Setting up the new thread is always difficult – thinking of new things to say and new titles. So this months is courtesy of my husband, he has his uses.

The weather is getting cold but it can be a wonderful time of the year with beautiful autumnal colours of oranges, reds and golden browns. It is a time to look back on how we have done with our goals and plans through the past months and also a time for planning for the upcoming season of celebrations – Thanksgiving in America in November, Christmas in the UK and all parts inbetween.

Lets set some new goals – or continue on a successful path – and look forward to the rest of the year with optimism. Come and join us if you want somewhere to start, no need to struggle alone, or to continue with your efforts and reach higher goals.

Everyone is welcome, no pressure, no guilt and no preaching, just care and whatever help you might need.

Sunshine-girl/Wendleg/SunnyB

Starts Tuesday 1st October. See you here.

Sunshine-girl

Thank you for such an ‘optimistic’ post s-g.

Even though I won’t be here for the start of the month I’ll definitely keep in touch and I’m really looking forward to the ‘positivity’ generated by the group.

Let October be a wonderful start to to autumn.

OK, so one month at a day … or one day at a time! And YES – I am optimistic and tomorrow is October – so I am bringing my start date forward and starting tomorrow instead of Wednesday – read the book, found this link and hopefully someone in the forum remembers how it was to start this programme and those first few days, weeks and the anticipation of turning around what has gone wrong in life to get me here.
Who else is starting October and following the Optimistic October thread?

I have so much to lose, but thought from reading the book this was a good place to start – tune in soon for an update

Starting October in a really optimistic mood. Thanks S-G’s husband for the title of this thread.

Mistehippos, I started the BSD in mid June, and am delighted that I have lost 4 stone and taken my BS count from diabetic back to pre-diabetic! Not that long and still going. I have another stone to come off…and intend to do it! I think it is not just a diet, but a way of life! I have been extremely strict, counting calories and recording everything I eat in a diary. I am a bit obsessive…I have even been weighing lettuce leaves!!! 🥴 BUT it has paid off. I have slipped on occasions, but picked up again immediately! There are people on this forum who are incredibly supportive and helpful with advice, whether you are just looking to lose a serious amount of weight and or tackling diabetes. They are brilliant, you cannot have found a better site for encouragement and understanding. I take it one day at a time….and that suits me. (I weigh every day, as I need to know!! But plenty of people weigh once a week)

Good luck…stay positive and keep going, it is worth it!!!
K.x

Hi! I’m on day 4 of the fast800 and I have printed out a tick chart for my fridge for 10 weeks. I really need to lose 2 stone (28lbs/12.7 kg) to get down to a non overweight BMI.

The first three days I have found ok, I think excitement that I’m actually doing something has spurred me on. This morning I woke up a little hungry but I downed 800ml of electrolytes to stave it off a bit and I will have my morning almond milk latte when I feel like I need it.

Plan for lunch today is chicken breast, bacon and a chaffle with some salad. I am leaning a little more towards keto as I have managed my hunger with v low carb many years ago.

I hope you don’t mind me joining this thread, I have a nagging feeling I could do with some encouragement before I get to the half way point!

Trying to enjoy the non foody things in life at the moment, like candle/soap scents and gentle autumn walks.

Have a great day, everyone. 🙂

Thank you S-G for setting this up for October & your husband for the optimistic part👍
Pootle your weight loss is very inspiring & encouraging & emphasises how this low carb way of eating supports good health. I will certainly try to do better with my weight loss this month but have a challenge this next weekend of a family gathering in Yorkshire & staying at a Premier Inn with eating out but will choose as much protein & vegetables as I can locate 🤔😀
Welcome Mistehippos!
Good luck everyone for the next month & stay optimistic 👍🍀🍀
Margaret xx

Hi everyone, well I have started the month with a mis-step – forgot to get weighed. I am so used to weighing daily when I switched to only a couple of times a week I sort or forgot what day it was. By the time I was half way through my boiled eggs, glass of vinegar water and homemade lemon, ginger and mint tea, it suddenly struck me. I will do my weight tomorrow.

Everything seems to be going t-ts up right now. Went to the cinema on Sunday to find the internet was down and our particular film was not showing – nothing else we wanted to see so came home. Yesterday took an hours drive to a big DIY store looking for a new oven and hob and hubby forgot the dimensions – we know they are standard but he wanted to be sure. We had already spent half a day at a more local furniture store and seen what we liked but he wanted to check out a bigger range. When we got there the stock was so poor we would have been better ordering on line and the prices for ovens were twice our local store. So, I am having a break today and will do some French, do some exercise and get back out shopping again tomorrow. Anyway it was a nice drive out.

