Hi All,

I am brand new! I began on the 2nd January 2017. I had used information from the website Diet Doctor Low Carb Challenge in the first week to kick off whilst I waited for the official LBSD hand book and recipe book to come through the post. The Diet Doctor information has helped me to loose 4lbs in my first week. I am hoping the new recipes and information from official LBSD books will help me continue to loose the lbs!

I have Questions if anyone could help me please?

Question – Do I need to follow the weekly meal plans provided in the main book “The 8 Week Blood Sugar Diet” exactly to the letter or can I pick and choose which meals I want to eat?? (as long as I stick to the 800 calorie limit)

Ideally I would love to be in control of my own weekly meal plan purely to keep my costs down, dieting can be expensive and I am on a low food/life budget!

Thank you in advance! Good luck on your weight loss journeys 🙂
Libby

Hey Libbyohno – firstly welcome onboard. Secondly, sounds like you have made a good start – well done. And thirdly, you do not need to stick to the meal plans rigidly, you can pick and choose and even go off menu and create meals of your own design. The key to the BSD is keep the cals and carbs low, so as long as you calculate and record what you are consuming, that’s all you need to do. So limit your calories to 800 daily and watch the carbs – most of us aim for 50g or less a day.

Check out the recipe section on the website, as there are lots of meal options on there as well and of course, there are lots of low carb cook books out there too. Really, if you think in terms of a protein source and plenty of green veggies as main meals you won’t go far wrong.

Good luck for continued success and we’ll look forward to reading your positive results soon.

Thank you SunnyB for the helpful information!

I have been browsing through Amazon looking for Keto cook books/ LBS cookbooks – I want to try a few recipes from the official LBSD book first though. Specifically breakfasts for “on the move” as this is the biggest fail of my day. I don’t want to use up over half of my Carb allowance on porridge each morning. Can you recommend any ‘No Cook’ low carb options?

I made one of the porridge recipes today for an at work breakfast (generally around 10am) for 210cal / 34gCarbs. Then the Roasted Pepper and Hummus salad for 190cal / 10gCarbs for lunch.

My Partner is trying to support me which is lovely but he is cooking a Bacon, Mushroom, Spinach and Mozzarella Omelette for dinner and I only have 6g carbs left!

I intend to also download the “MyFitnessApp” I have seen discussed on the forums later. Counting Carbs and Calories is quite confusing for me as I am rubbish at maths. Keep thinking I am doing great on calories then realising mt carbs are way ups ha ha !

Looking forward to another loss!!
Libby 🙂

The ultimate no cook low carb breakfast most of us keep coming back to is full fat Greek style yoghurt with berries. I sometimes jazz it up a little by stirring a teaspoon of cinnamon in or cocoa powder, but this is one i never get tired of. There are so many variations I can’t imagine running out of inspiration. I have used fresh figs, cocoa nibs and pine nuts as well, it feels really decadent if you get creative, almost more like a dessert.

Yes the yogurt breakfast is my fall back breakfast, as there is so much that can be added to it to ring the changes. When I have time at the w/e, I swap to an egg and a rasher of bacon or smoked salmon for breakfast. Yogurt is amazingly versatile and the BSD is a great excuse to make spices your friends, as they add loads of flavour for no cals/carbs.

You would probably have been okay with the bacon, mushroom, spinach and mozzarella omelette, but you probably don’t want to hear that right now!

Libby – I am rubbish at maths also and couldn’t do the BSD without an app – I use fat secret and enter my food every morning. I don’t follow the meal plans but have adapted our normal meals plus pick and choose recipes from the books and the website.

I agree with Mixnmatch that you can be very creative with Greek style yoghurt.

I am afraid that SunnyB was right about the omelette — actually it probably would have been a perfect low carb meal.

Hiya ! I started bsd yesterday and like you am on a budget.
I am looking to picking out meals that I fancy from the bsd recipe books and including some of my own or from other recipe books like Anthony Worrall Thompson’s essential diabetes cookbook…
Got to be ok to mix and match as long as you keep to 800 and low carb and easy on the bread. My only concern is getting enough daily protein …..

Hi bal17

I tend to just amend my normal meals to meet my calorie target (aiming for 800, achieving around 900) and less than 50g of carb. Mixing and matching is important as I believe you need to like what you’re eating for this to be sustainable. Personally I ditched completely the bread, rice, pasta etc. as fitting them into the carb limit just isn’t worth the hassle.

Hope this helps and good luck.

where does this carb limit come from? I don’t remember it being in the book – I don’t remember there being a figure in it all. I could have forgotten though!

toby, I don’t think there is a level for carbs but if you put all your food into an app to reach the 800 cals with non starchy carbs you will find that it comes out at between 40 and 70 carbs. Some people have looked at what they eat and the balance of proteins calories etc and have set a median target of 50 grams of carbs. Some go lower, which I find too difficult to plan for and have to cut out too many things, as if the diet isn’t strict enough. When I started I only worked on the menu plans, tweaking for things I didn’t like or things I cannot buy, and kept to the 800 calories. Doing that you will find the carbs take care of themselves. I think when weight loss slows down people try to do some adjusting to speed it up and it seems cutting carbs below 50, say to 30 is helpful. As I said, under 50g is too low for me but you will find your own balance.

