Eating a few crunchy sea salt flakes as I catch up on posts (thanks for the tip!) 🙂

So weird though, I never stored fat on my stomach before t2d meds. shoulders, boobs, arms back – yes, and these areas were always last to go, but have always been a tall triangle shape.. Now I have visible collar bones and shoulder blades. It’s odd to change body shape this late in life. Makes shopping tricky, am looking at all the wrong things!

Feel happy today after some ups and downs. 20 days on the 800 cals a day and a loss of 5kgs/ 11 lbs…amazing.

Hello everyone,
I’m new and a bit late in starting, but would like to join too.
I have done two weeks now and have lost 3.5lb the first week but only 0.5lb week two.
Just bought the recipe book for inspiration and found the forum with all your posts.
Looking forward to being part of the group.

Hi sunshine-girl
I listened to a podcast this morning that addressed the very issue about low blood sugar but feeling fine and I thought of you. I thought it may answer some questions for you.
Here’s the link:
https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/fasting-talk/id1192105323?mt=2&i=1000380496063
Cheers
Linda

Good Morning from a wet and cold Cornwall! NSV – bought new work tops and cardigans 2 sizes down!! 18 down to 14, so scales not showing much of a loss but obviously the fat is going!! I was a fat child, and wore hand me downs from thin people! So consequently I have a waistline carved into my fat. It has been there all my life so know that won’t shift, but am hopeful for the rest of my body! Have a good low carb day everyone.

I had a bad day yesterday,our disabled son up all night,hasn’t slept much all week so neither have we.We have a visitor who knew we were exhausted so made us delicious pancakes and fajitas so we didn’t have to cook yesterday.I couldn’t say no as he was so kind to make them.Anyway,had a half decent sleep last night so it’s back to the plan.I didn’t even record what I ate yesterday!Looking back on these last few days,I’ve done ok calorie wise,between 800-900 but the carbs are way over what they should be.I hadn’t really looked at the carbs to be honest,just trying to work on the calories,35 for a sharon fruit and 16 for an apple!This next week I’ll concentrate on getting the carbs down,how on earth do people keep them at around 20?!It’s really motivating reading about people going shopping for smaller size clothing.Thinking back to yesterday,I didn’t have cakes(cream cakes were in the house),biscuits ,chocolate or anything like that so it could have been much worse.Hope everyone has a good day.

Hi, Can you tell me how I join the 4 week challenge please?

Having posted, consider yourself joined Pipsterpippinashe. It is open to all.

Hi Pipsterpippinashe, all you have to do is define what your personal challenge is for the next four weeks. Starting yesterday for example I intend to up my exercise, and have committed to this as part of my challenge. Goals could be a certain weight loss target (but be realistic) or going down a clothes size, or fitting in a certain item of clothing that you currently can’t get into. If you have measured yourself you could choose inches/cm off instead. The sky is the limit.

Thanks for getting back to me. Great, I’ve been doing the 8WBSD for a few weeks now but I’ve found it hard to stay focussed to a goad, so this is a great forum that I can use to check in and hopefully find a focus. So today I’m starting my activity challenge. Two years ago I did the London marathon and since stopping the training I have pulled the weight on. I know too many carbs aren’t great for my weight. I don’t eat meat, but do eat fish, but I find that a mainly veggie diet isn’t great for reducing the carbs. So from today I’m going to aim to start on 30 mins a day on the treadmill or walking outside. Hopefully build up by the end of the 4 weeks to achieving a 1 hour run on treadmill/outdoors. I’m not sticking ridgidly to the 800 calls per day but I am trying to stick to the 20 g per day in carbs. Wish me luck!

Lots of yummy things are low carb, though. Berries lower carb than most fruit, in moderation, so a little bowl of lovely ripe raspberries stirred into full fat thick Greek yoghurt, a couple of squares of 90% dark choc (if you can stop at 2 – don’t try till you can) and you can eat cheese, calories permitting – as your appetite decreases (and it will!) there’s nothing nicer than a little chunk of really flavoursome cheese and some fresh crunchy celery. I find the key to keeping carbs low is to get most of my calories from green soups, green veg and fat – I eat very little meat, but love fish and find it easy-ish to do 30g carbs with the help of a low carb cookbook and a carb counter. With enough fats, you don’t feel hungry. Think the key is not to think about what you can’t eat – when I first started eating low carb 6 years ago I railed against having so little fruit and craved it all the time until I bedded in and started to enjoy all the things you can have on a low carb diet that you can’t have at all on other plans.

