I have been on the BSD for five weeks as I have a fatty liver. I have lost weight slowly but steadily, around 10lbs and my bmi is 22.2.

I measured myself before I started and although I have lost inches on my tummy and thighs (and my face looks thinner) my waist is still the same. How do I lose inches from my waist where all the visceral fat is wrapped round my liver? I am keeping to 50g carbs and 800 calories or less.

Hi Morxx
I also had fatty liver. My belly and waist were the last places where I lost weight, too (I think that’s quite common). Although my waist size is reduced, my waist measurement still isn’t where it should be and I still have a bit of a belly, but according to tests at my GP practice, I no longer have my fatty liver.
My understanding is that the subcutaneous fat is the surface fat that you can see on your belly, around your waist etc. whereas the visceral fat sits behind this so you can’t really see what it’s doing. As you say it’s the visceral fat that is the problem with your fatty liver. With a low carb or very low calorie diet (like BSD) (or doing both like us) the liver is one of the first places to let go of visceral fat. This can happen even while you still have too much subcutaneous fat. So it may already have worked. You just don’t know until you go back to your GP. But a low carb diet does seem particularly effective as is the BSD.

Not too long ago I posted a presentation on the Take A Look at This thread by Dr David Unwin who talks about how his patients reversed their fatty liver disease (mostly diabetics like me but will work the same for everyone) doing a low carb diet. It might be worth a look.

Hope this helps
Jennie xx

Hi again Morxx
I’ve just been mulling it over. If you’re at a point where you don’t need to lose any more weight – sounds like you might have – you can maybe increase from the 800 calories, but still stay with the low carbs. If you find you still have fatty liver you could try lowering your carbs bit by bit. 40g, 30g etc. (I did 20g carbs, but that was because of my diabetes rather than fatty liver).

In terms of getting your waist/height ratio right it might be that adding a bit of fasting into the mix might help. I haven’t done it consistently enough (yet!) to speak personally but I’ve read of others on here who have said it helped particularly with waist/belly fat.
Take care and well done on the 5 weeks xx
Jennie

Hi,
Our bodies store fat in a range of places, there are quite a few of us who dropped a shoe size and very often collar bones reappear before our waist measurement changes.
The way our bodies are designed it is easier for our bodies to carry fat stores at the waist line. So the fat at the waist is the last to be drawn on. (Women in particular are designed to be able to carry weight at the waist during pregnancy).
I would suggest reducing your levels of carbs. – Many of us who are Insulin Resistant struggle to get into ketosis “fat burning mode” at 50g of carbs. I strongly believe that we shouldn’t be advising people to stick at 50g of carbs, but to aim for 20g of carbs, as its only at that level we can be sure people are in ketosis. At a higher level of carbs we will loose weight, but it will not be fat we are loosing it will be no different from a standard calorie counting diet where high levels of insulin block our bodies from accessing our fat stores.

Thanks for your reply Jennie. I will look at the David Unwin video tonight. I go back to the doctor on the 26th and hopefully I will have another blood test to check my levels.

I would like to lose another 5lbs if I can. I am finding the concept of low carbs hard as I have always bought low fat things and obsessively read labels for saturated fat.
It would seem my body doesn’t like low fat and prefers low carbs. Totally new way of eating!

M x

Hi M – It’s a whole different ball game, isn’t it? No need to rush with it though, you will get your head around it over time.
There’s quite a lot of resources on the Take a Look at This thread which you can look at as well as David Unwin, but if it were me I’d do it bit by bit. Otherwise you’re likely to get one big headache! xx Good luck with the 5lbs. Hope the visit to the GP goes well.
Let us know how you get on, meanwhile if you have any questions just ask – there are lots of people on here to help
Jennie xx

Hi JGwen – I think we differ a bit in that, while I completely support the low carb approach, I’m not as convinced as you that we all need to go to 20g carbs all at once. If you look at the Newcastle Diet, for example, which is the very low calorie meal-replacement diet that Roy Taylor developed, and on which MM based the original Blood Sugar 800 Diet, the original Optifast shakes he used came to anything between 35g and 55/g carbs (for 3) per day and the Extante shakes recommended now (amongst others)again provide a fair bit more than 20g carbs a day. Roy Taylor was able to directly measure his patients’ fatty liver and one of the key outcomes was the reduction in fat in the liver, one presentation I saw talked about shifting liver fat from around 30% to below 5% in the 8 weeks.

