Hello all; this is me from my profile:
Nearly 60. “Nearly” diabetic [2 x 48 HbA1c, very recent readings] after recurring virus/bacterial infection. I’ve decided its temporary and to use BSD to reverse it. Always believed in exercise and eating well but not too ‘excessively’. Having re-watched the documentary and read the book I realise I was carb ignorant and that my protruding belly, on an otherwise fit body, told its own story.

I’ve practised over the last 4 days and I think the BSD calorie reduction approach is achievable. I am looking forward to healthier eating and healthier health to compliment the lots of exercise I already do. This will be the first time I have paid close attention to my food and drink, and as a male not keen on even referring to it as a “diet” – to me it’ll be a way of life.
Starting tomorrow.
Questions:
I’ve done the measurements including weight, fat content, photos for the before, waist etc.
1. Do people feel the need to measure blood sugars, weight etc all the time during the 8 weeks, or can I assume that I’ll be happy if I see obvious weight loss etc as visible signifiers, with blood tests at the end? I can weigh and get fat% at the gym if needed but would prefer not to get hung up on the day to day changes.
2. Better to follow the menu suggestions or do your own thing??
I *know* what I should avoid etc and what is healthy, but not sure if I want to count calories, weigh food etc.

Any practical guidance from graduates welcome!

Hello Jackie wilsonsaid and welcome.

this is my last day of the 8 weeks ‘diet’. It’s entirely up to you whether you measure weight ‘all the time’, some here do daily, others do once a week, it’s whatever you feel happier with. Since I have never been diabetic, I can’t help you with the bloods question. Others who are will be along soon.

I have done my own thing menu wise. some use an app like myfitnesspal, to track carbs and calories. I think if you focus on those 2 things and don’t worry too much about % of other nutrients. Ideally you will get better results if you keep under 50gm of carbs per day. Do stay away from root veg, bananas, bread, pasta and rice. There’s loads of menu ideas here in the recipe section on here. You might well like the thread ‘what have you eaten today?’ to give you more ideas

Keep posting and let us know how you are doing and ask questions whenever you like.

Thanks Spirit – I hope that your 8 weeks was a success.
I’ve bookmarked the WhatHYET thread for comparisons and ideas.
I can see already I can’t ignore calories – one of my favourite breakfasts is [proper] whole oat porridge with additions.
The banana will have to go but I think I saw MM eating porridge with berries in the doc. Off to check how it might fit with carbs and cals.

Hi, yes berries are fine, especially nice for breakfast with full fat yoghurt. The idea is to up your fats intake and you won’t be craving carbs. MM says rolled oats are fine, but they are too many carbs for my liking

Hi Jackie WilsonSaid,
I finished my 8 weeks last Monday and now into week 9. I am carrying on for a few weeks more. I was not diabetic, but having measured my FBS I found I was getting too close to prediabetic for comfort.
I weight myself daily as weight can vary day by day due to fluid retention, gut-fill etc. If you only step in the scales once a week you may hit a bad day. Psychologically it helps me to realise that yesterday was lighter and think – why the difference – often it is obvious so you don’t fret about it? It usually rectifies itself the following day anyhow!
The first couple of weeks I recorded my weight and FBS every day until I was sure the FBS was down and staying there, and that the weight was coming off steadily. I then moved to twice a week recording my weight and FBS and once a week for measurements and fat%. I am now on once a week recording everything, but I still step on the scales daily for reassurance :-). I have lost just over 2 stone in 8.5 weeks and paranoid it will reappear overnight!
I started with Shakes as it meant I could start fast and get organised in the first week. I moved onto ‘real’ foods week two and fully cooking all my own stuff week 3 onwards. Each to their own, but at some time you need to be preparing your own food and you need to learn what works for you. I used very few of the menus as I am vegetarian and they did not work for me. I made lots of vegetable soups for lunch (120-180 cals each), they are filling and that set me up for the afternoon. Carbs can be high compared with meat, but these are good carbs – slow release etc. Some of the others who are diabetic can advise better on that.
I did try the egg on ‘Portobello mushroom’ toast – either scrambled or poached. for breakfast. After a week or so of that every day I was sick of the sight of eggs and wanted to get back to my ‘normal’ muesli breakfast. It was also about the time I decided to take the plunge and drop the fat free foods by getting some full fat greek yogurt. I have 30g blueberries, 60g full fat yogurt and then 3g each of linseeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and 3 almonds chopped. Mix together and add a good pinch of cinnamon. Been on that ever since and happy with breakfast again. The seeds give good nutrients and also some bite. It is 166 cals and 10g carbs.
Good luck with it – believe it or not it has been fun – it always helps when you are succeeding at something, but the support from the forum really helps a lot.
Look forward to your future posts.