Good luck everyone – the start of another week and another chance to make good choices. MKx

Thanks LindaA, that is thoughtful of you, but I don’t have iTunes and will not pay for something I dont need. I will search for it in UTube talks when I get a min.

All is well right now, after reducing insulin to 22 units and glicazides I am running at 4.6 in the morning and 4.1 at 7pm. Still need to keep a careful eye on it. I do want to be 5.5 at my next HbA1c (they are always higher than the daily home test) and be 6 lbs lighter. That will be around 8th March just before I go back to see doctor. My weight goal for this 4 weeks is 3.5 lbs and struggling a bit, only lost quarter of a pound since last Tuesday, still, the week is not over yet.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone.

Another blinking hypo today. Felt a bit faint and fell over this PM, tested and down to 3.2 – again, no rhyme or reason other than my one glicozide tablet a day – GP says I must take it before lunch. FBS was 5.6, did my brisk walk and took one Metformin, had ham and grilled tomato breakfast, veg soup lunch, 6 almonds and a small chunk of feta, with 1l of water. . 3.2 – where did that come from? Will phone GP triage service tomorrow but in meantime am staying off the glicozide,. Will have identical food let’s see what my post lunch BG is tomorrow. Puzzled. MK x

Gliclozide will do that MK. I remember my Mum having had D and V and still taking the Gliclazide. She had a mega hypo, needed a 999 call out and flirted outrageously with the ambulance man until the glucose he gave her kicked in. She was in her 90’s. I still feel the shame ☺️

MK the only problem is the doctor might say it is the fault of the diet. See my post just above yours. I have been have very low readings, in fact I keep getting warning messages from my machine. 3.1, 3.6 and so on….. Yesterday I reduced my insulin by one unit and my glicazide by half a tablet, 15mg and I am around 3.9 today, still very low but funny thing is I dont feel like I am going low, not dizzy or numb lips or blurred vision, nothing, just noticed when I did my test. I too have been having snacks in the afternoon, usually nuts or cold chicken or both but I am still running low at 7pm just before dinner. Maybe the diet is working, isn’t this what we are aiming for but keeping ourselves save at the same time. I will keep a careful check on my BG and if I feel necessary will reduce either insulin or glicazide. I spoke to my doctor about this and he told me to try to get rid of the insulin if possible but I am sure it is the glicazide that causes the afternoon/evening lows.

Sunshine girl
I feel I am not qualified to have an opinion on the low blood sugar levels as I am not diabetic myself, but for what it’s worth I was heavily involved in nursing my type 2 diabetic dad during his final few years (not overweight due to low carb management – my mum had long ago worked out the NHS advice only pushed his readings up!). He was on glicazide, metformin and insulin (long acting one injection each night). The first thing to go was the glicazide when he started eating much less during his final illness and readings were getting too low. As soon as the glicazide was stopped he stopped going so low, with reduction of insulin to match reduced intake of food. Cannot of course make any recommendations as that would be foolish, this is just our family experience.

Well I don’t come on here for two days and I’ve missed LOADS – sorry about that. Just trying to catch up.

So well done to all those of you who are upping exercise, frantically counting carbs and seeing weight loss on the scales, that’s brilliant news!
For those who are struggling with hypos (man!) gains and water retention, well today is a brand new day, another day to sort everything out and try again, whether that be grabbing yet another glass of water, trying to find that perfect balance with meds, or going back to the counting board with carbs, I wish you good luck and happy BSD-ing.

‘Officially’ I dropped 4.25lbs this week (I have a little red book and I log my Monday weight every week – nothing else counts – really) so am delighted, am 4.5lbs lower than my original target, and 1.5lbs from my revised target. I fasted from 7pm on Friday to 7pm on Saturday and then from 11am yesterday but I’m not really counting that as I had to test cake yesterday in order to order our wedding cake so that’s done and it was lovely – chocolate, carrot and lemon & coconut for us 🙂

Have a great day all xxx

Well, my GP (locum) says I should stop the diet and up the meds if necessary because ‘850 calories and no starch isn’t healthy for anyone, and especially not a diabetic’. sigh*. He also said it would be the drugs, not the diet, that’s brought my blood glucose down and stable.

