Morning everyone
10 st and 1/4lb today! Have more or less lost holiday gain but not really progressing further. Because there’s only a couple more pounds to go I think I’ve taken my eye off the ball. It’s my birthday tomorrow (66) so will have some bubbles and a small piece of cake so back on it on Thursday!
Well done zinny and black spot and welcome J101. Good to see new blood as this way of eating gathers momentum!
Have a good day in York marie and keep going Kazz you’re doing well.
Mrs T another of my mum’s sayings (she’s 95) which bugs me is on a hot day with the slightest of breezes she’ll look round the sky and say, “it’s blowing for rain”!!
Ah well I’ll just be pleased to reach 95.
I’ve never been to south Wales but I know it’s beautiful and when we do the tour of the British coastline in the motorhome I’ll be looking forward to it. That’s not for now though unless circumstances change.
Good luck fellow zoomers for a good outcome today and whatever happens KOKO!
Luv Tilly x

Well done everyone! So brilliant to wake up and see all these brilliant results…every pound lost is a pound in the right direction and we should all feel really proud of ourselves 👍🏾 Well done us! My second week: I’ve lost 2 1/2 pounds and I’m really happy with that 😊 Well done everyone again, and enjoy this gorgeous weather, it’s so beautiful at the moment! Xx

Morning everyone! So inspiring to read all the posts. Well done to all. Reporting in with a 2lb weight loss but sadly no change with blood sugar, waist or hip measurements. Shall plod on and see what difference the next week brings.
Tillybud- a very happy birthday to you for tomorrow.

Oh yes, happy birthday for tomorrow tillybud! Are you doing anything nice to celebrate? Hope you have a fantastic day! Xx

Thank you momof2 and Mrs T. I’ve no plans at the moment. Quiet day at home as I said with bubbles and cake! (95yr old mum lives with us).
We’ll hopefully go to France again in September for couple of weeks or 3 in our moho and we’ll get carers in again so I’ll take that as a birthday treat!

We’ll enjoy the sunshine in the garden while we can. It’s gone grey and cloudy here in Northamptonshire at the mo. Hope it gets brighter again
Luv
Tillybud x

Morning Zoomers
You are all going great guns well done, since Saturday I have had to move in with my mum as she’s is gravely Ill, trying to be BSD minded and have my fage and strawberries and salads and stuff but have comfort ate a few times, but if I’d been able to weigh I think I would have had a good loss up to sat morning I had lost 4 1/2 lbs so will keep on going at least I can control my eating
🙋

I’m so sorry, greenjanet. I hope that your Mother recovers. I had a 6 wk period like that after my Mothers fatal stroke,
and it was possibly the most painful time of my life. I feel for you…Very sorry!

Hugs,
Allie

Hi all
Had a bit of a shock when returned home from holiday scales said 11stones 13lb hotribly close to the dreaded 12 stones. Fortunately head was in the right place and made me even more determined to start shifting the weight.
Lost 3lb since Saturday probably mainly water.
Other good thing is that OH also realised that he needs to address his weight issue so he went and bought a load of BSD friendly food.
Sorry to hear about your mother Janet and well done every one on your losses
Xx
MM

I was feeling all good about weight loss, then went and looked at my BMI and what I need to achieve just to get into the top of the healthy range. Bugger.

Good to see you back Vulcan463! And well done on the weight loss! Things to consider of you can’t commit fully at the moment are intermittent fasting, and having a calorie eating window. I.e. reducing the amount of time you can eat in. I try to keep to 11am till 6pm as my eating window even when doing this diet.
Best of luck.

Thinking of you greenjanet, a tough time for you.

