Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone is the authority on coffee intake during this diet, I’ve been a part of this lifestyle change since August 2016 and in 3 months lost 12 kgs ( very little exercise…i know, not ideal!) I’ve always enjoyed a cup of coffee in the morning, i have rarely had another during my day noting it is full of calories. Also in reading the literature ( although I cant remember where exactly in the Mosley book) I remember reading that Coffee should be avoided if possible as it is a diuretic and also considered a meal source due to the milk.
Now my issue is not for myself, I’m a health professional so i know the calorie content for a standard cappuccino, my real q. is that my extended female family have taken this journey as well. They drink copious amounts of instant coffee with skinny milk, no sugar. My SIL is telling my MIL that its OK to drink as much as she likes because coffee is an appetite suppressor ( which it is!) however it is still a diuretic ( which is my agument) and my MIL would rather drink 6 cups of instant before a bottle of water- not because she enjoys it but because its habit and she’d rather have something hot in her hands ( even though we are in Melbourne, and its summer and 31C atm.)

So….. given that its instant coffee with skinny milk and no added sugar– how much can they actually consume before it starts to impede the diet.

Love to hear some feedback on this!

Cheers,
Hayley

The idea of coffee is no bad thing in my book, as long as it’s balanced with water intake. Ketosis and restricting water intake just don’t work.

My appreciation for (black) coffee has increased since starting this lifestyle, as has the amount of water I drink. I like my coffee a lot and probably drink 2 or 3 double espresso or strong coffees daily now and it hasn’t stopped me losing 28Kg of the 32Kg I want to lose and I’ve been doing this for 17 weeks now. I’d say I’m comfortably getting through 3-4 litres of water a day.

The skinny milk thing is the only part that doesn’t feel truly BSD to me, it’s a little bit of the old ‘low fat, low calorie’ mentality which BSD is not about. Technically it should be full fat, cream or even coconut oil or butter.

What are the MIL and SILs results like? Are they actually losing weight?

If BSD has taught me anything it’s to be happy in the knowledge that what I’m doing is right for me and I feel better for it. I try to worry less about others, so try not to let this burden you too heavily.

It sounds like your view is the correct one.

The ABC.net.au health and wellbeing fact buster site debunks the idea that tea or coffee will significantly have a diuretic or dehydration effect. It includes Aus and U.K. Research.

Hails
I absolutely agree with Cmawp’s post. I love my coffee also but had to change to black coffee – or coffee with a teaspoon of cream (two teaspoons now I am on maintenance). I ditched the milk because it is quite carby. Also skinny milk isn’t truly BSD and they may find that coffee really does taste better without it.

I drink 2 Nespressos a day and 3 instant coffees and this hasn’t stopped me losing nearly 3 stone in weight. In fact it has really helped because I love coffee so much every cup of coffee is a special treat and I am happy to drink coffee when everyone else is tucking into a desert when we go out for a meal.

I do drink plenty of water because of the worry about dehydration but was very interested to read the research that Jenni flagged up. There is quite a lot of research lately showing the health benefits of coffee so it is much less a guilty pleasure.

I love my coffee too much to give it up, it is like air to me. I have about 3/4 white coffees a day and the odd cuppaccino when I visit waitrose or fill up with petrol. If it means my weight loss is a tad slower then so be it, but who knows how I will feel about it when I am 30kg lighter. 🙂

Noel

Hello all – I love coffee (hence the username for my mum and I 🙂 ) – I guess everyone has to find what works for them. When I do 800cal, I have one latte a day (full cream, contrary to old mindsets) and it’s so tasty and filling. It is basically a good enough breakfast and well worth the 106cal! whilst I follow the plan but don’t count calories, I have 2 (she typed, whilst sipping her second latte 🙂 ) and it’s never had any detrimental effects to staying on plan. Quite the opposite.

Got to agree with Jenni – caffeine is a diuretic but you take it as a dilute solution with water – the net effect has been demonstrated to be negligible.

