Hi everyone.

I’m looking for help and support. Following family tradition I constantly gain weight no matter what and am always permanently tired. After many years jumping through the hoops of NHS/Dctors/nurses programmes and advice, a more experienced doctor told me to do this diet.
I stuck to it (nearly – I was probably at about 1200 calories a day), I felt great and had lost weight.
But then I fell off the train and got left behind. The reason? I’m a dreadfully picky eater. I can barely stand vegetables, fruit tends to irritate my ibs and I cannot stomach salads. I forced myself to eat it for three weeks but the ibs, combined with looming depression based around the lack of things I can eat, made me fall/jump off the diet.
I also have next to no time for meal prep, so it needs to be fast and easy, and inexpensive as money is always tight with a young child.

Hope you can all help as I really want to get this weight off for my own sakes 😄

Hi Kitty, I’m sorry to hear you are having a tough time. As you will see, there are other threads, including a weekly one, and you might want to jump on to one of those; some people don’t always look out for new topics starting. You do say that on your 3 weeks of the BSD you felt great – which is great! When you say you can barely stand veggies, is that every type? Have you thought about other cooking methods – for example roasting broccoli or cauliflower is great, there is a slight nuttiness and lovely crispy edges – and you just toss in a little oil and bung in the oven. Same with cabbage (white or sweetheart), just fry in some butter (about 15/20 mins or so?) and you can add bacon, also a little cream? And stir fries are also great and quick and easy: i just use pak choi, a few mushrooms, handful of spinach, maybe a bit of red or yellow pepper. I think there are others on here with IBS, so there is lots of info and support on the forum!

Hi Kitty,
I was watching a podcast the other day by a doctor who was explaining that high insulin levels can have the same effect as an underactive thyroid. I found that fascinating because I spent years feeling cold and struggling to control weight. Apparently high levels of Insulin interferes with the conversion of T4 hormone into the active thyroid hormone T3.

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Were you trying to follow the recipes in the book? You don’t have to do that, you can use an app on your mobile phone like fat secret and enter what you plan to eat in that to see what the carb, protein and fat values are. – Or find a list of foods and the carbs they contain. and work out from that what things that you do like to eat that are low carb and make up meals from that.

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You could “mask” some of the veg. Use them in dishes like Spanish omelette along with some cheese.

Thank you both for your replies. I’m slowly working my way through threads to try and find the help I need.
Would be so much easier if I liked cabbage, cauliflower, pak choi, omlettes etc 😂
Basically the foods I do and can eat I can’t on this diet.

Kitty, this is a pretty tough diet and the advice on the pages referring to who should or should do this diet state that if you have medical problems then maybe not. However, this is a diet to help people with certain medical problems like diabetes and has been shown to help with other problems like skin problems, some stomach problems, sleep problems and so on. It is up to you whether or not you continue to do it. If you are trying for the full BDS 800 or Fast 800 it might be almost as good for you to have 1000 or 1200 calories but try to keep away from the white carbs, which are known to cause inflammation, so might help with your IBS. If you really cannot stomach a lot of the foods like all the veggies, then try to keep to your normal foods but smaller portions and without the white carbs, which will cut calories too. I really think this diet works well because of the lack of white carbs, you just need to find something that suits you to replace them so you dont end up with a plate of meat and nothing else. Hope you find a solution.

Thank you sunshine girl.
I’ve just discovered red lentil pasta which is a godsend. Trying to ween myself away from a lot of my bad habits but there seems to be so little other options unless you have a lot of money to spend.
I’m going thread diving tonight to see what I can find

Kitty617: You might consider starting with Dr Michael Mosley’s ‘Clever Guts Diet’: noting that his team “don’t recommend removing too many foods at one time” (p.190) and to “reintroduce foods one at a time with a gap of at least three days between each one” (p.193). Taking baby steps gives your palate/ taste buds time to acclimatise not just your digestive system!

I used to be a very picky eater, as were my sibling and my mother when younger, and some of my clients back when I worked in lifestyle healthcare. Part of the solution is to keep trying a few bites given new food, try it in different formats and in different combinations. By ‘format’ I mean raw or cooked, whole or blended, sliced or grated, in a sauce or with a tasty condiment or gravy, piping hot or refrigerated, and so on.

Identifying what you do not like about a given food item, and how you might or might not be able to change that is key. Is it the texture (too chewy, too slimy), the flavour/ taste (too sweet, too bitter, too sour), the visible appearance (too large a serving, the colour, the texture), the smell?

Using myself as an example, I can now eat some fish (esp. lightly smoked or flaky in texture), all sorts of fruit and veg if in a liquid or sauce (soup, smoothie, curry, any dairy). Loathe most cooked root vegetables and most cooked squash family vegetables (combo. of soft texture + cloying sweetness) but like many of them in raw grated/ raw ribbons in salads (combo. of crispy/ crunchy + fresh sweetness).

I shudder at the idea of biting into a whole apple but enjoy a Granny Smith if thinly sliced or chopped! Never choose a pork chop or chicken breast (dry and chewy to me) but love Parma ham and slow-cooked chicken thighs.

For you …. Fruits is a really broad group, each with a higher or lower amount of whichever compound that irritates *your* gut (type of sugar, type of fibre). Many of us eat overly large servings of fruit without realising: here in the UK 80g (half an apple or half a banana) is the recommended, but less than that is still healthy and may sit better with your gut initially.

Similarly ‘salads’ is a broad group of food combinations: leafy or leaf-free, semi sweet or sour or salty, crunchy or soft, dry or dressed, completely raw or part cooked, grated or chunky textured.

Only a few fruits or vegetables must be cooked before eating, including regular potatoes, rhubarb, beans. An alternative to cooking to soften a fruit or vegetable is freezing and thawing. Buying fruits and vegetables already frozen, or prepping and freezing your own in bulk can save loads of time, reduce waste and save loads of money. You can also portion – as small as you wish – and freeze meat in a marinade, fish or seafood, cooked wholegrains, cooked beans or lentils.

Removing ‘old’ foods or introducing ‘new’ foods slowly one by one (as Dr Mosley advocates in Clever Guts) allows much more time for prepping and stocking up. This change to a slimmer and healthier you is *forever*, so taking a few months to slowly reorganise your kitchen, and to slowly acclimatise your digestive system and taste buds is completely fine.

HTH!