I’m not going to be doing that, but will leave out the glicozide today and test regularly through the day to see what’s what. Own (more supportive) GP back from hols on Thursday. Not easy, this…MKx

Oh MK. What a (insert rude word of choice) that locum was. ( predictive text called them a locust! Maybe that’s why!)

For what it’s worth, speaking as a non diabetic but also a recently retired nurse, I think you are spot on.

Chin up. Crack on. 😀😀😀😀

Oh MK I hate to say ‘I told you so’ no, I really hate to say it because it is such a pain in the rootytooty when you get someone who has a closed mind. If he claims it is the meds keeping your BG down then surely he should be telling you to reduce the meds not increase them. But he wants you to eat carbs in which case you would need more drugs. From my point of view, we are on this diet to reduce our BG and it is working, then we need to reduce the meds. What an (*****), I think you know what I mean. See your own doctor but emphasise that the diet is actually working in bringing down your BG and please could he advise you on your meds. They like to be asked, it makes them feel important. Just make sure you are eating enough but you have been at this for long enough to know how to look after yourself.

As for me, my BG was 4.1 this morning. As my breakfast was just spinach and raspberry smoothie in almond milk I also included a piece of chicken before I went shopping. Will be checking again this evening but I might have to reduce the insulin again. To me this is all good news and what I am doing this for. I long for the day when I can say that I don’t need any insulin, even if that means taking tablets that I am not on now – I cant take Metformin, it gives me the runs…. seriously.

The only down side is the quarter of a pound I had lost seems to have crept back but still another day to go before weighing. Keep healthy everyone and keep on keeping on…

Oh, Sunshine Girl. ‘They like to be asked because it makes them feel important’. You’re so right. And there was me , thinking we were partners in my care….lol, lol.

It reminds me of when I staggered in 18 months ago, he asked me what was wrong and I said I thought I had a pulmonary embolism. (I’d had one before after an op, I’d just had an op, this felt the same, but worse.) The GP said ‘well, as I’ve had 12 years of medical training, I think I’ll be the judge of that.’ After a cursory glance, he told me I had a throat infection, advised me to take ibuprofen, and sent me on my way telling me not to return within 10 days.

That weekend, I collapsed, at home, was discovered quite by chance by a neighbour as my OH was away, blue lighted to hospital and told I had multiple clots and one in my heart the size of a fist. I was put into intensive care given a 5% chance of survival. ‘Notoriously difficult to diagnose’ said my GP. ‘And to be honest you got my back up by insisting you knew what was wrong. And you did have a throat infection AS WELL, so my diagnosis wasn’t wrong, strictly speaking’.

Note to self. Practice , ‘oh, woolly headed little me and my silly worries’ face. Doesn’t come naturally, it must be said… MKx

MK – change that note to self by putting on assertive confident face. When I spoke to my lovely doctor I said ‘right, this is what I am doing, you have seen my results and are happy with them but I am going to need your advice as to how I should continue with my medication. Should I reduce the insulin or the glicazides’ So I only gave him two choices, which meds to reduce. No chance for him to say stop the diet or eat more crap. His answer was ‘try to get off the insulin first’ to this I said, ‘yes but glicazide is notorious for causing very low BG so I think we need to keep an eye on that too’. I reversed our roles and it worked. He was aware that I had done my research and knew what I was talking about and he felt he was telling me what to do, although I was telling him what I was going to do anyway. I am the one in control. I know not all doctors are interested in our views but as you say, you have a role to play in your own treatment. Just remember we are the experts when it comes to our condition, we have researched and read up and made ourselves aware, doctors should be glad of that. Another thing I do is not talk about the BSD as a book or online forum, but about Prof Taylor and his research. I’ll stop there as I am on my soapbox.

Only joshing, SG. I can’t do weak and silly, (difficult anyway at 5’10 and 12 stone 10!). My default is quietly assertive and informed! My PE experience taught me not to struggle on until I was too weak to fight back!

Anyhow….bs stable at 5.2, no glicozide before lunch and I feel great. I think that’s called evidence based medicine… MKx

🙂

I’ve got to agree. I used the term “Newcastle Research” and that seemed to hit home with the GP as I guess it focusses on the medical side rather than the “media” side of BSD. I still don’t reckon my GP cares that much and in an ideal world would have me on Metformin, just in case.

