Hi there,

I’m on the first day of week 3 and my motivation has taken a battering. I had my weekly weigh in last night and I’d only lost 1kg, I lost 3.5kg in the first week, which is a lot but it’s hard to keep soldiering along when the results aren’t showing 🙁

I think I’ve done well with the diet, I’m not hungry at all, feel like I have lots of energy, my only downfall has been wine (3 bottles in two weeks), otherwise I’ve stuck to it religiously. Could the wine be the reason for me not doing as well?

I didn’t know if anyone had any tips for getting through these sticky points without throwing the towel in?

Any advice appreciated!

You’re doing well.

4.5Kg is a lot of weight in 2 weeks, why do you think this is a failure?

What is your target? Is your target between 10-20% of your starting weight? Are you comparing yourself to others too much?

Remember, we all start at different weights with different targets and have different bodies, so direct comparisons can be dangerous and lead to catastrophic thinking (like throwing in the towel).

Ok, 3 bottles of wine has around 2000 calories. Over 2 weeks this averages to 150 extra calories a day. You probably do need to reduce, but do so slowly as it may be too much of a shock for you to take it away overnight.

Keep chipping away and the losses will mount up

Yes Jude88 3 bottles of wine in 2 weeks is a long way from following the BSD 800 eating plan. Cutting the wine to zilch for a week should make a big difference. Good luck.

Think of some things that weigh 4.5Kg to help give you some perspective on how well you’re doing.

A large newborn baby.

2 good sized watermelons.

A child’s sit-on bicycle with stabilisers.

Focus on the positives and drive yourself forwards, not backwards.

Thank you cmawp,

I guess it’s because the first week was so successful and then it’s stopped in the 2nd I’ve felt disheartened. I re-read a part of the book and it said you should avoid alcohol for the first month entirely, which I missed, so I’m definitely going to start that now.

I need to lose around 30% more, so quite a lot of weight to lose!

I just looked at your profile cmawp, you’ve done incredibly well! I guess you’ve experience these kinds of feelings along the way, your advice is appreciated 🙂

4.5 kg in two weeks is great. Weight loss isn’t linear, and your body doesn’t recognise ‘she’s been doing this for a week – time for a loss’ – it goes at its own pace. Drinking 3 bottles of wine isn’t ‘following BSD religiously’. The problem with slipping so early on is the likelihood that you cheat and get away with it, so you cheat some more and don’t really admit it to yourself. You’re not hungry, you’ve loads of energy on this plan – hurray! Reboot your planning without wine for the next two weeks and see how you get on. If you can hack it, and your average weight loss is maintained, you’ll be 15kg down, maybe, by the end of 8 weeks. Lots of people here have shown it can be done. Onward!

Fear not Jude!! just a couple of points

If your body has alcohol to burn then it will burn that first..instead of fat…if it’s not burning fat, your weight loss will stall…cut down the wine or cut it out – think of it as Dry February….just 28 days….

Good news is that 1kg is not ‘stopped’ – it’s ‘slowed down’ and it will speed up again. My own journey was full of ups and downs, some weeks I would lose half a lb, then 3lbs, then another half lb. It took me 15 weeks to lose 23lbs and in the following 5 weeks I’ve lost another 5lbs so just keep at it, wait for your body to catch up, I promise you it will if you stick to plan.

Thanks Topcac,

I knew I shouldn’t have been having wine but I’ve been so religious with everything else I thought it would be OK but I’ve looked back at the book and it says to avoid it at least for the first 4 weeks, so that’s what I’m going to do. Dry February it is!

How did you motivate yourself on those weeks where you didn’t lose or lost very little?

Hi Maharani,

I think the alcohol has to go, I was reconciling it against the fact that everything else has been perfect, but this isn’t the right approach.

Hopefully I will be as successful as so many others on here 🙂

To echo cmawp, I would suggest actively planning whether you want wine in your diet for the 800 period. If you do, I would suggest just planning the odd glass at weekends and, if possible building it into your daily allowance. This was my original plan, but I actually ended up not bothering when the time came and left the wine out for the eight weeks.

Remember your body is adjusting to a major shift in diet and a number of people have noted a slow down in weight loss around week 3. Just keep reminding yourself that on 800 calories a day it is virtually certain that you will lose the weight at some point – you should just try to focus on the longer term. As someone on these forums said ” it took years to put the weight on, so you can’t expect to lose it in a couple of weeks”.

Also it may be worth measuring yourself as I went through periods where I lost inches from the waist whilst the weight remained stubbornly stable (and vice versa)

HI Jude – it’s a mental thing really – one week I was in the States on business so in reality I was delighted that I’d lost weight at all, even if it was only a half pound.!!

The other times I really looked at what I was eating, changed something (ate some different meals or drank an extra litre of water for a couple of days) and my body got moving again.

Despite the stonking losses that some people have, the most common journey is ours, hills and dales, this plan works and is great but it’s still not a ‘easy fix’ so you do have to be in that mental state that this is a commitment of 8 weeks – for better or worse – and I guarantee it will be better.

Good luck!!

I’m fully committed in many ways, I feel happy with what I’m eating and satisfied, feel better, and have lost weight, I guess it’s hard not to compare yourself to others but everyone’s bodies are different and I shouldn’t do that.

I guess the most difficult thing for me is that you’re concentrating so heavily on what you’re eating, in terms of your thoughts and preparation of food etc, I think that’s why I found it hard with a small loss this week, because it’s such an important part of my life at the moment, and a big deal to commit to, you expect that to always reflect on the scales, but then again, that isn’t realistic and I’m not going to lose 30kgs in 8 weeks, so patience is important.

