Forgive me as I am quite new here.
If I was to eat 1,000 calories a day but did exercise (walking 10k steps a day for example) to burn off 200 calories, is this the same as sticking strictly to the 800 calories per day diet?

No – it’s not really the same. I see you are type 2 diabetic, presumably you are trying to follow the BSD low carb diet? Have you read the BSD diet book – Michael basically says in the beginning to not try to do too much exercise, maybe it’s because you need time to get into ketosis, after you are in ketosis your body then works to break down the visceral fat & your body runs in a different way to when you are eating a lot more carbs.

All I can tell you is that myself & hubby lost over 3 stone in about 6 months doing no exercise, we are in our late 60’s, following strictly on BSD for the first 12 weeks & then upping carbs on good things like fruit & more veggies. It DOES get a LOT easier once you get into Ketosis & you’ll find in a week or maybe 2 then you can feel quite satiated if you stay off bread, rice, potatoes & any other high carbs you may fancy. Your cravings will become a LOT more manageable too. There are 1 minute low carb, mug breads, cake & chaffles that you can make that tend to make life a LOT easier if your cravings are bad BUT if you are anything like us, they tend to be very, very filling & they also tend to bloat you up so after 2-3 times of making you really don’t want them too often. Maybe once a month max?

I do make some small 4-5″ flatbreads for us – using 120gm of fine coconut flour, 30gm psyllium flour & about 440ml/gms of luke warm water. Mix up the flours together, try to get out any lumps & add the water (not all of it at once, as some flours can take up more or less water) It’ll come quickly into a dough (1-2mins) shape it into a ball with your hands then. We divide that into about 16 portions, make into a small ball & press out in a tortilla press OR between 2 plates. Heat up a frying pan until it’s medium hot. There’s no need to oil it unless you want to. We can get 3 at a time going in the large frying pan, then put on a wire rack to cool down. These can be put in the fridge between kitchen paper in a plastic bag & will keep 1-2 weeks. We use them to make sandwiches with as they are less than 1 carb each & they are also very filling. Calories will be whatever your flour says for the quantity BUT should fit nicely into your diet. Fill with meats, cheese etc, add a little chutney etc. & they help a lot on the diet.

If you haven’t yet read the BSD diet, then please get a copy or borrow it from the library. The diet has helped many of us Type 2’s go into remission & it’s well worth it for your health. Join the weekly thread where you’ll be helped along the way by many that have been using this way of eating (WOE) for years. ONE WEEK AT A TIME BEGINNING 16TH NOVEMBER 2021 HALFWAY REBOOT !! – this is the current thread it’ll go into another topic tomorrow or day after. Look at the current topics or posts & join in, everyone will help you. I’m a newbie really as we only started this WOE in March this year. Boy, are we glad we did!
Linda XXX

Hi Graham
Others have asked the same. I followed the 8 Week Blood Sugar Diet and my understanding from that is, as LindaandHubby says, that you can’t offset exercise to increase calories. But there have been some people previously (usually men who are bigger framed) who have not been able to stay at 800 calories and so have followed the BSD on 1000 calories and they seem to have been successful. For me, it’s all about what you need to do to stick with it. For your Type II, just remember to still keep your carbs low. That’s absolutely key. Some great suggestions there from Linda.
Let us know how you’re going?

Linda – those flatbreads sound great. I’ve got some coconut flour that needs using and a husband who loves baking so will try those flatbreads. Every now and again we have an Indian takeaway. Usually I have a chicken tandoori (think that’s the right one – no sauce?) with the salad. I usually don’t have any bread so this might be a really nice replacement. Cheers
Jennie xx

Hi Graham, you have already had some great answers from Linda and Jennie. We diabetics avoid white, starchy carbs like the plague. People think of sugar when they think of diabetes but dont realise that potatoes, rice, pasta etc turns to sugar through the digestive process.

On the exercise, as already stated, no you cannot offset calories for exercise. Mainly because the calories in, calories out theory of thermodynamics doesnt work with the human body. Think about this. You have to walk 34 miles to burn one pound of weight. However, I will add that as a diabetic, if you do exercise and you feel at all blurry, shakey etc then do eat something. Find something BSD friendly like a chunk of cheese, slice of ham, piece of chicken and so on. You can keep this within the 800 but if you go over a bit it doesnt really matter as long as you are generally staying around 800.

If someone can remember who does the video on calories in etc please post here for Graham to refer to – I think it might be Jason Fung on Youtube.

Many thanks for all the sound advice.
It’s much appreciated. Still on track to lose 2.5 stones. Target weight is 11st 6lbs. Currently 12st 8lbs 😊

WOW Graham you are doing REALLY, really well. FAR better than many others & we did at this early stage. However we’d already lost nearly 3 stone in the 2 years before starting on this WOE. It was a long, hard slog for us before this WOE though. I’d already read up on the Newcastle diet but at that stage Prof. Taylor was just using shakes & I did ask my doc. if maybe myself & hubby could go on this but she was totally dismissive of this & TBH I’m not a lover of pre-made shakes as that WOE is not really sustainable long term. Then Dr Michael Mosley came up with the 8 week BSD diet & as we both wanted to shoot diabetes off into the stratosphere we decided to try it. We are SO glad that it worked & actually did shoot the diabetes off. With Covid neither of us could get our HBA1c bloods done until nearly 6 months after starting. I’d gone down from 68 to a ‘normal’ reading of 34 in the 6 months & hubby is just a trifle higher than that so he was in the pre-diabetic range, I think that we’d both killed diabetes off after the 1st 12 weeks of sticking pretty religiously to the BSD way of life.

