Hi Christine- fortunately I don’t have to wear my hat often. Today it was my second best one because the weather was so bad. My best one is a little tighter – no way would it come off in the wind😱

Thanks Snoop, you are welcome 😃 How are you doing on the BSD?

Hi everyone,
This is my second week of the BSD diet, but I like to call it my new eating regiumn, really enjoying the food, tasty and filling.
I only measured two points of my body at the start, waist and bust, one week later was amased when measured that I had lost 3 3/4 inches off the waist and an inch off the bust. Unfortunately no scales, unable to keep track of weight. Whilst at the doctors yesterday, stood on the scales …. ouch scary ….. 12 stones 1 pound obviously fully dressed.
My husband has even come on board with me, but not as religiously as me. He also lost 1/2 inch off his waist in the first week. He only ate 3 meals with me and the rest of the time ate as he normally did.
Cleared the food cupboards out yesterday after buying almost all of the ingredients required to cook most of the meals. Some of the old food was thrown away and the rest, not much I must say, will be eaten for the last time.
I’ve given up chocolate, cakes, biscuits, and crisps, you know what, I don’t miss any of them, who would have thought that !!!

Hi Lynne, I’m going more slowly than some people on a thread populated by people who started around the same time as me:
https://thebloodsugardiet.com/forums/topic/starting-monday-29th-august-anyone-want-to-join-me/page/7/#post-38212

But I’m very pleased with my progress. I’m not prediabetic or diabetic but I have two stomach conditions that mean I need a high-fibre diet, which makes keeping carbs down a bit difficult, but which would be improved if I lost weight. Despite my relatively slow progress, I’m losing weight faster than on any other diet I’ve tried (down 3.6 kg in two and a half weeks) and I feel so well. Healthier, more alert and I’m sleeping well. So all good. And keeping to 800 calories is not proving to be difficult. Plus, the people here couldn’t possibly be friendlier or more helpful, another factor that really keeps me motivated.

Hi Christine,
can I ask you if there is much in the way of vegetarian recipes in the book? I have been reluctant to order it given the poor showing of vegetarian recipes in the 800 book?

Hi Orchid – hope you don’t mind me answering.

Avocados with pre-baked tomatoes; roast peppers with hummus & nuts; speedy spicy beans (inspired by Hashimoto’s recipe on here); miso soup; roasted red pepper & squash soup; gazpacho; perfect hummus; guacamole; thin seeded crackers; seedy flapjacks; spicy spinach & lentils; chickpeas with Indian-spiced stir-fried greens; chickpea chilli; Moroccan spiced chickpea salad; lentil, carrot & avocado salad; spicy stuffed red pepper; tabbouleh with pine nuts; spiced purple veg; pickled cabbage; rainbow salad; roasted garlicky aubergine mash; spicy toasted cauliflower;roasted Mediterranean veg; Swiss chard stir-fried with garlic; cabbage stir-fried Chinese style; Spring greens with garlic & cannellini beans; green beans with soy sauce & sesame seeds; red salsa; home-made pesto; seeded spelt & rye bread; chickpea flatbread; lychee & pink grapefruit salad; roasted peaches (or apricots); roasted rhubarb with ginger; baked spiced apple with nuts; cauliflower mash; green lentils; cabbage ‘noodles’.

As far as I can tell those are vegetarian, and I think there are quite a few other recipes that could be adapted. Hope this helps.

Hi Orchid

There are quite a few veg recipes in the new book

Section on cooked veg sides
Section on salad veg sides
High protein salads where you could put eggs or cheese in the place of fish/meat

Then in the meal sections there are quite a few with sauces etc which look reasonably interesting and you could use those with more veg or eggs
Plenty of lentil things (which I’m going to try as I’ve not had lots of pulses generally)

I didn’t much like the recipes in the original book but like the look of several of these and OH (who is an expert cook) also thought there were some to experiment with

So don’t know if that helps. I will use it for inspirations if you know what I mean rather than slavishly following a specific recipe.

🙂

Morning everyone.

