I am waiting for the book to arrive and was hoping for some help. I’m doing the BSD but loosely following the principles. I have two kids and don’t cook, plus I don’t eat dairy or meat so can’t follow the guidelines of full fat yogurt etc. I am recording everything so am having around 800 calories a day, but am having things that although I don’t consider unhealthy (like nakd bars and soya yogurts) are not recommended on the plan from what I can see. Do you have to stick to the bsd rules 100% or can you loosely follow it with some success? Realistically I am not going to start cooking the recipes and definitely won’t eat meat or dairy again. Surely if I am only having 800 calories a day I will lose weight? And improve my health? (I am not diabetic but am very likely to have have high blood sugar as I weigh 14.5 stone and am 5ft4) Thanks in advance.

A very warm welcome to you, sofia! There are a number of vegetarians on these forums,
and I’m sure some of them will be along in short order to answer your questions and offer
some advice 🙂 I’m an omnivore, so don’t feel qualified to share that type of advice, even
though I’ve been on this WOL (way of life) just short of 2 years. This style of eating is
a low carb, moderate protein, high (healthy) fat regimen. A diet that is calorie restrictive
(800 cal.) alone can offer weight loss, but the disadvantage is that when you return to
more calories, the weight will return. The key to the BSD is keeping your carbs low. To
accomplish this, you need to track them, and find the level that provides you with a
satisfactory level of loss. 50g is usually the accepted level for low carb diets, but those
of us with insulin resistance and/or prediabetes ot T2D often have to go considerably
lower than that to be successful. Hope this helps 🙂

Best of luck!

Allie

Thanks so much Allie
So if I follow the 800 calories and 50g carb, will that mean I’m less likely to put it back on when the calories increase? Why is that? I eat fish so am not strictly veggie, but not having dairy such as full fat yogurt worries me as it feels I can’t follow lots of the recommendations and am not sure how to include high good fat. Also, how do I identify if i have high blood sugar? I’m guessing I would have to have a check at the doctors or do I assume I do as I am about 4 stone overweight?
I’ve done the 5:2 for well over a year but found on my normal days I indulged almost as a reward for fasting on the others, so thought I should try this instead.

Sofia, perhaps you could try vegan alternatives to milk, yoghurt etc? Alpro is a dairy free brand and that’s available from most supermarkets. You can also get good fats from nuts and olive oil, as well as oily fish.

You won’t automatically have high blood pressure or high blood sugar because of being overweight, but it’s more likely. If you’re in the UK you can make an appointment to see a practice nurse at your doctor’s surgery to have those things checked.

If you cut down to 800 calories, you will lose weight, but unless you permanently change your eating habits, as soon as you increase the calories you’ll put it all back on. If you switch to a low carb diet, it will be much easier to keep the weight off permanently.

Thanks squidge. I do already have lots of alpro but i searched this forum and someone was saying the yogurts aren’t a good equivalent to full fat ones, so I was a bit stumped. Def going to aim for 50g carbs alongside the 800 cals and see how I get on. I understand about all the white carbs. Is normal whole meal supermarket bread bad too?

Sofia, the brown carbs, .i.e, whole meal bread, brown rice, whole wheat pasta, are only
slightly better than the white stuff, but still have too much sugar. Reading nutritional
labels are absolutely necessary to get an accurate carb count, as well as weighing and
measuring your portions. Carbs lurk everywhere, and it was a revelation to me to see how
high a banana, the lowly apple, or an onion is! Even though I’ve been in maintenance for
a little over a year, I don’t eat any of these foods now, and never have any desire to do so.
Tastes do change with time, and the longer that we avoid substitute food and artificially
sweetened desserts, the better the chances are that we never return to them. I hope you
receive your copy of the book soon, as you must be excited to begin! It’s a life changing
adventure, and a way of life (WOL), not a quick fix diet, after which we return to eating
bad carbs/sugar. I’m looking forward to reading about your progress!

Best,

Allie

Sofia, if you want to follow this diet ‘loosely’ then you might prefer either the 5:2 or the Med diets. You say you are happy to follow 800 calories but would like to be able to have some starchy stuff like bread but as soon as you add that into the plan you have blown your calories with 94 calories. Just think what you could have for those 94 cals – 1.5 eggs with 6 grilled mushrooms for example. Then you will have to cut down somewhere else so not get the full nutritional benefit of this way of eating. Finally, that bread will send you blood glucose shooting high very quickly and then plummet just as quick, leaving you hungry and craving more bread (or whatever carb you chose). That is why we completely cut out the heavy carb foods.