I am back to semi fasting – not just weightloss but also general well being ! I am a bread addict and love homemade wholemeal bread … I have read Moseleys recent book and very helpful but I found the recipes a little limiting to me being a vegetarian and trying to live on a tight budget as I have a family with 3 teens in to feed. I have found that many of these recipes even get eaten by visiting teens – I will just add some carb variant for them – bread or rice, or some extras depending on the meal

A couple of years ago I happened upon this brilliant website which I wanted to share – just look for the 5:2 recipes

http://www.lavenderandlovage.com/ enter 5:2 in the Recipe and Ingredient search

My 2 other key websites (because neither has all my ingredients in !) are as follows (you don’t need to sign up for either)

https://www.caloriecount.com/
http://www.calorieking.com/

I think my biggest encouragement is invest in that week 1 and setting up and “costing” recipes you like and set up your recipe folder (mine is paper because I write all over it as I modify it and try cutting calories out). For me week 1 was hardest and time consuming. After that I stuck to those recipes I knew, and added a couple of new ones each week

Other learnings/Tips:

1 You have got to change your cupboard lots of pulses, tinned tomatoes, spices, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, right nuts – but you don’t have to do it all in week 1
2 I shop in Aldi with a large family for all my veg, meat and a big Asda – asian isle for cheaper pulses
3 I have a pressure cooker and a freezer – I bulk cook pulses, then weigh them out into approx tin size quantities and freeze in the cheapest plastic bags (I have limited freezer space)
4 Always cook double, measure out your meal and freeze your portions as required. I bought a lot of smaller sized Asda 450 and 220 clip top containers – they make my meals easy if I am doing non diet for the rest of the family
5 If your freezer is full – keep a ruogh list of meals in the freezer
6 Use a meal planner – even if just up to the next day but it is easier if you plan the week if you, like me do 1 main shop each week and run on a tighter budget – there are some nice looking plans out there on the internet to hack !!
7 In my recipe folder I have a copy of my Excel s/sheet where I have a record of my fav ingredients – quick Q (eg 1 cup 1 tbsp) the weight (‘cos even I can kid myself that I’m sticking to the measures !) and the cals – this is because I havelots of veggy pulses etc and find it easier to cook from scratch to avoid my food allergy of cow dairy)

Good luck everyone – all change is an effort but well worth it – let’s take back control of our health, bodies and wallets from the corporations and live better !!

I thought I had written that until I saw your name 🙂 Exactly the same as I do, I am a paper person and everything written down. I also use a pressure cooker and eat lots of beans and pulses.
I don’t have a lot of weight to lose but I don’t want to go on as I am doing at the moment, gaining about a pound a week so things have got to change and back to doing things probably instead of guestimating things, having home made wine and eating cake. I use myfitnesspal for the carb and calorie counts in food and find it mostly accurate.
I only got the book today so will spend tonight reading it whilst OH watches football and found youtubes of the Michael Mosley programmes so will have a look at those. I have done odd days the odd fasting days in the past and am ok with that.
Most of the diets are written with meat eaters in mind and so glad I found this website. Good Luck with your weight loss.

What a helpful post x I am a vegetarian and struggling with the diet right now x first week only lost half a pound and felt so down I have not been very good this week x all of my “healthy” veggie recipes seem to be full of carbs but low in cals which has surprised me . I will try out the web sites mentioned and great idea about making the containers up ready for freezer or fridge . I am on a budget too so this will help x thank you for post as it has given me a bit of hope x

The lavender and lovage website is brilliant – I have just spent over an hour reading it instead of doing my DVD 🙂 Thanks for the recommendation.

Well done Systema – I foud the 800 a day easier than 5:2 fasting – although my bidy did adjust to 5:2 … 4 weeks in and 12 lb gone – I need to keep on track as things have slowed down – it’s the wholemeal bread again … ! I’m going to post a couple of my favourites whilst I remember …

Dear Gayn55 – well done you for starting ! It really will make you feel better but it is effort ! Ihave once been told that some people find it harder than others – I was once told that if calories are on target and it is still slow, try eliminating wheat … although this diet should strip that out anyway … I’m going to post my favourites shortly – then get ready for tomorrow ! Best Wishes

So here are my 3 from today (these are not all my favourites but it’s how today went !)The breakfast is my go to fav – easy and you can switch the fruit and have no prep before work.