First weigh-in on maintenance shows ….. errrrr ….. a loss of another 2 pounds. That means I’ve lost 94 pounds and am now 3 pounds below my target weight. I have tried to increase what I eat, but it’s been a strange and stressful week (not BSD related). Looks like I need to pay more attention to what, and how much, I eat. Must add that I have not been hungry at any point, otherwise I would have eaten more!

Ha! Lynne, you are a maintenance loser 😄
Hope when I get to maintenance I can say the same after a week (though without the stress reason, sorry it was a tough week) – it must feel comfy knowing you’ve built in an extra 2lb buffer. I have this weird fear that the scale will shoot straight up when I ‘start maintenance’, thanks for the reassurance that that doesn’t have to be the case.
Good luck eating more this week! x

Hi Lynne

I know you only have two meals a day so may be you could just add some fruit midway between your two meals. It’s easy to take with you and eat on the run if needs be. May just help a little.

Hi Kookaburra. Love that – a maintenance loser 😃. I think I had the same thought. All those times at slimming clubs when, as soon as you stop going the weight piles back with interest! I really did want a buffer between me and the 9st 7lb target – partly because that’s the top of my healthy BMI and I don’t want to go above that. I was thinking of between 9st and 9st 7lb to give me some wriggle room. Curious to see what next week brings!

Hi Verano. Thanks for the suggestion. I’m just not hungry during the day! I think my ‘snack of choice’ would be cheese or meat. Don’t think I’m quite ready for much fruit yet. I have bought some berries for the first time in ages – and Greek yogurt. But had stopped eating much fruit even before BSD because of the effect on my blood sugar. Will be testing to see what (if any) effect it has now.

Hi Igorasusual, CaptainLynne,
thank-you both for the info, it sounds a lot better than the first book and I will definitely have a hunt for it in Waterstones on Monday!

Hi Orchid. I’ve lost count of the number of recipe books I’ve bought over the years because they looked good but when I got them home realised I’d not make many (if any) of the recipes.

I was in Waterstones yesterday and looked for this one, then sat looking at it carefully before deciding to buy it. Yes, there are some things I’m unlikely to make, some I will, and some I might adapt to make them more to my taste. I needed something to tempt my tastebuds again and some of the recipes look promising on that score.

I’m not vegetarian, so only listed recipes I was fairly certain are suitable. If you eat eggs or cheese, as Igorasusual says, there are many more. And I’m sure you could make substitutions in many recipes to make them suitable for you.

Please let us know if you decide to buy it, and what you think.

Hi orchid,
I have only just got in and sat down to look at the forum, it looks like you have had a good response to your question?
Like Lynne, I like the recipes and some I would adapt, like I do with the recipes from the blood sugar diet book, just so they are easier to make and suit me better, I think you will enjoy the book and could possibly adapt even the ‘non vegetarian’ meals?
I do some meals for myself and husband and have to do a different protein for daughter, she’s not vegetarian, just doesn’t like some of the fish dishes I do , and we do eat a lot of fish! So I do fried or battered, hallumi or she will do herself fried rice with mushrooms etc?
Anyway whatever, I think you will make use of the book 📚 good luck and happy losing!
Christine

Hi Lynne, Christine,
like you I have so many recipe book that they have a bookcase to themselves – and I look at one or two and have a couple of basic ones I go back to time and time again for basic info (Good Housekeeping, Bero and Prue Leith). I am using the 80:20 rule and in the process of getting rid of at least 80% of them so was wary of adding in another one that I won’t use. However – it will be good to have a book that needs minimal adaptions that I can just use when life gets chaotic – that is the time I am most likely to come off the wagon and need a quick way to get back on!
I will let you know how I get on.
Lynne, on your continued weight loss, I am fairly sure Hashimoto has the same experience, she increased her carbs and food intake slowly week by week and it was quite a few weeks before she hit an equilibrium. I am currently stable – but given I am eating quite a lot more and higher carbs due to prepping for the marathon walk next weekend, I am happy that I am staying stable. I will detox if need be the following week – and can road test the book then!

Hi Orchid.

Lots of my recipe books are living in the garage waiting to go to a new home. No room in the house for them! Hope you like the new book 😃

Thanks for the comment about Hashimoto. We’re meeting up soon so can compare notes. Good to hear your weight is stable. Where are you doing the marathon walk?