Don’t know about what level of carbs David Unwin recommends – it would be interesting to find out.
Jennie xx

Hi JGwen, thanks for replying.
Although I have been diagnosed with a fatty liver I am not overweight, diabetic or even pre-diabetic. I am apple shaped with slim hips and a very fat tummy. I just don’t think I can reduce my carbs to 20g I am having enough trouble trying to keep them under 50g. I am missing apples and other fruit so much but one Cox apple has around 15g carbs which are all sugar.
I have only just joined the forum and am working my way through the posts and will watch the videos but my head is spinning – so much information. I will get there eventually. 😀

Hi Morxx ( I am sorry if the discussion with Jennie that is about to follow goes over your head, if you find any aspect of it confusing please do not hesitate to ask any questions. )
Hi Jennie,
If someone is not loosing fat on 50g of carbs, then the obvious tweak is to reduce carbs.

I completely agree with you that we don’t necessarily need to go down to 20g of carbs from the start. – I didn’t. I started by cutting out the major carb sources, and then when I got used to that way of eating I started to monitor and revise meals to reduce carbs further. However, I am concerned by the advice some people get that if they are loosing weight at 50g of carbs then its fine to continue at that level of carbs if they ask about doing repeated rounds of the BSD.

If my memory serves me right, Dr Unwins project was also a short term change in eating patterns. The issue with staying on 800 calories longer than a few weeks without getting insulin levels low enough to get into ketosis is that its no different to any calorie counting diet and will result in people loosing weight but it will also reduce their metabolic rate. Background insulin levels from a long term high carb diet mean that for those who have a lot of weight to loose 20g of carbs is a safer level to aim for, if they don’t want to do the fiddling of testing how their body reacts to different types of carbs to work out their personal level of carbs.

The different impact on the body of carb v ketones as fuel and more particularly the impact on metabolic rate of calorie counting vs ketosis are area’s which are benefiting from lots of research at present. – We know from the biggest loser tv program that just a few months of eating low calorie without getting carb levels low enough will result in a drop of 500 to 600 calories a day in our metabolic rate making it harder to keep the weight down in the future. – How rapidly this reduction in metabolic rate starts from counting calories without getting carbs low enough is not clear, but I would suggest that its reasonable to follow the lead of people like Dr MM who talk in terms of an 8 week program. As Morxx says in her post that she has been following the BSD for 5 weeks, and that post was a few days ago, I think that its appropriate to recommend reducing carbs further if she is going to remain on 800 calories to reduce her waist size.

Just a personal observation. Before I started this diet (BSD800) my cholesterol was 8.2 with 40mg statins, within 3 months went down to 6.4 and is now 4.2 with 10mg statins. My triglycerides were at a level where my doctor kept insisting I must be drinking too much – not really the case although I do like some wine – measuring 2.69 when the top range of normal is 1.50. Again, this now registers at around 1.20 and 1.60. A great improvement. I eat all the full fat foods like butter, cheese, full fat plain Greek yoghurt but very much into nuts, avocado, olive oil and rapeseed oil.

Hi JGwen
I understand the science of what you’re saying about low carb/keto or calorie counting, and the impacts of low calorie diets on metabolic rate, etc. Like you, I like research and data and so I think we have trod very similar research paths.

