I’ve just downloaded the book, and reading through it slowly before getting started in the next day or so. I’m not diabetic, but like the sound of the plan. Is anyone else just trying this for weight loss purposes?

My holiday starts on 28 July, and I am also 40 while I’m there, and as per usual, I have l left it far too late to lose weight. I wanted to be fit and fabulous at 40, but I’m nowhere near, more like plump and flumpy at 40. I want to shed a bit of weight by the time I go, but also learn a few new habits to eat healthier while I’m away. I’m camping, so will be eating out often, with a few meals prepared in the van…!

Any advice/comments would really help.

Thanks in advance 🙂

Hi JTK1977

Welcome along on the BSD. Lots of us here are on the programme to lose weight, but are not pre-diabetic or diabetic. Lots of us will empathise with your ‘plump and flumpy’ situation too. You should be able to drop a good few pounds before 28th July if you get started now and the BSD is a great way to learn new eating habits which should serve you well in maintaining the weight lost.

My tips are: good hydration, full fat not low fat, avoid ‘no added sugar’ foods, tackle eating out by keeping control on alcohol intake and avoiding the carbs in favour of protein and veggies/salad. Finally, be sure to make good use of the forum, the support and encouragement on here is invaluable and will help you stick with it, even when things get tough.

Thank you so much SunnyB. I will certainly do as you suggest, and keep referring back to the forum and help pages, I’m really hopeful for a good result.

I’m going to plan my recipes for the forthcoming week, and go shopping tonight. I’ll be looking at the relatively cheaper and easier meals for me, as this plays an important part of my family budget.

Good luck on your journey too x

I was a weight only ‘loser’ and now using more calories but still essentially the same meals to maintain as I reached my target.

Me too not diabetic or pre-diabetic but a family history of it. I tried last year, lost 28lbs on the 8 week program but then fell off the wagon. But I’m back and determined! Good luck x

Me too-joined today for pretty much the same reasons as you! Sick of low fat diets that don’t work! L x

Me too! I was 40 and had gradually put on a load of weight in the past few years. I started the BSD in March and now I’ve lost more than 30lb and feel great. I just turned 41 on Monday, and feel so much better now than I did this time a year ago! It’s really life changing 😀

Me too, approaching 40, sudden weight gain, feeling fat and frumpy, starting to wear lose baggy clothes to hide the barrel that has developed. I am using it for weight loss but combining it with the clever guts to help improve my general gut health and also see if i can fix my gastro-oesophageal reflux disease so that I can quit taking PPI’s.
Just completed day 3 and feel fine about all the stuff i have cut out including alcohol, 800 calories is proving easy enough at home but am going to a barbecue at a friend’s tomorrow and worried about how to control the eating. I have got being the designated driver as a reason not to drink but how do you go to a BBQ and not eat a tonne of sausages and burgers?? So i have asked my friend if it’s ok if I bring along my own steak and salad! She said it is weird but is fine with it! So i plan to have the steak meal option – without the crime fraiche etc so can have a few calories from other things. 🙂

Hello, I’m approaching 40 and also feeling fat and frumpy. Decided while on holiday this week to do something about it. I used to exercise a lot and could pretty much eat what I want, but life has changed in the past 5 years and I’m now not able to shift the kgs. I’m also relying on carbs to keep me going. I want to lose some weight and find a healthy diet I can maintain, so wasn’t going to do the 8 week fast and just jump straight to the 5:2 BSD. Has anyone else done this too, and had good results? I need to lose about 4-5% of my current weight.

I’m not worried about not having much/any alcohol as I’ve got young children and have not drunk much over the past 5 years due to being pregnant and breastfeeding. I’m not much bothered by not having treats, as I know I need to break bad habits. But the two things that worry me the most are (a) being hungry when I’m also tired (I don’t want turn into a snappy, hangry person) and I have lots to do! (b) family meals – my eldest is extremely fussy at the moment and everything she eats is carb-based. We don’t have time to make two meals each time, and recent experience has shown she won’t eat anything she doesn’t like the look of or try something new. Hopefully a phase, but tricky timing when I want to change my eating habits!

I also have problems with family meals – my husband is a true beer drinking carb loving Bear (hence the name Mrs Bear!) and he is all sceptical about dieting and cutting out carbs. He does not believe he can survive on 800kcals a day (even though our neighbour managed it) he says he needs more. However we also don’t want to cook two meals so I have been feeding him the same food but with bigger portions and will give him rice or pasta or potatoes to go with it. It’s just a case of cooking one extra ingredient. So take the steak meal for example – we both have steak – he gets a bigger one with a baked potato and I get the small one following Mosley’s recipe.
You can do this with things like the chilli con carne and the curry too. Microwave bags of rice are so handy – 2 mins in the microwave. Easy carbs for the Bears! I guess kids are harder but you could always disguise theirs with ketchup or similar!
Don’t let others dictate how you lead your life, if you need to do this for you then you’ll find a way around it.
Good luck Sambascuba!

Hi MrsBear, I too have GORD and am on the same meds but on this diet my symptoms completely disappeared and I stopped taking the meds! If I do have a slip up they come roaring back which is interesting as it’s another example that shows what carbs do to our poor insides! Good luck and look forward to hearing if you find the same.
Inka

Hi Inka
How long did you do the diet before you cut out the meds? I am afraid to stop them cold turkey. 🙁
MrsBear

Hi MrsB, I’ve been doing the bsd for about 8 months but with lots of wobbles! But a few months ago I realised that as I wasn’t having the symptoms I was forgetting to take the pills, then I put two and two together and just decided to stop. If I fall off the wagon I find I need to take them again. Perhaps try skipping a day or two and see how that works? X

Being doing bsd for over two weeks so far and lost 7kg, even though no diabetes issue. no longer feel overful but got a case of dropping things it might be coincidence but i have dropped three glasses and seem to knock things over more. My children say i am less stressed at other drivers in the car but my husband says i am more irritable. The weekends and when i am in a hurry seem the hardest. I find i have to go to bed earlier to avoid the late night snacking. I cant have tempting foods in the house so i buy the kids the snacks i dont like. The nuts are ideal as i like crunchy foods . Miss the bread though.