Hi fellow zoomers,
well done to all of you who are making progress. Sadly I have had a week from hell, no sleep, 24 hour care and then sadly a bodged vet visit to put her to sleep which had to be done twice!! This left Maya very agitated & everyone distressed, hated the fact the kids witnessed it, it was horrendous. Needless to say I felt so bad putting her to sleep & being so tired I ate for any excuse & hadn’t managed to shop or plan so that was last week.
Today I need to refocus holidays in 12 days so I hope to get back to where I was & be just overweight!!
Keep trying to tell myself this is a new way of life & whatever happens on the first of July I will weigh less than I did in 2016 & 2017!! I was prior to this Struggling to balance my micros so will try to focus on this. Take care everyone, I enjoyed reading the post these last 2 weeks even if not been up to join in. Prawns, salad & avocado today! Dxx

Hi Denise susan. Just wanted to wish you well. It sounds like you have had a horrendous week. So very best wishes for the forthcoming holiday and KOKO!

Oh dear, so today after my daughter had gone to sleep I completely fell off the wagon 😫 I ate everything sweet in the house. It’s my daughter’s party at the weekend and I opened the supplies I’d bought for the kids, I ate the kids chocolate and biscuits and just binged on sugar. I feel like I’ve completely let myself down. I had done so well for two weeks, I feel so annoyed with myself. But I’m not going to let this define me. The old me would have given up, accepted that it will be like this forever and just abandoned ship. But not the new me. The new me is getting back on the BSD horse and I’m going to keep going. I wish I hadn’t been weak and sugar binged, but I can’t change my past behaviour. I can affect my future behaviour. I’m not going to throw away the hard work I’ve put in. So I’m back on the diet now and I’m going to keep on.
Tomorrow is a new day…the biggest battle is in the mind…but I’m not letting this get me down or defeat me.

I am sorry to hear about your mother GreenJanet, give yourself a big hug from me.

This weeks weigh in is a 1.4kg loss. –
I realised last night that my tendency to want to eat in an evening is linked to watching TV. There wasn’t anything worth watching last night, so I kept on pottering around until dark. Only when I finally went into the house and put the TV on did I suddenly crave eating. I debated on not having anything and fasting for 36 hours, but decided against it.
I am making the most of the good weather and getting everything out of the old stable, tool shed and feed room and sorting out/ changing around. So my strawberries and cream didn’t make too much of a dent in the calories burnt during the day.

Evening zoomers
Thank you for your kind wishes, mother is now on morphine so care is a bit easier, but I have one sister who is being an absolute cow, and causing so much distress, but I’m trying not to relate to it but it’s hard.
But we are all having a tough time for all sorts of reasons
So a big huggy hug coming from Norfolk for you all who could do with one 🤗🤗🤗
I’m of home tomorrow for a few hours to the hubby and the lovely barnyard, so I will get my scales 😊
Happy zooming 🙋 jan

I’m feeling your pain, janet. Sending you strength. Please don’t neglect taking care of yourself at this time. It’s so
important for what lies ahead. Love to you and your family.

Allie

Jan sending you a very big hug back…hope that going home tomorrow and seeing hubby and your surroundings will help. This must be a very difficult time, just take it a day at a time, that’s all any of us can do xx

Hi J101,
Sorry for not replying to your message sooner, I am busy making the most of the dry sunny weather doing chores outside at present.
One of the others mentioned that I am a veggie. I started on this Way of Eating back in October, so far I am down 88lbs. – Which is 4lbs less than my initial target, but I still have at least one more dress size to go.
My journey started out by cutting out the big carb sources, bread, pasta, rice, pizza, chocolate, sugar, etc. Once I had my carb monster in the corner then I started to skip breakfast, and gradually moved to eating in a 20:4 pattern which means that I can focus my carb/cal allowance on one meal a day.
From what I have read one of the benefits of getting insulin under control and keeping cal intake low so that you are in fat burning mode is a rapid decrease in fat around essential organs.
I have been a vegetarian all my life. I started taking L-carnitine a couple of months ago following a podcast by Dr Bikman, where he explained that L-carnitine is used to help transport fat into muscle to burn for energy, the principle source is meat and the next 8 listed in the top 10 sources are off the table in a low carb diet. – Which left eating bundles of asparagus each day, or taking a supplement. (you will find the link I posted to the podcast on the Take a Look at This thread) . From my experience I would definitely recommend taking at least 2 x 500mg tablets a day.
I am not very good a cooking a wide range of food, I do tend to stick to a limited range of options that I like, but as I have become for familiar with this WoE I would suggest looking at recipe books for keto diet, and there is a thread of recipes on this forum, as well as a thread which hasn’t been active for a while on vegi diet.
I shouldn’t worry too much about getting protein, levels up. there is quite a lot of research going on at present into the autophagy, which is the bodies way of repairing and rebuilding. – It turns out that this only happens when protein levels in the diet are low. So occasionally just having a large plate of low carb veg or salad or soup for your meal.