I think you and I have probably come to Morxx’s question from different angles. Because Morxx said her BMI was 22.2, I assumed she didn’t have much weight to lose, if any. So, I wasn’t responding in terms of any need for long term weight loss or her needing to do repeated rounds of BSD. My focus was on the question of the fatty liver. As I highlighted above, in the clinical trails that Roy Taylor ran, on average, patients’ visceral liver fat was reduced from 30% to 2% (I checked) over the initial 8 weeks of the diet, which is fantastic. This happened while patients were using the meal replacement shakes with carbs anywhere up to 55g or even 60g. (The same happened in his follow-up trials). That was really my point.
Jennie xx

Hi Morxx, I hope that the doctors visit you have planned will give you an answer on your fatty liver, and that the change in eating patterns has already worked. – Its strange isn’t it to discover that our bodies prefer to use fat as a fuel source rather than carbs. But one of the advantages I think of this WoE is moving over to making meals straight from ingredients rather than shop bought pre-prepared foods.
The more I hear about how the food industry manipulates what is in food the more I think of them as Frankenstein foods. – I saw an article on a TV program a couple of days ago which explained that wheat has been developed which is higher in gluten, because the higher your bread dough in gluten the more water they can pump into each loaf of bread, lowing the cost of production of bread. – The same program also went through the ingredients in a shop bought pizza against a home made pizza. – I didn’t realise that the grated cheese on shop bought pizza’s isn’t just straight cheese, they mix cheese with potato starch again for price control.
————————-
Hi Jennie, Thank you for explaining the logic behind the reason for your response to Morxx, I do love exchanging data in this way.
For me, the point that Morxx had been on this way of 5 weeks, the selection of the title of the question and the focus in the post on waist shape suggested that Morxx was planning to continue beyond 8 weeks. That is why in addition to the reassurance that loosing inches from everywhere other than the waist is normal I felt it was important to explain why dropping down carb levels was important if going to continue with this WoE .

Maybe my own experience of BMI colours my view on its relevance. – The BMI charts just don’t work with so many peoples body composition.

Just jumping on here to ask for personal consultation with Jennie and JGwen! As I have posted on another thread, my belly seems to me to have become squishier and to mind a bit more “expanded” in a soft spread kind of way in the last couple of weeks or so. I’m guessing that however untoned abdominal muscles might be (and mine are defo very untoned…), muscles aren’t soft and squishy, so i’m also guessing it is subcutaneous fat (I’m hoping that what used to be quite firm now being soft might be an indication that visceral fat has diminished…) and that the increased “spread” is because fat cells are getting smaller/filling with water so less “controlled”, and skin is not as tight as it used to be (and may never be, but that’s another issue…). My natural waist is definitely more defined looking front on, it’s just the section down the middle, and the “sporran” (ex “apron”.) Anyway, would appreciate your views!

Hi 6T, but I read that should be 2T now, well done.

I have found it fascinating to observe how my body goes through stages with remodelling. In the early days I would suddenly notice that an area had started to look like there were lots of invisible thumbs pressing onto the skin. The hollows would get bigger and bigger, then I would have a whoosh and the hollows would just disappear.

I haven’t come across any research on the topic, (have you Jennie) so I think the best I can do is share my experience. My spare tyre is changing in the same way as yours. – It started off with dimple forming at the sides of my waist, which increased and increased so that you could clearly see first a line and then a hollow at the side of my waist and the view of my body shape when I looked face on in the mirror was clearly improving. But side on, my belly still extended. If anything it looked worse because it was no longer being balanced out by the size of my bum. Gradually the hollows at the waist line have increased until I have a fat filled 6 pack at the centre of my waist. I have also noticed that gradually the apron end is occurring higher up my hips.
It is squiggy, I end up pushing it together in a column between both hands and then using the tape measure to measure how high the column is to work out what final waste and hip measurements may be.
My guess is that as we know a womans body is designed to be able to carry weight in a particular location when we are pregnant and that appears to be reflected in the way my body is holding on to the fat in that location as the last place its used from. We know that the body doesn’t use all the fat up from a single cell at a time, but from a batch of cells, so it sort of makes sense that’s the process we are going through all the way during our journey.

I am 95.7lbs down from my start weight, which puts me at a lower weight than my average adult weight. I am back down to the dress size I have traditionally been, which wasn’t as slim as I would have liked. Like you the spare tyre is more squidgy than it was in those days. I although I do have wobbly bits still on my upper arms and legs, it isn’t just loose skin, and is still reducing, so nothing to worry about so far.

