Hello. I’m new to BSD. I started the diet in a slap-dash kind off way 4 days ago because the moment grabbed me. Am now realising I need to get more organised. So far I have been using the recipes from the BS book. Have been looking at the forums a bit and I’m a bit confused. Some people are talking about how many gms of carbs they are eating a day. I can’t find any mention of specific amounts of carbs to be eaten in a day in the book and the recipes on this site and in the book don’t specify how many carbs are in them. So where are you getting this info from? I like the idea of measuring carbs because it seems a very specific way to reach fat-burning. I am planning to get ketostix. Finding the forums very informative so far so thank you for that . Have just left a well known slimming group where low-fat is the plan – it feels so right to be eating full fat food again! Though I haven’t felt that brilliant over the last 4 days my carb obsession has gone and I’m sleeping really well which I haven’t in YEARS! Feeling very motivated and believing I can lose at least 2 stones with info and support for this site. Sorry if I’m rambling – all coming out in a tumble!LOL!

Hello and welcome!

One thing which experience has taught me from the BSD (I’m 4 weeks in), is that keeping an eye on the total (good) carbohydrates can be helpful in losing weight.

There are a few apps you can look at, but one I use is My Fitness Pal where you can enter your foods and see how they are made up in terms of carbohydrates, fat, protein, sugar etc.

So you can look at how your 800 calories is made up, and that gets even more useful when you get the hang of things and start making up meals of your own, following the principles.

I have relatively little weight to lose, and therefore decided I would set my total daily carbs at 20g on My Fitness Pal, but a lot of people here work to 50g. You then top up your calories with fat and protein, to make up your total calories. Fat is important as it makes you fuller.

So have a look at a site like MFP, and see what you think. I use Ketostix and can see that my low carb intake is driving fat burning, which I’m really pleased about!

Good luck, you will soon get into the swing of it, and if you have problems, just post and one of the really helpful people here will pop up to help

Hi Igorasusual

Thanks for the welcome.

I will try MFP, I’m sure that will help me. And the info about what you and other folk are doing in terms of carb, fat and protein intake.

Will get myself organised over this weekend and kick off again in a more focussed way on Monday.

Thanks again

Hi Ocean Diver
I need to investigate myfitness pal, but in the meantime I’ve set up a simple spreadsheet where I log all the food I eat in a database.
I either use the nutritional value from the packet, or just look it up on a supermarket website – usually waitrose, but sainsury, tesco and ocado are equally good. When you use a food or ingredient a second time, you can just use the information you already have, calculating pro rata if you use a different quantity.
I log the info on my spreadsheet for the quantity that I’ve eaten; i keep track of Calories, Protein, Carbs, sugar, Fat, Fibre, salt, and the portions of veg/fruit
I have separate tab so summarise daily totals, (that tab includes my daily weight) and I’ll add another tab at some point to show weekly averages – there is another one with waist and other body measurements with targets.
I also have a tab for recipes – I log all the ingredients, same as for the food log, then either divide into the number of portions made, or calculate the nutrition for 100g.

When I’ve got more data I might create graphs.
Because I am entering and using the food nutrition data, it does mean that I recall quite a lot of it, useful when shopping or eating out.
I do have several spreadsheets dating back a few years – testament to all the failed diets, healthy eating plans….
.

Hi Frog

Wow! That sounds amazing. I’m not sure that my technical skills are up to it but I can see that getting organised and logging information in that way would actually cut down on keep having to check things, help you retain info in your brain better and help you make better choices all round. I think I could manage to do some of that in a simple way so I don’t feel overwhelmed but get myself in to good habits. It’s good to be knowledgeable about your body and how food affects it, I think.

Perhaps you could set up your system in such a way that you could make it available to other people at a small charge – helping other people and making a few squid for yourself!

Thanks for the info – I will add it to my plan to get organised.

Hi Oceandiver

Happy to send a copy of my spreadsheet – but I can’t see a way of sending direct emails on this forum

I just spent some time loading my food log from the last week into myfitnesspal
it’s OK – not quite as flexible for reporting and doing comparisons and analysis
Several foods in their database are very far from common values that I found on a cross section of UK supermarkets – users can add to the database, not sure how much quality control there is – and it was with things like rhubarb and raw carrot where the carbs were wildly out, and then I had to search really long picklists to find an entry where the nutritional values looked correct or load a new variant of the food myself. Also lots of cups given as a serving measurement, and some truly weird ones – who on earth would measure raw carrot in millilitres!?

When I tried to log in, it turned out I’d already set up and account – just over three years ago. I was even more overweight at that point, and although I didn’t stick to my eating plan for more than a few months, I hadn’t put back much of the the weight I lost then – thank goodness!

Hi, I’ve been wondering about carbs/calories as well. I sometimes use My Fitness Pal and it seems to be OK.
I don’t weight myself, had a book called Throw Away The Scales, and tend to go by how my clothes feel. Almost finished week 2 and feeling lighter.

hi Isabel

I don’t normally weigh myself normally – only when I’m trying to loose weight.
I read something the other day – not sure if on here, the BSD book or somewhere unrelated, and it suggested that when you’ve reached a target weight, that you continue to weigh yourself regularly and ensuring that you stay within a kilo of your target weight.
I know it sounds incredibly obvious, but as someone who clearly hasn’t done very well in 50+ years of not weighing myself regularly (or being at an ideal weight), it was a real light bulb moment!

I looked back at a recipe that I had created on myfitnesspal – it attempts to find the ingredients and match them – the nutrients looked a bit out to what I’d calculated. On checking, they’d added banana chips instead of courgettes, found canned tomatoes but added 1 gram instead of a 400g can, baby sweetcorn instead of yellow peppers – some very odd choices.
At least I know to check now if continue that instead of my spreadsheet!

Hi everyone,

Its been 4 weeks since I started the BSD. Feeling great!! I don’t have diabetes, I just wanted to lose weight for myself. My son was diagnosed with autism about 5 years ago, and since then I let myself go. Things are so much better now and he is great, I have a 2 year old girls as well and my husband and I are in a really good place again. I thought now is the time to bring back the body that I have lost over time. My initial weight was 69kg, and now I am at 65 after 4 weeks of no carbs. Today I am on day 3 of week 5. I took up fast walk again from today. My concern is that my weight has started to plateau. I lost 2kg in first week, 1 each in 2nd and 3rd weeks, but nothing in week 4. I don’t want to lose steam and I have a long way to go, I ideally wish to bring my weight down to 58-59 kilos. Any advice?

Hi Mehreen
Shorter period, but I lost 2kg in the first couple of days, then a plateau,
I’ve definitely been a lot less active the last couple of days – so I definitely need to up the exercise.
If you’ve just started fast walking again, that’s definitely a step in the right direction. (or steps – sorry about the pun!)
good luck with it all!