We have reached the end of the 8 week program folks and if like me you are not where you want to be then on we go !

I need to make sure I feel comfortable in my summer clothes . I have had to reassess a lot of things.I have been less focused but paid the price for that .Worst of all is feeling yuk, especially the horrendous acid reflux as a result of consuming even small amounts of carbs…
My system is telling me they just do not agree with me now . I need to listen..I am trying !!

We can take this new month as a short term target, one week at a time. Here in the Northern Hemisphere we can look forward to warmer, brighter days . Tulips and daffodils are in bud here and there is a sense Spring is not far away .

Well done on your victories so far this year. If you need a new month reboot then this is the place .
We look forward to sharing with you .

Wendy, sunshine-girl and SunnyB

Hi Wendy, thank you for still being here for us all. Dont know where the last 8 weeks have gone but if I count back to my return weight after Christmas I think I have lost around 5lbs.

Currently at the end of week 2 of my own 8 week journey before we go on holiday to the UK for Easter. Pledged 2lbs a week and today I am 2lbs down. Only quarter of a pound this week but the 1 3/4 loss last week has kept me on track.

Had a doppler this morning and the blockage is completely clear and I am healing well. He wants to see me again in 2 months, then 3 months and then 1 year. Didnt know it was going to take over my life. Anyway, I will hold back on any celebrations until after my rdv (rendez-vous) with the surgeon next week when I plan to go out for a nice lunch.

Come and join us on this weekly trip for another month, even if you are struggling it is worth trying rather than not bothering.

Have a good week.

Forgot to say, this lunch time hubby was having a lovely large clementine and asked if I wanted some. I said yes and he put a couple of pieces on the side of a plate. I took one and ate it while I was taking my dish to the sink, came back and he had eaten my other piece. Now you know why I have a separate box for any chocolates we get given. I am still getting through the After 8’s from Christmas 2021 – yes, I did say 2021. A little bit of what I fancy when I fancy or someone will scoff the lot. 🙂

I have to go back to the office 3 days a week. 😞 Silver lining. In order to continue with IF I shall take in my breakfast and have it for lunch (I love my breakfast haha). Therefore having 2 meals a day. 🤞. I hope you feel better soon ArticFox.
Wendy I too have had acid reflux when having too much carbs. Our bodies know lol.

SG, well done on managing such great control, even when things are challenging. Good news about the doppler results.
Elle, sounds like you have a good plan for dealing with the change in your working week, hope it goes well.
Wendy, I think taking March as our next challenge is a good one. I certainly need the focus. Thanks for keeping the thread going, it’s a great resource for many of us old and new.
The 8 weeks didn’t work out for me either, mainly because SAD hit me hard in January and I couldn’t get in the right headspace to deal with ditching pounds.
Happily I’ve sorted out the mindset and I’m seeing slow but definite progress now, mainly achieved by doing a couple of fasts a week and using OMAD on most of the other days.
I’m still some way off target and as I have just 6 weeks to our next trip away and being a slow loser, I need to accept I may not get to target in the time frame. Should be ablevto get close though and I need to be okay with that.
However the past week has gone for you, hope you’ll be sticking with us for another week …. let’s make this one count!!!

Thank you for setting up this weeks thread Wendy. I’m in for the long haul & I hope to keep losing some weight & this week to lose one pound to take me over one stone loss since I joined in January. I now weigh 12 stone 7 lbs & it looks horrendous publicly declaring I weigh that much! After this my next goal is to lose a further seven pounds to get below 12 stone. I have been to my balance exercising class this morning & so far walked 4300steps.
Sunshine-girl it’s good to hear your Doppler result was good. Daffodils are appearing in my garden but haven’t yet bloomed however I’m sure some of the birds are already pairing up & I think some sparrows are already building a nest in our holly bush.
Elle-Mae very well done continuing your IF you are inspiring me to do a longer fast this week to balance my enjoyable but more self indulgent weekend with our son.
I hope you all have a good week & onwards & downwards everyone 👍🍀🍀
Margaret