JGwen, that is amazing (and reassuring), my tum is doing exactly the same as yours; not balanced by bum, tick, dimple, tick, fat six pack, tick. I won’t panic just yet and hopefully there will be improvement! By the way, did you find some chainsaw trousers? To go with the tractor? You must have acres! And lots of energy!

On the plus side, with the right bra to increase the contrast the side view isn’t as bad as it was.
No chain saw trouser shopping yet, – I sort of wimped out going shopping for them because there is nothing so embarrassing as trying the largest size in the shop and it not meeting. – Thats always my experience with trying on long boots. ——- With chainsaw trousers I would have to try them on in the store in front of everyone. But I have just surprised myself in that I have gone down a size in track suit trousers because my old ones were feeling too flappy in the leg, so next time I go shopping I may wear my thin-ist, tightest pair of trousers and have a look. There are a couple of trees and quite a few branches that need taking down before the next batch of fencing work can be done.
————— I just wanted enough land for my horses, but found a property that appealed to me and it happened to come with 60 acres.

Good tip re bra. I wonder if one can buy those really pointy ones Madonna used to wear. That might balance my silhouette out a treat…
60 acres!! I thought you just had a few sheep and naughty escaping goats!

That would be quite a sight, 6T.! Find some vintage bras from the 50’s or 60’s in an antique shop, and you will be ready to
cause a stir! They have circular stitching around each cup, and the silhouette is much like a pair of torpedoes. Full steam
ahead! 🙂

That made me laugh out loud!

Hahahaa, 6T! My pleasure! There a few of us around here that remember those “foundation” garments from the
20th century…I can remember “girdles” too, and god forbid that your derriere was allowed to move or jiggle! No pantyhose
back in those days either, so you had hard rubber garters digging into your thighs to keep your nylons up! What
torture! Any young man obsessed with accessing your more intimate areas had a lot of work to do!!!

Your past is safe with us Allie….

Just an underwired, padded teeshirt bra, with shoulders back, head up, headlights on main beam works well 😉
But I suppose one of the Madonna bra’s would definitely fit in with the tone of this thread, losing inches in wrong places. Just no eye patches.

HaHaa, JGwen! you’re wit is right in tune with our frivolity today! Headlights, indeed 🙂 🙂 🙂 I’m a poor specimen, though,
being essentially flat chested and shaped overall like a banana! (thanks, Mother). It must be those Ukrainian genes!

JGwen – sorted xx

Hi 6T – yes, my tummy/belly went exactly as you described. It went soft, squishy and ‘spread’. I also had a lot to lose and the process went pretty much as JGwen described. I remember looking downward at one point and my stomach was lopsided, very disconcerting, but it eventually evened itself out.
Very early on, a gym instructor told me that a softer ‘jiggly’ belly was an indicator of subcutaneous fat but a hard belly is an indicator of visceral fat wrapped around the internal organs which is pushing out the top layer of subcutaneous fat and making the belly harder. I didn’t think anything about it (well, I did go home and poke my OH in his tummy as the instructor had been talking about men’s ‘beer bellies’ ) but, I then heard a few ‘experts’ say the same so when my belly went softer my best guess was, like yours, that some of the visceral fat was shifting as well as the subcutaneous fat.
Coincidentally, I was listening to a Benjamin Bikman podcast earlier this week and he described the difference between subcutaneous and visceral belly fat in exactly the same way. He was saying subcutaneous fat may not look good, but it’s relatively benign; and the healthier way of storing fat. It’s the visceral fat that can create problems metabolically.
If he says it, I believe it! So, I guess the soft, squidgy belly may be kind of a good thing.xx

Hi Morxx,
So, in the last couple of days I coincidentally came across a couple of references to fatty liver while I was looking for other stuff. One was on the Benjamin Bikman podcast I mentioned above, and the other was in The Diabetes Code by Jason Fung. What they both say, and I’d forgotten about, is that fructose is a particular thing to watch out for with fatty liver. Jason Fung says ‘the most important determinant of fatty liver, is not just carbohydrates but the fructose contained in sucrose (table sugar) and in high-fructose corn-syrup.

