WooHoooo Shanshu, what an amazing achievement. 🙂 You must feel as though you are walking on air 🙂 Huge congratulations, doing the happy dance for you 🙂 🙂 🙂

Shanshu, you go girl GO!!!! Wow! The power of US. We can choose how we want to be and then just do it. I am so impressed.

Amazing effort Shanshu.

You have indeed aced your exams. and you are an inspiration to us all.

My next blood test is in 6 weeks and I am very much hoping that I will get results as positive as yours.

I am inching my way towards a 3 stone loss ( 2 – 3 lbs to go), although two separate corporate away day style events I have had to attend recently have made this harder for me. That said, I now have a pretty clear run up to the blood test, so I hope to be well past the 3 stone lost mark and into safe blood sugar levels by the time I take the test.

Anyway, once again, well done, amazing job.

Cheers,

Heaphster

Thank you everyone.

I haven’t had the best week in terms of being good. A mix of celebration of my blood test news and work stress and plain circumstance has led me to not remotely stick to 800. Most days have been 1000 if not more but they have all been allowed foods (except half a poppadom on Sunday when I was down). In addition, due to injury I’ve stopped my workouts this week.

My weight has maintained (well has actually dropped a lb but maybe that’s muscle wasting away (?) but I am away this weekend so I’m not hopeful that will remain.

However I am resolved to try to get back on target on Monday even though I’m away with business for a couple of nights and then am away camping over Easter. So it might be that I only go back to 800 on some days. Sunday and Monday perhaps and then try to keep low for the remaining days. *sigh* I don’t want it to go too long but I also feel that taking a little break from the low calories (not the low carbs) is not a bad thing in the long run.

But I also worry that I’m letting old habits of snacking creep back in so I need to watch that.

Good luck for the next few days everyone – I’ll probably be out of contact for awhile. Heaphster – my fingers are crossed for you and anyone else looking for good blood results 🙂

Poppadoms are less damaging than most contraband as they are usually chick pea flour. Don’t worry about a week or so of higher calories, it should still be possible for you to be burning fat, if your carbs are really low then you have to be.

Hi Shanshu
Don’t worry, your muscles will not be wasting away. The body chooses glucose first, then the fat in your body or fat that you eat and only if you are completely starving (and I’m talking about prisoners of war starving) that the body would turn to muscle for energy (and then only after it converted any protein you eat to glucose first through a process called gluconeogenisis).

Also, I agree with Mixnmatch, so long as you are keeping your carbs low, a few extra calories won’t derail you too much.

You’ll be fine😀
Cheers
Linda

Hi everyone.

Good news…. I have finally crossed the 3 stone weight loss barrier 🙂 😉 🙂

I am now 16 st 12.5lb and I haven’t been 16 stone something for about 15 – 20 years.

I have also gone through my wardrobe today and jettisoned lots of clothes that are now way too big for me and have replaced them with clothes that fit, or which are slightly tight, so I have something to shrink into. I have also dug out tee-shirts and tops that I have not worn in years, but which now fit me, or are even baggy. Again, this is all about trying to encourage me to keep going and it’s working!!

As I have had some pretty work disrupted dieting weeks over the last few weeks, I have dropped back onto the 800 calorie diet and it seems to be working its magic again.

I have also just started to try out the resistance training and HIT training mentioned in the BSD book, as a way to burn calories and keep my metabolism rate up. I have to say that the HIT training was a lot harder than I thought it would be and the description that Dr Mosley gives of grunting and groaning during the high-intensity minute of exercise is spot on.

My exercise bike has a range up to 12 and I barely got to 5 before I thought my legs would drop off, so I have plenty of room for improvement 🙂

All in all, I have had a pretty good week and I hope that upping my exercise and sticking with 800 calories will keep the weight coming off at a good rate.

Next target is my blood test in mid-May, when I hope to be at 16 stone or below. Fingers crossed!!

Cheers everyone. I hope you are all also doing well.

Heaphster

Fly by celebratory dance for Heaphster – well done!! That’s fabulous.

My next week and a half are going to be disruptive for the diet because I am away with work and then on holiday so I’m being realistic with myself about what I can achieve. So…

Today = 800
Tues – Thurs = As near to 800 cals as possible (given that I’m in a hotel and working at a hospital so food options are limited)
Fri – Mon = No calorie counting as on holiday BUT try to keep off high carb food (although I may drink alcohol). Will try not to succumb to Easter Egg.

Hopefully I’ll be able to maintain current weight *crosses fingers*

I don’t know if I’ll be on until after Easter – I’ll let you know how it goes.

Well done Heaphster. Getting rid of the big clothes is so enjoyable.

Good luck Shanshu for the next week or so.

My last week has not been brilliant due to too many social activities. I actually put on weight, although only 200 grams, for the first time since I started. I am trying not to let it get me down, while bracing myself for the next week. We have more social activities revolving around food coming up and we are going to a music festival for 4-5 days. It will be hard. I hope to at least maintain.