It’s great to talk to others who are going through the programme too as it can feel quite isolating sometimes! Thanks for your advice 🙂

Hey Jude (reminds me of a song…….;-) ) Think of yourself as doing well, but I feel your pain. I am also on week 3, day 1, and lost a similar amount to you (3.6kg) in the first week – how chuffed was I???. But my weigh in yesterday showed a loss of absolutely zilch, nothing at all since the previous Monday 🙁 No reduction showing on the tape measure so far either 🙁 though I only measured my waist to before starting, so there could conceivably be a reduction in other areas.

I too have followed BSD800 religiously and with NO wine (well, one small 125ml glass of white last Thursday, but it was a celebration, and I allowed for it in my daily carb / calorie allowance) and, in fact, most days my carbs have been only about 25g – but still lost nothing last week 🙁 It is easy to become discouraged, I know, but there is so much support on this site which is carrying me through this early plateau – as others have said, this is not a magic, instant fix and, personally, I would have been DELIGHTED to have seen my scales register a loss of 1kg yesterday!

All I can say is to keep on keeping on – on 800 calories a day we cannot fail to lose weight eventually. 🙂 Good luck for the coming week – I shall be interested to compare notes this time next week.

PS I’m going away for 10 days next weekend, so week 4 will really be a challenge – won’t have any scales available either, so will just have to stick to the plan as best I can 🙁

Hi Jude – firstly, you have certainly not failed, your loss to date is considerable and not to be sniffed at. As others have said, there will be good weeks and bad, but we are in this for the long haul, so just keep on and it will come right.

If/when you do add wine back in, maybe try one of these tips. I either buy the mini bottles – less that 200ml per bottle – and only allow myself one max. at a time, or I use a glass that I know only takes 100mls and allow myself a max of two glasses. If you manage to cut out the alcohol until the end of your first eight weeks, you will probably find its not so important to you and so you will not be as tempted to drink as much. I find alcohol disrupts my weight loss, so I only very occasionally have a drink these day and I have been on the BSD for almost a year, with a couple of maintenance periods along the way.

Finally, it is important not to think of other people’s successes as your failures, we all lose at different rates and any loss at all is to be celebrated. Good luck with your quest … hope you’ll be posting positive results again next week.

The big loss in the first week is fun, but it is mostly water and when you finish the 800 you will get some of that back.

Your smaller loss in the second week is all fat and is actually pretty exciting, as that loss is permanent. The diet usually results in the loss of 2-3 pounds a week of fat which is great and is what you have lost.

You are on track and after 7 more weeks you should have dropped over 15 pounds of real fat, and every week after that is another 2-3 pounds. People here have been on the 800 diet for a year and have lost over 100 pounds of fat.

Remember, the goal is fat loss, and you are doing that successfully.

Try to overshoot your target by about 8 pounds to give you some room for water retention.

Hi Jande

I think a little caution is called for. The rate of weight loss appears to vary widely between individuals and may be influenced by age, gender, starting weight, exercise level etc. It is also not particularly linear. It is not unusual for people’s weight to remain stable for many days before it drops (see plateau and whoosh). In five months, I’ve lost 77lb on BSD and looking at my figures there have been periods for up to 18 days (two and a half weeks!) when my weigh has not changed then followed by a drop of several pounds over the following week or so. You just have to gird your loins and keep the faith, you will eventually lose the weight.

You have to accept that everyone’s body is different and it is a complex and resilient thing. Try not to compare your weight loss with others, as it’s a false comparison and won’t help.

You’ve made a great start and just carry on and enjoy the ride – the rewards will come – probably when you least expect it.

Hi Jude

I’m halfway through week 2. I’ve dropped 4.5kg in total but that was 3.5kg in the first 5 days and only 1kg since then. I totally identify with the feeling that you’re pouring your heart and soul into this, and it’s a big part of your life, and you sort of need to see results. But I guess we just have to have faith and give our bodies a chance to work out how to handle what we’re putting them through – and there’s only one possible outcome, which is inevitable weight loss.

If it helps, I’m focusing on enjoying feeling in control, enjoying not having carb cravings or sugar shakes anymore, and hopefully I’m not imagining the fact that my clothes seem a little slacker. I’ll cling to these things until I am slim and healthy 😁

Hi JulesMaigret,

I wasn’t intending to compare the OP with me. I wanted to point out to Jude that losing a kilogram in a week is a really good thing and that the first weeks loss is less fat and more water, and not representative of ongoing weight loss.

Of course everyone is different but many people on the 800 lose 2-3 pounds a week once their bodies have settled into the diet, according to what I have read here.

800 calories a day equals a shortfall of about 7000 calories a week, which is the equivalent of 2 pounds of human body fat so it does sort of make sense. This shortfall will vary widely for different people, and you lose water and lean tissue as well as fat, but it gives you an idea of what you can expect.

Jan

Good explanations Jande9. I understood what you were saying in both your posts. They are really useful posts. Thanks for them.

Hi Jan

I agree you’re right in principle on the overall weight loss but every so often we get the posts on here saying “I’ve been on the diet for eight weeks and haven’t lost the X% or Ykg that it promises, therefore it doesn’t work” and there are endless threads about plateauing, especially in weeks three and five/six. My point was that the weight loss will and must happen but it appears rarely to be linear and people should accept that for no apparent reason the graph will be “jagged”.

I think that it is an expectations thing and my advice is that people should try to consider longer term average losses. I use a running seven day average and I still get plateaus.

As is said on here a lot, you just have to “keep on keeping on”.