I’ve just looked up frozen avocado on Google. I’ve never seen them here. By the looks of it, frozen ones are best used mashed in dips or puréed in smoothies. Don’t go try baking with any expensive ingredients just in case it doesn’t work. I’d be sorry to see you waste loads of costly pine kernels or best Stilton, for example.

Thank you all! Will give all suggestions a go!

The problem is as soon as they are defrosted enough to mash up they go black and truly awful so I will try one baked. If that doesn’t work they will end up in the bin.

Working from home today and still waiting for a client to send me the info I need to finish off a report, so I’m watching “Hairy Dieters” on some channel at the top of Freeview. They have had Professor Roy Taylor and one of his Nutritionist colleagues from Newcastle on. Guess what? – the lads were told there was too much fat in their diets and to eat plenty of starchy veg – first recipe is accompanied by a portion of boiled potatoes!

How the world moves on….

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/starchy-foods.aspx

The world has not moved on….This is on the NHS healthy living webpage and a direct link from their weight loss pages (which tell you to increase your starchy food intake to lose weight) – astonishing really.

No wonder people are messed up with so much directly contradictory advice floating around…

Has anyone watched Sugar Free Farm? I found the immediate reactions to lack of sugar quite unbelievable. They even carted one of them off to hospital. The only thing there I would find difficult is no tea or coffee, the rest of the food looked wonderful. Oh, and that dreadful looking green goop of course!

yes iwanttobeslim, I watched it on record last night. I am so glad they are pointing out the sugars in simple carbs like bread and rice etc. The green gloop is a bit much, I often have spinach and celery with green tea or almond milk but my nutribullet (other makes available) makes mine into a lovely smooth drink. The thing that really annoys me are the second rate celebrities trying to revive their careers or earn a big wad from the programme and then not committing, I laughed at Peter going to hospital because on day 2 he felt a bit dizzy, then Jemma spent the rest of the day saying she felt weak and dizzy (remember she only lasted 2 days in the Jungle) and the woman I want to kill right now is Ann Widdicombe. She has become a professional reality TV contestant who then goes and refuses to do anything she is asked. Maybe I should admire her determination but please get her off our screens.

We have to remember this is meant to be car crash TV where we can laugh at these idiots but as far as the diet goes, it is a serious concern to society and should be presented in a better light.

I think it’s the idea that eating less refined sugar will make you feel ill that is so ludicrous. Since when did lack of sugar make you dizzy? I have always loathed Anne Wiiddicombe and as for Gemma! It is a bit concerning, I think, that people might believe that consuming less sugar will make them weak and ill!

Iwanttobeslim, it is not as ridiculous as it seems. Withdrawal symptoms from sugar and carbs is very real, it produces a hormone (I forget which one now) which gives you a high (serotonin???) and releases endorphins which make you feel good. It can be as bad as giving up cigarettes how many people here talk about having carb flu. These people have been put in an unnatural situation and they cannot just grab something to overcome the withdrawal whereas we can ‘slip up’ if we need to. Having said that, I still don’t have any sympathy for the muppets who are just doing this for the money and publicity and not really for their health.

I wonder whether the NHS guidelines recommend starchy carbohydrates as a way to maintain blood sugar levels in patients who might suddenly experience real low blood sugar and who might even keel over as a result? Wholegrain carbs such as rice and quinoa and other carbs, can help people feel fuller for longer even if the amounts eaten are relatively modest (say, 25g – 40g per meal). A low-carb meal without any starchier carbs such as those mentioned above might leave a diabetic person at risk of lower blood sugars than perhaps a healthier person might experience.

For those who aren’t diabetic, a very low carb diet might be a tolerable way to reduce weight and fat quickly, giving them an achievable head-start to address weight and diet issues and to avoid developing diabetes. Not everyone can cope with the very low-carb diet though, and hunger pangs or cravings can crop up easily and so sabotage their efforts by leading them to easily available carbs such as bread, biscuits, sweets, crisps, and fries.