Hi everybody!!
Apologies for not posting for several weeks. I finished the 8-week BSD on the 28th March and since then have eased up and hadn’t been weighed for 3 weeks at WeightWatchers until earlier this evening. Despite eating chocolate, drinking too much Prosecco and eating stodge this weekend, my gain for the 3 weeks since finishing my first 8-week BSD is just half a pound! I’m so happy about this and so relieved.
I am starting my second 8-week BSD today, doing it properly. I have good motivation – going to Portugal with friends in just under 9 weeks’ time on the 18th June.
I lost 20lb first time round, and hope to do the same this second time.
Nancy x

Hi Shanshu
Just read your blood test results – well done, fantastic achievement.
Nancy x

My next fasting blood test will be 12th June at the end of this second 8-week stint of the BSD.
Nancy x

Hey Nancy – well done on maintaining. I don’t think I have over the last two weeks but I’m back on diet as of today too and plan another 8 weeks of 95% being on diet (I have business trips and holidays and my bday in that time but feel I can be faithful to the plan throughout most of it).

I don’t want to lose all my hard work.

Hi all,
Well done on keeping on keeping on.

I survived Easter and, more importantly, the music festival. It was very hard- so much lovely festival food, so many places to listen to music and drink wine, or cider, or Guinness. I tried really hard to eat BSD and did, apart from the first night. I did crack on the wine though. Definitely a glass or two here and there. Luckily there was lots of walking to get from our campsite to the festival and then to the different venues, and I did Zumba classes on two mornings. The result – did not put on any weight!!!!! I am so happy.

I have the next week and a half with various food challenges before I can get back to the BSD uninterrupted. Our anniversary and then both my parents birthdays. I am going to try for maintenance or just losing a smidgen. Something is better than nothing.

Thanks all for your company on this journey.

Hi all,

3 weeks since my last post, sorry I have been so rubbish at keeping in touch 🙁

Those of us still going on all seem to be progressing still, which is great.

I am now 16 stone 5lb, so I have now lost 51lbs, so I am now 16 stone 5l.75lb. My friends are all amazed by the weight loss and continue to be encouraging. The weight loss has undoubtedly slowed down, while staying on the straight and narrow continues to be a challenge (especially at social events where I find my willpower reserves seem to have run dry)9, but my weight continues to creep downwards at about 2 – 3 lbs a week.

As I have mentioned before, this has also encouraged my wife, daughter and brother to follow elements of the diet and between us we have lost an amazing 9 stone!!! Let’s hope we all manage to keep most of it off.

I have 3 weeks to B-Day, ie when I have my follow up blood test and I hope to do as well as Shanshu. My aim is to be 16 stone by then, which would be 4 stone down; a 20% weight loss from where I started. Here’s hoping anyway.

I have upped my exercise, walking around 5 miles a day when I am working in London, using a treadmill, exercise bike and the strength exercises in the book and I think they are helping, although I have never much enjoyed doing gym exercises. They certainly can’t be doing me any harm, that’s for sure.

So anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I am still following the BSD and that it’s encouraged others to do the right thing as well.

I’ll definitely tell you how the blood tests, etc go.

Good luck to all of you,

Heaphster

Hi everybody!
I’m still trying to follow the rules, but finding it harder this second round of the 8-week BSD. Been good today, steak with wholegrain mustard with broccoli and carrots this evening.
Haven’t been weighed for a couple of weeks – will post again when I’ve been to WeightWatchers.
Nancy x

Hey all – I just wanted to say that I was still here and to show support to those still pressing ahead.

I’m on a bit of a break at the moment. -birthday, work trips, leisure trips making being strict either difficult or undesirable.

I have tried to stay on the Med diet but today I’ve been off the rails (at a funeral for a friend who died suddenly and must admit I’ve been comfort eating.

I am out of the U.K. on holiday for a week as of tomorrow. 50% of which will be in the med so I will try to be good although not calorie counting. Then when I get back I’m going to reapply myself.

I’m so glad to hear from you all and to have company on the longer journey. Reading your posts really helps me stick to the BSD. I am about 900 grams from my main goal, so hopefully by the end of next week, or the week after, I might achieve it. I am a slow loser although I am ramping up the walking to 12 km per day, which should help.

Heapster, well done on your progress and on inspiring others.
NancyB, we all have those dips where it is hard to follow the rules. Just keep on thinking about your holiday in Portugal. I hope your weigh in helps.
Shanshu, have a fun holiday and hopefully we will hear from you when you return.

Dear all,

Well tomorrow’s the day of the blood test results. Fingers crossed!!! (Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun 🙂 )

Weight wise in the last 3 weeks I have dropped another half a stone, so this morning I weighed 15 stone 12lb, a total loss so far of 4 stone 2lb or 58 pounds. I gave myself a target of being 16 stone for when I received my blood test results and I have managed to achieve this.

I have been really struggling to eat well every day, but the majority of my new low carb habits are sticking.

