Hi Flick! I haven’t posted much yet and can hardly keep up with everyone else’s updates. I’ll get there, hopefully in the next few days. You’re encouragement is great! Atm I’m at dialysis. I’m up at 5, leave for the hospital about 6. I’m doing a combination of shakes ( breakfast)as it’s easy on my 4 x hospital days and normal meals. I’m not strictly adhering to 800 either. So I have the shake b4 6am. At 11 hospital sandwiches arrive. I’m on a high protein renal diet so I just eat the fillings which are not overly generous anyway. About 1p I have about 100g strawberries. I’m finished here by 3 when I have plain salad with tuna/salmon or egg. Sometimes I have Greek salad. In the evening I cook from the books. My go to quick meal is the no carb ploughmans meal at night if I’m tired. I’m doing Home Traini for haemodialysis and I’m smashed of an evening. I have also started walking but it’s still a bit sporadic. I’m going to bag the nut snack idea. I think it was Allie’s. Everyone is so helpful and welcoming. I’ll get sorted with your help. I’m on now as I slept well straight after I did my dialysis set up this morning. I’m going to try n reply to a couple of other people that have written me lovely messages now. Wishing you and everyone here every success 😊

Thanks for your encouragement, SunnyB. I’m hopeful that good things will happen in the future.

Hi Mixnmatch. Thanks for your cheery words of support. My muscles are actually more than a *little* sore so I look forward to some good news in a few days. Gained a little more since yesterday but not giving up.

Hi Milalin, how is it all going? There are so many threads here I keep missing your updates. i’ll do a bit of a scan.

Allie, thanks for sharing the information and your experiences, good to know that with a reasonable approach our bodies work this stuff out. I think I’m pretty much on track and just fretting about issues around the margins. I’ll try to lift my head up a bit today and focus on the beautiful blue sky here today.

So today is significant, 4 weeks done (so half way through the first 8 weeks) and also half way through the December challenge. Here is how the numbers are looking for me

Starting weight – 78.3
Week of – 72.2
Loss = 6.1 kg. I am so excited by this result

Week 4 was very slow compared to the previous 3 with a 0.6 kg loss. I’m happy to take that. My asteroid belt feels strangely squishy – hopefully that’s a sign it’s about to whoosh away. Or at least part of it.

Most excitingly, after absolutely no movement in my troubling waist measurement, and then a
very modest 0.5cm loss – somehow over the last 7 days this has exploded into a wild 4cm loss. Coupled with a 3cm reduction in my hip measurement – I am practically disappearing!!

Finally my sleeping is so deep and reliable now, I can hardly understand how I survived with all that tossing and turning, finally falling to sleep at 1 or 2 in the morning. The answer must be niypt very well.

Off the walk the dog now before it gets too hot. But before I go, I’ll just have one little rant – WHAT IS IT ABOUT 72.2 THAT MY BODY IS SO ATTRACTED TO? Four days .. four whole day, what can be left to ruminate on? Enough already. Trust me, the 71s are going to be great!

All the best to those snowed in – stay safe and for what it’s worth, it looks beautiful.

🤗

Hi mil a lin,

Glad you like my posts. I hope you enjoy them.

An i ask, how are you managing to handle the stress of going to hosiptal, all all that other stuff?

What are you doing to keep your smile going?

Any chance of you setting yourself a treat at the other end of all this treatments ?

I bought a size 10 dress, a christmas gift to myself once i lost the weight.
Can you plan a trip, or a cinema date, or a foot spa, or buying a minions movie or… or… or…

Something that you can focus on , on the other side of it all. Something to aim at.?

Come on, tell us, what you really, really, really would like to have a s a treat?

Love Lucia
Xxxx

Well done Flick and everyone else posting losses! This is such a busy thread, it’s hard to keep up.

I also have a friend who tenses up when I make enquiries about meals and ask for things to be left off. She doesn’t say anything but it’s very clear that she doesn’t like me making things ‘difficult’ for them even if it’s just No potatoes thanks. Like many others have said, it’s easier to avoid these things if they’re not on the plate to begin with!

I didn’t check in last week, it’s been a crazy work and social fortnight and I am exactly the same weight as at the start of this challenge which means I have lost and gained a kilo, excellent if I was maintaining but frustrating when I only have a kilo to go to goal. No one to blame but myself and I wonder if I am self sabotaging because weight loss has been a constant goal for so long, how am I going to fill the space when I don’t have it any more? I know others have worked through this and I will too, I wish my logical mind would give my inner child a smart smack on the behind.