Breakfast 160 cals
2 tbsp/10g nice cut porridge oats, 2 tsp 8g chia seed (I buy on Amazon Sevenhills 1kg / £6.49), 2 tbsp goats milk yoghurt, 1/2 tsp good (Ceylon) cinammom (Amazon 250g/£4.67). Add water until quite sloppy, cut up 3 apricots or a peach, cut up to pieces and stir in to mix. I stic it in a wide necked jam jar in the fridge overnight and it’s ready for the morning. PS I have to have about 2 tsp chia each day to keep me “regular” tmi I know – but someone has to share this stuff – especially when my volume of food goes down …

Snack 1 – 60 cals – 6 whole raw cashews or 10/10g almonds (raw) – both from Aldi.
Snack 2 – 45 cals – 78g strawberries + 45g blueberries

Lunch – 200 cals – This was a frozen leftover from supper, measured out and out for the freezer for work. 1/6 of the recipe of http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/healthy-recipes/11396452/Deliciously-Ella-butternut-squash-bean-and-quinoa-stew-recipe.html. I cut out the oil and use a spray of oil then kinda dry fry – it works. I used 100g Quinoa (bought online of course in larger. cheaper quantities), 1 tin coconut milk and 300g of cannelini …

Supper – 300 cals – cauliflower mash and portion of http://www.lavenderandlovage.com/2013/10/low-calorie-comfort-food-harvest-festival-minced-beef-vegetable-casserole-52-diet.html. I use quorn for this which reduces the cals further – or you can have more !!

And then I had 2 slices of wholemeal toast and marmite – thank goodness tomorrow is a new day … and I should stick to a marmite drink when I have apang for salt.

Do you count the carbs on this 800 cals a day or just eat what you want. I thought it was 50gms a day and really did struggle with that number today as my salad and apple made exactly 50. Just made a black bean chilli with lots of veg and just going to count out the carbs but think I will just stick with the cals as I know what they are per portion.
I also buy chia seeds etc online but Home Bargains sell them – will have to check the price, someone told me about them but I have quite a few in the cupboard so have not checked out the price. Do you make Seitan – we eat quite a bit of it as it is low cal but again have to get the flour off the net as it is not available in any shops near me.
Like you foods for today – will keep a note of them.

Hi Systema
If I understand the diet correctly – Mosley proposes 3 approaches – the toughest hard hit is 800 calories a day, EVERY day for 8 weeks. Within these 800 calories though you need to not have any sugar and the carbs are really limited to wholegrain and actually ones which have a low gylemic index that is they don’t cause your blood sugar to spike as much as more quickly broken down carbs. So I think I am answering if I say that 800 cals INCLUDES any carbs. I am not sure about your reference to gms … that does not ring any bells.
I am eating carbs – barley, a little wholegrain rice, quinoa – but not much because eating the pulses veggies (and my fish) fills me up much more and I want my volume of food !!
I’ll look up Seitan .. thank you !

Thank you – barley, quinoa, beans etc are a big part of my diet as well as the occasional sandwich so will stick with the 800 cals. I went in M and S yesterday evening and they had strawberries reduced to 80p for a large box so have stocked up on them in the freezer (not bother if they go soft in porridge).
Seitan is made with vital wheat gluten and chickpea flour plus flavourings and cooked in the pressure cooker.
Thanks for the reply and I will now set out my plan for 800 cals a day.
Will have a look on the net to find out the reference to 50gms of carbs.

Hi Newstart, Systema, Gayn55,
In reference to your comment on carbs. I am vegetarian and started this food plan at the beginning of February and lost 33lbs in 10 weeks. I started on the 800 cals and having looked at the meal plan realised it was not suitable for veggies and too much work to adapt it. I decided to take the Newcastle Research approach of shakes and soups. I could not get the shakes they used as I was not doing this through a doctor so I bought some from Boots. I did lose weight, but less off of my waist than I would have expected. Someone advised me to check the carbs I was eating and I discovered that the shakes were high in carbs – 100g per day.
MM does not give a carb limit other than it should be low. He also points out that everyone’s is different.
Given my proteins come from eggs, chees, dairy and pulses I found it hard to prepare a menu lower than 60g per day that was sensible and maintainable. Also – I did try a couple of time to go lower and got severe cramps overnight.
My weight loss, dropping two dress sizes, and although not prediabletic or diabetic I was heading that way and am now out of that danger, was done on 60g carbs per day on average. I still worked on 800 cals, but watched the carbs and if they were going over 60g I modified the next meal to keep me close to the 60g.
I stopped oats as I would rather have pulses, but I do not miss it for breakfast as I now have 60g Yeo Full Fat Geek Yoghurt, 30g blueberries, 3g each of pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, linseeds, almonds chopped with a good sprinkle cinnamon. That fills me as much as my previous oat one I had that used skimmed yoghurt.
If you do a search on ‘Chunky Ratatouille’ with your internet search engine – Rose Elliot’s recipe should come up and the version with cumin and a tin of cannelloni beans is great and freezes well. Likewise frittatas are a good option as you can cut them to a size ( 2 or 4) depending on the size and they freeze well. On M&S – they do a ‘Superfood Salad’ that is great – one of the few without meat or fish – it is a green one with edamame beans with a zingy dressing of mint.
Hope that helps and good luck to you all.