I’m struggling to know how to use a pot of Ricotta cheese I’ve unearthed from my freezer because it was taking up space🤔 I’ve got spinach, kalettes & kale to use up as well so wondering if I could throw them altogether in the oven for a bake? I’m thinking of mixing the ricotta with garlic & spring onions to give it more flavour? I can only find recipes using different varieties of pasta so trying to avoid that & have scoured all my Fast diet cookery books without inspiration!
Any ideas anyone because I hate throwing food away & have just received an Ocado delivery & have rather overdone my veggie order🤔
Thank you
Margaret

Hi Margaret

Here ‘s a recipe using spinach and ricotta plus almond flour and cream

CRUSTLESS SPINACH AND RICOTTA QUICHE

Ingredients
 6 large eggs
 375 gms ricotta cheese smooth
 ¾ cup pure /heavy cream- full fat
 500 gms frozen chopped spinach defrosted and juice drained Fresh baby spinach can be used as well
 1 medium onion finely chopped
 3 teaspoons minced garlic
 1 cup grated tasty cheese
 2 tablespoons chopped chives or spring onions
 Salt and Pepper to taste
 1 tablespoon coconut flour for stabilising-optional
Prepare The Crust
 Room temperature butter to rub on the baking dish
 2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
 1 tablespoon almond meal/almond flour

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 170 C/350 F fan forced
2. Prepare an 20-26 cm/8-10” flan or quiche pan by rubbing it liberally with butter on the base and up the sides.
3. Mix the Parmesan cheese and almond meal together and sprinkle on the prepared pan, shaking the dish to evenly distribute all over.
4. Beat the eggs well and whisk in the ricotta cheese and cream.
5. Mix the spinach, diced onion, grated cheese, garlic, chives/spring onions and coconut flour (if using) into the egg mix, mixing well. Season with salt and pepper
6. Pour into the prepared quiche pan, ensuring the ingredients are well dispersed over the surface of the pan. Move them around and poke bits in if need be.
7. Bake for approximately 40-50 minutes or until cooked in the centre.
Variations
1. Omit the almond meal and increase the amount of Parmesan cheese added to the crust to make this recipe nut free.
2. Use 280 gms/ 10 oz fresh baby spinach in place of the frozen spinach. Bits of spinach leaf will stick out of the quiche mixture when you mix it in and pour it into the dish but it still cooks up beautifully. Just poke the bits back in if you can. If you want to remove a tiny amount of the bulk of the fresh spinach, microwave in 10-20 second blasts to reduce a tiny amount of the bulk. You still want the leaf to look like a leaf.

That sounds very nice Wendy, and good on you for typing that all up 😉. I guess you are using a computer and not your mobile as I am 🤣. As I have been unable to source ricotta in NI could I substitute marscapone? Would you have the carbs, calories and how many it serves?

How about gnudi? Bit like gnocchi but not potato based.

Ingredients
340 g ricotta
340 g spinach weight after any thick stems have been removed
1 egg
60 g fine almond flour
28 g parmesan finely grated
1 dash pepper (to taste)
Instructions
Put the ricotta on a piece of kitchen paper (or clean starch-free dish towel) in a strainer and cover with an additional piece of kitchen paper. Leave to drain excess liquid for around an hour.

Pour boiling water over spinach in a bowl, leave for a couple minutes to wilt. Drain the spinach and squeeze out as much water as possible, moving it around then squeezing again. Finely chop the spinach and squeeze again.

Pat dry the ricotta to remove any drained liquid then put it in a bowl with the spinach, egg, flour, parmesan and pepper. Mix all together then cover and refrigerate for ideally 2 hours, but at least an hour.

Once it has rested, prepare a baking sheet with parchment sprinkled with almond flour to put the gnudi on. Get a little bowl with cold water to use for your hands as you work.

