Thank you Verano, I didnt mention my holiday because it was a disaster from the get go. Arrived at the hotel to discover there had been a serious delay of the ship arriving (a medical emergency so they had to go to Portugal), 5 hours late getting on. The delays continued, we had 2 hurricaines and a medical emergency, all of which meant we either didnt reach port or had our tours cancelled. At one point they announced a fire on board and forgot to say it was a training session. Had to strap ourselves into our beds to stop us from being thrown out in the storms. Bugger that, I stayed up sat on the settee and held on to the arm with one hand and my champagne with the other.

Last time we go to Norway in what is still their winter although I should say we did choose to go up to the Arctic Circle but if you visit the Fjords they are wonderful and inland.

Not quite back on the diet although I have been good, just getting peckish late at night and having cheese on Ryvita. On top of that it is our wedding anniversary today so we have opened one of the bottles of champagne we were given on the ship. Tomorrow night we are out for a meal at our favourite restaurant, so I guess the diet starts on Monday.

My number one recommendation is The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriaty. Usually I can work out who done it in a few chapters but this has so many twists and turns it left me breathless at the end.

My second recommendation is The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. It sounds morbid as the story is told by the girl who has been murdered and comes back to clear her boyfriends name and warn her young sister about the man next door. Sounds morbid and as a survivor or abuse I should have hated it but it was told with such humour and honesty I finished it in 3 sittings. Yes I cried but I laughed at the same time.

My thing is psychological thrillers like books by Nicci French or Tess Gerriton but I have now been reading Angela Marsens, a frosty detective in a Birmingham nick and the murders she solves. When you get to know her back story you will understand why she is so cold and standoffish.

Hope that gives you something to get your teeth into but if you like La La Land books you wont like these – do read Liane Moriaty.

ARCTICFOX it sounds as if you’re really getting to grips with your medication and its impact, and I hope you have a productive discussion with your doctor tomorrow. Your forthcoming veg crop sounds amazing. Fresh veg always taste so much better than shop bought.

Just checking in quickly to recommend a lovely breakfast I had today – coconut chia Bircher. Very filling and tasty, and only 228 calories. I assume the recipe is online or in one of the books but if not let me know and I can put it on here.

Have a great day everyone xx

Hi everyone,
I’ve just reached week 6 on eating very low carb. I was on the ADHD meds for just over a week, but have come off them for now until I talk to my doctor on Friday as they started giving me extremely vivid nightmares, suggesting that the raised dopamine was interfering with my REM sleep. I was doing better with eating more to a schedule and that eliminated the headaches. Interestingly, I think a big benefit of doing low carb and being on the meds at the same time was that the low carb mostly took away any urge to binge on carbs, unless I had a very disappointing day like on Saturday at pottery, but then I think it was the meds that gave me the ability to slow down my impulses and to think of other ways I could comfort myself. So I’d like to talk to my doctor and maybe try a different medication. Not ready to give up yet. Interestingly, the drug I am on is approved to treat binge eating as well as ADHD, and I can see why it works. I wasn’t having to look to food to get a dopamine hit when the drug was raising it for me.
Out in the garden, I have radishes and snap peas coming up now. I planted out some brussels sprouts, broccoli and cauliflower plants yesterday. They will take a while, but something to look forward to. Not many of the local farms around me grow broccoli and cauliflower, probably because it gets hot so quickly, and so many people still buy into the myth that we can’t plant anything out until late May. I will have to protect them as we will be down below freezing again tonight. Once I have my own veggies producing, it will be so much easier to keep eating low carb. I only have spinach right now, and while it is nice to have something fresh at this time of year, it is getting a bit monotonous.

I know this is totally off topic for ‘The BSD’ but I love to read and always enjoy book recommendations, well most of the time.

My daughter recommended ‘Butter’ by Asako Yuzuki. Usually her recommendations are great but I have to say this one was meeeh!

I would really love to hear of any ‘good reads’ and will be quite happy to add some of my own even if they are a few years old.

Sunshine-girl… welcome home! Hope you had a wonderful cruise and your little gain was really just that …. little!

When it comes to a ‘thread’ I’ve enjoyed doing the April thread because it’s been so long since I last did one and I fully understand how you are ‘all threaded out’ s-g. I would love somebody to pick up the June thread, it’s not that difficult and as s-g says ‘you got onto this site with a question’? However, if nobody wants to jump onboard then I’ll take the June thread. I’ll probably need to jump strictly back onto the wagon after my trip away next month. I hope I gain only as much as you s-g!

So, it’s the middle of the month already and as I type we have a hail storm, April, showers but hail???

Anyway, we are half way through this month and I hope everyone is reaching their own goals. If you are, great and maybe make them a bit tougher. If not maybe reassess. Are they attainable? Are they really achievable? We have to be realistic in our goals. You don’t put weight on in a week, so in reality we have to adjust our expectations, especially as we get older…. a 21 year old body reacts a little differently to a body aged 31, 51, 71 or even 81.

I have said so many times, particularly for those of us with T2, that this ‘Way of Eating’ is for life. I think we maybe each have to prioritise our goals.

What is your main ‘objective’? Lower blood sugar. lose weight? both? Just be generally more healthy?

At the end of the day I think we just have “ … to thine own self be true…”
Have a good evening.

