If anyone deseves to lose,its you CCATHY! I am rooting for you!
Theres a lot to be said for no scales. I didnt have scales the first time I lost lots of weight low carbing back in 2016. I was happier without them,I just occasionally got on DDs scales. Then I saw salter digital scales in charity shop going cheap,and bought them,worst thing I did really,looking back. Weighing in a lot just leads me to up and down moods! X

Hi CC,

Pizza and wine would trigger water retention for me as well Nowadays I find I get cramp in my ankles when my body is responding to carbs and storing water in my ankles more than cramp when fasting and water is being released and I am short on electrolytes.

I would suggest adding taking measurements or having a test garment as well as using the scales to measure progress.

The scale does not give an accurate record of changes in progress. 60% of our body is water, and just slight changes in hydration can make a noticeable difference to the reading on the scales.

When Megan on Dr Fungs team shares her experience of both fasting and of supporting people with fasting she talks about how often people discard inches but have no change on the reading on the scales. Her own experience was after reaching her target weight she went on to drop 2 more dress sizes, but gained 15kg. Healthy bones weigh more than unhealthy ones but don’t take up any more space, and muscle is denser than fat so weighs more but takes up less space. She has people coming into the clinic who look like bag ladies as they use belts to hold up trousers that are too loose for them, who have dropped a dress size between visits but burst into tears because there is no change in the reading on the scale.

Please stop beating yourself up by focusing on the scales to measure progress.

Hi everyone, sorry I haven’t posted for a while,I’m still struggling to get restarted, not giving up though.Very well done to everyone who is managing to see some progress.Dawn X

I treated myself to a new belt at the weekend. My aim is by the end of the current fast or maybe the next one my jeans will go from comfortable to needing a belt to hold up, and then I can continue to measure progress by the holes on the belt. Always so satisfying as you have to wrap an ever increasing length of spare belt around you.

I was also restrained today, I used the mirror over the bathroom sink as a reminder when getting changed on my progress of making my spare tyre more squidgy (glad I live on my own with the poses I take up to assess the squigyness of fat stores) which worked well when I spent a couple of hours at a social event near the catering van but didn’t break my fast.

Hi, I’m new on here. Looking for advice. I’ve been diabetic for 12 years and managed by diet. Kept it to around 48 mmol/mol for years. Last year I went to 72 and last week I was way up to 97. How dangerous is this? My doctor wants me to start straight away on the tablets, but I read the BSD book and would prefer to try the 8 week 800 calories diet first. I don’t think it will be a problem to do it, but I was going to use Isagenix shakes, 1 per day, but I noticed they have 10g sugar (mainly fructose) per shake. Is this acceptable on this diet. What is the recommended daily sugar allowance whilst on it?
Any advice would be appreciated. Really worried about latest figures.

I’m 61yo, 6@ tall and weigh 93kg. I’m pretty active and I feel good.

Thanks, K

Hi Kev and welcome. I am not diabetic but there are others on this thread – and also the weekly thread – that have managed to control diabetes or prediabetes with diet alone. I’m hoping that some of those can chip in with advice for you, alongside the medical advice you are already receiving.

One or two on this thread have used shakes. YOWZER I think you have used Huel shakes before? I’ve not used shakes but the sugar content you’ve mentioned does sound high. I’ve just checked NHS guidelines and they are recommending no more than 30g free sugars – which includes sugars added to food or drinks – per day
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/food-types/how-does-sugar-in-our-diet-affect-our-health/

So you may well be better all round to use recipes from the BSD book rather than shakes if this is an option for you..

But keep in touch on here whatever you decide and good luck! And I hope that others with more experience of diabetes will also post.

Hi Kev,

Welcome. I would suggest in your situation that you need to look at the work of Dr Fung. – He is a doctor who runs a clinic specialising in reversing T2D through food control. They have supported over 5000 people through the clinic to reverse diabetes through their protocol. They also publish books, and have videos available on Youtube that make their work available world wide without even joining the clinic.

He has published a book specifically on reversing T2D through diet and has had case histories on the success of his program published in the British medical journal, so your discussions with your doctor about medication may be easier if you say you are following his protocol.

Thanks, I’ll give it a look. I’d imagine it is similar to Dr Mosley’s approach.
Cheers, Kevin.

