I am new to this….indeed today was my first day. Felt quite light headed when I was gardening earlier but that passed. After an evening meal I found I was missing my sweet treat but I am sure that is largely habit and hopefully that craving will disappear too. Although I am not diabetic I could benefit from losing a few pounds. My intention was to be quite strict during the week and then relax a bit at the weekends. I thought this would make entertaining and eating out easier. Does any have any experience or thoughts on this?

In my experience, what happens when you relax at the weekend is you waste the whole of the week you have been dieting. My own example is last Friday weighed in with a 1.5 lb loss from Tuesday, very happy with that so decided on Sunday I could have a couple of glasses of wine. Okay, that doesn’t sound like too much, weigh in on Tuesday gained 1.5 lb, not an extra 1lb but the 1.5 lb I had spent Tuesday to Friday losing. So, although I had maintained my previous weeks weight I had just wasted all my hard work and effort.

It probably is just habit and as a non-diabetic you will not have the motivation to lose the needles and drugs from your life so maybe you can afford to let go, but do you really want to ruin the plan. Give it a go, it really does work when you stick to it.

I have been doing this plan for just over 9 months so have done the Fast 800 throughout that time with the occasional week off the calorie count but I never go back to eating carbs or sweet treats. During the first 8 weeks on the plan I had no increase in cals and no alcohol at all and lost 50% of my total desired weight loss so a very good start for the future.

Hi Spammie, and welcome.

I’m afraid I’m with sunshine-girl on this one. One benefit, I have found, is that this way of eating re-educates your palate and you lose the taste for starchy, sweet things. Obviously, if you end up having them at the weekend, this process will not happen, so you may always struggle with cravings.

It’s actually quite hard work persuading your body to shift from burning carbs to burning fat, so once in full ketosis, why risk confusing your body and going backwards? And trust me, it is a lot easier to gain the weight than to lose it again – for example, I went away to a hotel for a two night break a couple of weeks ago (so much the same as a “weekend”)., relaxed and ate what was on the menu (though I avoided all obvious refined carbs and skipped lunch completely), drank some wine with dinner, and managed to put on 1lb 9oz That 1lb 9oz took me a full 7 days to shift!

Like sunshine-girl, in my first 8 weeks I resisted all extra carbs / cals and alcohol and lost 65% of my desired weight loss. I am now halfway through my second round and, whilst much slower, the pounds are still going and I am fast approaching my target weight. If I hadn’t “relaxed” for a couple of days I would, in fact, already have reached it.

Obviously, we have to live our lives, and I would never advocate not going away or enjoying an evening out and having the occasional “treat” but, in my opinion, to do it every weekend would be self-defeating if you are serious about losing weight.

It is obviously up to you to decide, and you could try it your way for a couple of weeks and if it works for you, fine, and there may be others on this forum who are doing it your way reasonably successfully. But if it’s not working, and you really want to lose weight, I suggest that you do BSD800 full time for at least the first 8 weeks. Good luck whatever you decide, and please keep us posted – we are here to help.

It is not quite the same but for the month before my 8 weeks at 800 calories I ‘practiced’ by doing 800 calories on weekdays and 1600 calories (estimated TDEE at the time) at the weekends including a couple of glasses of wine. Weigh-in after the last fast day only officially, so was Saturday morning for me, to get yourself at the same state every week, and I lost about 10-12 pounds in the month fairly steadily, I still had about three stone to go at the time, and lost most of the rest during the 8 weeks immediately afterwards, although with a full weekend off in between.

The important thing for me was to keep logging as best as I could even while allowing myself the latitude, and using intermittent fasting if a really indulgent day was planned, so one meal only that day, stay firm on avoiding the white stuff including sugary desserts, and enjoy life. It is horses for courses, but I can’t be the only person this has worked for. As long as you keep clear of the white stuff you should manage to maintain your fat burning adaptations and not reset back to square one.

Thanks everyone for your help and advice. I have considered how I am going to run with this. I am not diabetic and only have about a stone to lose (I would be ecstatic if I lost 1.5 stone!). My main reason for trying the BSD was to try and eliminate the lethargy I was experiencing if I ate too much bread or pasta and also to try and improve overall health.
In the past I haven’t eaten a huge amount of meat protein so I know that will be a challenge. I took the lettuce cups with what was essentially Waldorf salad in to work today…it was hard going. Anyway I have decided to stick to it during the week then relax a little at the weekends. I won’t go bonkers…no croissants or chocolate eggs but the thought of a weekend without gin or wine is too dreary to contemplate. I have sent off for a couple of cook books and if after a couple of weeks I haven’t lost any weight then I’ll have a rethink.
Incidentally, even if I decided to continue strictly to the regime at weekends, how does one deal with weddings, eating out either at friends or restaurants and entertaining at home?
Thanks again for your replies. I do appreciate them even if it appears I have ignored a lot of the advice…it made me focus and consider why I was doing this and what I was aiming to achieve.

My preference for occasions where I am eating out or entertaining is extending intermittent fasts around them so they are the main focus of my eating day, then I have found I can be relatively indulgent with minimal damage to either adaptations or weight loss. If an evening meal just stick to tea/coffee/miso soup or bouillon etc. until the evening and then just try to limit the white stuff. If lunch, fast afterwards instead. This has worked very well for me, and fasting like this is something I have carried into maintenance.

Agree, Mix, it’s about balancing things out for special occasions. There’s also something about trying to curb a sense of entitlement when others around you are troughing down the carbs. You’re not exactly missing out when you say no to cake and the like. I think Spammie’s issue is with a weekend tipple! With summer coming on, could you think about long, carb free and refreshing drinks, just for the 8 week induction? Dieting gin drinkers of my acquaintance have a long ‘G&T’ that’s a lot of ice, a lot of tonic and a gin- soaked finger stroked round the top of the glass…you smell it, taste it, but don’t ingest it…. Mkx

Wow Maharani kitten! I’m going to try the dieters Gin and Tonic, Easter weekend when I’ve got a house full of gin drinkers! Another thought, I could smell the bottle occasionally!, lol!

Another gin observation, tonic water, even the slimline stuff is far too sweet for me now, so if I want a long actual gin rather than a dieters one I just have a measure of gin in soda water. In between drinks can be just soda water as well, helping hydration as well as being calorie free. (And in many pubs actually free as well).

Another gin treat which I used midweek before starting this diet. I take a piece of cinnamon, a couple of star anise, 3 or 4 green cardamom pods, 6-8 juniper berries and 6-8 black peppercorns. bash them all about a bit with a pestle & mortar. Put it all into a small sauce pan with a bit of water. Simmer it for a few minutes. Cool it and strain it and then use it to flavour tonic water. You can’t fool yourself you are drinking gin but it still tastes quite nice. I’ll be trying the finger in the gin trick too.

That does sound nice, I will definitely give that a try.