Thank you Verano for setting up this thread. I have to agree that the 3 month thread didnt work for me either. I did so well in the first couple of weeks that I slackened off after that. My reasoning was that I was absolutely fed up with having to set up these threads with no help from anyone. First I abandoned the weekly one and we to monthly. I know it is only once a month having to think of a title, say a few words and then keep it going by welcoming old and new and keeping people motivated. I have had enough. I like Veranos idea that we share it out and I am happy to take on the May thread but would ask that someone else kindly volunteer for June. Before you say you dont know how to do it then think back to how you got onto this site. Most of you started by starting a new thread with your own particular question. Was it so difficult.

I am back from 3 weeks away on a cruise and then with my daughter. My total weight gain is 3.5lbs so I am well chuffed with myself for that. My BG has been in the high 100’s and hit 200 a couple of times but is quickly coming down to normal and was 125 this morning. I did a search to see about damage and if it is short-term and also you know the reason there is no need to panic.

I am thinking about my new goals and want to do 1kg per month. That will get me under my pre-holiday weight by the time I see the doctor for my 3 monthly check up. Have a good week and keep on……..

Hi Newbie, I would like to say that keeping under 50g is so difficult. After 10 years I have only managed it for a few days at a time before I have to sacrifice calories then I am not eating enough. Just by cutting out the main white carbs you are doing great. I was told not to eat carrots or apples or blueberries. I say, I am diabetic and this diet it for life so if I cant have the occasional treat or even basic veg then there is something wrong with the diet. We do the best we can. 50g is very low so dont feel you have to get any way lower than that.

CATHY and BECCA thanks for your good wishes. Yes it’s the most bizarre thing! The lip took a long time to heal, but as it did I’d been noticing a hard lump just underneath it. I initially assumed it was scar tissue, but feeling both sides I began to suspect it was the broken tooth. Thought I was probably just being fanciful but it then started to feel a bit swollen and tender so I did an e-consult with the doctor (like you Becca, I assumed it would be them) and they said to go to my dentist. I was a bit worried I’d end up being fobbed off and passed to and fro between them but she was lovely and did an X-ray and there it was! Though she said she personally didn’t feel confident to remove it. The antibiotics seem to have done their job so far, as it feels ok again, but I now have to wait to be contacted about what happens next!

Becca I’m so glad you had a wonderful time. What a beautiful place to visit. And lots of happy memories I’m sure. And hopefully the weight regain will begin to come off again.

Cathy thanks for the advice re antibiotics.Some of the weight gain seems to have come off this morning and I finish the course today, so here’s hoping it was just a blip and I can get back on track. I was hoping for 148 by the end of this month but am now back at 152 so we’ll see. I’m not too concerned as there is a gradual ongoing loss, but what I may do is switch to the Fast Keto programme for a few weeks in May when I’m back from my Devon break, just to boost things up a bit.

Good luck Cathy with your HbA1c test. You really deserve to see some much improved results. And then it will be your trip to Corfu which sounds lovely. I was going to ask, is it purely a social trip or is it based on a particular book you’ve read? I think travelling to the location of a book is quite a thing now (I’m sure it has a proper name but can’t think of it!). Anyway, enjoy! And I hope you find some good hair options when you get back.

Hello also to everyone else reading this and I hope you’re all ok and having a good week.

Dreams, how awful to learn about the piece of broken tooth in your lip! I hope the surgical fix is sooner rather than later. Am a bit surprised that your lip would be considered dental surgery..? Anyway, I do hope you get things all fixed up and can put it all behind you.

Oh, and yes, I did do the Arizona trip already with my daughter and granddaughter and had a lovely time, thank you. Gained some weight, though, and am now back to low carb/low calorie to get it off and continue moving downward.

Cathy, very smart of you to plan your A1c test for before your trip, especially since you have been SO disciplined! I wish I had done my test before my trip. Instead I’m having it in 4 weeks, so it will be impacted by the carb-fest on my trip. I didn’t realize the test would be coming up that soon.

Also smart of you to decide to stay off the scales when you get home. It was very demoralizing (but not surprising) for me. On the other hand, was a good motivator. It’s hard getting back on low carb when you’ve been away from it, but I’m a few days in now, so those first few days are behind me.

I can see now more of the big picture of your hair appointment gone wrong. Didn’t realize it was such a hugely expensive process. But you seem to have made peace with what happened, and that’s probably for the best, for your own well-being. Will be interested to hear if you do go check out the wig shop. I have extremely thin hair myself, as did my mom, and she got into wearing wigs later in life, so perhaps now it’s my turn to look into it.

DCT- I can’t get over the tooth being embedded in your lip! I hope you get an oral surgeon as good as the one I had last week and don’t have to wait too long. How on earth did you find out it was there- can you feel it? Sorry that you had an unexplained 2lb shock this morning- thats rubbish! Whenever I am prescribed antibiotics I always buy BioKult from Amazon and they help my gut biome. I always take them when I travel too. Antibiotics always mess with my microbiome and I always get thrush. I really try to avoid them but my dentist prescribed them when he didn’t know what my dental issue was many months ago. Hopefully you’ll be feeling better very soon and those extra pounds will be gone for good!
After my hair disaster on Friday I calmed down after I got home. I was devastated as my new system isnt due to be replaced for 18 months. I have accepted that a mistake was made and in the big scheme of things it’s not really important. Worse things are happening in the world. Because of my alopecia I’ve been wearing a hair system for 15 years and I always say, things can’t really go wrong because I can always get a new system but it’s £1500 a time and the maintenance is expensive. I am considering wigs for the future and may have a mooch to a wig shop in Manchester for a chat after my holiday.
With regard to whether I’ve noticed the weight loss, I can see my wrists are tiny and my hands are slim and clothes are looser and I can see my legs are slimmer too. I’m more excited to see if my HbA1c is normal and I’ve got my blood test booked in for a few days before I go away!! Wise move!!!
I’ve already decided that when I get back from Corfu I am not going to get on the scales. I’ll go straight back to keto and weigh myself after a month. No point in striking myself with a second arrow! I am hoping I will eat healthy food in Corfu and I plan to stay sugar free. I don’t think my pancreas would cope with sugar now!
Have a good week everyone .