Keep on with all your interesting and insightful discussions, they give me many things to ponder.

On to a new week 😁

Morning all,

Perfect timing to be reminded that it is OK to ask for, and receive, what you want. While perhaps not as restrained as our English friends, for the most part Australians value being easy going, not making a fuss, being one of the crowd. I have one semi regular dinner group joiner who becomes very tense and judgmental with people who order off menu. I have often wondered what has happened in her past to make her care so much about such a benign thing. You can watch it cause real physical discomfort to her.

Loud applause from me to us as we go about politely ordering what we want to eat and not eating everything that our hosts have on offer.

My excellent news for the day is I have now completed 4 weeks of BSD. Half way through!

This week I have lost .6kg bringing the total for this December Challenge to 1.9kg (this corrects last week counting 6 days only – should have been 1.3 instead of .9). Total loss for the 4 weeks 6.1kg.

Week 4 has seen a much smaller loss than each of the previous weeks (2.2, 2.0, 1.3). My 3 day mini stall followed by a loss or two pattern held strong during this past week and I have now been 72.2 for four mornings. I’m just plodding on, confident the losses will restart. This body of mine can resist but it will eventually have to to give it up.

However – drum roll please …. I have lost 4 cm from my waist and 3cm from my hips!

You are so right about the medical profession failing to get on board with low cal/low carb/full fat way of eating. It’s so frustrating that thousands upon thousands of people are still being given flawed dietary advice, leaving them doomed to fail.

I guess all we can do, is try in our own small way to spread the word. Took me awhile to feel comfortable talking to others face to face about the BSD, but now I promote it when ever I get the opportunity.

So, my positive for today is to encourage an old friend to give the BSD a try. Hopefully she will.

And a thought for today ‘It’s never too late to be what you might have been.’ Quote from George Eliot’s Middlemarch. Think that’s what we’re all striving for.

Don’t panic. Weight loss is not linear. There will be plateaux and small gains, even when you are sticking to the program. Week three can be a strange one as the body adjusts and catches up. Secret is to just stick with it, you’re doing all the right things and the pounds will start to drop again soon.

Hi sunshine-girl I agree we shouldn’t have to ‘resist’ and why do they serve these things …. probably because just a burger on a plate would look lost! I did resist chips served on my plate last week for the first time since I started BSD, I just had no desire for them but hey why put yourself to the test!

Best of luck tomorrow hope all is well.

Sorry not to be really taking part in this thread. There are so many new people, and so much to read and I’m away and just chilling out, but I will get back into posting soon. In the meantime I wish everyone well in their quest.

If your muscles are a little sore after the increased exercise this could quite easily account for temporarily increased weight as the muscles will retain water while they rebuild stronger. You are doing exactly the right thing, maybe you could increase protein slightly to help the muscles work and you should expect a good whoosh when the new/repaired muscle is ready to release the water, if you keep focused in the meantime.

Allie, I beg to differ……I think you and the other participants in this blog show TREMENDOUS restraint in what you all post. Very admirable.

I did 5:2 about 3 yrs ago and quit participating on one of the threads that started out so beautifully….then got quite ugly. Some posts were even deleted by the editors. I left because I needed a positive environment in which to do a challenging IF….was not interested in watching grown women throw barbs and accusations at one another.

This forum is so different. People are respectful of differences in opinion and preference. Advise is offered when asked for but nobody imposes their chosen path on others wanting to take a different bend in the road.

Peoples opinions are welcomed and different viewpoints entertained. Frustrated members are welcome to vent all they need to. But it is a forum of kindness and support. And the advantage of the typed/printed word is we do have a moment to review and think about how it might be taken. The best of both worlds for strong opinionated women ….who are also very kind at heart.

Hi everyone, same weight so no loss at all this week (so far). Got my blood test in the morning so nil by mouth from 9pm. I will report my results tomorrow afternoon, before I see my doctor. I am fairly confident they will be under 6.0 or thereabouts.

