I also tried kalettes yesterday but I steamed then lightly and then stir fried with garlic, chilli, ginger and a touch of soy and I must admit I liked them. They had a sweetish slightly nutty flavour. In saying that I think the humble sprout makes a better ‘steamed’ vegetable.

Sunshine-girl best friends are very rarely disappear after just one falling out! Glad you’ve sorted things though.

grilled bacon and half an avocado. grilled mushrooms with sliced tomato. the no-carb bircher might suit you which is 1 tablespoon of raisins, 50ml apple juice (which I find too much), 2 tbsp. plain yog, 1 tbsp crush walnuts and a sprinkle of cinnamon – make the night before minus the yog. I use half the juice and add 5 gm of oats to soak it up. kippers and tomato. spinach mushroom and melted feta cheese. yog with seeds and berries. I have a nutribullet and once or twice a week make a smoothie based on spinach and berries, either with green tea or almond milk. And to finish – my favourite, marinated grilled apricots with greek yoghurt.

Hope that keeps you going for a couple of weeks.

Hi there, this is a very nutrient full diet and I am not sure about what your husband has got but if he needs to lose weight that is surely going to be better for his spinal column. Cutting out the bad carbs is really all this diet is about unless you are doing 800 calories which can bring its own problems, mainly thinking what to eat and planning. If he is worried he could start with the 5:2 and see how he gets on with the fast days or just do the Med diet. If he is not doing 800 then just getting rid of the carbs is a good thing.

Aww no!! Any ideas for alternatives for breakfast then if I cant have eggs?

Totally agree Snoop re how a tall man is sustained on 800 calls a day………can other large men post in please so I can get an idea as I’ve just been on the phone to my hubby this morning with a recipe plan and shopping list ……we did the Cambridge diet together which worked well however he was allowed more calories than me!

My hubby got a serious wake up call from the GP he’s an overweight 6-3 ex rugby player working ovseas he was in one of only 3 supermarkets on the island and we were going through his shopping list for this and he was really struggling to find items ….no cauliflower, cabbages, lettuce and carrots wilted, no spinach….we have had to resort to tinned goods unfutunately……he did buy ham, tomatoes, cheese, eggs, avocados, chicken and fish however…..so I’d be extremely grateful for any recipe advice based on these……TumTumP gave us great ideas to make ‘sandwiches’ using ham or lettuce as wraps…..but I think he will probably need to add rice and potatoes as they are the staples on the island . Wishing everyone a great week !

As an aside (to quote Jules) I have sorted things out with my best friend and everything is okay.

Sorry Alan but if you are going to have porridge you are going to have to reduce the amount you probably would eat. It is high in carbs even though they are good carbs (60 grams per 100 grams). Pre BSD I used to have 35 grams but the book says 25 grams which gives you 15g carb. Then you have to think what you put on it and count that too. It is something I would have once a week.

Could be worse, he could have said “bonbonniere” – very Hyacinth.

As an aside, I tried the kalettes today, raw they were OK, cooked I think I prefer kale or sprouts.

Saying the same as the others. I followed the 800 calories with very low carb for most of last year to reach my goal weight. I started as a diabetic but my blood sugars rapidly became normal.

Since reaching my original target weight (and going 14 pounds under it) I’ve been maintaining at the lower weight with no difficulty. I’ve slightly increased calories but stayed low carb. I’m never hungry, and have more energy (at 66) than for many a long year.

Hope this helps.

Hi. You may want to look at a thread ‘this has to work for me ‘. Bill records his journey and how he dealt with blood sugars, medication, retinopathy, etc. Long, but worth a look.

Great result by the way.

Hi Sarah, welcome. Just either jump into any threads that interest you, or start your own, some people find a diary thread useful where they can record their own ups and downs along the way. You will find a lot of experience and good advice from other posters, so if anything is concerning you just ask away.

Definitely try upping the fibre though, maybe up the water as well and add a little salt to your meals if you aren’t already. I know from experience how weight loss appears to stall with constipation, even though the inches are still going.

2 lbs in a week is not bad – it may seem low compared to some of the larger figures people experience but remember that some starting this diet are doing so from almost twice your weight, so they will have a much bigger deficit at 800 cal so have bigger numbers, but as a % of body weight….

So don’t underestimate your losses, stick at it – celebrate it

Everyone is welcome, we are all in this together no matter which stage we are at.

Hi Sara well done on 100pct I am still at about 90pct with about 950!cals yesterday. I am preparing all my food and making soup today for next week so I can be more organized. Yes this weighing myself each day a bit good and bad. I started around 210.8 on tuesday and yesterday 207.8. So got sun and mon for a full week. I think I will weigh tomorrow and make Mon my new first week ish. I am 5.5 so I really want to be 150 ish by summer. Yes I want to look decent again!!! Let us know how you go!

Thank you @krysiad @esnecca and @avila for your help! There was me thinking I could be clever with juicing! I wish I liked eggs and fish! Can’t take eggs for breakfast…. So I might stick with porridge!