Interestingly he seems to be far less convinced about Statins and actually said he opposed NIHCE’s decision to reduce the QRisk recommendation for Statins from 20 to 10 as he believes that it now just covers too many people.

I’ve said this before, but I’m reaching the age where repeating myself is expected, but you only have one health so you should decide what’s right and go with it, accepting help and opinion from the medical profession, but the responsibility and final decisions must be your own. I think a bit of context helps. GP’s are simply middle ranking civil servants.

Well said, Jules, my view exactly.
I’ve spent a bit of time this pm making notes of the things I want to raise and how I’ll frame them.
Interestingly when I first saw the more ‘helpful’ GP he mentioned the Prof’s research but said it was too hard a path for most. So he knew about it. However, he put on my notes in December ‘ask Mrs Kitten how she’s got her numbers down so quickly’. I told him and he seemed more convinced. And impressed. But obviously not on my notes if the locum’s response is anything to go by. MK x

Also, does anyone else get as cross as me to be described as ‘a diabetic’ ? I see this as a temporary state and I simply hate being labelled. Even though I know that technically, this is what I am….

So it should MK. It was always drummed into us nurses never to say ‘a diabetic/epileptic/any other disease’ but rather a person with diabetes/epilepsy etc. No one should be labelled by their health. Semantics to some, but I think it’s really important.

Don’t let the b*st*rds grid you down! 😀😀😀

Jules, I agree with what you say, quoting Prof Taylor is better than some diet fad that is going around. My doctor is also with yours on statins, when I moved to France I was on 60mg and nothing could bring my cholesterol down, they should have realised something else was going on and tested me for diabetes, I had all the symptoms but was diagnosed with stress and given antidepressants, which I threw in the bin. When I arrived in France doctor insisted I had full blood works (it is routine here for new patients, especially with no medical records to refer to). He discovered I have diabetes and also cut the statins to 40mg which is the max dose allowed in France. He has since cut to 20mg and would prefer me not to be on them at all due to my suffering from cramps – now my cholesterol is right down to 3.7.

However, we must remember that we have gained so much knowledge and carried out our own research. To be fair to doctors most patients don’t have a clue, don’t want to know and prefer the easy route of taking meds. Also, not many people with diabetes would be willing to give up their beloved chips and mash or a Chinese with sticky rice. My doctor said he could not ask a French person to go without their baguette.

MK yes I object to being called a diabetic, it is as if I am defined by that label. I read someone saying if I had haemorrhoids would I be called a haemorrhoid, a person who has had a heart attack is not called a cardiac and so on. I try to refer to myself in terms of the illness as a person who has diabetes, for now. When I say the ‘for now’ bit people look at me as if I have 2 heads. Hey Jules, on verra.

A haemorrhoid! Snort! Snort! Just spat my cinnamon tea over my keyboard. 😂😂😂

Maharani kitten – the dietician at the patients meeting last week said very much the same words – that it is too hard to do for most people.

So could it be that we have superhuman powers that enable us to succeed where everyone else fails? Actually I really doubt that. Of course you all may have superhuman powers but as a serial (or cereal) failed dieter I know this way of eating is just brilliant and reasonably easy to follow and to succeed with.

Just looking back at my notes and horrified to find that when I was first diagnosed I was taking 4 glicozide tablets a day. Now one is too much. 4 Metformin. Now 2 is enough. In 3 months. That seems like such a long time ago, though.
Note to self. Just look at how far you’ve come!! MKx

SSG – as ever, spot on. My Diabetes Nurse, who is a star, always says that she is amazed at the number of people who turn up with no interest in the condition and who just want a pill to make it all go away, or simply to fend it off and let them carry on as usual.

Y, como dices, ya veremos.

PS – If I get sock-puppeted again, I’m going to blame you ;).

Y como bien dices… might be a bit more natural. 🙂

Jules, i’m not down with the kids, what is sock-puppeted

It’s an internet forum phenomenon where posters pretend to be someone they’re not. It often manifests itself as posters creating new, multiple logins to make inappropriate or insulting posts. It’s generally seen as bad form. The give-aways tend to be a new poster whose first post doesn’t contribute to the discussions and is just provocative or insulting.

The idea is that the new login is just like an empty echo of the original poster.

It’s also expressly against this forum’s posting guidelines.