YOWZER lovely to hear from you and thanks so much for the positive thought. It can be easy to fritter away time or spend it in a negative frame of mind whereas we should really be grateful for every minute and put it to good use – even if that means taking time to care for ourselves and rest and relax. I’m very good at being busy for busy’s sake, if that makes sense!

CATHY very well done for your ongoing loss. That’s fantastic! Are you noticing changes to your body and clothes as well as on the scales? I’m so pleased for you. Also good to hear your tooth is now gone. And I hope you get your new hair system sorted quickly.

ARCTICFOX well done for staying on track despite a disappointing weekend. It’s so easy to turn to eating or drinking all the wrong things when we feel fed up or frustrated, even though that then exacerbates the negative mood!

BECCA I’ve lost track : have you been on your holiday yet or is that still to come? Either way, I hope you have/had a wonderful time!

I had an unexpected gain of almost 2lb this morning which was disappointing. But then I had a thought. I’m on antibiotics at the moment and I Googled it and found that they can cause weight gain due to messing with your gut microbiome. Things like probiotics and fermented food can help so I’ll look out for those when I go shopping today, and the antibiotics are only for a couple more days so hopefully any effect will be short lived anyway 🤞 (btw it turns out that after my fall in NYC the broken tooth is still embedded in my lip! It has become slightly infected so the antibiotics are to deal with that. I’m being referred to a dental surgeon to remove it. Will keep you posted . . . )

Hope that everyone has a good week. Here’s to more losses 🙂. I’ll report back at the end of the week X

Oh wow, Newbie, I read your list and while you are on a pretty good track, the blueberries jumped out at me right away. You are consuming 12-15g of carbs in blueberries alone. As Verano says, if you can stick to blackberries, raspberries and strawberries which have less than half the carbs, that is a good tweak for now. If you do that and cut the portion of fruit in your yogurt by half and add a few nuts and some seeds like hemp or pumpkin (bonus, these are also very high in magnesium and diabetics often have a magnesium deficiency and it is a super important nutrient for glucose metabolism), you will improve the composition of your breakfast by a lot. Of course it is much better to be eating fruit than sweets and bread, so if you need them for now until you manage to change your tastes, that is fine. I’ve had to ditch the blueberries too. I thought I was doing a healthy thing by eating them as a dessert, but they were spiking my blood sugar a lot. I’m down to one portion of fruit per day. Maybe try snacking on some low carb veggies like bell peppers and cucumbers in addition or add a high fibre, high protein item with them? I like lupini beans for this. I toast them in the oven with a bit of salt and 3 tbsp of nutritional yeast. The nutritional yeast is great for adding in B vitamins that you might be missing from cutting your grains back, and is a good source of iron as well. I get the lupini beans from a local Mediterranean shop, so if you have an Italian or Greek shop nearby, you may have luck finding them there. I looked it up and it seems Tesco may have them too. They are cheaper dried, but they are quite hard to prepare (they have to soak in constant changes of water for weeks on end to get all the bitterness out) so I just go with the pre-cooked ones.
You’re already doing well to get your carbs under 100g. Keep it up! This is a learning process and you can’t be expected to know it all at once. I still get shocked by some things. I had to stop eating imitation crab. I thought it was just pollock soaked in crab brine, but I was getting it at the fish counter in the supermarket so it wasn’t labelled and I didn’t know that was what was spiking me until I saw the reading on the cgm after eating it in nori wraps with avocado and cucumber (so I knew it had to be the only thing that could have caused the spike). I looked into it and realized that they also add loads of sugar to the brine. So we all get tripped up now and then.

Wow, carbs before I started the BSD were up to 250 (on a bad day) so I’ve cut them down to under 100g I’m happy, will see if the tweaks above help too

Hi Verano, I use my fitness pal to log all my food as I’ve used it for years and found it quite reliable so far. I didnt realise blueberries were so high, I shall keep them for my breakfast and cut them out for my afternoon fruit and stick to strawberries thank you for the info. In all fairness this batch of granola has some oats in which I shall omit next time round and keep it to nuts and seeds. I will have a go with the bulgar wheat and keep to a low portion to ring the changes with cauliflower rice. Thank you for the advice, im intrigued by what my carb intake was prior to this so shall go back through MFP and have a look. Have a good day all

Thank you Yowser for your thought for Monday morning. What a wonderful, inspiring post.
I am feeling so much better since the tooth has been extracted. No earache and no gum ache. There.does not appear to be any involvement with the sinus and everything seems intact! Phew! I’ve been very lucky and so thankful to the wonderful Oral Surgeon who was so kind. Am so grateful for his expertise.
I still can’t believe how well I am doing to lose 22 lb in the last few weeks – I am the lightest weight I’ve been since June 2019! This morning I was 144.2 lb. All those years of getting absolutely nowhere! The difference has been sticking rigidly to 800 calories and doing keto and NOT CHEATING ONCE! I am lucky to have a superpower of willpower! I’ve eaten fresh food for the last 10 weeks whilst doing the online plan. I can’t eat nuts and seeds for two weeks til things start to heal up in my mouth and I’m missing them. I’ve had no crisps, chocolate, chips, cakes, biscuits, bread, crackers. Not even a crumb or a rogue chip that fell off my husband’s plate! I really hope my HbA1c reflects my effort at the end of April. I’ll keep going til the end of April then take a few days off for my book club holiday to Corfu and then get straight back to basics. My plan is to enjoy holidays, festivities etc and then in between eat keto and be mindful. Let’s see what happens. I know maintenance will be hard.
Have a good week everyone. We’ve got this. I think we really have!