One area where I have had some real success is to up my exercise, so on a good day I am managing around 12,000 steps. Then at least 3 times a week I visit my mini gym (in a shed at the top of my garden), where I have an exercise regime using free weights, the strength exercises from the BSD book, 25 – 30 mins treadmill based fast walking wearing ankle weights and then around 25 – 30 mins on an exercise bike (I cover between 15km – 20km and include 3 X 1 minute “HIT” fast peddling bursts, again as based on the book.) On days like today I get very, very hot and bothered, but I also get fitter and firmer (body / spare skin wise anyway).

Anyway, I will let you know what the blood tests show. Hopefully I will have reversed T2D…… then downwards to 15 stone and onto a 5:2 maintenance plan.

It would be great to hear how you have all been doing. Please let us know.

All the best,

Heaphster

Hi Heaphster – my fingers are crossed for you. With that amazing weight loss I’m sure you will see positive results and if you have cut down your carbs then this will reflect in your blood sugar results as there is less sugar to process.

Plus all that exercise will have had a brilliant effect on your BP and cholesterol (assuming these were high).

I have been struggling over the last month. Holidays, bday parties and ridiculous work levels etc have taken their toll and exercise has diminished down to just walking. My weight has stayed roughly the same but I have probably lost a bit of muscle and gained fat instead.

For the last week I’ve tried to get back on diet and keep cheating. I’m quite angry with myself actually. I’m having a photo taken with an actor at a convention on Sat and wanted to be a lot more svelte than I am. I’m hoping that seeing the photo will surge me forward to getting back to good habits.

Will be thinking of you today Heaphster – I expect you will be thrilled with the results and a huge congratulations on the weight loss.

Hi everyone,

Well it was crunch time for me at the doctor’s late last week, with my post 3 months on the BSD blood test results coming in at last;

My Serum cholesterol level had dropped to a vey healthy 3.9, while the doctor recorded a 20+ kilo drop in weight since the last time I had seen her, which frankly amazed her.

But most important was the drop in my HbA1c numbers;

My first blood test back in late January recorded a reading of 59, way over the “diabetic border” of anything over 48 = diabetic.

Just under 2 weeks into the blood sugar diet, in the 2nd week of Feb, that number had dropped to 54, so still diabetic, but going in the right direction. At that appointment my doctor set me a target of getting under 48 in 3 months and preferably below 42, which is the “pre-diabetic” borderline.

My HbA1c reading at my appointment on the 25th May, was an amazing 29 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 My doctor said that she had never seen someone record such a large drop in the HbA1c numbers, or lose as much weight as I had in 3 months.

Quite honestly I believe the Blood Sugar Diet has saved my life and spared me from the terrible impacts and damage to my health that diabetes would have brought.

I am not “out of the woods” however, as my doctor wants to see me for follow up blood tests at 6 monthly intervals. If I generate 3 HbA1c readings in the less than 42, (in the non diabetic range) then I will be dropped from her diabetic patient records. She would then offer to run a blood test annually for me, to keep me focussed.

In addition to this I still have at least another stone to lose. So having had a few days off to enjoy my results, I will be “back on the wagon” from Monday, with a target of losing another stone in the next month.

I will keep you posted on my progress. Many, many thanks for your posts, useful diet and food tips and support over the last 3 months, they have meant a lot to me and I am sure to the others reading this blog.

I feel great and in control of my own body for the first time in 20 years and I am not going to mess it up again.

All the best,

Heaphster

Wow Heaphster, congratulations on your success! Thank you for posting your results as your story is inspirational!

Congratulations Heaphster. What great news for you and your health.

Congratulations Heaphster that is brilliant news. Your doctor sounds great too!

Heaphster – that’s brilliant. And excellent motivation for me. Next bloods in 2 months – I want to lose another stone by then and have even better bloods.

Congratulations – you have worked really hard for this and the results have rewarded that exceptional hard work 🙂

Fantastic Heaphster, what a great effort!

Good luck everyone else with the journey.

I am still 500 grams away from my original goal and creeping towards it like a snail. Still, I have just weathered a most stressful family event over the last two weeks without putting on weight and only having one or two glasses of wine through the whole thing. I stuck to the BSD principles which really helped. I suppose my diet was the only thing I felt in control of so maybe that helped.

Hi everybody!
Since finishing the 8 week BSD at the end of March and losing 20lb, I have found it very difficult to get back into it. I’m trying again to start another 8 week regime. But I was weighed this Tuesday at WeightWatchers and I am delighted that I have only put back on just the 1lb which is remarkable.
So I’m trying again.
Well done Heaphster, a fabulous result, an inspiration to all of us.
Nancy x

Hi everybody – where are you all????
I’ve started another 8 week BSD on the 6th July and have started another thread: Starting today 6th July – anybody like to join me???
After six days I have lost 4.5lb which I’m pleased with.
Would love to hear how everyone is getting on.
Nancy x