He says to watch out for sugar-sweetened beverages including the less obvious ones like ‘enhanced water’, coffee drinks, sports drinks, mixed alcoholic drinks, etc, processed foods with added sugar and/or high-fructose corn syrup (although I’ve never noticed that so much when I’ve been checking labels). He also suggests checking labels on condiments as sauces and dressings can sometimes have a lot of added sugar.

As far as fruit goes, he doesn’t say don’t eat it, but he does say to avoid eating excessive amounts and particularly to avoid dried fruits e.g. raisins, dried cranberries, fruit leathers etc. (Of course, going low-carb as you say you’re limited anyway).

I don’t know what info you got when you were diagnosed (I was never told, I found out when I got access to my medical records) so forgive me if you already know all this. Hope it helps and doesn’t add too much to the head whizzing!

Take care
Jennie xx

Btw, I also loved fruit, particularly bananas and grapes (I’ve since seen them called ‘sugar bombs’) – two of the worst things according to some. Unlike you, I was overweight and I was appalled when I found out the above because I just remember how much fruit I used to eat in my old ‘fruit is free’ Weight Watchers days.

Hi JGwen, Jennie and 6T

Thanks for all the info especially about the shape of your tummy. Mine has always stuck out a lot – I had a grapefruit sized fibroid and that pushed it out but I never had a fat midriff. That appeared when I reached 55 but it wasn’t too bad. Now that has got bigger and merged with my tummy fat and looks like I am 5 months pregnant (not a nice round shaped pregnant)! In the mornings I think it is getting smaller and then I bloat in the evening (which I always have done) and my bra and waistband get too tight. Eating a lot of salads is not helping with the bloating.
Jennie: I saw something on tv about fructose but ignored it as I am obsessively studying the labels of everything for carbs and sugar, I can’t face reading the small print for fructose.

I had my MRI on the 18th June and checked with my surgery but the hospital haven’t sent the results through yet. I have an appointment on the 26th so hopefully will know more then.

Could I ask how long most of you have been on this diet and whether you have stuck to it religiously? It was so much easier when I used to count calories, I could pig out one day then be good and it all evened out.

Thanks, Morxx

Hi, morexxx! In reply to your question, I restricted myself to 800cal/20g of carbs for a straight 10 months. No cheats, treats
or “time off for good behavior” 🙂 I was rewarded with a discard of 140lbs. I’ve been in maintenance for 27 months, and I
haven’t regained the weight because I never went back to the carbs. Perhaps calorie counting seems simpler to you,
but not all calories are created equal, and it’s the carbs that we must pay judicious attention to. Very best wishes on your
personal journey to good health!

Allie

Hi Morxx, I have always been overweight, but piled on a lot of weight after a long period of activity and pain from a broken ankle. – I started in October 2017, (but only moved from lurking on the forum to chatting in December 2017). – So far I am 95.5lbs down. – Which means I have passed my initial targets of returning to the weight and dress size I was before I piled on the lbs.

Having found the secret to loosing weight I am continuing to get down to a healthier shape / lower dress size / get rid of the squidgy spare tyre. –

I started out by just cutting out the major carb sources, – bread, pasta, pizza, rice, chocolate, cake. Then after getting used to that I used the app fatsecret to log everything that I ate so I could cut back on the carbs. – As a vegetarian getting below 30g of carbs was very hard. I do have a physically active lifestyle, so as time has gone on I focus more on keeping carbs low than on counting calories because as long as I remain in ketosis the difference in calories between burnt and eaten will balance itself out over the week.

I use a cheap breathalyser to monitor if I am in ketosis, which enables me to tweek my meal times and ingredients to ensure that I stay in ketosis as much as possible.