BTW Arcticfox I made a variation of your yogurt dressing and it’s lovely. Gone are my mayo days!

Newbie it looks like you have lots of good low carb stuff but I wonder how you calculate your carbs? Do you use an app like fatsecret? The reason I ask is that it seems to me that there are one or two items that maybe you don’t realise are pretty high carb. Strawberries are around 4g per 100g whereas blueberries are almost 15g per 100g. Maybe have a few more strawberries in the afternoon and fewer or no blueberries. I have no idea how many carbs there are in the granola you’re having but maybe leave that out and just add 10g of walnuts?
Bulgar wheat isn’t too bad but lentils and pearl barley are pretty high and make sure you are checking the carbs in cooked v dry because the difference is huge!

Truthfully, if you were to calculate the number of carbs you were eating on average day pre-blood sugar diet you will be shocked, maybe even horrified! If you having less than 100g a day that actually is low carb compared to an ‘average’ persons diet. Don’t stress too much about the number and just follow the general rule of not eating bread, pasta, rice and any vegetables that grow underground and you’ll be fine.

Thank you Arcticfox. I live in the UK and have looked but neither of the lupini beans or rapini seem readily available, so I shall keep my eyes peeled for those when I’m out and about.

Verano –
Breakfast at 10am is 100g Greek yoghurt, 50g raspberries and 50g blueberries, fiber supplements, and 2 tablespoons of homemade granola following a recipe I found on this site. Lunch is mixed salad (pepper, cucumber, celery, radish, asparagus, cherry tomatoes, small amount of sweetcorn) with either tuna or chicken, no dressing. Snack at 3pm of 50g strawberries, 50g blueberries, 50g blackberries (I need this to help me get through the afternoon at work or I’ll go home and snack on naughty stuff). Dinner is a meat protein, veg including tenderstem broccoli, beans, spinach, cabbage etc, and cauliflower rice (almost for every dinner), sometimes I have lentils or konjac rice, I’ve got edamame noodles and black bean noodles to try and bulgar wheat and pearl barley, (once a fortnight I may have 25g lentil pasta), followed by a sugar free jelly or if calories allow a small piece of 85% dark chocolate (finish eating by 7pm). Cup of tea at 8.30 and 2-3litres of water during the day.

Good morning!

Wendy a loss is a loss!

Pootle well done! I think you have found the secret in cutting back straight after any indulgent time that way you don’t ’drift’ back into bad habits.

Becca it’s a good idea to write down what you are going to eat BEFORE eating then you might decide to leave something off your plate! Have you tried Greek yogurt instead of cream? It’s so easy to underestimate how much cream you are actually pouring. Also it might be an idea to try and do without the sweetener that way you do eventually lose any ‘sweet tooth’ and in fact I find lots of foods too sweet now!

Newbie what a good idea to print of the sheets and pin them to your fridge. I don’t know if you used the dietdoctor site but that has brilliant graphics.

Anyway, the sun is shining here this morning, hope it is with you too. The start of a new week so a ‘new start’ for each of us. One day at a time….

Newbie it might be more helpful if you tell us what you eat in typical day then we might have some lower carb suggestions.

Thanks for the thought Yowzer. It certainly applies to my situation this weekend. I was enrolled in a teapot making workshop at the pottery studio. Saturday was just dreadful. I was struggling with my clay being too wet and soft and did not mesh at all with the instructor’s teaching style. I really wanted to just be able to pick up some tips and tricks, but in the end was upset at myself for getting frustrated by it all. It was so interesting that I just wanted to get off the wagon after and have some very high carb/high fat treats. So I said to myself, what could I have that would feel good? I was too tired to cook, so I decided on palak paneer out of a packet and went to the supermarket to get some. It hit the spot and I avoided buying things I shouldn’t have. Then I called my godmother and had a good chat. I went back to class today and although I still wasn’t meshing with the instructor, it went better and I got more out of it.
I stopped at the organic market where I get my soy free tofu and duck eggs on the way home and I did splurge on a few things that will just make my life a bit easier now that I am headed into busy season on the farm. They were supposed to have gluten free keto bread on special, but they didn’t have any left, so I did get some buns and a pizza base instead. Also, I got some almond flour cookies and some hemp seed protein bars. Then I found cauliflower oven chips! They are pretty highly processed, but very low carb, so will do for an occasional treat on a day when I don’t feel like cooking from scratch, and will be nice with the fish filets I have in my freezer. So hopefully all these things will allow me to stay on track even on busy or upsetting days.
So, there were times when I definitely would have used being upset and tired as a reason to abandon this way of eating, but I’m quite proud that I remembered what kind of weekend I would like to be having eating-wise and how I need to stay on track for at least 3 months to meet my initial goal and I’m only on week 5. Actually, next week will be week 6, so half way!