that’s really interesting about the vegie issue with low carb. One of my other sources of health information is from a Dr. Gregor. He runs an organisation promoting health and healthy eating information. It has quite a pro vegan stand point. ‘Nutrition facts.org’. He doesn’t advocate a high fat diet at all. I generally respect his views on food, but see BSD as a way of getting down to a healthy weight to then maintain with lots of different vegies salads and some thing tasty on the side tempeh, marinated and fried tofu, though Im only intermittently vegie and eat some meat regularly too.

Does anyone on here have experience of being down at a weight within their BMI healthy range and how that affected their blood sugars?

I swear by salad and something for a evening meal.

Denise Susan and Green Janet- so sorry to hear how difficult things are at the moment. Sending you strength and hugs.

Hi theblackspot, You may find reading about the fasting mimicking diet interesting. – The guy behind it Professor Valter Longo is the person who recently was recognised for his research into Autophagy. – For those of us with a lot of weight to loose, so likely to have excess skin, this is an interesting area of research.
While most of us are focusing on low carb to control insulin levels, his work is focused on protein levels in the diet and a hormone called mTor.

Greenjanet you are doing so well in such a difficult situation. Sending you hugs from my part of Norfolk.

Denise Susan what a horrible thing to have happened – especially as the children witnessed it. You shouldn’t feel bad putting her to sleep as we are so lucky that we do not have to prolong our much loved pets suffering. But so awful that the vet botched it.

Theblackspot – when I got down to the middle of my healthy BMI I was able to lower my BS enough to stop the insulin. To stay off it I need to keep my carbs at 20g – so to try to improve my insulin sensitivity I am doing 18/6 intermittent fasting and dropping to the lower end of healthy BMI — which does seem to be improving BS further. My HB1aC at diagnosis was 125 so I think I am so lucky to get off the insulin.

Thanks for the Lungo heads up Jgwen. I remember him being one of the inspirations for MM’S initial 5:2 eating plan and TV programme. I’ll look into it.
MrsThomson. Well done you!!! It’s not falling down that is the judge of a person, it’s how they get back up again. You’re on this!

I’m pleased with myself today for being over my 800 yesterday. (? I hear you ask) I had a hell day at work, did my job well and saved a life in very trying circumstances. The realities of the human condition and how some people live left me wanting to comfort eat and drink till I was grinning again. I wanted sugar and cake and biscuits.
I had salad with boiled eggs. One (big) drink of pastis, and after dinner when the sugar Devil was still riding me, I got out a piece of really stinky blue cheese. It was awsome! Such flavour and umami. It got me through. So it may have been a couple of ounces of cheese, but it wasn’t the alternative.
If anyone has very depressed self harming teens in their lives. Let them know suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And make sure they aren’t hoarding medications…

Thank you BlackSpot for the encouragement… I was back to my standard egg and cheese breakfast this morning and am walking to the post office now so feeling better. Back on track and staying on track. And well done to you! That’s a massive achievement you should feel very proud 👍🏻 I can only imagine some of the things you must witness in your job and the stress, I think you coped brilliantly yesterday.
Greenjanet how are things with you today? Hope you’re doing ok. Denise Susan sounds like a tough time for you too, sending positivity your way.
Just take it one day at a time, each day will add up and get us one step closer to our goals xx

blackspot – a massive well-done for doing so well on this woe yesterday in those horrendous-sounding circumstances.