Take a tablespoonful of the mixture at a time and with slightly damp hands, roll into a ball and place on the baking sheet. Repeat with all of the mixture, try to work quickly so the dough doesn’t get warm and sticky. Dampen your hands as needed. Chill the prepared gnudi for a couple hours until you need to cook them, or cook straight away.

Bring a wide, pan of water to the boil. Add a few gnudi at a time to the water, keeping the water over a high heat so it continues to boil. When the gnudi rise to the top, remove with a slotted spoon to an oiled bowl and repeat, cooking in batches.

Serving suggestion – browned sage butter – for this quantity melt around 3 ½oz/ 100g butter in a skillet and allow to cook over medium heat until it becomes a nutty smell and gentle brown color.
Once the butter has melted you can add around 3-4 chopped sage leaves for a lovely flavor that works well with the gnudi. Can also be served with a tomato sauce or pesto

It was copy and paste Elle- Mae 😉and yes..on my computer. I will check out the carbs and cals etc.

Sunny`s suggestion sounds good too !

Thank you Wendy, and Sunny it sounds great something to have with a pasta sauce (yes yes yes) I have just copied them and sent it to my email so can print it out 🤣

That quiche is for 8 servings Elle-Mae

1 Serving: | Calories: 282kcal | Carbohydrates: 5g | Protein: 15g | Fat: 23g | Fiber: 2g

xx

Thank you very much for your fast replies & recipes Wendy & SunnyB it’s very kind of you to send this & I will check my cupboard for the other ingredients & let you know how I get on! Supper is now sorted👍😀
Very much appreciated
Margaret xx

An update! I cooked an adapted version of your recipe Wendy which tasted good thank you, so I used fresh spinach which I finely chopped & about half the recipe quantity because the volume seemed too much using 500g once I started chopping. I also substituted Greek whole fat yoghurt because I didn’t have double cream & only had 285 g of ricotta so reduced the number of eggs to five. So altogether it probably made enough for four people so my husband & I shared half of it & the remainder is in the fridge for another meal that I think would work well cold with a salad.
SunnyB your recipe sounds also sounds delicious but I didn’t have enough time this afternoon for the prep needed but will get some more ricotta & make it another day so thank you for the recipe.
This early evening I went to the village knit & natter group & I’m sewing together spare crochet squares left over from the village Christmas tree we made to make into tote bags that will be sold to raise money for our WI. We are also making decorative knickers out of spare material to hang up as bunting around the village & on our fences to raise awareness of the campaign “Pants to Ovarian Cancer” during Match. So I’m keeping busy & distracted in case I feel hungry 😀
Thanks again
Margaret

Hi everyone, still lurking…….
I have been travelling a lot recently, so food choices have been a bit chaotic, but hopefully this will settle down now for a few weeks at least.
The scales this morning showed a 1lb gain for the week (I got home last night) but still lower than post-Christmas, so not all bad, I am doing 16:8 TRE this morning, and will have a ham salad for lunch.
I saw someone else saying they are back in the office 3 days per week, and I too find it easier to not eat breakfast if I go into work, and then just have my packed lunch at work and supper when I get home.
I am getting properly fed up of this weather though, it looks like winter will return to England next week 🙁 I want to get out in the garden and stop wearing multiple layers of thermals and clothes!
Anyway, here’s planning for a decent BSD weekend, have a good one everyone

Good morning I have just weighed & only lost 1/2 lb although I can finally say that I have now lost ONE STONE since starting in January. This is now Week 8 Day 1 for me & I now weigh 12 stone 6.5 lbs & next aim to weigh 12 stone or preferably 11 stone 13.5 lbs by the end of March. This all feels very slow with none of the suggested Fast weight loss highlighted by Michael Mosley🤔despite consistently eating low carb & fasting🙁!
I hope you are all doing well & will have an excellent weekend. It is going to get much colder in West Sussex with snow predicted next week but much more up north. I must admit I’m not a fan of winter or winter weather much preferring being too warm than too cold. Oh well I suppose spring is trying to get here with my daffodils growing taller but not yet flowering & I need to be patient. I have a whole chicken to roast in my chicken brick for Sunday lunch that was delicious when I previously cooked it like this.
Margaret

Hi Margaret…. as someone who also discards the pounds slowly, I feel your frustration. However it’s best not to compare our results to those of others and embrace all the positives of our personal progress.