Hi Newbie,
I don’t typically count my grams, but I am eating very low carb at the moment. I note from one of your other posts that you sometimes have a small slice of bread or some lentil pasta. I am celiac, so can’t have bread anyway (except for gluten-free keto bread, but it is very expensive so I rarely indulge). Before going this low carb, I would sometimes have lentil or chickpea pasta as well, but I realized by wearing the cgm that it was spiking my blood sugar. In fact, even chickpeas and lentils themselves are spiking my glucose at the moment which can lead to overnight crashes (reactive hypoglycemia) for me. It’s too bad because they are so healthy otherwise. But my goal is to be less insulin resistant and more metabolically flexible so they are off the table for now. So, at the moment, if I want noodles, I have konjac/shiritake noodles or zucchini noodles or thinly sliced cabbage (instead of chow mein noodles for instance). Instead of lentils or chickpeas, I have lupini beans which are higher in protein and much lower in carbs. My other low carb proteins are duck eggs, soy free tofu (allergic to soy and have a chicken egg intolerance), hemp seeds, Greek yogurt, different types of fish and seafood, and a few nuts and a bit of cheese. I combine these with lots of low carb veg and nori seaweed snacks for iodine and salt and incorporate nutritional yeast for iron and B vitamins. If you want to lower carbs further, look for things like rapini instead of broccoli. Broccoli is a very healthy vegetable, but subbing rapini for it half the time will lower your carb intake, especially if you eat it as often as I do (3+ times per week). I try to also have lower carb nuts, so macadamia nuts or pecans instead of cashews, for instance. Put together, all these little swaps can really add up over the course of a day or week.
Hope this helps.

Hello all, I was diagnosed in December 2025, so I’m new to the whole BSD way of life but have been following it for 3 months and have lost weight and reduced my HBA1C levels by over half.

I was just wondering if people could tell me what they eat on an average day to keep their carbs below 50g. I eat all the right things but seem to never get my carbs below 50g so I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, any advice would be great and seeing what other people eat in a day would be good.

Thanks in advance

Very well done Pootle I wish that I was so self disciplined but I have managed to lose 0.5 lbs but must do much better!
I hope everyone has a good next week.
Margaret xx

Yowzer that is a superb ‘thought for the day’!
Thank you! 💐💐

Hola chums! I amstill crawlin and creepin about like a snail and havent got muchto say except mainly CCATHY,I am so pleased to hear that the tooth is out. Also well done on the weight drop! If anyonedeserves it,its you xxx
Enjoying reading everyones posts.
Love to all and specially to the newbies,you are very welcome xx
Enjoying the blossom but sad it doesnt live very long xx
Thought for Monday morning..
This is the beginning of a new day.
Youhave been given this day to use as you will.
You can waste it or use it for good.
What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.
When tomorrow comes,this day will be gone forever.
In its place will be something you have left behind.
Let it be something goodxx

🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿 🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿 🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷

Good evening all,
It seems to me, reading all your posts that you are all amazing in April!

I, once again, struggled with Easter, my birthday and our wedding anniversary all in the space of a week! Too much Hotel Chocolat! 🤦‍♀️
However, I am pleased to report that in the last 6 days I have been extremely strict with myself, no bad carbs, eating supper by 7.00 then getting out and about with a few jobs! So I have lost the weight I put back on over Easter and weighed in at dead on 10 stone this morning! 😄 lowest since before I indulged over Christmas! As I was 9.5 last summer, there is still a way to go but I am determined not to let it all creep back on as I did over the pandemic and illness! 15.5 stone in 2024 was incapacitating!
I still write a diary of everything I eat, but omit cups of tea and coffee! All last spring I also calculated the carb and calorie content…
Newbie, I remain low carb and did actually manage to keep under 50g for nearly a year by only eating the low carb vegetables ! I have now added carrots etc back into my diet so it is more like 80-90 now.
I printed off sheets with pics and carb levels (found on the internet) laminated and stuck them on my fridge… a good reminder of what is higher carb even if it is not high carb!
Working up to the diabetic clinic at the end of the month!! 🤞🤔
As S-G says, keeping on, keeping on!
Happy weekend everyone.
K xx

Good evening everyone, so I’ve lost 1.5lb since Easter so I’m happy with that, its very slow and steady. I’m sticking to eating between 10am and 7pm and that seems to be helping with my fasting reading so thats good, I’ve been taking the dog out after dinner for a little walk so hopefully that is helping. Ive kept a food diary and a personal feelings diary since January just to help me on the way, its nice to go back and read how I’ve been feeling etc.
I’ve been having salads for lunch everyday as it’s an easy thing for me to take to work, but I understand how everyone feels about salads in winter. What do people have for their lunches if you aren’t at home to cook anything? I made cauliflower egg fried rice today and it was actually ok I was pleasantly surprised. I’m struggling to keep my good carbs to under 50g, how is everyone doing it? I don’t have any naughty carbs and I try to be careful but by the end of the day it’s still over 50g.
I hope everyone is having a nice weekend, keep battling on 😀

OH, my gosh, Cathy, that’s terrible. I hope they waived any charge and offered you a free re-do (if a re-do is possible). I mean, you deserve some kind of compensation other than, “Oooops, sorry.”

Congratulations on the excellent weight loss this week!

ArcticFox, I hope you continue to settle in well with the new meds! And I’ve never heard of savoury cheesecake, but want to learn more, am intrigued!