One thing I didn’t mention was the intermittent fasting that also goes along with this diet – where you try & eat if possible during an 8 hour window & fast for the rest of the time. We still tend just to have 2 meals a day 1 around 2pm & the other 9-10pm. Although this is a bit too late for many people BUT I’m not a morning person so it suits me, although I think we need to start a bit earlier in the day especially for hubby. When I see him starting to snack I go down to make us food, 🙂 We are still doing this & if our breath test meter is working properly we’ve never gone out of Ketosis even though we’ve upped the amount of carbs we eat from the original 20 max to around 50 daily. OK sometimes higher than this as there are FAR too many temptations around at this time of year. 🙁 Damn those crap food manufacturers! As many have said before me “If it wasn’t in granny’s pantry then steer well clear!” We do SO much better sticking to low carbs as we find upping them too much results in pains we’d long forgotten about coming back with a vengeance & also the brain fog etc. etc.

The Renpho body scales which tells you all kinds of information & tracks your losses we have also found to be a great bit of kit & something that helps us stick to this WOE. It’s great to be able to immediately track your BMI, Body fat, Subcutaneous fat, Visceral fat (the important one) Metabolic age 🙁 at a glance of the app.

Jennie, thanks for that. The flatbreads are SO easy to make & they taste great to us, you can add seasoning, garlic or herbs & seeds if you like. They have also made the diet SO much easier to stick to. We eat a LOT of steamed cauliflower, broccoli & leeks mainly – our staples. Sometimes with a cooked dinner adding sprouts, carrots & meat etc. OR with a curry – we just mash then up a bit & place the curry on top. I did try cauli rice but it’s a bit of a faff & TBH I find this easier, quicker & we both enjoy it thoroughly. I never ate rice or pasta when I was younger & TBH I wonder when & why we all started eating this carb high diet when the alternative veg also taste better & are FAR better for you. I’ll also add some 98% sausages on top of our slightly mashed steamed staples for a quick easy meal. I tend to buy fresh cauli, broccoli & leeks so all the trimmings now go into a pot for soup. The cauli leaves actually have FAR more vitamins & minerals in than the florets & we really enjoy the soup they make along with the broccoli stalks & the leek trimmings + a bit of parmesan or pedano sprinkled over. OMG I used to throw these out in the food bucket – never, ever again! We use the flatbread to dunk or break up into the soup where they swell up & are as good as bread. They make excellent sandwiches – OK they aren’t perfected rounded or square but it doesn’t matter & we don’t miss bread, rice or pasta at all now. They are also REALLY filling & don’t bloat you up. Having gone off salads, now the weather is so cold, soups & steamed veg along with curries, cooked dinners, sandwiches for a snack, will see us through the winter quite nicely.

Keep on keeping off Graham & please join in on the weekly threads for a shed-load of help, inspiration & reminders of why you started on this WOE & why you should continue with it long term. Just click on forums & latest threads to find it.
Linda XXX

Hi Graham – that’s great news. Keep going and I’m sure your hba1c will be a good one xx

Linda – taking the title of this thread as my staring point, is psyllium flour the same as psyllium husk or can you use the latter instead of the former? (I’ve got coconut flour and psyllium husk). I have to say the rest of what you eat sounds delicious. I’ve inadvertently roasted the odd cauli leaves and I was surprised at how nice they were so I’m going to give your suggestions a try – I do love a good soup and I generally have all those trimmings around – plus the parmesan. Thanks

Jennie
Use psyllium husk powder if you have it, otherwise grind up the psyllium husks. Yesterday I made some more & have just realised that as my powder is getting older (8months old now) it is now turning the flat breads a little purple 🙂 Nothing to worry about though, it’s a normal occurrence & they taste as delicious as when I made them at the start of trying to find a quick easier bread alternative to make. I make them once or sometimes even twice a week as they are such a help with the diet & sometimes you just want a sandwich or 2 filled with any type of protein rather than a full blown meal. I make bigger ones for fajitas too.

We do eat other things like roasted peppers, courgettes, onions or fried ones with fish or with chicken for fajitas. Cottage or Cumberland pie topped with mashed cauli & leeks. I can’t stand the smell of cooking mince now (why does it now smell so foul?) so make it with beef style Quorn now instead. I make omelettes normally with mushrooms BUT hubby tends to go off eggs as he ate so many when we first started this WOE. 🙂 They are SO, so filling though! We both love seafood & Aldi 3 fish roast (freezer section) at £5.99 is our favourite. I can’t make it from scratch for the money. We also cheat with curries usually from Asda (the £3.50 own brand ones for 2 are pretty good on carbs and no additives). This diet is pretty easy to follow with the cheats of ready meals once you get to the maintaining phase. I will get back onto the Christmas Bus soon, I feel a bit bad for not posting on there for a while.

Linda XXX