Hi Lynne,
next Saturday evening – starts at 9.30 pm and goes through the night. I am going to try to do a 22 mile walk tomorrow as the final training and testing my eating plan enough to make sure I have enough to keep me going – and yes it will be high carbs – mainly from nut bars, and bananas!
Give my regards and thanks to Hashimoto when you see her – she was a great help in the early days.

Hi orchid

Hope the walk goes well. Where are you doing it?

I will certainly pass on your regards and thanks to Hashimoto. I know she’s been really busy and not been around on here for ages so it’ll be great to catch up.

Hi Lynne, in London. http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/support-us/find-an-event/charity-walks/shine-night-walk, it starts at Southwark Park and ends in Old Billingsgate. Frog has volunteered on the route so I am hoping to see her part way through!
I did the half marathon walk 3 years ago and at then end my legs had nothing left in them at all – once I had stood for 20 minutes waiting for the bus, I nearly fell over trying to get on the bus :-(. I am trying make sure I keep the nutrition up to stop that happening this time, especially at the half way mark…. I am 4.5 stone lighter now, so that is also helping!
I did a 19 mile walk 2 weeks ago and had no ill effects, but I was eating things like soup and chickpea flatbreads, coffee at breaks (the route three was loops back to the car for 20 minute breaks and food). I do not want to carry that around with me so I am hoping a good meal before I start plus high energy snacks and water will work. I will find out tomorrow!

Hi Orchid.

I’m impressed!😃💐. Please let me know how tomorrow and next weekend go.

I’m thinking of doing something next year – don’t know if I could do one as long as the one you’re doing though! Did a 5k many years ago – on Hampstead Heath (must have done 5k before I found the start!).

I went to put on my overcoat on Friday – not worn it for months. Couldn’t wear it on Friday either – it was MUCH too big. No way can I move the buttons or do anything else with it. It was wrapping round me😱 Fortunately I didn’t really need it😃

Wow! Good news and expensive news at the same time. Do you know any seamstresses who could alter it for you? Or could you do it yourself? Not easy, I know.

It might be too much of a job. Just checked, and there’s no size label in it, but it fit me (just) when I was a size 24. Now I’m a size 12. I have had it about 13 years, so it doesn’t owe me anything.

Could always send it to the Great British Sewing Bee for them to use in a challenge😱 LOL

LOL indeed. Good excuse for a new one!

Well – that was interesting. Not!

I decided to try adding some berries and Greek yogurt to my food intake over the weekend. I’d not eaten them for quite a while. And I don’t think I’ll be eating them again any time soon😱😥

First time, on Saturday, seemed to be ok. Second time, yesterday, was a different story! Firstly, shall we say, a gurgly stomach. Not good. Then someone commented on how tired I looked! Today I woke later than usual, feeling dreadful. I had no energy, couldn’t concentrate! Just like the bad old days. Took me a while to work out what it could be.

Now, some 24 hours after eating them (and I wasn’t heavy handed with the portion sizes), I’m starting to feel better.😃

Oh well – back to the drawing board (or should I say recipe book?).

Hi Lynne and Christine
Some years ago my husband went to hospital with chest pain and suspected heart attack and he was diagnosed with costochondritis too. Thankfully though he he does not have an ongoing problem with it. Make that three people who have heard of it!

Hi Lynne

I usually have total Greek yogurt with berries every morning but can’t get decent berries here so I’ve been sprinkling 10g of walnuts on my yogurt. Must admit after 2 weeks have really got used to it. Like the crunch of the nuts and I think it’s more filling. You could always use more than 10g if you want extra calories.

If you have a local Lidl they have great walnuts.

Hi loopylou – good to hear from someone else who knows about costochondritis!

Hi Verano – thanks. I’d probably try that. But I’m not fond of walnuts and I’m not risking the berries and yogurt any time in the near future😱. In my early BSD days I did try that for breakfast but it didn’t work for me. I’m a cooked breakfast kind of girl😃😱

To be honest I was forcing the berries town over the weekend – not hungry, but trying to raise my food intake. Strange, but I function better with protein and not too much veg. If I eat a lot of salad/veg it upsets my stomach. Apparently now, so do berries😱

More experiments called for😃

???? Almonds , hazelnuts, cashews or peanuts???

