After dabbling with 5:2 on a couple of occasions with limited success and after previously studying the Newcastle Uni paper and deciding the chance of me sustaining a diet base on shakes was NIL I decided to apply the principles of a simplified version of 800+.
As I generally cant be bothered (an don’t particularly understand) Carbohydrate, Protein, and all the other bits, I thought it better to leave it to someone else, Enter ‘Balanced for You’ meals sold by a famous retailer of ladies fashion (not sure if I am allowed to name company on here) Using these meals as the mainstay of my 800 calories per day which I consumed in a single meal once a day normally around 4:30 pm effectivley fasting 24 hours between meal week days and having two meal per day weekends totalling 1200 calories per day ensuring a min of 16 hours between dinner Saturday and breakfast Sunday.
I started on Monday Jan 7th and had my six month diabetes blood check on 6th March with the following results:
Weight reduction since last diabetes check 13.5 kg
HbA1c level at previous check 50, HbA1c level now 40 (having not taken my Metformin for 1 month before the blood test)
All other blood test criteria “Normal”
and am only 3 kilo from BMI classification of overweight rather than the historic obese/morbidly obese classification 🙂

Hello Spider Mills, as I have just said to another poster, this is your diet and you can do it any way that makes it work for you. Obviously, if you are posting on this site you are doing some form of BSD or Fast800 but there are variations like the Med diet, 5:2, intermittent fasting and time restricted eating. The meals you mention are not generally recommended on this site but it that is what helps you then go ahead – just dont advertise. There is a difference between someone like you just mentioning something – and you could have put it in the Resources thread – and someone trying to seriously push something we can tell they are trying to sell.

The original Newcastle study used meal replacement shakes because Prof Taylors patients had all undergone stomach reducing surgery and were not able to eat solid food. His shakes were perfectly balanced with all the nutrients, minerals, vitamins etc needed and these people were under close medical supervision, many of them still in a hospital situation. On this site most of use chose to cook and produce our own meals. For me it gives a good variety of real food choices. If for some reason you are not able to do this then shakes, meal replacements, ready meals that have been well calculated, whatever you chose and works for you is a good thing. Do check the nutrition panel and make sure to count the carbs / sugars – deducting the fibre content, look at the calories, what are the sugars used, sugar has so many names, lactose, sucrose, maltose, fructose, to name just a few. Are artificial sweeteners used, what about the fat content. Are there trans fats (banned in a lot of countries) which can creep into ready meals. Anyway, it seems to be working for you and well done in getting your HbA1c down to normal levels and ditching the meds. Good luck.

Dear sunshine-girl
Thanks for your constructive advise and words of encouragement. Whilst I realise ‘balanced ready meals’ may not ideal, as someone who can burn water when cooking and whose wife is disabled their use has proved a godsend in the initial phase of the diet and the improvements in all the health indicators at my recent diabetes check.
Again thanks for your guidance which I have gladly taken on board.
PS Started in very tight 40 inch waist jeans but today wearing my new very comfortable 36inch waist jeans, wondering if I could have got into a pair of 34 inch 😉 🙂