I read your post where you mention being happy with your weight loss until you saw how far you have to go before you get to the healthy BMI range. I have so much sympathy with that. I’m at maintenance now (my challenge is trying to embed all these new behaviours as a new lifestyle). When I first started to lose weight I had 5st to lose and whenever I thought of that I would get disheartened. So, I just stopped thinking about it. I didn’t look at a 9st goal until I was 9st 11lb (the top of my healthy weight range) and even then it seemed a long way off. Setting small achievable, but meaningful to me, targets worked for me – it’s something about giving yourself positive boosts, I suppose, rather than all the negatives you get from focusing on how far you’ve got to go/how much you’ve got to lose. Hope that doesn’t sound too much like teaching granny (or grandad) to suck eggs!

In relation to being within a BMI healthy range and how that affects blood sugars, thought this might be useful:
Early 2017 I was 14st 4lbs, BMI 36.5. I started BSD at the beginning of August 2017 when I was diagnosed Type II. By then I was 13st 3lb, BMI 33.4. My Hba1c on diagnosis in August was 106.
3 weeks after starting the BSD I got a blood glucose monitor and started monitoring my blood sugars systematically every day. At that point I’d lost 12lbs. My initial bgl readings were already mostly 7s, some 8’s. This would be equivalent to an Hba1c of between 53 – 70 (although I know it’s not a proper comparison as Hba1c is a different test using a 3-month average). But my experience is that my blood sugars fell quickly on this way of eating (I did 800 cals <20g carb).

My next Hba1c at the end of November 2017 was 35 – back in the normal range – even though at 10st 10lbs and BMI 27.4 I was still classed as overweight. My daily bgls were averaging 4s and 5s with the odd 6.
I’m now 9st, (mid-way point in my healthy weight range), my BMI is 23 and my daily bgls remain as they were in November.

Marie

n.b. unlike Krysia, I wasn’t on insulin – that may be why my bgls came down before I reached my healthy weight range. From what I’ve read on this Forum, being on insulin makes everything so much harder to do. Hats off to Krysia xx

greenjanet – so sorry to hear about your mother, take care of yourself. xx

Tillybud hope you’re enjoying your birthday cake and champagne today! Xx

Denise Susan – what a horrible week you had. Hope you have a better week this week. Like you say, stay focused on the upcoming holiday – the kids will have a great time. xx

Tilly –I had a great time in York, thanks. Hope you have a happy birthday

Mrs T – I agree the biggest battle is in the mind – well done for getting back on track

Marie xx

Good day all, popping on to wish you all the best, reflecting on how this way of eating has changed my life. I feel 25 not 48 and 11 months!

Keep at it, it really is worth it. I lost 3 stone really very quickly and am now a very stable 58kg and a size 8, 10 months in.

First thing, lose enough off your pancreas to ease your insulin spikes (800 cals etc) then high fat, low carb all the way. I also leave a big gap between evening meal and breakfast – about 15.5hrs. Otherwise no calorie counting for me anymore.

I was so inspired by everyone on here, it was the best thing. My life is way better now. Good luck, keep on keeping on and I know for a fact you can do it. Xx

Jackie, What a lovely surprise to see your post today! Look in again, won’t you? I hope you’re making good use
of your garden bench this time of year, and that your raspberry bushes are prospering 🙂

tillybud, Happy Happy Birthday! Many happy returns 🙂 Enjoy your celebration dinner!

Allie

I’m about to do some food prepping for our evening meal but had to come on to say hello to Jackie – as Allie says, it is lovely to hear from you and that you’re still doing so well (although I’ve never doubted that). It’s always inspiring to me to hear that people are still maintaining. xx

Btw, Tilly, I hate to gainsay you on your birthday, but I love your Mum saying ”it’s blowing for rain” on a hot day. I’m definitely going to adopt it!

So the past two days it’s been the just before bed time that’s been my undoing. I’ve done really well all day and then just to relax I’ve had a little something which I can’t handle as I then need more and more. This happened last night. So I need to go back to the drawing board: 3 BSD meals a day and no treats, because clearly I’m not capable of just something small… I get one taste and my body just craves it all again. So it’s a new day tomorrow and another chance. I’m going to aim to do tomorrow as well as I can. Then Friday. Then Saturday. Just take it one day at a time. Each good day will slowly add up. There are always bumps in the road but I’m not having any more bumps: I have a swimming costume to fit in! Please wish me luck to get through the whole of tomorrow and no more self sabotage!