I think if you were to ask a non BSD nutritionist how many carbs to eat each day you would be told between 150 and 300 g depending on lots of things. As diabetics we have found that the high carb theory is completely wrong and possibly the cause of most of our problems and we have discovered this new way of eating.

I am currently doing a course on the Science of Nutrition and just read that the recommended intake of carbohydrate is 260 grams per day. I know my nutritionist told me to eat at least 5 starchy carbs per day, equal to 300 grams because diabetics are better having very high blood sugar than low, shoot me now – I maybe I should have shot her as my HbA1c prior to her advice was 5.7 and 3 months later was 11.3. That is why I am now on this diet and in 6 months back down to 5.9.

Jeepers – 260g of carb is an awful lot – that’s about 10oz. Is that for an average adult?

JM, It does not say it is different but it does say it is the referenced average so I suppose that can be variable depending on male, female, height, body mass etc etc. Log onto FutureLearn.com and do the course, it is amazing that they still spout the same traditional nonsense as every even though it is widely disputed by many sources. Read the recommendations of Public Health Collaboration UK (www.phcuk.gov.uk), even NICE admit they have got it wrong but claim it would be too expensive to retrain all medical people into the new thinking. I say just buy them MM’s book.

SG – you’re absolutely right. Even if they acknowledged that there were different theories or approaches it would be a start.

As a larger individual – (what we refer to as a Big Fat B*gger), if the 260 was an average I reckon I should be considering 300+ grams of carb – I can’t even contemplate the idea of eating that level of carb now.

I read the PHCUK document on eating fat and cutting carbs for diabetics and it all made a lot of sense. The only bit I would take exception to, is the section on exercise, which sounds a bit disingenuous, as there is a growing body of evidence that exercise and new muscle increases insulin sensitivity. Also, and it’s a personal thing, but the sensationalist style of the non-specific allegations of collusion between the food industry and academia does the valid messages in the document a real disservice.

Hi All!

I have been reading the thread with my phone and all the comments and replies have been so helpful, thank you all very much!

I used my day off yesterday to go through the book and do some shopping. I emptied my cupboards of Slimming World paraphernalia (most processed carbs and pasta etc.) then restocked with LBSD essentials. I know we cannot post photos here but I will be documenting my diet on Instagram if anyone uses the app I would love to follow you – I am better with visuals!! My name is hellosallybearface.

I batched cooked the Roasted pepper and Butternut Squash Soup at 150cal/22gcarb per portion (Makes 4 portions), Easy Bolognese sauce at 170cal/5g Carb per portion (Makes 6), Chicken Satay at 460cal/10g carb per portion (makes 2) and lastly Stuffed Red Peppers at 120cal/10g Carbs per potion (makes 1 Portion in the book but I doubled up to make 2)

As a bonus and to keep motivated I weighed myself this morning and I have lost more weight, making my total since the 2nd January around 6.5lbs I think?! Starting weight 15st 10.lb – Current Weight 15st 3 1/2 lbs

WOO! 🙂 Libby

I found the recipe book really good, and during my 8 week diet tried a lot of the recipes and never got bored. The risotto using bulgar wheat was a favourite, and I still cook it regularly since I’ve completed the 800 calorie diet, and now on the 5:2 one.

The diet certainly worked for me, I lost about 2.5 Stone in 3 months and I just got my blood test back from the GP and my blood sugar level is back to normal – it was 7.1 after fasting before I started the diet.

Thanks….I am trying to fit my normal meals into this diet minus bread/rice/pasta. But I tried some Konjac noodles by barenaked -;just 8 cals and virtually carb free. Expensive ( am on tight budget ) but worth it when you crave something more without pushing calories at all…I used them in a tofu stir fry with pepper…very yummy 290 calories. …

Yes Bal17 but dont they taste awful and slimy…. There are lots of things you can have instead that are really nice. Tonight we had a roast chicken dinner, hubby had mashed potato and I had mashed celeriac with horseradish sauce. Sometimes I have mashed cauliflower with mustard, so many things. It is a bit like a vegetarian eating meat substitutes like processed vegi burgers when you can make lovely bean burgers. Don’t look for substitues, look for different.

Some konjac noodles are better than others. I find the very thin ones or the transparent ones are better than the others. I got some mixed seafood from the Chinese supermarket and some XO sauce (watch out, there is a cheaper high carb version) and added Chinese lettuce to the mix. They certainly hit the spot when you want something filling