On the subject of going public it is a conversation I have had many times. I have no fear of asking for what I want and once ordered boeuf bourguignon without the chips and the waitress brought them to me on a separate plate ‘just in case you change your mind’, you can make lots of friends as you hand your chips down the table, there is always one greedy sod at the table. In another restaurant I ordered a giant burger but asked for no bun and no chips, it came in the bun with chips so I sent it back. My dinner companion said ‘why dont you just leave it’ to which I said ‘have you ever tried to leave chips’. That is not the point, I dont want to have to resist them, just dont serve them. We stayed with family so I had to tell them about my diet – okay a very intelligent lady – and also I dont eat fish. For dinner our first evening she served fish and chips but said it was okay as there were no carbs in them because it was panko breadcrumbs. Give me strength. On a cruise I decided to just not eat the accompaniments but found I was still hungry after eating so I told the maitre d’ I as diabetic and dont eat carbs but could I have extra veg. It worked great and I even got extra meat portion sometimes. My husband bans me from discussing it and that is okay as long as he doesn’t drone on about when he was in the RAF. Deal done. Anyway my results speak for themselves. I know I dont lose lots of weight but I am on insulin and it is called the fat magnet and my doctor is amazed that I am able to lose weight at all, although he nags me every time I see him.

Ha, Topcac, your two pence did make me smile! I could do with some of that British
reserve. Although 50% of my genes have British roots, as an American I have little
or no filter and what goes through my head generally comes out of my mouth, with
very little editing in between. Far too often than is comfortable I get asked “tell us
what you REALLY think, Allie” 🙂 I hope the pressure around your holiday table will
be mitigated this year by all your achievements! Stick to your goals, either way…

Allie

Hi all

If I can just shove my two pence worth into the general convos, I think being British is terrible in these situations. God forbid we speak up, might upset anyone and why oh why are we constantly apologising?? If our friends are really that then they should be encouraging, I know that’s what I do when it’s a friend of mine, and what we all do on these forums. Be bold everyone, insist on food that you can eat – after all, you’re paying for it!

I remember about this time last year, I went to visit my parents and I told my mum that I wouldn’t be having roast potatoes, or parsnips but would have the meat and green veg. I was very nice about it but she told me I was being stupid and why couldn’t I just have them instead of making it awkward. I told her that I wasn’t making anything awkward, I wasn’t asking her to prepare anything else for me, I just wasn’t going to eat what I didn’t want. It would have been the same if it was a vegetable that I didn’t like . (Never met one by the way :). She eventually relented and actually ended up doing BSD herself for a while – but she has no motivation and no staying power. Shame really since she is 16 stone.

Anyway, I love the fact that this forum is so supportive – best of luck with weigh-ins tomorrow – see you then!

Hey Theo – hope things get easier for you and your family soon. We’ll all still be here rooting for you when you have time to drop in.

Congrats Krysia, that’s some achievement and one I think we are all hoping to emulate! I’m only approx. three months into maintenance, so have a way to go yet. Hope your next year in maintenance is really easy and we’ll all be here supporting you along the way. Like you, I have found the forum invaluable and certainly couldn’t have got to this point without all the lovely folks here.

Hope you all had a good w/e and haven’t been too tempted by festive ‘treats’ so far. Had a couple of Passion Fruit Martinis this w/e, but they were the only major ‘transgressions’ for me. Here’s to a good week folks!

Theo, we are just extremely happy to hear from you! We miss you, but understand
that you and your family have something serious and very troubling to deal with
at the moment. You may hear someone whispering gently in your ear to take good
care of yourself, which will be me 🙂
Wishing you strength, my friend. Come back to us when you can….

Much love,

Allie

Thank you all, you are just the tonic I need!

Esnecca, you are so right. I had decided not to tell my friends what I was doing and hope to get by without them noticing. That’s mad, they’ll understand, or at the worst roll their eyes a bit – so be it! Like you say act as if I don’t worry about what others think and eventually I won’t.

Alliecat and luvtcook – I’m behind you on the 8 week cycle as I’m only just starting week 3, but I’ll be watching you with interest and hoping to copy your success. If I keep up 3lbs a week I will be within 4lb of my target by the end of 8 weeks and probable ready to start the gradual changes.

Thanks again everyone.