Mistehippos, yes I certainly remember my first few days, I wrote a journal on another site and, because they were closing down, I cut and pasted everything into this site and you can read my journey – or at least the first few days of total fear on a thread called 5 Years of BSD – A Blog of Memories. Come to think of it, even posting that was 3 years ago. I have been on this plan for 8 years, not because it doesn’t work but because it does. I am diabetic and I can never go back to a life of eating carbs and ruining my health.

JeannieP, great to have you with us, particularly as you are diabetic – I do read everyones profile – and this diet will go a long way to getting your numbers under control. The most important thing for you is to get rid of the carbs. It might take a while to get used to going without but once you do your body will thank you, both in weight loss and better numbers.

Hope you all have a good week and we can continue with a successful month.

Hi again, just reading through my 5 year blog and was quite amazed. My BG went from 180 to 107 by day 7. I remember getting into a panic and posting ‘what are we doing to ourselves’, I thought something terrible was going to happen but only good things have come from this diet.

I also remember, and this is for newbies – when you tell people about the diet you will get some disbelieving comments. You cant live on 800 calories, your brain will shrink, you cant live without carbs, you cannot sustain this diet (thats funny after 8 years doing it), so many people had opinions. I based my diet on facts learnt from Dr Mosley and Prof Roy Taylor and it has done me nothing but good. If anyone asks don’t tell them too much, they will only mock or try to put you off. Keep the faith, it does work.

Welcome JeannieP & gosh you already sound very well organised & I hope you have a good week👍🍀🍀
Margaret xx

Hello Pootle

Thank you for taking the time to write to me with encouragement even though you have been here done that …

… it is really appreciated to know that you were successful in June and congratulations on achieving such an amazing result, well done.

I’m with you on a weigh everything basis – it gets weighed AND written down before it gets eaten – so I am hoping that with that and my countdown calendar on the fridge the next 8 weeks will go by and I too will see results – then I am hoping to switch to the 5:2

Thanks again, fellow weigher 🙂

Just logging in to say ‘hello’ as I’d like to receive the posts on this thread.

So in Barcelona at the moment. Enjoying tapas, anchovies, pimientos padron, gazpacho and wonderful fish. So far just a little ‘rustic’ bread. I realise if you need to eat bread make it the ‘best’ you can find not a ‘ slice of white’!!!

Just one ‘treat’ a couple of teaspoons of ‘Salvador Dali cheesecake’. Came in the shape of Ruby red lips and was as light as a feather. Still full of sugar so just had a ‘taste’!

In fact try to make all you eat the ‘best’ you can find!

Hi all, back after my weigh in and not too bad at 1.5lbs for the part month, still got a week to go and need another 1.5lbs to reach my goal. Got no plans, no meals out so should be able to reach 3.3lbs by 8th. Fingers crossed.

Hi Verano, glad you are keeping up with us and enjoying your trip. If you get the chance to see the cathedral Sagrada Familia do so but dont bother to go inside, it is just a building site. We are doing Barcelona on our own (i.e. no excursions booked) so any advice would be useful. Also, don’t bother with Picasso museum it is all his early work and I don’t think he knew how to paint then 🙂 You are probably long gone from there now but it will be interesting to hear of your travels.

Hope our newbies are getting to grips with things and getting any help and advice they need. Shout out, there is always someone who has been in your shoes.

After my wasted trip to the DIY store to buy oven and hob we are going to buy it on-line (from a different store) and will get it delivered to the store where we can pick it up – 20min drive away. Then we have to get a gas-fitter to put the hob in – know a man who can just down the lane.

Have a very happy self-care week.

I am looking forward to a weekend off cooking! I will be staying in a hotel, so will have to relax my calorie and carb watching for 3 days. I now know that I can get back on board again when I get home on Monday as I have succeeded before, having ‘fallen off the wagon’ a couple of times. I also know to avoid anything ‘bread-like’ and potatoes etc as far as possible. Possibly I won’t be able to resist a banana if there is one on offer! 😂 I am very much more relaxed now I know the BSD way of life is achievable and works for me!

Well done S-G & I like you Pootle will be having a few days away from chopping & cooking with a long weekend at a family gathering in Yorkshire.
Well slightly shocking news for me after seeing a private consultant surgeon today & being X-rayed. I have NO cartilage left in my right knee & now urgently need to have replacement knee surgery. So much for thinking I just had meniscus damage as told by a physiotherapist. Thank goodness I went privately to get a correct diagnosis & my husband & I will be using our savings to pay for my surgery because my GP would probably only add me to an NHS waiting list🙁
Margaret

Hello Sunshine Girl

Sorry if it seemed I was ignoring you, my computer wouldn’t let me send a message the other day.
What a lovely thread – thank you and thank you for messaging me with a welcome too..
Day 3 and dinner just eaten, I am managing OK at the moment – with between a 12 and 14 hour fast (usually 14).
So think I am in the right mind-set and coping at the moment.
It is a case of undoing everything you have been raised to do, but simple enough to follow
Who knew I wouldn’t be hungry on just 800 calories and probably mainly as I am not using “diet” foods but full fat – and finally my meals have some taste – hahaha
I hope this works, will be back in touch soon

Hi all, lovely sunny day but a bit cold, just hung out a wash load.