You are a mere whisper away from being a whole stone lighter than when you started with this way of eating, which is a great result. No doubt you are seeing other pluses, like reduction in waist size, clothes fitting better or maybe even now needing smaller sizes, sleeping better, more energy etc. Any and all of these are just as important as the reading on the scales and count as victories, so should also be celebrated. I appreciate it’s not always easy though when the reading in the scales isn’t what you hoped for, I’ve been there many times myself.

Also like you, I hate the cold and would prefer to be too hot than too cold, which makes me really miserable. My circulation has always been poor, so I need the warmth to function properly … think I’m part reptile!!!

Anyway, enjoy your chicken, the brick sounds interesting. We have guests coming to dinner tonight and we’re have chicken too. Have a good weekend.

Thank you SunnyB for your good advice.
I hope you also enjoy your chicken dinner & have an enjoyable rest of the weekend!👍
Margaret

Hi Wendy,

The rapid weight loss that occurs for some people when starting this way of eating is mainly water loss. – Our bodies need water to help process carbs, so when we eat a carb high diet our weight includes a lot of stored water. – When you cut out the carbs the body releases the stored water and you get a rapid change with the scales.

When insulin is high it blocks other hormone systems from working, this means that the systems which maintain bone strength and build muscle can not work as they should. – Once you start to keep insulin low the body will catch up on the delayed maintenance. Stronger bones only take up a small amount of extra space but do effect the scales. – Muscle takes up less space than fat but again stronger muscles weigh more than weak ones.

The scales are just not an effective way to measure progress.

Finally, 1 lb of fat contains 3500 calories. If you have gone through the usual process so many of us have done in our lives of counting calories but still eating carbs in an attempt to loose weight, then it will have damaged your metabolism. – Your body will have been trained to become more efficient and need less calories. So it takes time to burn through each lb of fat. –

Thank you JGwen for your analysis but oh dear what a depressing thought that my body is further damaged 🙁 I have been mostly low carbing since the original Fast Diet came out because of my husband’s Type 2 Diabetes & my diagnosis of breast cancer but have yo yo’d going slightly OTT oh holidays to give myself a break. So I suppose I have never really fully addressed the problem of why my body seems so uncooperative & of course the older I get I suspect my body will have longer practice in resisting my reducing effort to maintain homeostasis 🤔 I’m still sure that it was taking Tamoxifen that really rotted me up causing my weight gain & gynae surgery to remove suddenly appearing uterine polyps.
Oh well all I can do is keep going to get to my goal weight & re-assess then but thank you for your support!
Margaret

I everyone, I am totally raging. My darling husband has just taking it into his mind to clean the cooker hood, filter grill (part of the hood) and the stove top. Screeeeeeeam – we have a cleaner coming tomorrow. When I asked why he had done that he said it needed de-greasing – as if she wouldn’t know to use our kitchen cleaner (ciltbang or gif). Can I kill him now – he never normally does it which is why I am paying someone to come in. Rant over.

