Hi there,

finished week 6 with a total weight loss of 8.5 lbs, HBA1c down, cholesterol and triglycerides down. Everything going fine then visitors arrive. I have stuck to the LCarb diet but the calories have crept in with all the meals out. Just had 2 days away with my little grandsons and spent 2 nights in a hotel and a day at a theme park. Although I managed to find a chickpea salad in a fast food restaurant and a chicken stir fry (nearly all veg) at the Arthur themed restaurant (no, I don’t know who Arthur is either). The problem is that I have found my tolerance for 800 calories has gone and have found it difficult to get back on. Today we got home and I made myself a very boring basic ham salad so snuck a piece of the boys pizza for a taste. I did eat a slice and that is all that I have had EXCEPT FOR several glasses of wine and a vodka and tonic. Breakfast this morning was a yogurt with fresh fruit plus scrambled eggs and bacon, probably a total of 400 calories, so well out of my normal range.

To be fair we did swim twice on Tuesday, I walked about 20,000 steps yesterday and it is only today I am feeling really fat (not been on the scales). Anyway, my eldest GS is nagging me to get in the pool so at least I have some help here.

Just need to get back to planning properly and eating exciting 800 calories daily.

so intrigued by the Arthur themed restaurant I googled it
Nothing to do with medieval King Arthur, or the Dudley Moore film.
Arthur is a cartoon aardvark – although the cartoon looks nothing like an aardvark, and is still jangling at me from another window that’s open.

SUNSHINEGIRL you have done so well,dont slide backwards! It hasnt been too bad has it,and you have exercised!
Draw a line under things and like you said return to planning properly and maybe look for some new and different recipes to ring some changes for you. Bear in mind all the good you have done yrself! And keep up the good work..your mojo is in there somewhere and just needs some inspiration to come to the fore again! X wishing you all the best. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 xx

It looked like an elf with spiky white hair, the kids watch the programme but a 6 foot Arthur really freaked them out, kept saying, don’t let it come near our table.

I just need to tell my stomach it is happy with 800 cals, it was before. I don’t think it is appetite but drooling when I am making chips and mash for the boys. They are here on holiday so I can’t make them eat courgettii spaghetti. They are watching a film right now, after dragging me into the pool for 30 mins. I do get to swim as I they are old enough to play without me watching every move, I just don’t let them get in alone. Anyway, was going to say, while they are watching the film I am going to make several days menu plans so I am set for the supermarket tomorrow. Tonight we are having meatballs, them with the pasta, me without.

Can I just say MY BLOOD GLUCOSE IS STILL 5.5 so no damage done there.

Hi Sunshine-girl, it is very difficult when you’re with other people and eating out. It’s something I have to do regularly so I’ve just had to accept that I’m going to have to either explain to people what I’m doing or just not have alcohol and desserts when I’m out. It doesn’t help when people feel it’s a mission to get you to break. I’ve told friends I can’t drink wine anymore – one suggested opening several bottles in her wine rack until I found one I liked!

So this is what I do in hotels – I have one fried egg and a tomato for breakfast, green tea and a couple of glasses of water. I take nuts (normally cashew nuts) with me and have a few for lunch. For dinners I don’t have a starter or dessert, I get a large bottle of sparkling water and have either meat or fish with a salad or vegetables, whatever suits on the menu that I can mix and match with. If I get comments from people I’m with (and it happens) I just say I need to lose weight for health reasons, that normally stops the conversation about food.

As far as getting you back on track how about some of the lovely recipes on here or in the BSD book? Don’t beat yourself up with plain ham salad, that’s not going to help you look forward to the next low carb meal. Get some full fat Fage yogurt and mix it with blueberries for a dessert (1gm of yogurt equivalent approx to 1 cal). Get yourself a small steak and have a small avocado salad or a large green salad. Enjoy your 800 cals – it’s not a punishment it’s helping you to be healthier as you’ve already seen with your lower cholesterol etc.

Good luck and onwards and downwards. You can do this.

