and don’t feel like you’re starving if you can get your meal plan working for your body’s genetic make-up and food/taste preferences.

In the end I actually created my own program by reading all of the research papers in detail and looking for reliable data online before I even found this site or read the Blood Sugar Diet book. I was four weeks into my “real food” eating plan before I came across this site. It was reassuring to discover that I was doing the right thing by trying a diet using real food rather than Optifast. Up to that point I was trusting my own research, experimenting and assessing the risks as I went along.

I’ve also found one of those online calculators that told what my recommended daily calorie intake should be now for someone who’s lost 18% of their body weight. It stuff like this that you need to do the research on as part your transition to normal eating.

The strange thing is that I can remember my mum trying to diet 45-50 years ago, and the recommendations she got were very similar to the BSD. More calories than the BSD, I imagine from what she was eating, but similar advice about carbs. So at some point, at least some medical practitioners did know.

I must be the same age as your mum Snoop. Your memory is spot on. It was all about ditching the bread and potatoes 50 years ago – they were the bad guys that caused the weight gain. I followed the advice and was skinny. I remember being so confused when the advice completely changed and bread and potatoes and everything low fat were now the good guys and would keep us slim and healthy. Looking back – that was the start of my battle with my weight. My daughter was very impressed with my weight loss on the BSD but I had a stern lecture from her that all the yo yo dieting must stop as it is so unhealthy. I could quite honestly say to her that this is the end of the yo yo dieting as it actually a healthy way of eating that you can keep to for the long term.

Back in the 1960s diabetics, along with everyone else, were told to restrict carbs. Bread and potatoes were the enemy (I don’t think we ate pasta then).

Then low-fat came in. And the obesity and diabetes epidemics started. When they took fat out it had to be replaced with something for flavour – so they added sugar. With obvious results. Even today it appears that food manufacturers feel a strange need to add sugar even to meat products! And some labels show more than one type of sugar has been added.

But the pendulum has now swung in the opposite direction and we are starting to reap the benefits 😃

There also used to be the Dr Hay Diet based on Food Combining. I remember that the very basic principal was you should not eat carbs with protein. So no cheese sandwiches etc. Macaroni cheese etc. I remember it being quite successful.
Looking back, I think by accident, following this diet would have made people eat fewer carbs – so people were probably getting 5:2 type benefits.
Sadly I remember my Mum, back in the 60’s saying to lose a few lbs cut down on bread and potatoes and me (grumpy, plump teenager) arguing with her that her advice was not modern and not scientific and fat was the problem not carbs. 1 gram of fat has XXX calories and all that mantra.
Took me a lifetime and on Horizon programme to slowly start to correct myself.