–Becca

Postscript to this morning’s whine…
I actually did manage to get started today, in a manner of speaking. I had a premade protein shake followed by coffee with half-and-half (which, if you’re from outside of the US, is half cream/half milk, sold mixed together in a carton – more satisfying than milk, fewer calories than cream). Later had a small salad with ham, turkey and cheese. This evening I had a chicken thigh, a baked potato with cream cheese (yes, a potato!) and afterward some strawberries with cream and liquid allulose, which is a carb-and-calorie-free sweetener which supposedly has some possible benefits, if I remember correctly.

I feel very satisfied tonight, and kept my calories to 910 and my carbs to 50. Protein was 76 gm.

Will see if I can lose a bit before next Friday’s weigh-in. One day at a time. I feel more relaxed knowing that I’m not going to try to do without carbs entirely, which is a mistake I often make. It’s not only hard to do, but I’m convinced it raises cortisol, a stress hormone.

I like the journal idea, Verano. Just writing down what you eat, even without counting, is helpful for accountability, I think.

I’m having a hard time getting myself onboard with the idea of going back to extreme low calories and low carb, because I know it’s not sustainable for me. I tell myself, just get the weight off, and then you can work on a sustainable life plan. But as you said the other day about everything seeming stale… I feel the same. It’s all very depressing, to be honest. I’m 71 and have been doing diets since I was 14. Dieting has consumed a tremendous amount of energy in my life, and yet I still haven’t mastered intuitive healthy eating.

I fear I’ve announced an intention that I’m not really up to following through on. Maybe your idea of just writing down what I eat, and not worrying about numbers, is the most gentle and encouraging way to proceed. I bought a pretty new journal on my trip. Life is short, and food is one of my only real pleasures and comforts, so I want to honor those feelings while still taking better care of myself.

With a big sigh… Becca

Hello everyone
I slept well following my tooth extraction and went to the hair salon today which was pre arranged weeks ago but the least said about that the better! They dyed my hair system the wrong colour and now i am brown instead of salt and pepper silver grey! She apologised but the damage is done and I’ll need a new system. I am so sad!
In other more positive news I was 2.2 lb down this week. 145.2 lbs
I need to calm down after my hair disaster so that’s all for now. I’ll be back!

Good afternoon.

Arcticfox thank you for that you made me look up yogurt dressing recipes and there are loads mainly with lemon and garlic and then more or less whatever herb you fancy. I’m having fish tonight so I think I’ll make a tarragon and yogurt dressing as I don’t have any dill. I think it will be lovely with salad.

Today I started new ‘journal’ just noting down what I’m eating at each meal but not the amounts at the moment. Becca your post made me think!
So far Friday has only been ‘healthy’ with just one more meal to go!

Verano, I have to sheepishly admit that the dressing came out of a bottle, so I don’t have the exact proportions, but it is essentially Greek yogurt, lemon juice and dill.

Cathy, so happy that you finally have your tooth out and that it has gone well so far.
So after reporting about getting stuck on the couch and wondering if the medication was doing enough, I’ve had a bit of a realization after going to pottery. I am working on finishing up a special project I have been working on that has been taking a lot of concentration and I have to book back to back sessions so that the clay doesn’t dry out too much while I’m working on it. So I was in the studio yesterday afternoon for 3 hours and this morning for 3 hours. Two weeks ago I did the same and I was completely wiped out after. I had to hyperfocus to get it done and was irritated by others in the studio constantly walking past me, etc. I just came home and crashed and couldn’t get anything else done. Well, I guess I can stop wondering if the medication is doing anything other than making me calm because this time I had what I can only describe as a nice, peaceful, open focus. I could concentrate but also chat and laugh with the other people. I noticed them going past me but it wasn’t distracting so I wasn’t getting irritated. And because it was so much easier to concentrate, I was nowhere near as tired after. I was doing better with remembering to eat and drink today. I have had a headache since starting the meds but not sure if it was them or the fact that I was dehydrated. It has eased off today, so I guess I have my answer. I made the savoury cheesecake from The Stone Soup for dinner (it is in the recipe section here if any new people wish to search for it), but substituted two duck eggs for the 3 chicken eggs. I think it was better than the chicken egg version. Duck eggs make everything so nice and fluffy.

Gosh, Cathy, what a stressful and probably painful thing. I hope it’s all over now and will heal up just right and allow you to go on your trip. Also a hearty congratulations to you for your excellent result with the online program. You’ve been very disciplined, despite it having been a real challenge. Again, I hope you can really enjoy those great results on your trip, and at home, too, of course!

Welcome to Newbie and BlueOcean, and how nice it is to see fresh “voices” on here. Wishing you both a successful experience. Actually, Newbie, you’ve already accomplished so much in how far you’ve brought your A1c down. I wonder if you realize that those kind of results normally take quite a lot longer, so kudos to you.

ArcticFox, I LOVE the idea of you becoming a Diabetic Educator and helping us all navigate the path toward remission or at least improvement! Go for it, please! Maybe Fast 800 Online will employ you!

ADD and DCT, I’m right there with you as far as having been a bit lost in the woods recently. I have a bad habit of always trying to tweak and improve and personalize whatever plan I’m on, and it nearly always causes me to backslide. Well, both the over-analyzing and also the chocolate. : /

I’m starting a fresh 12 weeks tomorrow, hoping to stay very low carb. I must admit that low carb is kind of depressing to me, but that’s usually because I try to take the carbs too low. Will be careful of that this time.