Only nuts I would eat are cashews and pistachios. Peanuts would put me in hospital now, but I used to love them.

Hi loopylou,
Wow, like me I haven’t had much trouble since I recovered, it took a while before I could say I’m not in pain! Thankfully!
Christine.

Hi Lynne,
Goodness me, what are we going to do with you? Could you not just do what you are doing, your weight must balance out sometime and you will stay steady, worth a try, no use spending money on stuff you won’t use either.
I had creamy fish bake tonight from the bsd cook book, I didn’t have the celeriac mash, ( I don’t like it) it was lovely even Angela enjoyed it! Her and David had mashed potato on theirs
I have started to feel better and David is just starting to feel rough!
What are you going to do about your overcoat?
Good luck anyway.
Christine.

Hi Christine and loopylou – fortunately I’ve only had two episodes of it. First time was a Mothers’ Day😱 Was off to A&E with my daffodils from church!😱LOL

A few cashews or pistachios will give extra calories without having to eat too much more if you aren’t hungry!

Good point Verano. 😃💐

Hi Christine – not sure LOL. Put me in a corner? Or in a bag and shake me up?

I’ve been thinking along the same lines – the weight must stabilise. The bottom of my healthy BMI is 7st 13lb (I don’t think I’ve weighed that since I was about 7!😱 ) but I don’t think it’ll go that low. Seeing the diabetes nurse on Thursday, to let her know I’ve reached healthy BMI. She’s probably going to say I shouldn’t lose more, or that I’ve lost too much (she didn’t want me under 10st, regardless of the BMI – yes, she does need to lose weight).

Think I just need to be kind to myself for a couple of weeks. It’s been a stressful few weeks and I need to catch up with me. I’ll not have much time for food shopping before Friday so it’ll be using what’s already in until then. Plus looking at the new recipe book, deciding what I want to make, then writing a shopping list.

The fish bake sounds good😱 Glad you’re feeling better💐😃

My overcoat😱 I’d ordered two coats out of a catalogue and they arrived today. One mauve, one navy. Both size 12 by the same manufacturer. I liked the mauve coat, but it was smaller – no room for layers in the winter. But the navy one will do for work as well as leisure, and is big enough to go over my uniform, or layers in the winter😱 Of course, it was the more expensive of the two! But about half the price of a uniform coat (and probably warmer).

After the remark last night about me looking tired, I treated myself to some makeup today. The nearly full works – foundation, concealer, blusher, eye shadow, powder and some brushes. 😱😃

Meant to ask, captainlynne, if you’d looked up his many calories per day toy need go maintain weight?

If you try the site I always recommend
http://keto-calculator.ankerl.com
you can find out what it is for your height/weight/age/activity level

Mine was lower than I’d thought and it is good to know.

Might be useful info to have when you see the nurse?

🙂

Hi Lynne,

Have you tried brazil nuts or macadamia nuts? They are nice and fearsome in calories! (and price unfortunately, but they do last a long time). I slice one or two up into a desertspoon of Greek yoghurt for a protein and fat calorie hike, tastes better than desert used to.

Igor’s site is fantastic, I’ve found it so useful (thanks Igor 💗). It gave me a lower total daily energy required figure than the 5:2 website calculator, which explained a few things! I think it could be really reassuring to have a look at and play with the macro percentages too. If you were to just keep your carbs and protein as they are now as you seem happy with that, you could see how just upping the fat means you can increase calories really quickly. I’ve been interested in coconut oil for it’s potential to help stave off alzheimers – you can even eat it by the spoonful – MAJOR calories 😃

You are most welcome Kookaburra 🙂
Very glad the website helped, must say I really found the data informative and gave me a baseline to work to.

Am just awaiting delivery of another interesting-looking cook book written by two women who changed their diet in response to cancer diagnosis and was pleased to see (when I looked at the book on kindle) that they also recommended that site. If the book is as good as I think it will be, I shall let you know.