I tend to drink black coffee now, more because my taste has changed and I prefer the stronger, purer taste – I’ve also started to prefer loose tea as a substitute for booze (he says drinking his matcha at a client in sunny Dublin)

Hi am gearing up to start the BSD and I too want to still have at least 2-3 coffees a day. I drink instant coffee, full fat milk and 1 sugar…however I need to substitute the sugar with something else like Stevia or xylitol. Any suggestions as to which one is best? Also as KrysiaD mentioned she adds cream instead of milk…is this like thickened cream? Is cream better than milk on the BSD? Any suggestions/help would be much appreciated.

Welcome Leshaz! I hope your BSD journey goes well — don’t worry too much — as you go forward you will find out what works best for your body and your life — lots of ways will work fine if you follow the general principles.
That said, this is not a low fat diet and you are encouraged to use full fat yogurt and cream and butter and olive oil and coconut oil — kind of a big change from what we have been taught but you will grow to love the real food and the fats will keep you from getting hungry. One of the biggest things that will help you is moving away from carbohydrates and toward fats — this is because carbohydrate triggers the release of insulin, which is known colloquially as “the fat storage hormone”. When you eat carbohydrates (most particularly sugar and refined flours and rice/potato/ peas/corn etc..) your body responds to these sugars and pumps out insulin to get it into your cells and out of the blood stream (where it causes damage). The problem is that when insulin has “cleared” your bloodstream of sugar, you experience it as a low blood-sugar episode — which you probably know as shaky, panicky, adrenalin fueled eating.
When you eat fat however, your insulin levels do not rise significantly, so your insulin stays low and fat moves actively in and out of your cells as needed to fuel your body. That keeps your hunger in check and let’s you mobilize your stored fat.
So use cream in coffee, not milk. You can use heavy cream — just measure it. I drink a lot of coffee, probably 3-4 cups per day and I have heavy cream (2 Tablespoons) in my first morning cup because it is amazing and I can go for hours on it. The rest I drink black!
I’m almost at my one year anniversary on the BSD — met my goal back in June, now maintaining. So I know it works and I know it’s healthy! Hope you enjoy your new way of eating — it is so much more fun! It has changed my life.

Californiagirl
It’s great that you have maintained since June. It is so inspirational to read that this way of eating works long term. I have been on maintenance now for just over a month and have lost 1lb in that time. The fats are really the key to this for me also – especially the cream in my coffee which I absolutely love.

Hi KrysiaD! I’m so glad your maintenance is going well — I’m finding that my new way of eating is almost automatic now — “almost” is the operative word ha ha! Still need to hop on the 800 bus now and then after a bit of overly-exuberant eating. I will have to watch this forever I think, but for the first time in my whole life it doesn’t seem like torture. I love eating like this. I will enjoy reading your ongoing maintenance posts!

Californiagirl – I agree that “almost” is the operative word. I absolutely love this way of eating and will never go back to eating how I did before – but still need to log my food every day on fat secret and weigh myself every day also or I am sure that I would easily slip back into “over-exuberant” eating very easily. Before when I dieted I was either on a diet or eating normally – which meant I always put the weight back on – this is the first time that I have ever done maintenance.

Hi Lezhas. One thing you could try is deliberately acquiring the taste for unsweetened tea and coffee. It’s not that difficult and I managed to do it years ago when I gave up sugar in my tea and coffee decades ago. Nowadays I don’t have any sugar in my cupboards. The other thing I gave up is instant coffee. Now I use small cafetières and find them almost as fuss free as instant. Leaf tea is great too, although there are some good tea bags around. I do find I need milk in my tea though, and for that I have about a quarter of a tsp of skimmed milk powder. The reasons for this are a) I live alone and could never use the wet milk before it went off, b) I don’t like the taste of full fat milk in tea, and c) the carb and calorie count of a tiny amount of skimmed milk powder seems negligible.

I don’t think I could have got through the diet without coffee, I drink about 5 espressos a day! I stopped having sugar and milk in coffee about 30 years ago, and the My Fitness app said there was only a few calories in each coffee, so figured it was safe.

If you’re looking for something a bit different, one of my Indian colleagues recommended Tulse Tea from Pukka, which is meant to reduce blood sugar. You drink it without sugar or milk and has a slight citrus flavour.

Perhaps the word Issue in this threads title should be changed to “Wow” – I read a Harvard study today that promotes coffee as reducing your risk of Type 2 Diabetes :):)