Hope everyone has a lovely spring! I’m cheering you on!

–Becca

Cathy…. all sounding wonderful. Keep positive!

Hello everyone
The tooth is out. HURRAH! Seemingly one of the roots was within the sinus cavity and that’s why it was complex and he had to be careful not to perforate it. He has put a dressing in and stitched the gum closed and hopefully a clot will form and everything will be secure. He said he may have to operate further in six weeks if my voice changes or liquids come down my nostril which indicates a problem. I had to risk having it out today or waiting til after my holiday so I took a chance. If it is perforated then I won’t be able to fly on 1st May. He said he was fairly confident it would be ok. What a palaver. Anyway, I’m keeping positive – no nuts or seeds for two weeks and soft food. So lots of Greek Yoghurt, scrambled eggs, soup for me.
I’ll weigh tomorrow and I’ll be a few grams lighter without that back molar! 🦷

Good afternoon.

Arcticfox I love spinach and I must say your dressing sounds lovely…. recipe please?

Becca you’ve done really well to keep off your original weight loss. I think lots of us suffer during the winter months. You sound like you have a really solid plan now and you know I think that’s half the battle. I always think the ‘first flush’ of any eating plan is the simplest, for want of a better word, and usually the most successful part of any plan.

I think I’m just ‘stale’ . When the Blood Sugar Diet first came out it was refreshingly different. Now 10 years later, with numerous ‘scientific’ studies, lots of ‘new’ theories and endless books I know that my priority is to keep my blood sugar in the ‘normal’ range and I know that refined carbs are my ‘enemy’. I admit that over the last few years I’ve been indulging more and more in my ‘enemy’ and whilst I’ve managed to ‘manage’ my blood sugar my weight has had a ‘mind of it’s own’!

Anyway, I guess, in truth, we all actually know what we need to do and how to do it. Maybe it’s just the ‘motivation’ that’s lacking???

Just for one day let’s make Friday the day when we only eat ‘healthy’ food. One day at a time…….

I hadn’t realised how long it’s been since I last posted.
Sunny, happy hols, safe journey.

So my positives……
☀️🌈🌤️ A mixed bag of weather today but the sun is shining now!
🥦🫒🍅 Managing to stick to two meals a day at the moment so I’m really pleased about that.
🧺🧳🧺 Almost caught up with my washing. So now I a start to think about packing!

Hope you can find some positives too!

Verano, your question has jostled my thinking about what has worked for me and what has not worked for me up till now in regard to weight loss. That’s easy to answer. At the end of the year (2025), between mid-October and mid-December, I stuck mainly to 800 calories and low carb. I lost 33 pounds in 2 months. Bear in mind, I am extremely overweight, but that is still an amazing result. I also lowered my A1c from 7.5 to 6.0.

A lot of up and down since then. The bad news is that I did not keep off any more weight lost, and probably did not keep the lowered A1c, but the good news is that I kept off the initial chunk from those first two months.

So I’ve reached a fairly obvious conclusion. Go back to what was working before Christmas. Use the next 12 weeks to get off another sizeable chunk. Get the blood sugar back down. Start to build a bit of muscle strength. Clean up my sleep schedule.

Tomorrow I’ll go shopping and Friday I’ll begin. Every Friday I’ll weigh in and post here for accountability. Between April 10 and July 2, I hope to succeed in losing another good chunk of weight. Then I’ll decide how to proceed after that.

Basing this on Dr. Mosley’s Fast 800 Keto:
— 800-1000 calories
— Protein at least 60 gm, but hopefully higher.
— Carbs below 50 gm, but hopefully lower, and these should be healthy whole-food carbs like vegetables and low-sugar fruits.
— Avoid processed foods and artificial sweeteners.
— Aim for an 8-hour eating window (in my case, usually 11:30-7:30 or thereabouts).
— I’ll be trying to get to bed by 10 (will be a challenge for me) and up by 7 (also a challenge for me), so that I can be more productive in the mornings with caring for the house and yard, getting some exercise, etc. Hope to clean up my environment along with my physical health.

Thanks in advance for all the support, friends.
–Becca

Hi everyone, thanks for the encouragement on the career change. I’m getting more excited about it the more I think about it. I had an appointment with my counsellor this morning and she thought it sounded like a solid option as well. We did walk and talk again and went nearly 5km!
I’m still feeling very calm on my new medication, but almost too calm now as I have to be careful because I can get stuck on the couch and lose my get up and go. I think it means we haven’t quite got the dose right or perhaps not exactly the right medication. The fact that I am calm on a stimulant seems to indicate that this class of drug will work well for me though once we get it dialed in.
Still sticking to very low carb, but I do have to watch very carefully about remembering to eat during the day. Once it wears off around 6pm I can get very hungry and want to eat a big meal if I haven’t eaten through the day. My counsellor suggested putting myself on a schedule with alarms on my phone if I need to and to stick to it. I’m being very active around the farm at the moment so I should have an appetite, but the medication is really suppressing it. The good thing about it is that my compression tights are fitting a bit looser and looking at myself in the mirror I think I have lost some back fat.
Cathy – so pleased for you with what you have been able to accomplish so far this year. It is great to see you setting goals and hitting them after being so frustrated for the past couple of years. Best of luck with your tooth.
In the interests of not getting stuck on the couch, I will say goodbye for now. I need to get something to eat and then I am headed to the pottery studio for a few hours.