I would think that people with type 2 diabetes would be better off being supported in their efforts to reduce carbs and weight, as it can be quite difficult for many relatively well people to do this consistently without turning to easy to get carbs, especially as alternatives to bread often involve some preparation and cooking. It is just as well, that this programme recommends that diabetic people involve their GPs.

That said, general dietary advice to eat starchy carbs seems different from programmes such as the Blood Sugar Diet, and different from the advice in books such as Wheat Belly by Dr William Davis, and Eat Fat Get Thin by Dr Mark Hyman. The latter two suggest that it is fat and the condition of being overweight that actually make it very difficult to get slim. One points to the role of modern wheat in helping create obese people, while the other emphasizes the need to eat good fats and to reduce the use of starchy carbs and sugar which drive fat production in the liver.

A day of not eating much sugar (in the form of starchy carbs) can leave you feeling really down and grouchy. If I’d only had veg and spiralized courgette ‘spaghetti’ I’d be feeling both healthier for the veg, but very irritable at the same time.

However, having read the book Wheat Belly, by Dr William Davis, I would now not think it a good thing to have eaten a good portion of even freshly ground farmhouse wheat grain bread, or wholesome granola. The wheat would have provided the participants on Sugar Free Farm with plenty of sugar in the form of Amylose-A, which apparently has a higher glycaemic index than sucrose (sugar)!!

I want to put in my 5 cents about the book Wheat Belly. The whole book is about how evil wheat is, wheat causes everything from diabetes to wrinkles, wheat is special because of the way it’s been bred and modified… then right at the end he tells you to cut out all carbs and restrict yourself to half a strawberry (literally). So it seemed like a sudden turn around from “evil wheat the special carb” to “all carbs are evil” just snuck in at the end. At the time I felt cheated because after a huge book telling me I only had to stop eating wheat to be healthy, he hid the real advice (avoid all carbs) at the back and it suddenly wasn’t so easy.

Can I jump in?

I was diagnosed type 2 diabetic some years before the BSD and was ‘diet’ controlled, following standard NHS guidelines. The recurring threat of medication was very real. Then I found the BSD book in December 2015 and started to follow it immediately.

Prior to the BSD, my fasting blood sugars were high and nothing I did could bring them down. I had been testing my blood sugars before and after different foods to see what effect that particular food had on my levels and discovered that carbohydrate rich foods (even the so-called ‘healthy’ ones such as whole grain bread or real porridge) spiked my blood sugars. Again, while following the standard advice, I was always on the lookout for food. If I was out shopping at lunchtime I would panic if there was nowhere to get food quickly.

It was only being on the BSD that brought my fasting bloods down. Now they, like my other test results, are in the normal range and have been for several months. I normally eat only breakfast and evening meal, not being hungry in between.

Also, various other health issues, such as an irritating cough and joint pains, have disappeared. I think more clearly and have better concentration. My energy and mobility have increased. And my mood is much better, less irritated than when eating the carbs.

Now I have reached my target weight I’m slowly increasing calories but still avoiding carbs.

I have done the BDS and have been totally successful in reducing my weight and All my blood levels to normal. My wife who was not type2 also done it with me and has had the same results. She has for yrs been dieting but this BSD has been the most successful and easiest diet she has ever done. We both now maintain the Mediterranean Menu which continues to be successful and with positive results.
I am down 18kgs and my wife 27kgs
Why the NHS does not promote this is beyond my understanding when they are spending so much money on bad advice
Kind Regards
Robert Fletcher

Well done, I have lost 19kgs a year ago on the diet and have maintained it really easily and totally agree with your wife. The problem is there are so many diets and new studies/reports that is hard to know what to do and the NHS I guess want to see results over a very long period before they will change anything. Which is a real shame and that’s where we have to take responsibility and make the decision to do something. I was very sceptical at first, but thought I had nothing to loose and so glad I gave it a try, best thing I ever did.