Hi – I am going to have to do more research now – I had already planned today and have 92 gms carbs but the cals are fine. I always eat salad and that was a shock at 20 – I know veg contains carbs but not that many. Tonight’s tea is a variation on Rose Elliot’s Best Ever Chilli (left over from yesterday) which works out at 41 for the chilli and 12 for broccoli and cauliflower so 53 for tea leaves very few left.!! I have Rose Elliot’s Low GI book so will have a look at that and a friends has emailed me and said she has 5:2 Vegetarian by Celia Brooks which I can borrow so will read that over the week-end.
Fancy the cauliflower base pizza from lavender and lovage site so will carb that on myfitnesspal.
Thanks for all the info orchid – I have seen your name before in the forum so will find that as well – not going to have much time for doing anything but reading over the next few days. 🙂

Hi Systema,
don’t worry too much – on 800 cals you will lose weight regardless of the carbs. The lower carbs are important for fat-burning and especially for those trying to reverse diabetes or avoid prediabetes. If you are not in that category, try the approach you have for the week, you may find that adjusting your portion size will be enough to bring the carbs down. There is at least one person on the forum who was fat burning whilst eating 80g per day!
The shock for me was apples and carrots. I had been using cherry tomatoes and carrots for a ‘snack’ when I got peckish! Likewise I had made carrot soup. I stopped having apples after that unless they were small ones and stuck to blueberries and have been having some strawberries now they are in season and the occasional do-nut peach (they are small).
If you follow the book you will see MM says forget about recording calories for salads and fill up on them, concentrate on not using the banned list of foods as they are the ones that cause blood sugar issues. What drives the carb counting and calories are apps like myfitnesspal! Also they do not differentiate between ‘good’ and ‘bad (sugars) carbs. A lot of veggie food is good carb, but you need to eat the pulses in moderation.
I used the first two weeks to get used to eating less and not snacking, which was why I started on Shakes. If you take that approach and adjust a little each day, then you will be fine.
The salads I have most often include cucumber, tomatoes, spring onions, celery and red-peppers, often with Feta cheese which is tasty, filling but with no carbs. – this typically is 7-8g carbs per meal. I also make soup and will have soup and salad at lunch. Todays soup was Pea and Lettuce – smaller portion than I used to have, but 13g carb giving me a lunch total of 20g. Breakfast (the one I described above) is 10g, leaving me 30g for the evening meal. I have the Rose Elliot Low GI book as well, I think that is where I got the Ratatouille from. I used to make her Chilli from that as well, but for some reason decided not to try that with this approach.
Good luck with the reading and I am happy to chat as you go along.

Going to try your breakfast tomorrow as I have all the things in hand. Salad is my usual lunch with cottage or 28gms of cheddar cheese but will buy some feta tomorrow so will count the salad as 8 carbs and add those for cottage cheese as I usually have 100gms. We also have lots of soups but usually contain sweet potatoes so will change that.
I was also shocked at apples as I usually have one grated on my porridge but I don’t like cooked carrots and only have a little grated raw on salad. When I made the chilli I added more peppers and celery than she said, left out some of the oil and made it spicier.
Have 1 portion left for tomorrow so will have that with broccoli and cauliflower. I have a cottage pie recipe which I will look out which only has 40gms of red lentils in it plus veg like mushrooms and peppers and use it on it’s own without the potato topping.
Once again thanks for the input — learning as I go on.

.. not sure how long I’ll keep this up for but … today

Thank you for Rose Elliot recommendations Orchid – I spent my younger years in her books and Cranks … so I’ll be looking her stuff back up

Breakfast – 242 cals – 1/2 avocado sliced with a medium just poached free range egg on top and 8g chia seed mixed in the yolk. Eat slowly – it’s gone fast !

Lunch – 180 cals – tomato and butter bean soup http://www.lavenderandlovage.com/2013/09/a-hearty-52-diet-recipe-for-autumn-butter-bean-chorizo-stew-with-tomatoes.html. I omitted the chorizo, 1 tsp oil, 1 onion, garlic, 1 tin butter beans (I used 400g TESCO being lazy today), 1 400g tin tomato, 1/8 tsp paprika, 1/8 capenne, 1/4 tsp salt, pepper. It had a kick but made 2 large servings of 180 each – very good use of my cals !!

Snacks – 60 cals – 1 square of Tesco 85% plain chocolate (with my morning coffee and sneaky quiet time !).