Mistehippos, I didn’t think anything of your silence. We are all busy doing other things, as the person who set up the thread I like to keep an eye out for people, newbies, questions etc. Don’t expect you to jump when I respond – take it easy 🙂

I think people underestimate how fulfulling and nourishing 800 cals can be. A breakfast of say a bowl of cereal, a slice of toast with jam and a glass of orange juice can total just under 450 cals and you will get a sugar rush and swift drop so will be hungry again in 2 or 3 hours. Whereas 2 eggs scrambled with a bit of creme fraiche in butter comes in just under 300 cals and will keep you full for longer. So you have saved 150 cals straight away. It is the quality of the food we eat that counts.

On the subject of quality food, I have been watching a webcam by Ocean Robbins and he talks about meat eating and its effects on the body. Don’t get me wrong, I love meat, but I would like to eat more vegetarian foods and cut out maybe 70 of my meat. I won’t give up eggs and dairy and buy my eggs straight from a farm where I know they are free range. Problem is when I look for recipes they are so full of carbs I cannot see to find a balance. I don’t mind beans and maybe a nice butternut curry but the addition of rice or pasta in order to make it a decent meal is difficult. I probably thought this with BSD and no carbs and manage by adding more of the veg or meat or add a salad when everyone else is having mashed potato or making cauli rice etc. Guess that answers my own question as long as the main event is not mainly carbs. Anyone recommend a site or a book that is veggie and low carb.

Had a bit of a whoosh moment this morning but not taking anything for granted until weigh in on Tuesday – end of my monthly goal.

Have a good weekend.

Thanks, sunshine girl and thank you for the welcome wendy1947. I feel a bit like a fraud now, as I’m not diabetic yet, although I did write in my profile that I’m trying to control my blood sugars. I will go back and edit the profile for clarity. I have been worrying a bit about them rising as I had gestational diabetes a while back, my father is diabetic and I am approaching 40 whilst overweight. I believe all these factors combined make me more prone, so I want to get on top of them.

Wendy1947, I am a bit obsessively organised when it comes to things I know I could easily fail. I have to take the thinking out of it and just be able to follow a list I’ve made when I’m calm/not harassed/hungry.

1 week DONE! Yesterday was a bit tougher as my body likes to aggressively remind me that I am still fertile but I’m really chuffed that I stuck to my plan and got through it.

My proudest point this week was making oat and raisin cookies for my husband and children and managing to resist having any myself.

Yummiest meal this week might have been one I had to throw together in a hurry. It was sort of a pot noodle/stir fry thing using konjac noodles. Struggled to eat it all but it felt like comfort food, which is so nice.

Today the plan is a chaffle based ham and mushroom quiche with a nice leafy salad. I’m going to have to see how much cheddar I can sneak in without it hitting my calories too much.

Onward through week 2 for me. 🙂

Hi all, well my whoosh downward has stayed so not a fluke and makes me even more determined to reach goal by Tuesday. Lips sealed so as not to jinx it.

JeannieP, don’t mind me, I am sort of diabetes obsessed so latch onto any newbies with problems. Your BS was the first part then weight loss, so got the wrong end of the proverbial stick:) You are right to presume you are prone to diabetes as you have 2 red flags, gestational diabetes and a family member. In following this diet and cutting down on carbs and completely cutting out refined carbs you will avoid falling into the diabetic range.

Doing my research there are 4.4 million people in the UK with T2 and another 1.2 million undiagnosed. My wish is that everyone would follow a lower carb diet, just smaller portions or avoiding ready meals, pies, sausage rolls, not eat so many cakes etc and most people would avoid ever getting diabetes. We eat high carb because meat was expensive after the war and wheat and potatoes were cheap and plentiful and we were encouraged to eat this way but we have so many more choices now. I guess I am talking to the converted here as it is a low carb diet but maybe mention to friends and family – they might bite your head off but it might help just one person from getting a diagnosis.

As for my diet, daughter is vegan due to health problems and she has inundated me with the batch cooking she has done today such as black bean mole, carrot and squash soup (great for winter) and a butterbean and lentil curry. Now just got to incorporate meat for hubby but that should be easy if he doesn’t mind grilled everything 🙂 She has also put me on Instagram and recommended 2 brothers with a site called BOSH. TV (put in space to stop it coming up as a site). Now to get rid of what is in the freezer. If I can do veggie 5 days out of 7 I will be happy and so will hubby when we still have a cooked Sunday brunch.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.