Thank you BSD for your reply and comments yes we both agree its the best thing we have ever done and to know that now having lost the weight and daily exercise we have never felt healthier 🙂
And still enjoy a wine at the weekends 🙂
Robert Fletcher

Maharani Kitten, I have only just looked back at this and would like to say that with regard to SW the lady in question has been going to them for 2 years and has managed to gain over a stone. It is her own fault as she eats uncontrollably so I was not blaming SW. I think they advise her as they do to keep her motivated but they also claim in their magazine (I have one here) ‘although you can expect to lose 3 or more lbs in the first week, a healthy weight loss of 1 to 2 lbs per week is advisable’. Also people hear what they want to hear and when I told her she could lose more faster she said ‘oh but I have been told not to by my leader’ – I think that helps justify her own failure. All slimming consultants want their clients to lose weight as it is a success for them too.

Frozen avocado – I buy it from a frozen food centre similar to Iceland. It comes in small chunks and is fine if you let it defrost naturally for only about 30 / 40 mins, much more than that and it turns brown (as does fresh). I only use it when I really cannot get fresh or forget to buy, it is just handy.

Ah, SG, you’re right, some people are hard to help because their self-sabotage is so hard-weird that as you say, they take the bits of advice that support what they want to do. All I know is ther SW group in our villages has had a great effect on local health over the last 4 years with lots of people who don’t have the specific health needs of diabetes losing and keeping off substantial amounts of weight.

Our local shop now has a much expanded fruit and veg section and our local coffee shop has two SW lunch days a week as the owner has lost 4 stones, and there is a ladies brisk walk group that does 30 mins, 3 days a week. Doesn’t work for me because 20 people in a room cheering is just never going to be my thing, but it’s horses for courses – as I said earlier in these posts, I learnt a lot following the plan more akin to low carb that brought me that the way I’d been eating was dysfunctional – it brought me to low carb, which has always worked well for me – lucky to discover it. There is SO much contradictory advice, you see the confusion again and again on these boards. No wonder people are confused! My beef with lots of the slimming club stuff is the notion that it’s ok to aspire to the defqault position that eating rubbish, but calorie controlled rubbish, should be an aspiration. Even SW has the dreadful ‘mug shots’ which mimic bl**dy Pot Noodle, of all the chemically enhanced rubbish filler food they could choose! Mkx

MK you may have hit ‘my nail’ on the head!

I’m really getting a bit ‘stale’ after 9 months so I started to re-read the book yesterday. I think I am doing exactly what you say MK …. aspiring to the default position. I think I’m finding it difficult now not to be including ‘calorie controlled rubbish’ in my diet.

I was reading Colin Beattie’s approach to BSD, a case cited in the book. He took the diet as a ‘prescription’ for weight loss, being absolutely determined that he wasn’t going to break the diet because he knew if he did, it would be easier to break it the next time and the next.

Whilst I don’t see this as a ‘diet’ per say I see exactly where he’s coming from. I think I have lost sight of the fact that this is an 8 week plan. Realistically it’s not meant to be followed forever in its ‘raw’ form. I think I need to start the 8 week plan again and follow it to the letter. I don’t really think I’ve done that for more than a week in the past.

I think I’m finding it as difficult to change my mindset about ‘aspiring to the default position’ as it was to embrace ‘full fat’!!

Whisper it quietly, Verano, but I did 16 weeks hardcore on the induction plan, lost my 50lbs and got my blood sugars straighter, but now I have defaulted myself, though not to the rubbish.

I am following my previous low carb regime, where I count carbs, eschew sugars and eat only good food cooked from scratch. I’ve eaten low carb for so long that a 30 in the week, 50g at weekends limit is second nature. Not eating bread, cereals, spuds, pasta, keeps me on the straight and narrow, I still lose a good bit of weight but I don’t feel so deprived if I can have the odd cheese plate or berries and cream, a restaurant portion of fish, chicken or steak without fretting about calorie counting to the n’th degree, it makes me depressed to think I’d always need to look at food in that manner, and all through February I was struggling with that notion, until I realised that nobody ever said I needed to eat 800 cals a day for the rest of my life!

