Hi I’m just 3 days into doing the blood sugar diet and am over the worst of the hunger pangs, yay! I’m not diabetic but about a year ago I went to the doctors after experiencing night sweats and tiredness. The nurse took bloods and asked if I had had breakfast which I hadn’t had. However she kept pressing me that I must have had something like tea or coffee to which I relented and said yes. On hindsight I should have stuck to my guns but I think I got a bit scared! Anyway my fasting blood sugar levels came back as 7.2 which I believe may be just at the pre diabetic stage? I don’t want to go back to the docs now and tell them to recheck so I’ve decided to do this diet.
I’ve already lost a stone by dipping in and out of the recipe book but I want to do a real effort to lose about 2.5 stones more.
I like to go hiking with my daughter mostly fortnightly, will I be able to continue on the 800 cals and keep doing that? How would I get round it without overeating?
Everyone on here sounds so friendly and supportive . I hope I can join in too and just have a little accountability and support while I’m in my journey.
Thanks for reading 😃

Don’t worry about hiking on 800 calories, once you have adapted to burning fat properly (Although that takes a couple of weeks normally) your hike will be fuelled entirely by your fat supplies, and you should not feel any extra hunger afterwards, at least I don’t. If you do try just having an extra small piece of cheese, or a teaspoonful of nut butter. You may want to take some nuts with you as well, calories included in your day of course, so you can eat as you go.

If you have a hike scheduled before you have properly adapted, try having a good breakfast which includes some small amount of oats, maybe 20g or so, and preferably also some Chia seeds or linseed to bulk it a bit, with nut milk. Have some berries and a little Greek yoghurt with it as well. It will use up quite a lot of your calories, but should keep you fuelled through the hike, without there being a flood of high blood sugar that the insulin can whip away to store as fat. Again, if you go over calories a little on these days it isn’t a problem, just get back on plan as soon as you can.

Hi Sabz,

I started on this change in eating patterns back in October. I can understand why you are wondering about if its practical to be active on 800 cals. I was worrying about this at the start myself. I think it will depend on how much you depend on carbs to get you through the day as to how long it takes you to adjust to this way of eating I was eating a very carb heavy but supposedly healthy diet because because cals were less than you would expect would be needed for my daily workload before I started down this route.

Four months down the line I am quite comfortable at spending a day helping dig up young fruit trees and fruit bushes while limiting meal times to late afternoon/evening.

Just take it one step at a time, stick to low carbs (I aim for 20 to 30g a day) count the calories and over time your body will adjust to burning fat.

Hi Sabz. You’ve made a great start.

I’d definitely keep up the hiking – you don’t want to give up something you enjoy, especially as it’s healthy exercise! Breakfast before the hike sounds like a good idea, the oats or yoghurt as suggested, or perhaps scrambled eggs. Taking a high energy, low carb snack such as nuts is also a good idea if it will be a long hike.

If you have concerns about your health, please don’t be worried about going back to the doctor for another check. It might help to write down what you want to ask and say, so you’re not put off on the day and you could ask to se someone different – a nurse if you saw your doctor and vice versa.