Hi Flick, I’m just taking a quick moment to comment on getting enough, but not TOO
much protein. It can appear in places that we usually don’t consider, like cruciferous
vegetables. I’m in the USA so I measure in oz., not grams. An evening meal consisting
of 1 c. broccoli florets (4 gr of protein) and 3.5 oz of organic chicken breast (22.75 gr
of protein) gets you where you want to go, and makes up the difference for what may
be shortfalls in other meal(s) for the day. I’ve calculated my requirements in terms
of ideal body weight, so I need about 60 gr of protein to maintain my body weight
and muscle mass. I often fall a little below this, but always manage 50-53 per day.
As a result, in the 17 months that I have been on this program (7 months in maintenance)
I don’t feel that I’ve lost muscle mass, which of course affects the amount of calories
we can process each day. Just my take on it! I’m happy that you’re doing so well.
Carry On!

Allie

Happy (if a little belated) 1st anniversary, Krysia – what a fantastic accomplishment, and one that I hope to be emulating (along with Allie) next spring. Well done.

Sorry, not been around for a few days, still struggling with the family crisis, and thank you for your good wishes everyone. Don’t want to go into details, but it is very time-consuming and both physically and mentally draining. I had to travel north and now we are snowed in, so I haven’t even had the support of my stress-busting hairy clowns as they stayed put with o/h. Hey ho! We’ll get there.

On the plus side, I have now managed to regain 2 of the 4lbs I lost last week, although I suspect it was the wine I had last evening to help me relax that did that.

Please forgive me if I don’t post much, or join in many threads over the next week or two, I have my hands full here right now, but I’ll pop in and read posts as and when I can in the hope of some light relief. Hoping I can head back home in time for Christmas……..

LTC, I’m so happy that I could be of some help 🙂 I think 12lbs/mo. is indeed very realistic.
I’ll be following your journey with much interest, celebrating your victories with you
along the way. You can do this! Go, girl!!! And keep buying those scarves to frame
your (I’m sure very lovely) face 🙂 🙂 🙂

Allie

Esnecca: what a wonderful, eloquent, and empowering reply to Victoria. No one could have said it better. Seriously. Simply wonderful. You have a gift for writing.

I feel I am a strong woman, and no shrinking violet when it comes to asking for what is reasonable. But that philosophy of caring for oneself should be printed on a plaque and hung on the wall. Its an affirmation if I ever heard one. Bravo.

Allie, that is the perfect answer….simply wanted to know if plateaus were to be expected….and if you wait them out that eventually the weight loss catches up.

At present I am averaging losing 12 lbs a month…..would like to keep up that pace and hopes its not unreasonable to set that as a goal. Your steady weight loss of 14 lbs a month certainly suggests that 12 lbs is not to much. I am a bit shorter than you (5’4″ to your 5’7″) so my muscle mass is going to be a bit less….but all in all, am now more comfortable with setting my target at 12 lbs per month.

Thanks so much for such a detailed history of your weight loss journey. Pretty inspiring to say the least.

That’s only a “minor infraction”, Milalin! Healthy, plant based fats, not starchy carbs
or the dreaded “sugar”… I still measure out my nut quota for the day, usually 8-10
raw almonds and put them in a small plastic bag. When they’re gone, I’m done with
it for the day. The bag remains out of sight in the cupboard! 🙂

Thanks again Allie. I’ll have bloods done on Thursday so I’ll be looking for another NSV then! Meanwhile I’ve successfully managed to maintain the spirit of the programme but a few too many nuts have creeped in over the weekend, I’m onto it though. 😊

What uplifting news, Milalin! And a cost free consultation, on top of it! 🙂 In this neck
of the woods we call those NSV, i.e., non scale victories 🙂 🙂 🙂 There will be lots more
if you keep going. This really does work…Let us know how you go as you prepare
for surgery!

Allie

Thankyou alliecat! I’m a bit overwhelmed with how well I’m going and finding the forums and different threads, I’m so happy but I haven’t been able to keep up yet. I definitely appreciate your advice about the maintainers being really valuable too! Thankyou for your kind words and offer of support. A quick update- today I was driving through the hospital boom gate when I saw my endocrinologist walking past. We both waved and then I wound down my passenger window and told him I’d halved my insulin. Then I told him my nos and he told me to reduce it more!!! Best consult ever! No $ either haha
I’ll be off it in no time. This is only 2 weeks in!

Thanks Flick for the warm welcome!