It worries me that quite a few people here try to replicate their previous ‘treats’ – making low carb ‘versions’ of bread, cheesecake, biscuits, brownies. Others say things like ‘I don’t see why I can’t have the things I like’ . The trick I’ve found is to enjoy what you can have and zip your mouth (and mind) to what you can’t. Some people can eat milk chocolate and stop. I can’t, and it’s bad for me, I need to find other treats, and for me that’s fresh raspberries, which I love and will buy expensively out of season – my treat- the nicest, juiciest berries, a whole carton for breakfast, and really enjoy without guilt – but as a treat. Similarly for those who struggle with alcohol, low carb plans generally allow a limited amount of clear spirits (gin, vodka) with mixers ( if you don’t mind the aspartamene) or (hurrah) limited quantities of champagne, as these are lower carb than beer or wine. But as a treat, not part of what you do every day, and mindfully.

I will never go back to mindless eating, healthy, low carb is the way I’ll eat forever because it is easy for me, and I can always do 4 or 8 weeks of induction again to reprogramme. But you need to live a life, and I don’t want mine to be one of mentally weighing a lovely piece of roasted cod and clocking it up on some internal counter Knowing that if I eat this lovely, healthy food, it means I have to go hungry at my next meal. I don’t drink alcohol, which helps, but what the health farm diet guru said was eat well and healthy within your carb limit, exercise regularly, every day, and the weight will still fall away, your sugars will be stable and you’ll comply, not rebel, with no requirement to think and obsess about food, you’ll do the right thing naturally.

Works for me, and before a serious health thingy and T2D diagnosis 9 months ago low carb had kept my former (6 years ago) 18 stone frame at a level 12.9, and at 5 feet 10 & I am happy there. Not far to go!

But I’m a person who enjoys pretty plain, faff free food that’s easy to buy and prepare (hence love of Nigel Slater approach) so it suits me. Like SW and the group support thing suits others, and messing about with spreadsheets calibrating calories and exact percentages of protein and fat suits others, and exactitude on the scales, weighing each day fretting about a pound north or south of nine stones (nine stones!) seems to keep others busy. Not for me, but weight loss is a broad street and it’s whatever works best for you.

Anyway. Here endeth the philosophy of the kitten! Mountain of washing facing me. *sigh*. MK x

You are right Maharani kitten – we are all so different and it is whatever works best for you.

I have also found it easier to forget about the bad carbs and just focus on what I can have. Now I couldn’t imagine life without my lovely stilton, Lindt 90% chocolate, Fage yoghurt, walnuts, Brazil nuts or cream in my coffee.

They all feel like special treats and that I couldn’t live without them. They have replaced the daily cappuccino and Tesco finest biscuits that I previously thought I couldn’t live without.

I am one of those people who love using fat secret every day – and it has helped me to maintain my weight since 10th December. As a champion yo yo dieter – this alone is pretty miraculous.

Hope you got your mountain of washing sorted.

I am moving back towards more carbs, although still strictly limiting the white stuff to as MM suggested miniscule portions. I am eating more fruit and starchy veg now, and still on that very slow downward weight trend. At some point I expect to find my ‘personal carb threshold’ and start putting on weight again, but I’m not there yet, and when I do get there that will inform the way I eat forever. I will keep weighing myself, as I am convinced that without that discipline I will just start to drift back into some old bad habits. I keep tracking on my spreadsheet because when I get to that threshold I need to recognise it so I don’t put too much back on. This is my way of life, and I can’t imagine going back to the overweight and I’ll person I was, even with no diagnosis of anything wrong with me I now regard myself as having been ill, as a contrast with how well I feel now.

Yes MK I like your notion of a broad street. I’m not one that has replaced carbs with a low carb version. I can’t see the point of ‘cloud bread’ etc! Similarly to you I like plain food, I have never really used convenience stuff and would much rather cook from scratch than eat ready meals.