orchid,
Thanks for the input and glad it has worked for you. I guess you’ll get used to weighing less!
Soup I think is a great idea for lunch – every time I make a tasty soup I think I should make more, so the next 8 will provide an incentive.
I’m still pondering the FBS/weight measurement etc issue – in a way I’m fascinated as it’s all about me/me/me, but maybe I’ll just look at myself in the mirror a bit more! ha

Hi Jackie WilsonSaid,
I meant to mention that there is a really good Creamy Cauliflower and Bean soup on the recipes section – very tasty and filling. It made 4 portions and I will make more later this week!

Good luck with it JWS.

Personally I’m just checking my weight every couple of days and waist measurement each week to asses my progress. I never checked my blood sugar before, so that wouldn’t mean much to me. I suppose it dependson what you’re most concerned about as seeing an improvement in that area will be the biggest motivator.

Hi JWS (brilliant nick by the way)
Just to mix it up a little, I’ve never counted calories, just watched the carbs and portion sizes (I find now I struggle to finish a meal at times)
I weigh once a week at the chemists on their scales, (some people can be put off by natural weight fluctuations through the day so I don’t have scales in the house).
Every weekend I make a big pan of soup or stew to see me through the weeks lunches using chicken lamb or ham as the protein element with lots of lovely veggies and pulses.
2 stone down, blood sugars stabilising. Week 9
I guess the way to do it is the way that suits you best, but you will get results as long as you keep those carbs down and be around the 800 cals / day
Good luck on your journey, I’ll atch with interest.

Hello, Well, where to begin and how? I do not go to any gym but I cycle and have a Treadmill at home, I use a heart rate monitor, XL spreadsheet for calculating meal total s of calories and sugar, and weigh quite regularly now. Initially my waist size dropped noticeably almost immediately. I do weigh food items and some days I have spare calories more than others. I averaged 845 per day and less than 30 gms sugar/day – read the labels you will be surprised. We all know to eat fewer things full of sugar and other carbs but we previously did not do it.

I finished 8 weeks yesterday 2 stones lighter. I only eat foods that I have always eaten but in bigger quantities of veg etc I have lost the bread, sweets and milk, no longer crave sweet stuff and do not get hungry very often.

Good luck, hoping this adds o the sum of knowledge you will be sharing on here

Soup is our mainstay, you name it, I have made to for lunch, every single variant of permitted vegetable has been cooked & blended into an edible bowl of warmth, been a life-saver on cold days. Usually chuck a handful of pulses, barley or a can of cannellini beans in for good measure with lots of herbs.

I don’t weigh the veg, it’s whatever fits in the pan, goes. Not hugely scientific but I have lost 21lbs so far and my husband is touching the stone mark.

Well done Skywalker, 2 stone is to be congratulated!

FiFiP
21 pounds down is nothing to sniff at either, give yourself, and hubbie, a big pat on the back.

😎 Thank you Bill, way to go, onwards & downwards, well happy with our progress!

Patsy – yes that sounds practical.
I couldn’t resist a sneaky peak after my 4 warm up days and am minus 2lb which I’ll take as gospel,
and up 0.5% in fat! I then read that Takita machines [at the gym] depend on all sorts of variables, so I’ll stick to simple measures and get bloods done when NHS ‘allow’.

Bill – thanks – and guess what it says at the bottom of my e-mails?! It’s a favourite that was playing after daughter was born.
I’m having the big soup idea – save a bit of messing. I look cooking but not 3 different meals a day…
Congrats on the 2 stone! seems almost unbelievable but also logical so helps overcome any doubts.

SkyWalker – thanks and congrats to you too on the 2 stone. I can see a target emerging.
Thoughts on calories useful – I may be more interested in them that I imagined. Who’d have thought a mere 1 slice of toast with jam is 170 cals and carborific to boot.

Do you take the calories you burn into account?
i.e., add them to allowable total for food – when deciding on what to eat, or regard them as an extra loss?
For example, in theory I’ve burned 900 cals at spin and gym today but aren’t overly hungry to want to eat them as a bonus.

FiFiP
– I am off to make a big pan of soup in tribute to your 35lbs of collective willpower. If it works for you…

JWS sorry but no, it’s 800 whether you exercise or not. There are plenty of more athletic people than me managing ok so don’t worry too much about it.
Once you are a week or so in, you should find your appetite decreasing to the point where 800 is more than enough as long as the carbs are low and there is fat in there. I found eventually that I had to force myself to finish a meal.