It took me a while to figure out how to handle those public eating situations without things gets uncomfortable and tense. I finally just opted for the “don’t feed the troll” approach. I refuse to engage them, no matter how well-meaning. It’s my body, my life on the line and I am making considered decisions that are entirely mine to make and nobody else’s business. There are laws against disclosing this kind of information without permission. I simple ask the server my questions, get my answer, make my choices and move on to another subject. I don’t usually do substitutions, just to keep it easy, but I will frequently ask that something be omitted. I’ve only been denied once and that was because the ingredient I ask them to leave out was already part of the mixture; it wasn’t prepared to order.

A friend of mine once told me that the trick to getting through hard things was to “act as if.” Battling with timidity and people pleasing? Act as if you’re fearlessly self-confident. Afraid your choices about your own diet and health are going to become subject of controversy? Act as if you can’t even hear the conversation. If you do it often enough, “act as if” turns into the way things are. It’s profoundly liberating, and in the end everyone benefits because you can be yourself without having to pay a taxing emotional price for it and your loved ones see you succeed and feeling great on every levels.

Act as if, Victoria, and good luck! I hope they have that cabbage and mint salad thingy. I could strap on a feedbag and go to town on that one all day. 😀

Thanks for your kind, and helpful messages of support. And well done Jimmy on those results. OH has been hesitating about returning to the GP for fear that his HbA1c wouldn’t drop enough … and a second ’48’ or similar would confirm the GP’s diagnosis. However, with a bit of research we have found the home test kit (which is reportedly fairly accurate) and yesterday, his HbA1c was measured at ’39/5.7′. So we’re making progress. We’ve both lost in the region of 10kg, and seen reductions in blood pressure too. This has all been done with diet as OH struggles with exercise for now due to niggling knee problem and a badly damaged shoulder. But surgery in February will put that one back on the right track. He’ll never be a runner/walker, but with the shoulder repaired cycling, swimming and tennis will all be back on the cards. I took up running in May, in a very low key way – but it’s getting easier, and with about 2st less to lug around, much more comfortable.

Hi Elize 52 and Marie123, it’s so reassuring to hear of other folk going through similar phases. We only got this diagnosis at the point of registering with a new GP, so there’s no relationship there to help with all the questions we’ve got. Now that OH feels more comfortable with progress the next appointment will be easier (I hope!). I’ll download the info sheet, for moral support! I’m not sure we got as far cholesterol – but right now I don’t think OH would let them test for anything else – he doesn’t want anymore ‘bad’ news.

The salmon sounds yummy! Might have to a) have a go, and b) persuade OH that he does want to eat a fishcake …

Off to work out ways to manage this as a long-term WOE – not the food itself, but upping the calorie count a little so we maintain rather than gain/lose. (That said, we may gain a little over Christmas!)

Thanks, Esnecca you are right, I need to get over the need to apologise and make excuses. I have spent quite enough energy already thinking of excuses I could mak eover Christmas so as not to offend people. I need to be more positive to others about my choices. Sadly my sister in law was a Health Visitor for many years and now in her 80s is very stuck in the old NHS way of thinking, so I’m trying not to have to fight, she’ll only worry!

VictoriaM, there are plenty of breads, grains, cereals and sugars in Mediterranean cuisine, alas. Lebanese is one of my favorites, but it is full of bulgur, chickpeas, lentils, honey, etc. Don’t be afraid to ask what’s in things. There is nothing wrong with you ascertaining if a dish suits your dietary requirements. It’s no different than keeping kosher or being allergic to tree nuts. You aren’t a vessel for other people’s food cravings. You do you, and have a great time. 🙂

Oh well done Blah – sounds like a terrific day – keep at it, one day at a time!

Luvtcook – 7 weeks and -23lbs – wooho. AND still, positive, enthusiastic, and obviously from your recipe ideas, eating very well. Gives me courage.

VictoriaM – what great results and managing a minor stall! Good luck at the lunch tomorrow. It starts to feel like one challenge after another. I keep reminding myself that there are worse things than not eating nasty 🤢 food.

Good luck with your blood tests Sunshinegirl!

JulesP – thanks for the nod, I was still enjoying the feelings long after the outings were done.

Hugs to everyone.