However, ….. I count!!! I weigh every day, always have done but now I also seem to be starting to obsess over ‘figures’. I am in a hotel at the moment and the notion of ‘mentally weighing a lovely piece of roasted cod’ has really hit home with me. You are so right I don’t have to live within 800 calories forever. I can enjoy what I can eat and I need to abandon the stuff I can’t! My ‘calorie controlled rubbish’ are McVities digestives!! I wouldn’t mind but I’ve never really been a fan of them until now!! My treat, like Krysia, is Lindt 90%.

I do, mostly, ‘live’ my life but I think I may have just stalled at the moment. I guess I should be happy to drop slowly down the weight ladder pausing every few rungs for a breather and to regroup. After all it isn’t a race.

I will continue re-reading the book. I know that I can refocus on what I can eat and enjoy it again. I think I may have just become a little bored because I really was enjoying low carb food but I seem to have lost my way a little. Hence the recent threads about food! I’ve been looking for inspiration.

It’s so good to hear really positive thoughts from others…. thank you!

Verano, by calorie controlled rubbish I was meaning the stupid weight watchers meals and yoghurts and the SW fake pot noodles, reduced fat cheeses, ‘diet’ margarine – ick, ick, ick! . Frankenfoods, but people think they are doing the right thing by paying over the odds to eat additive-crammed cr*p instead of investing a bit of effort to cook fresh.

When goal is reached for me, the only thing I’ll change is my fruit intake. I really miss the sourness of fruit, crave a grapefruit or an orange and may even (get me!) brave a banana when I’m out on the bike, but I know that as a T2, this can be an occasional treat only. Bit more cheese, maybe with a few grapes, slightly bigger protein portions, perhaps include tomatoes in salads again. Otherwise I won’t be going near pulses, grains, pasta, any sort of sugar at all. Managed it for four years and can do it again, they’re just empty calories that will make my life shorter.

Also, just to say I don’t decry the counters and weighers. It’s just not for me – get enough of numbers and admin at work!

Mad aunt slept for an hour this afternoon and I spent the time in the sunshine with the paper and ignored the ironing. Am starting to enjoy living life in a less frantic way. It all gets done in the end.. And who needs ironed tea towels anyway? Mkx

Maharani kitten, such a wise little kitten, as always I enjoy your rationalising for your choices. It is nice to see that it is pre-choice rationalising as I seem to be doing an awful lot of post-choice rationalising. Makes for an uneasy and uneven pathway.

Verano, I have also just pulled “the book” out for a re-read, you’re just a little ahead of me there.

I believe in responsibility for one’s own actions, so struggle to understand why I don’t apply it to my eating behaviours. Reflecting seriously, I think I’ve changed someway, but am really only partway there….post-rationalisation! Thank you to all who have contributed here, it has given me further food for thought especially around the “800 can be temporary means to an end but it is this WOE that is the prime point”. Ignore the “can’t”, focus on the “can”. Intellectually I’ve known this, emotionally It hasn’t stuck. (in a small way of defence for myself, I have had several close family and friends losses within the past 15 months. The grieving rather piles up. But that, in itself, is post-rationalisation, isn’t it?) LOL, going around in circles.

Marsie, the tipping point for me, both times I’ve lost, has been to think really, really hard about everything I eat, prepare slowly, eat mindfully, try to avoid the emotional minefield of ‘poor old me, I deserve this because life is so horrible’. Which to be honest, it has been for the last two years for me, too.
When I give in to sabotage, that’s exactly what it is, mindless, thoughtless stuffing down precisely the things I shouldn’t even have in the house. I usually go to buy them specially and scoff in private. If I properly think about that mindless undoing of everything I’m working towards, I have been known to spit out a hastily grabbed Jaffa cake!
But there is something about pausing before every mouthful and saying ‘is this the right thing’? I keep my dark choc in 2x squares in the freezer, wrapped in 4 layers. If I still want it when I’ve unwrapped and defrosted, I have it. But it is often the emotional urge of the moment, and I know others say the same about alcohol. The moment passes if you pause, but it can be hard to pause if you’re stressed, or sad, or angry. The food isn’t always the problem! Wishing you a week of pauses and losses! Mkx