Hi JWS, welcome to the forums and the BSD way of life. As you have already seen people have their own preferences for weighing/measuring/recording. I keep an excel sheet and weigh daily, first thing in the morning. I have lost 2 stones 9 lbs during my time on BSD and like others see this as a way of life not a diet.

Most people are of the opinion that you do not replace calories burned – but heh, you do what you think – if you want to sneak a few nuts in to help you if you feel weak. I did the first couple of weeks but not now. I don’t feel the need. If you don’t feel the need you will get even faster results!

Don’t forget you can add a dollop of yoghurt or cream cheese to most veggie soups to increase your fat intake. Or a good drizzle of olive oil goes well on some soups!
🙂

Hi JWS – garlic, chilli, cans of pulses & beans, the odd handful of barley (well rinsed) , mountains of celery, cauli, peppers, you name it we have had it!! MAke bulk & freeze is my hint, otherwise you end up spending too much time in the kitchen.

Oriental soups with a base of miso (or stock) get sprinkles of seaweed & sesame, with chilli pepper, comfort soups get parsley & chives, Italian ones get balsamic & a teaspoon of pesto, have fun & best of luck!

Hi JWS – re soups, good combos are courgette and garlic ( you would fry some onion before adding courgettes and lots of garlic). Serve with big dollop of cream cheese.

Asparagus soup – just onion, asparagus, stock. After blitzing add some double cream.

Cauliflower soup with blue cheese. Again add the blue cheese to the bowl of blitzed soup. Can do the same with brocolli

Basically as FiFip said just use any permitted veg! Oooh and roasted red pepper and red onion soup is nice too.
🙂

Hi JWS, welcome.

I’m in my 16th week on BSD. As a type 2 diabetic I’m checking my fasting blood sugar each morning. Also weighing each morning.

To date I’ve lost 44 pounds. Like many others I’m staying on 800 calories longer term as I have more weight to lose.

Lynne- 3 stones and 2lbs!! Legendary!! 🙂

Hashimoto thanks for soup ideas – never tried courgette or asparagus in soup so will, and red onion/roast pepper with feta would be good.
FiFiP the reminder about all those cans of beans in the cupboard for rainy days also helped.

My leftover veg, bean and chorizo soup was excellent and filling. Clearing out the fridge before starting planning and balancing a bit more carefully …

Lynne – a scarily impressive performance.
Interested – I’m guessing you are using one of those Amazon blood sugar meters with strips?
I am hoping for a quick reversal in blood sugars since I am so newly diagnosed and have convinced myself that its all due to a viral illness, and if so, will not need a device. Beyond that I’d like to severely trim my waist and improve the way my body works to complement general fitness.

Strangely on day 1 + 4 [warm up] I am already feeling full of energy, as if something has lifted.

Thanks all for great encouragement to get going.

Hi JWS!

All my soups start with garlic & onion fried gently in a little olive oil. I now use stock instaed of milk as the fluid.

Try:

pea & watercress or spinach
Tomato & basil
Beetroot & butter bean (or cannellini )
Mushroom & thyme
Spicy bean ( any old cans of beans will do) chilli to taste, add cumin, cayenne & oregano along with celery
Curried celery with lentil
Onion and almond (modified Spanish recipe)
Aubergine & mozzarella

You can tell I like soup…….

Got a brilliant book some years ago called The Complete Book of 400 Soups – I have just been altering & adapting the recipes to exclude off-plan ingredients. When we aren’t eating soup, we eat a lot of salad. Sick of salad but not soup!!!!

Tomato and butterbean is another good soup. I used to blitz it when serving to people who don’t like butterbeans lol – they never realise!!! 🙂
Yeah, I always start soups with onion and garlic too!

I’m now into my 5th week of the BSD 800. So far have lost just under 6 kgs. My wife and I started together and so far she has recorded a similar weight loss. I have been type 2 diabetic for around 18 months and at the time of diagnosis weighed in at 82 kgs with a bmi of 29 then aged 55. I ‘ve been a vegetarian for around 25 years, ate dairy products and fish. One of those people that exercised on and off (a run here, a bike ride there etc) loved all the wrong kind of food… potatoes, bread, cereals. We joined a gym back in November and have been going regularly 5 days a week since then. Do a whole range of stuff in the gym from spinning, yoga, HIIT, weights and aerobics just to keep things varied. The weight is coming down, the paunch is slowly disappearing and I’ve never felt fitter. The diet is going good too. I used MyFitnessPal to record everything and most of the time keep to the 800 calories. Breakfast is full fat yoghurt with 4 strawberries. Lunch can be a salad with either tuna, sardines or mackerel. Not much of a dinner as we do the gym in the evening after work so invariably just a low cal snack. Target weight is 70kgs. At the end of the 8 weeks, we’re going onto the 5:2 Med Diet and the gym membership is there for a year. Wished I had done all this sooner, actually enjoying every minute of it. Going to try out some of these recipes over the coming weeks.

