Hi all,

Could I please ask for some advice please ?. I start the diet with the best intentions, but the continually seem to fail after about 4 days, which is incredibly frustrating as I know that it gets easier after that. I get this wonderful sense of control and contentment on the plan, but then my evil side says ‘It’s OK just a little bit of extra cheese etc won’t hurt…’,wellit does, because I then seem to lose all control. There are certain key trigger foods that I know I must stay away from, cheese, chocolate etc. and anything overly sweet. My plan is to follow the 7 day recipe plan in the book, which seems to suit me.
I’ve been thinking this morning if there is anything that I’m doing that leads to this self sabotage, the only thing left is that I’m a coffee drinker, I wounder if I should give it up and drink tea instead ?.
Also, I’m a shift worker and work some weird and wonderful shifts which mean I get extremely tired, this can lead to bad food choices, but I’m getting to grips with thi and how to cope with it. I have some really tricky times, such as getting home at 3am absolutely starving then thinking it’s OK to have a little snack…
It is so frustrating as I read the success stories on here and know that this can be me, if I can just fully commit and stop sabotaging myself.
Sorry to bang on with self pity, but I’m so frustrated, and feel like I’m missing something obvious ?

I should add that I’m really into my walking, which I suspect may be asking a lot of my body when I’m only eating 800 cals ?. I’m averaging around 12,000 steps a day, with some hill walking. This may be a significant strain on my resolve to stick to 800 cals ?. I’m drinking around 2.5 litres of water a day, but I think I may need to increase this to 3.5 litres to ward off hunger ?.

Hi Seadog, you seem to be doing the right things. First of all I assume you have a start weight, have you also measured yourself, inches can drop off even when the pounds wont budge. 2.5 litres of water is a good amount to aim for and you will get another litre from food. As for the snacking, allow for them. When you do your menu plan try to aim for 700 to 750 calories and then you can have a snack. You can have a little bit of cheese or chocolate but if these are your triggers dont have them in the house. Aim for something like a slice of cold meat or chicken. Canned tuna is really handy, mix it with some cream cheese and put it in a tub in the fridge ready as a snack. The important thing is to avoid what ruins it for you and be prepared with healthy low cal carb snack. If you have the frittata serve it with a big salad and cut a small wedge to put in the fridge, cold omelette taste lovely. If you want cheese have some parmesan in to grate into soup or onto a salad, you wont want to munch on that (or would you????)

Preparation, preparation, preparation, failing that, come online and write to us or read a few inspirational posts.

As for the exercise, rather than increase calories you might have to reduce the exercise for a couple of weeks or, again, be prepared with a good snack if you are flagging, take some nuts on a walk , easy to carry just dont eat too many. My go to snack before exercise is 2 prunes and 2 spoonsful of Greek yoghurt. Hope this helps, there are tricks and solutions.

Good morning Seadog! I am going to add my comments to the good ones Sunshine-girl has noted already — to begin with, you’ve got a good start going — even if you go four days and then have a not-so-good day, just jump right back on the BSD the next day — I had to LEARN how to do this and I got better and better at it as I went on. By my third 8-week stretch, I finally internalized the idea and it became second nature. Now I’m at maintenance and almost one year following BSD principles. So don’t think you are doing badly, you will succeed if you just keep starting again.
With regard to eating too much — try to identify the times and the emotions around when you lose control — you want to “pre-plan” those moments by having an alternative scenario in your mind that you can play out when the moment arrives. A good example for me is wine at a restaurant — my pre-plan is to immediately order a big bottle of sparkling water when I sit down. I actually practice that in my mind, so when I get to the restaurant, I am primed to do it. I find having sparkling water available slows down my desire to have wine and allows me time to decide if I really want wine at all. I do the same pre-plan and mental run-through for all my difficult moments, like going into Starbucks or eating lunch at a restaurant.
And with regard to lots of exercise, I am a sporty type and love to work out — I recommend you figure your calories burnt and add back in some amount of extra calories when have a big exercise day — I usually add back in about one-half of what I figure I burned on a big exercise day — otherwise you aren’t fueling your muscles and your brain and that can lead to failure because you really are very hungry. I also think that eating in response to a big exercise day teaches us to respond appropriately to the needs of our body — as opposed to mindless munching.
If it continues to be a problem, cut back a bit on the big exercise days — you can go back to those in a few weeks.