Does anyone have any tips about what they do to avoid evening/late night temptations? How have you broken that habit?

Mrs T there’s a few things that I’ve done. Firstly make sure you eat enough protein and healthy fats with your evening meal so that you are not hungry in the evenings. (Although I must admit I don’t even need to be hungry to crave something sweet sometimes!). I keep a bar of 85% dark chocolate in the cupboard and have a square of that when I’m craving chocolate, it’s so rich that 1 Square is enough.
Fruit tea is also nice, I have a cup of that in the evening while I’m watching tv. You could also try having a bath, reading a book, knitting etc to keep occupied in ways that don’t involve food.

Mrs T – I had 2 meals a day rather than three. I skipped breakfast and had lunch and dinner with more of my calories going on the evening meal. I still do that.

Also, like SueBlue as part of my evening meal I’d have protein (which my body seemed to crave). I’d eat between six and seven, and often as ‘desert’ I’d have a small portion of full fat yoghurt which I think I saw as my ‘treat’ for the day (but I’ve always loved natural yoghurt). I stopped eating for the night at 7pm – it’s something I’d learnt over the years helps me to lose weight better. (Turns out it’s part of the whole intermittent fasting idea – who knew!)

If I craved something later I’d have a cup of tea – now I’ll have a cup of whatever black or fruit tea is in, but initially I had a cup of tea with milk (which again was a treat for me) at 9pm (or even the odd time at bedtime). As an avid tea drinker that 9pm cuppa just helped me stay the course in the beginning.

On a couple of occasions when I was hungry at bedtime I ate a little bit of yoghurt and once I had a small cube of cheese but generally I was fine.

Marie

Thank you, I completely forgot about the tea suggestion, that’s a great one. I have boxes of mint tea in the cupboard that I completely forgot about! My confidence is a little shaky today but I have done two full weeks already so I know that I’m capable. We just have lots of extra sweet stuff in the house at the moment as it’s my daughter’s birthday party at the weekend so the house is full of treats in preparation 😩 I’ll be glad when that’s over!

Btw, that reminds me of a general tip I read on the forum early on. ‘If you do need to break out temporarily it is better to eat the wrong amount of calories than the wrong types of food’. I can’t remember who said it but I found it a helpful thought.

That makes sense…eating sugar makes me crave sugar…I find it hard to stop thinking about once I’ve had a taste. I think my treat food needs to become cheese, much better on this diet!
I now need to “get the monkey off my back again” and reduce this sugar craving daily again, but I must, I’m not slipping backwards. Thanks for the advice, new start today, still have huge, huge amounts to learn…

Mrs T – I do sympathise. I never had to do this with younger children around. Is there anything you really like that you can eat on BSD which you can have instead whenever you’re really tempted by the extra sweet stuff?

One day at a time is a great idea. Go well today. xx

Edit Our posts crossed. xx

Cheese, cheese, cheese..:I need to convert from chocoholicism to cheese-ism!! That’s my mission!

Mrs T do have a look through the BSD Recipe book as there are several snack ideas in there: the parmesan chips were a lifesaver for me in the early days! But for a sweeter tooth there are BSD versions of cupcakes, brownies and flapjacks 🙂

Lovely to hear how everyone is getting on – some really good successes here. I’m not doing brilliantly: my weight is fluctuating wildly (can gain or lose 2-3lb throughout the course of a day – even with the new digital scales). Am basically maintaining but not losing: but hopefully some good news to post soon.

Denise Susan so sorry to hear the awful news about your dog: I have a dog too and they really do become part of your family. And green janet sending love to you as you care for your mother.

Also love and hugs to everyone else, particularly those struggling in any way – I try to keep up with all the posts but am sure I miss a lot as well!