Interesting what you say about salad in winter, Verano. I find the same. This winter with the global situation we were trying to buy local and we don’t have much in the way of fresh salad except some head lettuce from a couple of indoor farms and greenhouses, but I really only just had it a couple of times and the last bag went rotten in the fridge before I could finish it, so I just stuck with mostly frozen local veg this winter and it was perfectly fine. A farmer friend who grows veggies across the valley from me gave me some leeks last fall and I chopped them up and froze them and I’ve had them all winter to put in soups and stirfrys. I just had the first harvest of my overwintered spinach (fresh greens at last!) and now that the weather is warmer, I have been having them as a salad. I had some last night with feta cheese, kabocha squash cubes and pumpkin seeds with a Greek yogurt lemon and dill dressing. Delicious!
Newbie, I know that the phase you are in feels a lot like deprivation. It is no small thing to completely change the way you are eating. Rest assured though that you will find new favourites and if you do eventually try some of the old foods that you used to eat regularly, you will likely find that your tastes have completely changed and you may even wonder how you used to tolerate such bland stodge. Your brain likely is remembering them as delicious now because the food you are eating now is not giving you as big a dopamine hit. One of the things I have learned to do as I’m in the process of probably being diagnosed with ADHD is to recognize that food cravings are often a sign that my brain is desperately trying to raise dopamine levels, and I’ve written up a ‘dopamine menu’ of things other than food that I can do to satisfy it that may even be more effective. If you do a search for ‘non-food treats’ there is an old thread that comes up where everyone put their ideas for doing just this.

Quick drop in to post a few positives….
🌸🌸 all garden chores I wanted to do before we go away have been completed
🌸🌸 I have shingles, nitbin itself a positive of course, but was able to get an appointment and now have meds, which are already helping
🌸🌸 packing pretty much done, just last minute things to go in tomorrow
What positives have come your way?

Good afternoon and a lovely sunny one here!

Newbie I both need and want to lose weight but I always find it so hard during the winter especially with the long dark days. I’m sure I suffer with SAD and I’m afraid a heart warming stew looks much more appealing than a ‘salad’! Anyway, no more excuses. The clocks have jumped forward, the days are longer and brighter. I’m still not a salad fan but at least I don’t feel the need for ‘winter’ food.

Hope everyone is enjoying the sunnier weather. Hope those of us who are floundering have all found a way forward. Onward we go, and s-g says we just have to keeping on keeping on……

Dreamscometrue, well done for getting back on track, I think thats one of the hardest things is getting back in the saddle. You have a goal set so now you can work towards it and how lovely to have a reward in place ready, you’ve got this.

I’m plodding along and doing not so bad, trying to get in to a better routine and back on it after Easter. Hope everyone else is doing ok 😀

Welcome BlueOcean, I too am new hear and find these forums very good, everyone is friendly with lots of good advice and plenty of encouragement so keep on coming back and let us know how you are getting on. 800 calories is surprising when you plan well, keep on going 🌞
ArcticFox2 I definitely think its worth you exploring other employment options, you’ve got specialist knowledge and would be good to put it to use, even if you dont need to in the long run it will certainly keep the brain going.
Cathy thats really impressive, well done, great results.

BLUE OCEAN welcome! Look forward to getting to know you and following your progress. Sounds like you’re off to a great start.

ARCTIC FOX I think it’s great you’re looking at other potential career opportunities. Your job change may not even happen but I think taking a positive view of the possibility is very healthy. And with your skills and determination I’m sure you can make a success of pretty much anything 😊

Talking of determination, CATHY you are on a roll! I’m so pleased for your ongoing weight loss. Really good news. And well deserved! X. I hope you finally get your tooth sorted tomorrow 🤞

I’ve been a bit off piste over the last couple of weeks but am getting back on track. So am not as far forward as I wanted to be by now but am still hoping to be at 148 by the end of April. It’s my birthday then and I’m going away for a few days so it’ll be nice to be securely below 150 by then. Will keep you posted!

Hi to everyone else too – do let us know how you’re getting on. Good luck everyone! X

Hello everyone
Hope you’re all well and feeling focused and had a nice Easter. I love your idea for becoming a Dietician ArcticFox. Sounds like a positive move. Such a good idea. How is everyone doing?
I am on week 9 of the online plan and am sticking with it. My family came over Easter and they enjoyed an indian take away but i abstained and made butter paneer and cauliflower rice. Didn’t feel like I’d missed out. Im getting a bit fed up with the same old meals but whatever has happened to me this last three months is working and i am almost 1.5 stone down- 21lbs, 9.5 kg! I can’t quite get my head around it. Clothes are loose! My summer clothes are going to be comfortable. I have treated myself to some Nespresso Caramello Coffee pods to have in the morning and I’ve also treated myself to having my nails done by my niece- I’m rewarding myself but the weight loss itself is a reward. It’s three weeks til my book club get away to Corfu for four nights and I hope to be 144 by then. As soon as I come home I’ll be straight back to 800 calories to offset any damage! I will have to be careful because I’ve not had any alcohol since New Year so I’ll be doing everything in moderation because it will be a shock to my system. Also, I’m quite happy being sensible!! It’s tooth time tomorrow (fingers crossed) I’ve been taking painkillers every day and I hope that once it’s out I’ll feel better. This issue has been going on since July last year! Enough is enough.
I’ll weigh in on Friday- I had a sneak peek today and I am 1lb down : I stayed the same last week. Today I was 146. I’m chuffed with that!
Looking forward to reading your updates.