You weren’t kidding yourself, Ali. One of Michael Mosley’s most beloved recipes is the beet falafal, so it’s entirely reasonable that you might think they were an all systems go veg. I’m just much stricter than Dr. Mosley. 😀 Also I think the portions in that dish are tiny so you enjoy the nutrient benefits without jacking your sugar/carb numbers way up.

I adore beets, by the way, and I miss the golden beet carpaccio I used to have at least once a week in the old days. Like you say, maybe cut back (our out) for now, but you don’t have to worry about blood sugar so it’s not forever.

Ali, that is great news, stupendous and fabulous effort!

We will now take a moment to say farewell to the 90kgs. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🌟🌟🌟🌟👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 See ya -wouldn’t wanna be ya!

And hello to to a lovely bowl of steamy garlicky buttery rapini ❤️ and the much more desirable 80s. Enjoy them as their days are also numbered.

Thanks Esnecca for your dependable support. I love the idea of my body ruminating on life and you are right. I looked at the scale this morning and thought, oh yes, it’s still only day 3. It is often hard to get a real hold on the time scale of this – forever and the many twists and turns ahead.

Hear, hear! Happy anniversary, Krysia. You’re a stellar example of what can be achieved with the BSD and a role model for all we maintainers. May the second year bring you continued success in proving that we can do a complete 180 and change our lives drastically if we have the tools and the determination. Time for a celebratory treat, methinks. By which I mean filet mignon and gorgonzola compound butter, of course. 😀

Morning! Well, it is here, and a lovely bright cold frosty one too. So cold that I’m leaving my bike at home and going to get the train to work. At least I get to have a good walk too.

It’s really interesting hearing about everyone’s carb intake. I don’t have blood sugar problems, but like you Flick, my body loves carbs. So much so that it creates a special place on my belly to store them. So yeah, I’ll be keeping more of an eye on them. And Esnecca, thanks, I know the perils associated with root vegetables, but somehow kidded myself on that beetroots were OK! I’ll have to wait til I start reintroducing them.

Had a little scale victory this morning: I’m under 90 kg for the first time in four years. Woop!

Congratulations KrysiaD, that’s absolutely amazing, fabulous reward for all your hard work, you must feel amazing.

Good morning everyone. Thanks for your post Alliecat, Even though I’m only just starting week 3, I have been thinking about what happens after week 8, and your gradual approach makes so much sense.

I lost another 1lb today so that leaves 1 and a half stone to my target. My target is 12 st which is mid BMI for my height. I’m pleased that I’ve started this week well, because tomorrow is the least controllable of all my Christmas meals. I’m going to lunch at a Lebanese canteen and we’ll be having Mezza. In theory that is Mediterranean and ok but I won’t know what’s in the dishes and definitely won’t be able to stick to 800/20 and I won’t be able to count. I won’t be drinking because I’m singing in a concert later, so hopefully it won’t be too bad. I’ll reduce calories today and Wednesday so maybe that will compensate.

I’m calling today a success. Fasting bsl was 20.4

Have stayed within 50gms carbs and 800 cals with a pre dinner reading of 7.9.

Flick, I try to distribute the protein between my two meals as well, but it’s usually lopsided and has been from the beginning. I don’t know how much of a real effect that’s having on your weight loss. Losses progress in fits and starts, stagger forward and back, loop-the-loop around your head and giggle maniacally at your confusion. It’s hard not to get bogged down in overanalysis, a syndrome I am intimately familiar with. I’ve jiggered figures here and there during plateaus, especially as losses slowed to a crawl when the goal was in sight and I had so much less to lose than in the beginning. I can’t say if my tinkering made any difference whatsoever. In the end, I believe that it was the fewer than 20 grams of carbs of day for 14 months that lost me 200 pounds.

It’s rather kind of your body, I think, to ruminate on life for a couple of days between drops. Regular shifts with an identifiable pattern are less jarring once you know that’s how your body operates. I’m glad you’re redefining the pattern as stability rather than stall, because stalls are a crueler thing. I once gained 4 pounds in two days not having changed anything that I ate. I’ve been up and down fractions of pounds and whole ones, jerked around by the whim of the scale until I had whiplash. I wailed and gnashed my teeth and ran naked in a storm raving to the uncaring gods like King Lear. (Okay not that last one. The neighborhood kids didn’t deserve that kind of sight. 😉 ) Embrace your body’s oddities and try to roll with it as much as possible. When you hit a long stall, or worst, the see-saw nightmare, you will look back on this time with wistful longing. You tough it out, weep if you need to, hate-watch some Netflix, defiantly devour a (small) steak. Then the losses will resume again and you’ll get your clothes back on and out of the rain. 😀