Thanks for all your answers and tips. Mrs Bear, I wonder if Mr Bear will eventually become a convert?! Mr Sambascuba was quite overweight a few years ago and started the old 5:2 diet, now he’s a convert to it and keeps it up so that he can eat what he likes on the 5 days and not put on weight! Not quite the ethos, but it works for him.

I don’t think I can eat only 500 kcal on fast days, so prefer the sound of the BSD 5:2, and also need to break a carb and sugar addiction. But it helps because 2 weekdays, we eat a very low cal evening meal anyway. So Mr Sambascuba won’t notice the difference (and I can just cut the carbs from my other meals with him). The problem is that on 3 other days a week I eat lunch and tea with the kids and may just have to cook something separate for me. Especially if they are having pasta or pizza or sandwiches for tea. Will need to think creatively!

Well, I am a chef and trying to learn this nutrition stuff so if you get stuck, give me a shout and I’ll try and think of some ideas for you. I am actually thinking of writing a recipe book at some point and am busy collecting recipes as we speak. each new day on BSD brings ideas and inspiration for how to make 800 kcal as tasty and interesting as possible. 🙂

Hi Sambascuba – when I make pizza I just have the topping i.e. I put the passata / tomato sauce into a shallow dish and put the other ingredients on top then grill it. My OH has a tortilla as a base as he doesn’t like thick bases.
SSB

Hi SSB and Sambascuba, I’ve heard of people flattening out a chicken breast and using that as a pizza base too.

…now that sounds really yum!
SSB

Hi Mixnmatch- Would you be kind enough to tell me how quickly the weight came off, was the last stone very slow? I need to lose just about a stone to get back into healthy BMI. Many Thanks S

I got to within two pounds of my target at the end of 8 weeks, having lost over 26 pounds during those weeks so the last stone was not particularly slow. That last two pounds did take two months to shift, but in my defence they were December and January, and I had plenty of indulgences before starting to think about losing them and then maintaining. I lost 8 stone in total and the slowest I think was actually the fourth, before I discovered BSD. After I did start cutting the white stuff and 800 fast days it was really quite steady, and got faster the more fast days I added until I finally did the 8 weeks.

That is amazing Mixnmatch – what an inspiration! The BSD should sign you up for advertising!
SSB

Hi Mixnmatch, Wow what an achievement! Well done, you must feel amazing.
I have a holiday in 5 weeks so potentially could lose nearly a stone by then? I don’t really understand the 800 fast days, are you eating 800 calories within a few hours and then fasting for the rest of the day? Is it in the book? Its a while since I read it. Thanks S

Sorry Mixnmatch, I’ve just realised that the Fast800 is probably just the basic 8 week plan! However I’ve seen it referred to as 800/30 which I don’t understand, does anyone know what the 30 signifies? Is it grams of carbs per day? S

I started basically on 5:2 and then modified that to the BSD version with 800 calorie fast days and 1600 calorie non-fast days, which was the calculated TDEE of my ideal weight. I added an extra fast day to 4:3 and then did a month of 2:5 with just the weekends on 1600 calories as ‘training’ for the full 8 weeks. Intermittent fasting during the day when you try to keep everything you eat basically in a window of say 4-8 hours during the day is also very good for you and since I discovered it I generally compressed my 800 calories into two meals and a 6-8 hour period. I found that for me this was more satisfying and if I saved my largest meal for the evening meal I usually didn’t need any snacks.

Yes I think 30 would be grams of carbs, but that is less than I usually aimed for. If a person is diabetic or very insulin resistant they may need to drop to 30 or even 20 grams.

I think I’ll be aiming for 50g of carbs a day- I’m not diabetic – I just want to lose weight and the sugar cravings, I can usually manage without breakfast so will prob go for eating at 11.00/12.30( break and lunchtime at work- I normally manage one of them) and again at 6pm. You’ve inspired me, thank you!

Hi Mrs Bear, I look forward to the recipe book. Gathering all the information together would save us all a lot of time copying and pasting. And with all the alternative options plus carb counts, it could be a fantastic resource. I haven’t seen MM’s BSD recipe book, so that might actually already do this. All the best, and how do you manage being a chef and having to taste everything? I’m going to make lemon butter tonight and will have to taste to make sure I have put enough sugar in it as I tend to cut the sugar content in about half.

Currently not employed as a chef so it’s safe but am really enjoying making new recipes. Last nigh I was inspired by Saltyseabird and the pizza problem – i came up with a “pizza base” made of thin sliced and layered courgette and aubergine to put all the toppings on. I shall post it on the recipes section. It was delicious – and 330 kcals if you can believe the counter on MyFitnessPal.
Good luck with the lemon butter – do you not have a guinea pig to taste for you?

Yes I’m
Doing it for weight loss which i suppose will make me healthier too
Aiming to lose two stone. I’m a binger so cutting back drastically suits me. I’ve done this before and it works. This time is like to keep it off and I’m not just doing it for a wedding.
Good luck to everyone