Just so’s we’re clear, I wasn’t the original sockpuppet. My remark above is only meant to be friendly.

Hi Snoop

I’d probably say “como ya dices”, but it sounds odd with the second “ya”. Then again I learnt my Spanish in Seville so I’d also do it in an impenetrable accent. 😉

The first time I went to Seville, I was totally flummoxed. Supposedly I spoke some Spanish but I couldn’t make head nor tail of what was being said.

The food’s good though and terribly BSD-friendly. The good thing is that if you subsequently go to the cities around Madrid with their “RP” pronunciation, their Spanish sounds so clear and slow.

So I’ve been on my fist run tonight, only did 2.5miles and took it really slowly but it’s a start. Have to say I felt much better for doing it. Not had the cravings tonight either. So a good day. Had a great lunch and dinner, have come in at 880 calls but 30 g carb so that’s near enough for me.

Good morning fellow challengers, I only started my personal four weeks on Saturday, but thought I’d give a quick update at my halfway point on the challenge official weighing day. I have three days of walking to report for my challenge of increasing my exercise, and two of them made over 10,000, the other one over 5,000 so really pleased with that. I have also started a new exercise of holding a plank for a minute every night which was recommended as a way of developing my core muscles. My weight is currently stable at my lowest weight since my honeymoon 25 years ago, 10 stone 13 pounds, which is now only two pounds away from my wedding weight and eight stone lost in two years. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like I will quite get there before my two years is up tomorrow morning so as I move into my third year I am now so close to my target, and hopefully getting to grips with my future way of life. Onwards and downwards.

Well done Mixnmatch.I find stories like yours very inspirational,you have stuck at it for 2 years!Eight stones is an amazing amount to lose,you must be looking fantastic!First weigh in and 5 pounds lost so pleased with that.My goals this week are to have 50g carbs a day,I was well over most days last week but kept pretty much to just over 800 calories.Also to do more exercise.I managed the gym twice last week and took the dog on longer walks but need to do better.Hope everyone can do well today and be motivated.

Mixnmatch, what a result. Eight stone is amazing. Thanks for the inspiration. I feel like I’m doing really slowly, so it’s good to hear other people’s stories.

I checked in earlier, but my post seems to have got lost in the ether. Sorry if this ends up as a double post:

Weight: 78.4 kg
Down: 1.4 kg over the week, but some of this isn’t for real as I’m pretty sure my starting weight was a false high.
Total loss: 10.8 kg

I seem to have made it through day one back on the wagon, assuming I keep my mouth shut until bedtime! But I have been so hungry all day.

I saw two (unrelated) news items today; firstly that the Med diet also helps relieve depression – diet was more effective than support groups – and secondly that Australia has just had its hottest January (summer here) on record.

Epic fail yesterday as I devoured 11 Hotel Chocolat chocolates in the space of about 5 minutes. I didn’t even enjoy them – it started when I thought I would have a small slice of birthday cake that someone had brought in to the office – when I got to the canteen it had all gone but then I was on a mission – they were the only thing I had. I should have just had one but I basically shoved them down without even thinking about them – it was disgusting – literally. I felt horrible both physically and emotionally and now I just feel sad that, after 4 and a half months and nearly 2 stone, I appear to have learned nothing.

I’m not worried about the weight, it’s how easy it was to just plonk myself in the road in front of the wagon and let it run me over…..

Hi Natalie,
I just saw the very end of that story on the med diet and depression, wish I had caught the whole thing! How great more and more benefits are being recognised though.

Topcac, maybe you should see the chocolate debacle as a win – you got straight back on track afterwards and thats the difference between you now and 4 1/2 months ago!
It’s awful how you feel at the time ( or straight after, I know, I did something similar with chips and wine the other night!!) but considering the huge physical and mental transformation we are undergoing, it’s going to be balanced out pretty quickly and I think it’s great you didn’t let the wagon circle back and hit you again!!

Oh Topcac, I feel your pain. Moderation is such an alien concept to me too, it’s either abstinence or full blown stuff my face. I’m sorry you feel sad, but as Inka13 says, it would only be an epic fail if you just thought ‘sod it’ and carried on. You haven’t done that, so chin up. It’s hard to accept that maybe we can never just have the odd bit of chocolate now and again. I know some people can, just as some can take or leave smoking, for example. But some of us just can’t.

Be kind to yourself, you would be to one of us if we had done the same.