I track every bite of every type of food I eat. The “real baddies” include plenty of vegetables (root veg being the obvious example), or fruits disguised as vegetables like tomatoes. In order to stare down my hellbeast of a weight problem, I had to cut anything high in sugar and carbohydrates ruthlessly. No “but they’re complex carbs!” (I did that whole grains nonsense for years and only got fatter), no “beets have vitamins!” Single digit carb figures in a hefty serving, no more than one or two grams of that sugar or they shall not pass, period.

If you don’t have blood sugar issues of any kind, you can have looser standards about this sort of thing, but I’d been hyperobese for nigh on two decades and doing the BSD with the strictest focus was the only weapon capable of slaying my insulin resistance dragon. To be that precise, you can’t guestimate and expect to be even in the ballpark of accurate, in my experience, no matter how much of a BSD pro you are. Some meals I know by heart now because I’ve made them so often, but I like to keep things fresh and I’m always introducing new ingredients and recipes, so I couldn’t rely on the same ol’ same ol’ to keep my counts in check.

Keeping carbs ultralow does not require sacrificing vegetables. It simply requires being particular about which ones you eat piles of. Your best best is greens, raw and cooked. I ate 6 oz of spinach, 4 oz of arugula, 2 oz of broccoli sprouts and 1 oz of pea shoots today alone. (Plus numerous pickled veg.) Spinach was steamed, sauteed in 1/4 tsp of Kalamata oil with one small clove of fresh garlic and served with Greek feta crumbled on top. That accompanied two chicken sausages stuffed with kale and more cheese. The rest went into a dinner salad that I call “Fomenting Ferment” because I put 30 grams of every fermented food I have, and I have a lot, in the bowl and toss it in a dressing of more fermented stuff (brown miso, kimchi hot sauce, Bulgarian yogurt).

Tomorrow I’m making a big bunch of chickory and eating the entire head of it for lunch. I’ve done the same thing with rapini, escarole, mustard greens, turnip greens, chard, Tuscan kale, collards and more. A little garlic, a little crispy bacon, a grating of parmesan, a couple of eggs poached in the braising liquid with the greens, high quality olive oil or a pat of grass-fed butter and you have a feast before you at very little cost in carbs. Just weigh everything (both before and after it’s cooked) so you’re not relying on intuition and you’ll see in integers how easy it is to eat VLC.

It worked Alllie! Well done! Going back to sleep for a bit so see you later!

Kxxxx

Hi Ali, I have used ‘goosed’ already – my new favourite word.

I keep (mostly keep) carbs at or under 20. I only eat two meals a day so it doesn’t feel too much of a hardship although I do miss carrot and pumpkin. I am having trouble sourcing spaghetti quash kombucha squash. Various sources on the forum point to between 20 and 50 and many hover around 30-50 and do very well. I keep mine low in part to keep cravings at bay but also because I know my body gives up weight very begrudgingly. I would be excellent in an apocalypse. My system seem finely tuned to carbs and responds with a resounding YES YES WE NEED MORE OF THOSE.THEY ARE DELICIOUS. Rice, pasta, salty crackers with cheese, fruit, all my previous favourites, along with vegetables. I wouldn’t want to be eating less vegetables overall.

I think the level of low carb, between 20 and 50, which suit you best, is the one that gets to the sweet spot between ‘possible to continue on with this way of eating in a happy manner’ and ‘enough weight loss to keep up commitment’. That spot is a very individual thing. And you have some great results so far!

I seem now to have a bit of a problem getting protein down to useable levels of about 20-25 grams in each of my two meals. Apparently our bodies need about 1-1.5 grams of protein per lean kilo of body weight (I set this at what my healthy BMI will be) BUT it can only use about 20g at a sitting (and takes a couple of hours to process that). Any excess is used to make up our carefully planned calorie deficit or worse, stored as more wretched fat. As I understand it, this amino acid thing starts fresh each day. I mostly manage to keep it within a reasonable daily limit but not the 20g per meal. I might try harder if I became despondent with the rate of progress.