Hi KEV heres a link to HUEL shakes for more info. You can get ready to drink shakes or powder to mix with water. The Black Edition is low carb. I know some of the products contain sucralose. I ve read that 85% of sucralose is not absorbed by the body,but I ‘m not sure how true that is,I know most artificial sweeteners are bad for you?
https://uk.huel.com

Hi Kev,

Dr Fungs work is different to Dr MM. Instead of a 8 week program, Dr Fung’s program is designed to be followed as long as is needed to reverse high blood sugar levels, Insulin resistance and get to a healthy weight.

If insulin levels are raised your body can not access your fat stores. So counting calories with a raised insulin level will reduce weight for a little while, but if you continue too long your body goes into starvation mode and starts to reduce the number of calories needed to maintain current weight. Have a look at the research into the outcome of the 16th series of greatest loser.

If you want to add measurement if you are in ketosis, and very close monitoring / control of carb intake to Dr MM’s work then you would be sure of being successful long term, but it would be quicker to achieve the same aims following Dr Fungs protocol.

Hi Kev
I am one of those people who have managed to reverse their T2 with diet. It’s a great idea to try and control your diabetes with diet before taking drugs if you can. Once you are on the drug merry-go- round it’s very difficult to get off and the medics just keep upping the doses and adding more and more medication!
I was probably diagnosed with T2 about 5 years before I found BSD in 2016. I was taking a high dose of metformin and ‘they’ were talking about adding another drug!
My blood sugar was never excessively high, around 6.4, in old ‘money’, on metformin. Anyway, within months of low carb eating my BS was in the ‘normal’ range but taking doctors advice I continued taking a reducing dose of Metformin for around 12 months. With hindsight I should have stopped sooner. So this way of low carb eating does work.
The one important lesson I have learned is that controlling BS is more about what you ‘eat’ rather than what you ‘weigh’.
In my own experience I lost weight and my BS came down, but when I gained some weight again my BS remained normal because I was still eating a low carb diet, but just too much of the ‘good’ stuff like cheese!
So, you ask about ‘shakes’ which are undoubtedly helpful for some people for weight loss, but they aren’t really going to help you change your way of life to that of a low carb eater. At the end of the day it’s the carbs that are probably causing your high BS rather than your weight!
When it comes to shakes the one you mention does seem to be high in sugar. On the odd occasion that I have used them I used Purition (other makes of shakes are available!) they are low carb and low sugar without lots of nasty additives.
So, I guess my advice would be to read the Blood Sugar Diet book, cut out bread, potatoes, rice and pasta. Try not to eat ultra processed foods. Concentrate on all the great food that you CAN have rather than the foods that are high in carbs that you might feel you are missing at first.
This way of eating does work but it’s a new ‘way of life’ rather than a ‘diet’ to start and stop.
My life has not come an end and I do now have the occasional potato or pasta dish (maybe twice a year!) and the odd dessert but my HbA1c has remained ‘normal’.
I now feel in control of my health rather than the ‘drugs’!
Best of luck!

I’m just checking in because it’s been a while…
Thanks JGwen, for that reminder that progress comes in different forms! I’ve been quietly sulking about the static scales but today I realised that my work trousers,that have been quite snug around my waist, are now cool hipsters. So progress even if it doesn’t show in the numbers!
My daughter is in the middle of being induced and we expect a baby by tomorrow, her second. Very exciting and I have been cooking lots of things for their freezer for the early weeks. It’s really cold here and my house hangs onto heat in summer but is perishing cold in winter.I keep thinking, three more months and there’ll be some warm weather! Can’t wait! I hope you are all enjoying your long, warm summer days in the UK.

I am a little disappointed today. I was planning on doing a 10 day fast but had to bring it to an end 30 hours early because I was getting serious acid reflux.
I am sure that my thighs are smaller, my jeans feel more baggy, but still no change in my lower spare tyre and lots of upper spare tyre to still work on. I went shopping today which included buying some butter. When you look at a pack of butter and realise thats the average amount of fat burnt a day. on a fast. …. it really emphasises how fat I have to go.

There was a plus point though. The lady in the car next to me in the supermarket car park had bought a packet of 2 cream cakes, after eating both cakes she was then licking very intensely the plastic tray they had been in Then she ripped open the cardboard wrapping and licked that clean. – Wen I got home I opened a packet of radishes and a tub of hummus but could only eat half of it before i couldnt face any more.