Hi,

I am in my 6th day on the ‘800 cal eating regimen’ (I don’t like to be on a diet 😉 ) and am a newcomer to the Blood Sugar fast system. During these first days, I have seen my weight drop, but how does that relate to my actual weight loss…? I mean, when changing the food intake from carbs like bread, potatoes and pasta to lesser volumes of calories and focusing on eating protein and not shy away from fat, that means that there is a far lesser volume of undigested food in my digestive system does it not? And if I go back to a ‘normal eating regimen’, my weight will pop again – right…? And that does not mean I have added any fat to my body by just going back to eating bread again…?

So let’s say that I now weigh 6 pounds less than before starting on the 800 cal, does that mean that I have effectively lost one or two pounds of body fat…? And if my weight target after the 8 weeks is 13 stones, I will need to drop down to maybe 12 1/2 stones…?

Happy to hear your input! 🙂

weight will fluctuate due to digestive issues, etc – for that reason most recommendations are that you always weigh at the same time of day – morning is best, after you’ve had a pee, but before you’ve had anything to eat or drink. You are also most likely to have no clothes, or similar weight clothes everyday.
if you finish the diet and go back to old eating habits, chances are you will gain weight, but the idea of the 8 weeks is that it does change your tastes, and lots of people on this forum have reported that they haven’t regained weight, or have stopped, gained a bit but not much, then come back to it to lose more.

If you started the diet weighing 12 stone 6lb, and you now weigh 12 stone, you have lost 6lb.
If you stop the diet, go back to eating normally, and gain 2lb – you will have lost 4lb overall, and have the option to resume the diet to lose more weight..

i suggest you focus on what you lose, and what your target is, rather than potential gains when you complete the diet.

Using a tape measure is also important. Weight fluctuates even just with water levels. I have found that I can stay the same weight (maybe because of digestion or exercise) but my waist measurement has decreased meaning I have I burned fat.

Thanks for the input Frog! 🙂

You write “If you started the diet weighing 12 stone 6lb, and you now weigh 12 stone, you have lost 6lb.
If you stop the diet, go back to eating normally, and gain 2lb – you will have lost 4lb overall, and have the option to resume the diet to lose more weight..”

I understand what you say, but I ‘m not sure I agree. Let me explain myself; If I stop drinking water, I will after a day weigh less, but the weight of my abdominal fat is the same. Similarily, if I change my diet to exclude bread (assuming I usually eat a lot of bread) I will after two days weigh less because I will have less food in my digestive system, but the rest of my body will be same as before and my weight will pop up again once I start eating bread again.

My aim is not to fool myself that I have reached my target. If my target is going back to a normal albeit calorie controlled eating regimen is 12 stone, I would need to set a weight target te be reached before I break fast to something less that 12 stone, and my question is: How much lower should my target be… 🙂

I think the real question is, does it matter? If you get down to a size that looks healthy, your blood sugars are stable and other tests show good results, does it matter if you have a few hundred grams of undigested food in your colon?

Natalie,

Is it really only a few hundred grams? Could it be 4 -6 pounds?? Because then it will affect the size too…?

I think your target needs to include more than a number on the scales as Natalie says. If you want to get really detailed, what about the several pounds worth of bacteria we all carry in our gut? Do you include them in your target? Weight fluctuates every day from morning to night. That will always happen no matter what you weigh.

Hi Morten,

Whilst what you say is ostensibly true, there is no way to reliably answer the question as there are just too many variables, including your size, what you eat, your metabolic and peristalic rate, the amount and type of exercise you do, what mix of foods your “normal” diet will contain, etc.

What I plan to do (and this is a long way off for me!) is to set a target with some margin to allow for some weight variation on the normal diet. Then I will test out the calorie level and food mix (carbs, protein, fibre) on the normal and adjust them until the weight remains relatively consistent, recognising that variation on weight by a few pounds is inevitable.

So in your might go for, say, 11st 10-12 and then introduce the “normal” diet gradually. If your weight shoots up the cut back the calories or adjust the mix of carbs to protein and learn to understand your body and the effect food has on your overall weight.

Hope this helps

I think Jules had a great approach and explains things well. I will do that too – have a target range to stay within rather than a single figure.

Thanks JulesMaigret 🙂 sounds like a plan!

I am not sure that whatever weight goal you set now … that you will know how you feel until you get there. If you are still finding the BSD eating plan easy to follow … will you feel optimally healthy and happy and good looking? Will you decide to stop? to loose a few more inches and/or pounds? Will you have lost enough of the visceral fat you wanted to loose?

What is your plan for maintaining your new self?

I don’t have a maintenance plan yet …. i won’t need one for months and months … and i certainly don’t want to end up where i am now ever again.

I have set a goal …. but i won’t really know if that will still be “the goal” when i get there … or will i want to make adjustments depending on how i feel then? Heck i may want a colonic irrigation as a non-food reward. 🙂 … sort of an end goal intestinal cleanup?!?!?

Just a few thoughts from the peanut gallery.

My goal is 58 kg because that is the top of “normal” BMI and I can’t imagine being any smaller than that – also it will mean a 25 kg total loss which is a nice round number easy to divide up into mini goals. But when I get closer to 58 I may well change it. And because weight fluctuates so much, especially over a monthly cycle, I’ll probably have a range I aim to stay in rather than a number, maybe 55-58 kg. My goodness that is so far away! I’m not really thinking that far ahead yet. 5 kg at a time is less scary.

i started out this tread asking what is the actual weight loss, and seem to agree with myself and you that I need to reduce my weight while on the diet to somewhat below my target in order to maintain my on-target weight.

Continuing to read about weight reduction (it is easy to focus on weight while on a diet) I read that 1 pound of fat equals 3500 calories. i.e. to reduce my weight with 2 pounds I would need to burn 7000 calories more than I take in – assuming that my metabolism is not reduced while on the diet. So for a woman who’s daily calorie need is 1800 calories, living on the 800 calorie diet, means that she will reduce her weight by 2 pounds a week / 1 stone in 7 weeks. That is: the weight of her body fat will drop by 1 stone, but the measured body weight will decrease even more, as she will also have less water in her body. This sound right does it not? – Always assuming that her metabolism is not reduced while on the diet

So for me, wth a 2700 calorie daily need and exercising every second day while on the 800 calorie diet, I can expect to loose 4 pounds of body fat a week and 2 stone of body fat in 8 weeks…?

Body water content increases in percentage terms as you lose the fat and gain lean body mass, because muscle contains more water. Having said that as a rough guide your calculations look good, just don’t expect them to work out exactly as they necessarily use a lot of assumptions. My daily calorie outgoings are around the 1800 mark as far as i can tell and I am doing the 800 at the moment and losing weight slightly faster than your calculations indicate, although very unevenly with a big loss in the first week, and am currently on my second plateau, with the same weight for three days so far. I have lost over a stone in the first 4 weeks and am hoping for another stone or close to it to get to my target by the end of the 8 weeks.