Hi Morxx – I never thought I would be thanked for a description of my tummy! Especially in its current form. I started in January this year, at 86 kgs (I’m 5’2″ and 57). I have never really counted macros, and I have definitely not been consistently “good” (esp with wine), but I have generally steered clear of bread (I say generally because I have had a sandwich a few times in the last 6 months), and no rice or potatoes, and having discovered barenaked noodles and spaghetti I don’t miss the real thing at all (it is more expensive so I don’t eat it that often). I do enjoy just simply cooked lean protein, fish or chicken with steamed or roasted veg (roasted broccoli and cauliflower is great!). Anyway, last time I looked (which I am trying not to until the end of the month) I was just under 70kgs. I have also gone from size 18 to size 12 jeans (exactly the same M&S type so it’s not just variance in cut/sizing), and my torso is also slimmer. Jelly belly is the final frontier! As Allie says, there are calories and there are calories. Oh, and my hips stopped aching very early on in this new way of eating! Can I ask (but do ignore if you don’t want to share; I know it’s a personal question), how you came to be diagnosed with fatty liver? It seems to be mentioned more in the media, but I don’t know if one can ask to be scanned, or have a blood test, just to know. It is something in the back of my mind…..

Thanks for all your replies and encouragement.

6T: congratulations on your weight loss you have done really well. I can’t get into size 12 M&S trousers as they are too tight on the waist where all my fat is. I could only do them up if they had an elasticated waist. I am 64 kilos.

My fatty liver was discovered via a blood test that I have every year as I am on HRT. They test cholesterol, iron, a full blood count and liver function test. In the LFT three things were highlighted as being over the limit especially the serum alkaline phosphatase which according to Dr Google means there is a problem with my liver. I am not diabetic. I am now waiting for the MRI results to find out what the problem is with my liver. My doctor suggested I try this diet in the meantime.

I started this diet on the 1st June and have lost 10 lbs, very slowly, but I haven’t much weight to lose. I am 5’ 7” and 10 stones. I normally lose 7lbs naturally in the summer as I don’t eat stodgy comfort food and if I get much below 10 stone I start looking gaunt. That’s why I started this thread.

Hello Morxx. I made sure I read your post several times.. 5’7″ and 10 stones is to my mind SLIM! We are all different body shapes, I just mentioned the M&S jeans as my personal reference point! You said you had an appointment re the MRI results soon, and I think that should be your focus, getting your liver back to tip-top-ness! I also don’t know how the fibroid you mentioned was dealt with, whether maybe by laparoscopy or by other surgery, and how much your tum might have been assailed by the scalpel! And presumably you are being “followed” on that score? I do think that our own perceptions of our bodies can be widely out from how others would see us, and that your “five months pregnant” would be others’ washboard. This is not to minimise at all your own feelings, just to say that I do think your liver is the important thing here! 10lbs since 1 June is a lot! Please do keep in touch on the forum, and take care!

Hi sixturkeys, thanks for your reply. No I agree that I am slim and I was really upset when my doctor said I should go on this diet. Though to be fair I weighed about 10 Stone 11 when I saw her. The consultant also said I needed to lose weight. I did say my BMI was ok but he said that if it is a fatty liver then I need to change my eating habits and lose weight.

A girl at the gym is nearly 5 month pregnant and we stood side by side and my stomach was almost as big as hers except hers was a nicer shape and mine just sticks out. I am basically an apple shape with a large waist – 34” and trousers that don’t fit.

Hi Morxx,
Sorry for the late response. I’ve been away for a few days – left on Wednesday – so have only just seen this. In answer to your question, I also did 800 calories and 20g carbs. I started BSD in May 2016 when I was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes. I went so low in carbs straight away because I’d read on another site of people with Type II putting their diabetes into remission on a very low carb (keto) diet , i.e. under 20g carb diet.

If I’m honest, no, I didn’t find it that easy to begin with, it was such a shift in what I ate, and at the beginning I couldn’t get the balance right. By the time I reached 20g carbs I found I’d only eaten 500/600 calories. (I did stick to it but I think a big part of that was the fact that on a daily basis I could see from my blood sugar levels that they were returning to normal levels again). That’s why I feel it’s about starting, doing what you can do, and taking a step at a time.

I’m not surprised you were so upset when your GP said it might be fatty liver (particularly as you aren’t overweight) and I do sympathise about that, but, on the positive side, it is something you can reverse. You can, and are, doing something about it. Don’t forget to give yourself a big pat on the back for that.

Good luck with the MRI scan results.

Jennie xx