Have a great day, all 🙂 🙂 🙂

Hi Captainlynne,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-37408293
here is a summary of the Trust Me programme this week on turmeric. Summary – the spice works, the supplements don’t.

Hi Captainlynne,
I did buy the new recipe book yesterday, I got through about 1/3 of it in the shop and decided there were already enough good veggie ideas that it was worth having. I then read all the intros plus a chunk of recipes in the afternoon and got through the rest in bed! It was also great to have a chance to read from a different perspective (MM’s wife and practicing GP); the approach, the benefits and how she makes it work for them both. It is a good reset for the mind and great for me planning the next steps in my programme.
So thank-you to Christine and yourself for giving me enough info so that I bothered to read the book – so timely and it really will help with maintenance!

I received the book yesterday and already read it from cover to cover. There are plenty of new recipes to get the juices flowing and very few repeats from the BSD Book, so pleased about that. Tonight I am having chicken thighs coated in plain yoghurt and then dipped in either chickpea flour or better still crushed almonds. Hubby will be well cheesed off because I tell him every few days what I am having and tonight said chicken but he has assumed a stir fry and has opted for making his own tea.

Hi Captainlynne, a quick and healthy way to increase calories is increasing the amount of olive oil you use – raw not cooked. It is calories and fat, but not carbs so you can add on 100-200 cals a day easily. I started it two months ago when I knew I needed more calories due to the amount of extra exercise I was doing plus I was very interested in the article on olive oil helping the cardiovascular system http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/tWtLcz30LZm3YTk5VfZ307/is-olive-oil-really-good-for-me.
I took 20 ml per day – normally spread across two sets of veg/salads and either made into a dressing with balsamic vinegar or apple vinegar or taken raw – that is harder and reminiscent of being given cod-liver oil tablets as a kid :-(.
I also added on top of humus and avocado dips which worked very well or into soups. I carried on with the weight loss exactly as I had before on my 60g carbs a day, but the calories were around 900 – 1000.
For your yogurt and berries issue – form what I read the issues appears to be the berries and fruit more than the yogurt? If so, the tzatziki and raitha recipes in the BSD book with some humus and guacamole may work for you. Another idea would be almond milk yogurt, not so rich as greek yoghurt, but it will certainly help up the calories a little.

Turmeric

I have been taking a supplement for around 18 months and it has helped my joints and various aches and pains!

The program suggests supplements don’t work but it doesn’t say what supplements were used in the study! For turmeric to be absorbed it needs to be used with piperine, derived from pepper, hence the powder worked in food, probably because most foods you would use turmeric with would also be flavoured with pepper! But maybe heating it and including fat also helps.

I think this study was far too small and the questions asked maybe too specific!

I think that turmeric has lots of benefits and I think it’s wrong to dismiss it out of hand on the basis of just this study only.

As they say … The proof of the pudding is in the eating … but maybe not on this plan!!!

It’s really helping both myself and my OH, who has peripheral neuropathy.