Hey some good hotel ideas there OLDBLUEJEANS!
SUNSHINE if you haven’t had Fage yog yet,its to die for..with some berries and a crushed up nut sprinkled on top,its as nice as any dessert!
Like OBJ said,its so much harder when with other folk to take into meal consideration isnt it..someone on here mentioned the smell of toast when her children were home,and making snacks all day! That smell has got to be one of the nicest smells ever!
I have a friends bday coming up and i know she will want me to take her for an afternoon tea and wont understand I dont want to break the rules and have carbs. I dont want to go backwards after five plus weeks of no simple carbs and i dont even want sandwiches and cakes any more.
She also loves steak night at a local restaurant,so i hope she will be happytogo there and i can have a steak and a green salad and she can enjoy steak,chips, and a big dessert! X

I managed quite well in the hotel and restaurants, did not have any carbs but as I had no control over calories (didn’t know what was in anything) I can only suspect I have eaten too many. I have now made a menu plan for Fri, Sat and Sun and know what I am cooking for the boys (they are 8 and 10). We won’t be having any more meals out except one time when my daughter comes back and we are taking a colleague of hers out to lunch. Fortunately, in France they don’t eat many carbs except for French baguettes, so I am usually able to keep control. Then there is the alcohol. Before this weekend I hadn’t had any for 7 weeks. I guess I drank 3 or 4 in the hotel with dinner and while sitting out by the pool. However, I did get in the pool and swim for around 30 mins and had swum at home before setting off, again for 30 mins. I hope the amount of exercise has kept the lbs off.

Fage yogurt, never heard of it. I live in France, we eat what the French do. I have changed from my low fat Sveltesse caramel flavour to Delice Plain Greek which I love, especially as a savoury dressing.

Will get on the scales in the morning to see the damage.

Got on the scales this morning and I have gained 2lbs, so not a total disaster and I will be rid of that in 2 or 3 days. Blood glucose 110 (6.1) so needs a little watching.

Okay, so I am back on track today but had hurdles to jump. Typed up a menu plan for 3 days which will take me to my next shop on Monday. For breakfast I had the melon, spinach, almond milk shake with enough left over for tomorrow morning. I had lunch all planned out for all of us, forgot hubby has sushi on shopping day, Decided the boys could have burgers but they saw a man selling cajun food and tasted some spicy sausage thingie, Can we have some, can we have some please, dancing around the supermarket. So I bought two portions for the boys. I had already bought the burger buns pack of 6, so gave them a bun each to dip in the sausage sauce, leaving 4 buns and they can have burgers tonight. Blow me down, they wouldn’t eat the bl—dy stuff they had tasted, liked and begged me to buy. Anyway, I am not a soft touch so they got 00000 (nothing). So I have put the sausage concoction in a freezer tub which I will have at some other date (just sausage, tomatoes, onions etc).

Because they were having burgers for lunch I was having my own turkey and apricot burgers (MM recipe) with something or other, so that changed. Ended up having grilled hallumi with a couple of pieces of proscuitio ham, spinach and courgetti with yogurt and garlic dressing. It was delicious. Then they had strawberry flan, I am not a nana that makes them go without for not eating lunch, I don’t use food to threaten or punish. That is why I am here now, while they eat the cake. Phew, managed to get through 2 meals with no hitches.

Tonight they are going to have their burgers and I am going to have mine – calorie total 790. I can really understand why women (or men) with children find it difficult to lose weight. Too many left overs and I hate waste.

Lost just under one pound since yesterday. Breakfast today, the rest of the shake, lunch was roasted chicken with roasted red pepper and asparagus, that’s becoming a favorite and looks like it could become a main course. Dinner will be veggie curry with cauli rice, taken out of the freezer so no faffings around while I make the boys chicken nuggets with baked beans. Hubby is having one of his own ready meals of cod in white wine sauce.

Forgot to say, blood glucose down to 85 (4.7) so that is brilliant. Just shows how quickly this works.

Sunshine-girl – great with the BS. I will get off but I just wanted to tell you that fage yogurt is just good Greek yogurt . I googled it weeks ago when everyone was mentioning it (UK) Delice plain greek sounds fine. I buy Aldi greek yogurt but I can get good greek style plain yogurt in any OZ supermarket and they are all pretty yummy

Hi

Fage yogurt is also known as ‘Total’. It’s very creamy in fact it is almost like ‘cream’, very yummy. I’ve not tried the Aldi one but I will give it a go.

Thanks ruthdownunder, I do like the Delice, it is thick and creamy. I used to have yog and fruit for breakfast before BSD but now there are so many other choices like avocado and poached egg, bircher and shakes I usually have my yog as a salad dressing. You can taste the difference though, ordinary natural yog is bland and watery and I tried the Nestle Greek but went straight back to the Delice.

