Am completely new to this concept and not yet diagnosed with type 2diabetes but am sure must be well on the way…2 and a halt stone overweight and most of it on my tummy area…aaaargh! I intend to try the 5:2 bsd until after Xmas and then convert to the 8week 800 BSD. Can anyone give me tips on starting out in terms of some of the hurdles and how to overcome? Be so grateful, and need all the support I can get!

For 5:2 the best way is to realise that you will have to cut out the bad carbs on all days, and not just the fast days. This may not be totally attainable around Christmas, but if you have a party or something with contraband carbs just go straight back to a fast day afterwards. Try to keep all carbs down below 50g for faster weight loss, but this won’t be easy at all on non fast days so have an upper limit as well, I used 80g as my upper limit, with 40g as my Fast day target. Track all days including the 5 and try to keep your calories on all days below your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) which is your basal metabolic rate plus calories burnt by activity. On fast days, don’t adjust for activity.

Thank you so much for this help…the first thing I need to do is to get my head around grams….I am still working in lbs and ozs….so a good lesson for me to start on today,! These tips are very useful, and although With Xmas coming up I want to use the time before to practisce the concept before starting rigidly after Xmas. If anyone else is starting out now let me know and we can support each other!

28 grams to an ounce, so 2 oz of carbs on good days and 3 oz on others.

Thank you…is there a table anywhere to find out the carb content of foods?

There are several online, I use CRON-O-METER which is free, and you can log everything you eat, with the proviso that it is an American site so set up using all carbs not net carbs. I have set it up to show net carbs, after fibre has been subtracted, but if you add uk food you have to add the fibre on first before adding the food.