Well Sunday’s walk was both good and bad……. the good is I walked 22.7 miles in 6 hours 58 minutes. I also had a 20 minute break, so that was 7.5 hours elapsed. That was great, except that the last 2 miles were awful. In the morning I was comfortable doing 3.2 miles an hour for 11 miles. In the afternoon, my thighs started to complain a little, but they did that last time when I walked 18 miles, and I was fine afterwards. They carried on complaining, but I still managed to keep to 3 miles per hour average. The last two miles they really did not want to continue 🙁 and it was a mental push and the fact the car was 2 miles away – that kept me going.
I did a little cool-down session – stretches and a short walk, but I still came home sore and tired.
The really bad news was that yesterday my legs were very sore and stiff all day. I had (thankfully) cancelled my spinning class as I thought I should not be doing too much the week before ‘the walk’, but I did do my pilates class which was a great help to stretch things out again and get reassurances from the teacher ‘not to worry’. Today – legs still tired, no problems going up stairs, but very sore coming back down.
I am going for an hours walk around the park later this morning to further loosen up and will do another pilates session on Thursday.
The idea of the 22 miles was to prove to myself that I could complete the course, as in – if you can do 22 miles, then you will manage 26.x miles. Yes, I can do the 22 miles, but I am not so sure if I could have kept going for the last 4 miles, probably adrenaline on the night will help – but I could see me being Jonny Brownlee swaying towards the endline without a brother to help!
So – lessons learned – start slower and have at least two breaks. Starting slow will be easy – it is a mass start and you can only go as fast as the mass.
Reset the idea of finishing in under 9 hours – I had hoped that if I could keep up 3 miles per hour plus one stop I could do that. I can’t, so I am letting that one go and anything under 10 hours will be fine! Finishing is what matters.
The other good thing was that the nutrition approach worked – I had tired legs, but not empty ones. There was still enough energy there to drive home safely and I did not find myself unable to move, or falling over as I had done at the end of the half marathon three years ago – so improvement there! I had a good breakfast, a bit of carb loading the day before, and had a banana before I started, one at the end, and roughly one every 1.5 hours through the day – 5 (small) bananas – never eaten so many in my life. I also had nut bars (4) that I ate on the way round so I was eating something every 30 minutes to replace what I was using up. That plus water. I had a hardboiled egg, and tomato and butter beans soup when I finished. It was a very high fibre day and the following morning I was reminded of that, but not in a bad way, just a good cleanout :-)!
I will be posting on the exercise link on my future plans as for me, the next phase is about improving fitness and bodyshape; changing the fat left for muscle. I will also add in there the info I have found about nutrition during long walks/runs/cycles.
Wish me luck……….

Hi Verano,
The programme will be aired on Thursday evening and it will give a better overview of the study – although the article I posted did conclude that a further study was needed. I have always wondered if there is not a way to see the differences in disease between the countries that use turmeric regularly in food and those that do not – also those who migrate and move to a western diet. I suspect that the comparative data quality is not available.
I thought there were two positives in the article – one there is something in turmeric that can clearly be demonstrated to make a change in our biology – the question is more how best to administer it. The second was that you can detect cancer changes in the cells long before they are cancerous and reverse that and something in turmeric may be able to do that. Having lost my sister-in-law to breast cancer in January this year, I was cheered that this type of research was going on and maybe the future.

Fantastic achievement Orchid. All the very best for your walk on Sunday.
Phew it is quite a challenge 🙂

Well done Orchid. I was wondering how your walk went 😃

Igorasusual – thanks for that link😃 Just checked it out – interesting!

Kookaburra – macadamia nuts could be another option. Thanks for reminding me of them.

Orchid – glad you liked the book😃 As well as cooking with olive oil, I dress salads with a mixture of olive oil and balsamic vinegar – brought some really good stuff back from Italy 😃

Must sit down with the new book again, check cupboards, and make list before I go food shopping again.

Hi orchid,
I’m glad you bought the book, I think it will be good addition to our recipes, and like you said there are enough veggie meals to do it justice, plus you could always add tofu to some of the meat recipes.
Do you eat fish? There are some great fishy meals, I did the creamy fish bake last night it was great, even my daughter and husband enjoyed it. I just left off the celeriac out, I don’t like it, and did mash for the other two, I was full after I had eaten it.
Good luck with your meals.
Christine.

Hi Christine

Could the creamy fish bake be frozen?

Hi Christine, I try to stick to only veggies, although if I am out for a meal and the vegetarian options are poor, I will have fish! I love celeriac and am waiting for it to come back into season (must be soon) and make the apple and celeriac soup. There is an apple tree on the green outside the house and the apples are falling and rotting so I pick some every so often and freeze them. They also last in the house over the winter – for some reason I have never tried eating them as eating apples only used them in chutneys and cooked for a pudding – strange really. Anyhow – I have some ready for the freezer just now so that soup recipe looked worth a try.
There are also quite a few others that I will try – the miso soup definitely, I went looking for dashi stock today, but could not find any. Will try Sainsburys later in the week.
I will be interested in any that you find you can freeze as I am have made great use of the freezer with this food plan. It is currently full of boxes of blueberries bought and frozen when cheaper in the summer season and they will keep me going for breakfast till the New Year. Need to get my soups toped up now and that is half the days food planning done!