Speaking of which, weigh in tomorrow and half way through the December challenge. So far this week I have had three 3 day stalls, today is the 3rd day at 72.2. Fingers crossed for tomorrow. I am beginning to refer to my stall days as stable. Helps a bit

LTC, I’m delighted that you’re happy with your progress to date. It is wonderful to
feel so full of energy, isn’t it? I can’t answer your question re your expectations without
specific data as requested, so I won’t attempt to. I can certainly share my experience
however, and I’m more than happy to do so. Month 1 &2, lost 14 lbs. each month,
calories 800-900 per day, carbs 35-40 per day. Month 3, 18 day plateau. Dropped
carbs to <20. Weight loss for the month, 14lbs. Months 4-10, weight loss 14 lbs.
per month, cal. 800/day, carbs <20/day. Began maintenance by increasing cal.
to 850 week one, 900 week 2, to the present, where I consume just about 50 cal/day
under my TDEE. I’ve lost an additional 12 lbs in maintenance, but happy to say that
my weight has finally stabilized and I’m holding steady at 21 lbs. under a BMI of
25 for my height, i.e. 21.46, and right in the middle of the range for healthy BMI.
Once I dropped my carbs to 20 my losses were steady, predictable, and uninterrupted
at approx. .5lbs per day. I was unable to do any exercise for the first 8 months due
to chronic pain issues, but when I added in 5 miles/day of brisk walking, it didn’t
affect my rate of loss at all. Obviously important for heart and lungs, however.
I hope this is the information you are seeking. Anything further, just ask!

Krysia, you’ve done it!!! One year in maintenance is the “prize” that I’ve got my eyes
on. Only 4 months to go. I continually read that this achievement is a landmark
for long term success. You should pause and savor the moment…It’s an important
milestone. Congratulations! 🙂 🙂 🙂

Allie

Thanks for the quick response. I have been advised by a naturopath and a Chinese medical practitioner, however as not much has changed I think I’ll commit 100% to BSD and see how I go. One of the things that I like about this approach is that it provides recipes that comply with the calorie requirements, if I start changing things around who knows where I might end up. Thanks again for the quick responses. Cheers!

Update, Kazz – Just attempted to send you a test email from a different computer with
the subject “Allie’s new email”. If it doesn’t show up, please let me know HERE. Sooo
embarrassing! I’m covering my face with my hands…Feeling like my IQ has dropped
into the double digits…So uncomfortable, but I refuse to give up 🙂

Advised by whom and for what reason, may I ask? No need to share if you’re not comfortable with it. I’m just curious if it’s medical advice based on an intolerance or senstivity you might have or one of those “I read somewhere that someone at some point had x problem and they stopped eating dairy and it miracle cured them on the spot” things.

Whether you really need to cut dairy I can’t tell you. I’m always suspicious because I’ve been given every kind of stupid and useless advice there is in the world and nothing did a damn bit of difference in my life until the BSD. Meanwhile, there are plenty of non-dairy sources of fat. Nuts and seeds are packed with delicious healthy fats, as are avocadoes, olives/olive oil, soybeans, salmon, mackerel, sardines, eggs and meat from grass-fed pasture raised animals. For alternative milks, check out hemp milk. It’s creamy in texture, neutral in flavor, drinkable on its own or as part of a recipe and very high in healthy fats and protein. Coconut cream (the solids that rise to the top of a can of coconut milk after it spends the night in the fridge) is one of the richest, butteriest foods I’ve ever had. A couple of tblsp of it mixed with chia seeds make a delicious and shockingly filling dessert or breakfast.

Good luck!

No expert here but I am thinking that some recipes you may be able to up the fat slightly and the water though i don’t know how successfully the recipe would turn out! In others you may find that you need a substitute. Possibly Soy milk or Almond milk if you like the flavours. If you go for Soy milk it is a little lower in calories (about 64per 100ml) and a little higher in carbs (5.1 vs 4.8). Almond milk is only 29 cal and 4.4g carbs for the same amount. Some people like it, I’m not one 🙂

Do you have to avoid yohgurt as well? Often lactose intolerant people can still manage yoghurt and cheese- I’m only guessing that that’s your reason for avoiding dairy though. I don’t know of any subs for them though there are vegans on the forums who might be able to help.

I am sure there is a work around, this way of eating is very flexible. Good luck!