Great going chinagas!!!!

Nice one Chinagas, it looks like you have this going like a breeze.
Hope you hit your eventual target even if it takes a wee bit longer.
Your comment, wish I had done this sooner rings a chord. I wish it had been around 10 years ago, I could have side stepped so many problems if it had.

Chinagas – thanks for sharing your experience. I’m guessing that you stick to the 800 as well as much exercise?
Good willpower. I found over years of exercise that you have to enjoy it to keep going. I’m now down to 3 days of spin followed by 50 mins of gym for strength and then a warm down swim. I am also reading Fast Exercise so on my rest days thinking of doing a couple of 10 minute HIIT sessions on my Concept 2 rower [parked in the hall and less used nowadays] as another ‘experiment’, with an occasional bike ride for fun. I too was carb heavy and believed that if I did enough exercise the world and me would be in balance!
Congrats on the 6kg in 5weeks to you both.

FiFiP/hashimoto
Soup will substitute for too much exercise I think!
Next I will try the beetroot and butterbean [maybe with some orange, and/or cabbage, and a bit of yoghurt].
I have some beetroot in the fridge that I bought to make veg juice, when I was pondering juice only, but the thought of wasting all that fibre etc now is not on.

Hi JWS,
Like FiFiP and Hashimoto I also start with onion and garlic! I use Miso stock – 1 packet per 1L or Marigold stock, 1 tbs – it is high in salt so I never use their recommended amount.
I make the peas soup with a large bag of frozen peas, (1kg) plus a very large handful of mint added at the end and whizzed through. Very quick to make, freezes well and a great standby.
The Cauliflower and Bean soup in the recipe section is great.
I also make a tomato, bean and pepper soup – a tin of tomatoes, tin of borlotti beans, then roasted peppers added to the onion and garlic. I use about 700g of peppers. Cut them in half, put them in a hot oven uncovered with a light spray of olive oil. This chars them, takes about 30 mins – just keep an eye on then after 20 mins. Take them out of the over and put all into a plastic bag (or box) and seal. Leave till cool. You can then take the skins off very easily and add straight to the tomato mixture. I also add some fresh chilli to spice it up a bit and . Blitz at end and serve.
For the mushroom soup, a variation is to use 50% dried porcini mushrooms and add the soaking mixture to the soup as well! I add a tin of beans to it as well for protein.

orchid
Marigold I use — never noted the salt content but usually try not to add more when using stock.
Miso is new to me – off to Google unless you have any recs as to where best to buy along with linseed, flax etc..
I will experiment with the pepper soup – use them in pasta sauces and they make a nice juice with orange, carrot and sweet potato, but both are off the menu for a while!

Hi JWS!

I love Miso, it comes in 3 ways, a jar of paste (most economical), sachets of paste & individual dried sachets. It isn’t to everyone’s taste though. Waitrose & Sainsbury’s stock Miso.

My local Holland & Barrett stocks Miso & milled flax along with the rest of the gubbins, tend to buy there when they have 2:1 promotions or half price deals. Have no Lidl near me, but other posters swear by them!

My weeny local health food shop does stock a lot as well, so I usually manage to get things without going on-line, if I do I find Ocado pretty reliable

Clearspring make the Miso paste, I get it from a Healthshop, but Waitrose stock it as well. Flax is another name for Linseed, and the label may have either on it. Again Waitrose have it -golden linseed. Sainsburys also have the linseeds, but they have jars of Miso paste which I did not find in my local one last week – but that may have been out of stock.
Hope that helps.

thanks orchid and FiFiP – it’s turning out to be an education! will try

Hi JackieWilson said – Aldi also sell them as milled flax seeds – only £1.99!!! 🙂 you can also get miso sachets from sainsburys.
I like to use those little stock pots – on offer at Sainsburys at the mo for £1 a box. 🙂

That’s some calories in nuts, avocado and olive oil !
Think I’ll go on the menu plan to keep it simple and to keep to the calories/carbs, although its been good to have a few days of adjustment. I reckon I must have previously been averaging 3000 cals, particularly on exercise days.