Thanks dreamscometrue…parmasan crisps might be a good one to try…

Good luck with it dreamscometrue I’m sure you’ll have loses to report soon 🤞🏻

Mrs T can only agree with what the earlier posters have said. I’ve gone to bed in desperation before today to get away from the siren call of the sweets. For me a hot drink has been a lifesaver. A handful of almonds maybe?
Green Janet hope you are ok and Denise Susan, so sad to hear about your beloved dog. My baba is sat on the bed looking at me right now, how I love him.
Beautiful day in Pembrokeshire, I’ve already been out walking with the dog, a real pleasure to be out and about.
I hope everyone has a good day.
Vulcan glad to see you back on the forum, it’s doable, hard but doable!

Hi MrsT,
To avoid late night temptations I started knitting a cushion cover. – It was something I could do with my hands and an uncomplicated pattern meant I could still focus on the TV.

Sugar is addictive.
Quiting sugar is hard.
Be nice to your self and acknowled it’s not ‘weakness’ or some personal failing that you want sugar. It’s addictive!
When I was quitting smoking and a craving came on. Instead of giving in I went to do something for 5 minutes. Anything. That gap after the urge often meant my body /brain forgot that it had been shouting ‘SMOKE’ at me.
Crochet, knitting, carving, scrabble, walking round the block. Teaching the dog something can be a great ongoing task. Molly (rip) learnt to lie down & roll over using hand signals.
Eating sugar encourages the growth of enzymes & bacteria in your gut flora, that will ask & tell you they want more sugar. Over time they will be bred out by the increase in veg loving enzymes and bacteria. The cravings will be much less and even stop entirely!
Good luck today Mrs T, & everyone.

Lots if good advice Mrs T, just wanted to say I really sympathise! I’ve kids as well and my husband works away from home. So I seem to spend my days catering to the kids needs and it’s only the evenings that I have to myself so perfect time for treating myself to something nice with an hour of Netflix… I started to wean myself from evening snacking by brushing my teeth as soon as I was finished dinner and going to bed earlier to read a book, just to break the habit. Also herbal teas and water with ice and slice of lemon seem more like a drink than just plain water 😄
I’ve moved on to intermittent fasting since, I normally do 18/6 or 20/4 and it has just completely erased evening snacking from the agenda. It helps to know it’s not a possibility…

My nemesis this week is the innocent strawberry! Crop in my garden is ripe and they’re soooooo lovely, hard not to overdo them.

Theblackspot – really good post. I absolutely agree (as a former carboholic) that once you give up the sugar and the bad carbs the cravings disappear. My gut – after two years on the BSD – is absolutely full of the veg loving enzymes and bacteria and I have zero cravings for the bad stuff. Everyone around is amazed at my willpower – but actually I only needed willpower in the beginning when I still had a gut full of sugar and carb loving bacteria. As I am very deficient in the willpower department it is so good that I don’t need it to be successful with this way of eating.

Just had to post my blood sugar reading. 2 hours after breakfast it was 5.3. I had to re-test to check it was right! The 20g carbs and getting down to normal BMI got me off the insulin. Now it looks like dropping towards the lower end of healthy BMI and intermittent fasting just might be improving insulin sensitivity and perhaps the beta cells are starting to work better. Maybe at some point I will be able to eat more healthy carbs without spiking blood sugars.

Thank you all so so much for the support, encouragement and advice it makes such a huge difference it really does. I’m going to keep persevering I’m not giving up. It is hard with a young family though as I can’t fob the kids off with tiramisu 😂 For me when everyone is asleep after a long day, that’s my time to relax and for me that’s always been sugar as it’s so comforting. Even as a child chocolate was a reward…done well? Have some cake! Bad day? Have a biscuit! Trying to replace those emotional links combined with the biological reaction and the sheer addictiveness of sugar is really tough…but I’ll get there. Reading your stories and seeing your examples shows me this is achievable and it will become easier I just need to stick at it. My first goal is to conquer today, and go to sleep tonight with today a success. Then I’ll deal with tomorrow. I’m having to go food shopping today to get final bits for my daughter’s party…I find food shopping hard as I’m forced to confront those sugar demons. So I need to focus on why I’m doing this:
Lose weight
Improve my health by controlling my blood sugars
Get into my swimming costume in 5 weeks!
One day at a time…KOKO everyone. Hope you’re all having a really wonderful day today, sending you all much love xx