What news today. I have now lost just over 1 lb, that is since Friday so I am well on track to losing the 2 lbs gain by Tuesday (my weigh in day). Although it is flipping hard with 2 little boys around. Did a full English brunch (grilled bacon, mushrooms, scrambled egg, beans and canned tomatoes) I didn’t have the beans as I prefer toms. One of them left all his egg and the other left his bacon. Now, being a true Yorkshire lass I couldn’t throw it away, so I ate it. Only a tablespoonful of egg and one rasher of bacon but more than I would have had without them here. I will just have to have less of dinner tonight, roasted chicken dinner with cauli mash for me and all the trimmings for the boys and hubby.

Blood glucose 85 (4.7)again. Here in France diabetics are encouraged to test on a regular basis and we get all the kit for free. Normally I would be testing once a day but on this diet I do a morning and an evening test. I will check back in tomorrow. Thanks for the support.

The back in line plan has worked and I have lost the 2 lbs I put on plus another l lb, only taken 4 days to do it. Today is the end of my 8 weeks and, despite my glitch and pizza tasting, I have lost a total of 9.5 lbs. I am back on track with the plan (I don’t call it a diet anymore) and my b/g are around 90 to 95 (5,0 to 5,3) so very happy with that. I am going to continue with the plan, possibly forever, but definitely for the next 10 weeks before I get my HBA1c done again and see my doctor. I am setting myself new goals as I have beaten all those I set for myself.

Daughter has arrived today so not so much pressure with the little ones but the first thing she did was open a beer (okay I hate beer) and ask for a snack. I made a pot of hummus with veggie sticks. She was happy with that and she will be sticking on the plan with me but not so strict calorie-wise and we have a restaurant booked for Thursday lunch to meet up with a group of friends.

See you all in a week when they have gone home (sob) and I will be completely back on track. Thanks for your support.

Pleased to see you back on track Sunshine. I had a bit of a blip in week 3 too. I’d lost half a stone in the first two weeks but then had a fall out riding which stopped me being active for a few days then dinner out and too much wine – I’m off wine all together now as it made me really sick after eating so few calories 🙁 No weight loss in week 3 but I’m hopeful this week (4) will get things moving again (weigh in on Monday). I’m not diabetic but need to lose weight and I like the philosophy of this. Keep the faith Sunshine – you’ll look back and laugh one day 🙂 PS I live in France too!

Antigone, I have gone from 8.1 to 6.6 so obviously want to be below that, I have a number in my mind but, as I keep saying, I have family staying so I am kept pretty busy. Right now 2 little boys are on ipads and daughter is having a well earned nap. Which is why I am able to get to the computer for half an hour.

Where are you in France, I live 20 km from Bergerac in a village called Le Fleix, for 11 years now. Love it.

Really interesting and well done you. Have only just started yesterday but tried similar before. Where did you get the recipe for the shake??? Sounds lovely. I would like to find a variety of recipes so that I can really plan ahead, I work better that way. Want to try and eat food as well as shakes this time. Any favourite recipes (not fish!) or breakfast shakes?? Good luck for the next bit. ps will be in France for next seven weeks, house near Perpignan.

Hi SaraMck, if you were asking me about the shakes, I get the recipes out of the MM book, Melon, blueberry, spinach, sunflower seeds and almond milk this morning. Sometimes green tea with blueberries, greek yoghurt almonds and flax seeds. Really nice. Before I started the BSD I bought a Nutribullet and was already hooked on apple, carrot and spinach. I will start to look like Popeye but prefer to be like Olive Oyl. Bonnes vacances à Perpignan, je l’adore.

Hi Sunshine, I’m up in Brittany been here 9 years and very happy. I just ate a whole cucumber (the poly tunnel is bursting!) and I feel a bit sick :[ – who’d have thought you could get sick on cucumber! I just made a beetroot chocolate cake (Nigel Slater) cut it up and froze it all – how good am I? Tonight I am going to try cauliflower rice – sounds disgusting but we’ll see. I am looking forward to next weigh in (Monday) because I can FEEL I’ve lost weight. I have a trip to UK planned in 6 weeks so I am hoping they will have a surprise when they see me! You must be feeling the heat down there in Bergerac- it’s pretty hot here! 🙂
SaraMck – enjoy the heat in Perpignan!

Sunshine Thanks for that. Will try the shakes. I love Bergerac and surrounds, we were very tempted to buy there but needed better winters! Not so much rain. However, now have lots of grandchildren so spending most of our time in Oxford UK. 30 degrees here today!!!!