Supper – 170 cals – hack of Jamie Oivers Veggy chilli @ http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables-recipes/veggie-chilli/#IfROWlhrgQBXzkmS.97
1 tsp oil, 2 small sweet potatoes (166g), 1 tin mixed beans in water (now in Aldi – I said it was a lazy day as I start the tax returns .. ) 2 peppers, 2 cloves garlic, 1 onion, 1 400g tin tomatoes, 1/2 tsp cayenne, 1 tsp Cumin, 1 tsp cacao. Lightly fry off onion in oil, add garlic, then add everything – needed to add about 1/2 tin water. I had as is – the rest of the family had some rice as well – daughter #1 thought it was a little too spicy – maybe less cayenne for her – but no complaints from the others !

Snack – ahhh 1 slice of newly made wholemeal bread with marmite – 85g = about 100 cals – my weakness but I did exercise for 40 mins today

I’m so glad I noticed this post as it has some great advice x newstart and Orchid thank you for replies x most of the meals I like are high in carbs , I was having a strawberry oatmeal smoothie every morning and then I saw how high in carbs it is . It is a pity that all carbs are lumped in together as some are good x will look out for M&S superfood salad . I only lost 1 lb this last week as after my low weight loss week before I had three bad days but back on track now x
Most of my healthy vegetarian cookbooks the recipes low in cals but high in carbs x was going to use shakes until I saw high carb values so may look up low carb versions . All the best to everyone on their journey here x

What has disappointed me today is that I have just finished the 8 week blood sugar diet book and at the end of it there are plenty of recipes that are veggie and could use them but there is no carb count on them only calorie. Whoever wrote the recipes knew how many carbs there are in them so that they could be included in the book so I wonder why they were not included. Really annoyed me as I will now have to copy and paste them into somewhere to work it out when it would have been so easy to make a note of them for the book.

@ newstart, thanks for the recipe for tomato and butterbean soup – made it for lunch and it was great. Might try to add charred red peppers next time as I currently have a lot in the fridge! Another quick recipe I took/modified form the BBS website is Avocado Humus. One avocado, juice of one lemon, one tin chickpeas (I used Sainsbury’s packets in water), two garlic cloves. Salt and pepper to taste plus either tabasco sauce or cayenne pepper to taste. Whiz together in a blender and gave 3 x 120g pots. I will freeze them all and each pot will be for 2 meals. So for 6 servings – 71 cals, 5.1g carbs.
@gayn55, agree that the ‘healthy’ veggie books are all low fat and either need a lot of modifications or ignored 🙁 . Evan the low GI books need to be treated with care as some of the carbs they use are not also low GL – that is they release the sugars the contain quickly into the blood stream. The recipe I gave you above for yogurt, fruit and seeds could easily be done with strawberries, in fact it is 1g carbs less! I make it up the night before, seeds kept separate and mix quickly at breakfast. It is very portable as well.
@systema, the book is designed around calories not carbs, and avoiding high carb foods so by definition low carb. The carbs came from this forum. For each new recipe I use I just put it into my calculator at the time I make it with the real food amounts – ie 1 carrot is what I have used not a notional carrot size of say 70g when the ones I have are 100g. I do check each time I use that recipe and adjust so I have the correct info for that meal, but I am a bit daft that way! It also means I can play around with the amounts to get it to fit with the profile I need for that day. If you are using Kindle c&p is not easy, I did manage to copy a few to a word document as I do not like having my Kindle near where I cook. If you need help with a way to do that, let me know.
good luck all!

I am going to try the recipes on this thread so thanks to you all x I have spent the afternoon looking for low cal low carb recipes as my old recipes were high carb . I can see now why I was not losing the weight as I thought I was eating healthy for last two weeks apart for the few days I went down the dark path lol I have found lots of recipes on Pinterest so have starting pinning them on a board and getting ideas from Instagram where people are on this diet and posting the meals I have made within the cals/carbs on this diet on both sites to help me and others . also adjusting some of my old recipes to fit this diet x
Orchid I am definitely going to try the yoghurt and fruit recipe x
This forum is really helpful and a lot of kindness to new members thank you x

orchid – I do the same things with the food I freeze – everything counted and labelled, my small scales are on the side of the chopping board all the time along with the calculator. I have the book on my laptop as well as Kindle (OH did that for me) so I have printed out the relevant parts and put them in a file which I will use for recipes used. Just bought an Avocado and have chickpeas in the freezer so may try the hummus on Saturday – also got a large bunch of celery on the reduced ticket so celery soup it is tomorrow 🙂
The exercise class I go to are using a low GL diet but I can’t join them as none of them are veggie and it only makes it long winded for them if I keep asking questions so keep out of it but have been given a GL counter and low GL cookbook which has veggies in it so will look at them over the week-end.
Had your yogurt breakfast today and it was fine – no problem waiting until lunch time and also did an exercise class in between.