Wendy1947, you are not going to like what I am about to say but it might ally your fears that you have done damage and are always going to struggle. I have been on this plan now coming up to 7 years, not only for weight loss but because it keeps my diabetes under control. If I have a break or a cheat and get back on I find I can still have quite a good loss i.e. 3 or 4 pounds in the first week after the break. This is because it is mainly water especially if I have been having carbs. I also know that when I have not been quite so strict and I could have lost 2 or 3 pounds, that glass or two of wine (that is my cheat) or the bread roll at a restaurant can cause my loss to be either nothing for the week or maybe just half a pound or even a small gain. In fact it will have set me back for the whole week. If you look back on how you have been eating over the weeks you will see you have had the odd day off or have eaten something really carby like parsnips or a sugary dessert. On those weeks you might have lost more than you did or you might have even set yourself back. This is not criticism or judgement and I am not stalking you – I just looked back on a couple of weekly threads to see if I could help you – we are all human and, for heavens sake, you have lost a stone. Stop beating yourself up and dont worry about others that have lost more. I can tell you of people who lost 10lbs in week one but they weight 230lbs – you cant lose what you dont have. I hope it makes you realise just how well you are doing. Looking at what you weigh now you will know it does get harder as your body wants to hang on to what it has. Just keep going, and if you can put up with a bit of tough love, stay with us, we are all on the same journey.

I am unsure as to whether or not to post this as I dont want to upset you but, then again, we all want to learn. In your case you need to be reassured that you are doing the best you can but you are human and life events sometimes get in the way. But you are not living for the diet, you have to live your life.

Hi Wendy,
Every one of us who was born after the start of the development of processed foods and the health advice that we could loose weight just by counting calories has the same problem. – We have all followed advice which will have resulted in our metabolism being slower than if we had been coached on a science based weight loss program. When insulin is raised enough to prevent our bodies from accessing our fat stores, then our body has no option but to evolve to being able to live off the number of calories we eat.

Dr MM’s recommendation that people only stay on this way of eating for 8 or 12 weeks at a time is for this reason. While low carb is obviously better for us than eating lots of processed food, without incorporating some mechanism for measuring and ensuring we stay in ketosis it is just a diet protocol.

However, our cells have two different methods of generating fuel. The mechanism for converting sugar into fuel is different for that for converting fat into fuel. Research is progressing all the time, but it does appear that extended periods of being in ketosis does increase our metabolic rate.

Good evening sunshine-girl & I am not upset but grateful that you have taken the trouble to write such a long explanation to help me. I have now read both Dr Jason Fungs book The Obesity Code & am partly through The Diabetes Code & I love absorbing new information & trying to be better informed, particularly when it comes to understanding my own processes. A good part of my psychology degree was on the basis of human behaviour as influenced by human anatomy & physiology & of course as research is ongoing only about 10% of any degree stays relevant today. As far as I’m concerned the more information the merrier👍😀
Thank you also JGwen for going to the trouble to write your message which I much appreciate. This weekend I have actually eaten more protein, veg & some carbs but tried to stay below my BMR but am still doing TRE & tomorrow will eat prawn, leek & courgette soup for lunch before playing short mat bowls to get some exercise. I will keep plodding on because I feel I have no choice really but to continue to fight my own personal battle of the bulge. 🤔😀
Thank you again for your help
Margaret

Wendy1947, what a coincidence, my degree is also in psychology – particularly language acquisition and memory.

JGwen, my response to Wendy1947 was not meant to dispute what you said about the lowering of metabolic base. I know for a fact that as someone who is on around 800 to 1000 regularly if I go off plan I can gain very quickly. So yes, my metabolism is probably shot. People say, ‘you cant gain a pound just be eating xy or z’ but we know we can. The solution is either come off the diet and see what happens or stay with it and fight against the changes to metabolism – I also have the fight against the insulin jabs so a double whammy. If I ever got to my idea weight I would probably have to up my calories very carefully and hope to get my metabolism back into check. Live is a sh-t for us dieters. Can we ever win.

New thread coming up folks !!

Hi S-G and Wendy,
I didn’t take it as disagreeing with me on the impact of calorie counting on metabolic rate. I was sure that you were just sharing your experience. I do realise it is difficult for you with your need to balance Insulin.

However, Dr Bikman and Dr Fung both give different reasons on why long periods of being in ketosis, or fasting respectively can return our metabolic rate to a more normal level.