I also do a lot of exercise. In summer I swim up to 3 times a day (I have my own pool) and it was always around my late afternoon swim that I would go seriously low. In winter I tend to do my exercise nearer meal-times like aerobics in the morning about 1 hour after eating or walking in the afternoon, again about an hour after eating. In order to swim 3 hours after eating (4 or 5 pm) I test my blood before I go in and if it is below about 4.8 I eat a couple of prunes and a small plain Greek yoghurt. If it has dropped after exercise I do the same (although not before and after, just once). Before when I had lows I would panic and stuff my face with something quick and either carby or sugary, the prunes and yoghurt saved me from messing up my blood sugar and weight loss efforts.

This diet is a massive learning curve and can be quite scary because you see changes so quickly. Just keep on keeping on…… (my catch phrase)

Hi I have never done this forum thing before so don’t know the correct way of joining in, so hope it is correct to just write here. I am new To the BSD. I am 4 days in and would love to be part of a group for support. Have stuck to the first four days eating plan 100 % not feeling too bad, a few headaches, but nothing major.. I have not weighed yet. I seriously wish to change my life so that I can look in the mirror and not be offended by what I see. So would really value some thoughts, advice or encouragement from others wishing to change their appearance as well.
Hope this was the correct way to make contact.

If you read the book MM talks about metabolism. Apparently the studies were done just after the war and carried out on men who had been in concentration camps and whose bodies had completely shut down. In the past studies were only carried out to the scientific ability available. For example, now they can put you in a metabolic chamber and measure everything accurately. No, this diet does not slow down the metabolism, and yes, you will regain weight if you start over eating or eating rubbish, just like you would after any diet. I think the difference is that you are not expected to go back to your old ways, this is a way of life. On other diets I believe the number of people who regain all their weight or more is around 95%, although don’t quote me on exact numbers.

Hi Sunshine girl

Thanks for your reply – I’m not on insulin – in fact it was my surgery’s suggestion that I start which prompted me to try the BSD. I will stick on the 40Mg / day to see how things settle down. I’ve been doing quite a lot of exercise as well, which is clearly having an effect. Thanks you for encouragement! I must admit – I cracked last night and had a leftover mince pie! 🙂

Welcome Sarah. Find a thread that interests you or start your own, just hop on board and enjoy the ride.

You have probably discovered the reason. You are not massively overweight, unless you are 4 foot 2. No bowel movement could be accounting for your lack of weight movement, you could add something like chia seeds or other fibre to help with that.

Hello All

So many inspiring and motivating posts! I’m trying to keep up with them all but probably wont post often myself as I’m not good at this sort of thing and always seem short of time.

I started on Tuesday and nearly 4lbs off when I weighed in today, which I am delighted with.

I’ve been using ‘my fat secret’ to record food and exercise and although I have tried to plan, im not finding it easy to stick below 800 cals or 60g carbs. I need to look at my menus and see where I can shave off a few cals and carbs. The food I’m eating is healthy but we tend to eat the higher carb veg like peppers, onions etc. I probably need to go with more of the green stuff and of course cauli. Im not veggie but try not to have meat too often sticking mainly to chicken and fish. Eggs feature heavily at breakfast!
I’m thinking as I get more into the bsd mode, I might skip breakfast if I don’t feel hungry. That should help to keep within the cal/carb targets.

I’m so happy to have found this forum – I’m feeling very optimistic that I can avoid diabetes by eating this way – thanks all – keep up the good work x

My husband and I will be doing this together. We are newbies and plan to start in a couple of days time – I need to get the larder sorted first!

Here comes the advice bit – we are 82 and 67 respectively. He is a well man, although has skeletal spinal mobility problems and needs to lose weight (guess that holds for all of us, eh?)! He wants to do the low carb plan. Is there any reason why he should not?

Hi
I sometime find that the entries listed don’t agree with what I am looking for – sometimes members have added them wrongly or just different manufacturers vary. If I am stuck I add my own food entry with the correct figures in. You can make these public or not. Sometimes I will add a food, make it private and call it by something I will recognise next time.

Hope this helps.

Thanks sunshine-girl…starting weight of 13st 9lbs, doing the 800 fast, drinking 2.5 litres per day – I am peeing gallons but nothing on the bowel motion front!!! Fingers crossed it will start to happen!

I am new to the BSD I am on day four and would like to be in touch with individuals also doing the diet.

I’m in!! I’m motivated to lose weight by a holiday at the end of February.

I joined a gym today and have booked an induction session tomorrow, also just ordered the BSD book and recipe book (and even paid extra for fast delivery!) so I’m heading in the right direction.

I’ve eaten my own body-weight in food and chocolates over Christmas and feel absolutely ashamed of myself – so it serves me right that I can’t get into any of my clothes – and I’m damned if I’m buying any larger sizes.

So – I’m excited at joining you all in our ‘shape-up’ journey. Let’s go for it!!

As long as it is not a low fat version (i.e. full of chemicals and not natural) then it should be okay. The only thing I know about soya products is that it encourages women to store fat because of the estrogen. I am guessing you are a man so no worries there then.

Are you doing the 800 Fast or just the BSD (although i’m not sure what the difference is). How much do you weigh. I was 12st 10lb and only lost 3.5 lbs in week one. I know some people see losses of up to 10 lbs but turns out they have a lot to lose. Have you been dieting before you started this. Are you eating the right kinds of food and drinking lots and lots of water, are you peeing loads, how are your bowel movements. So many variables. You might just be unlucky and your body does not react in the same way as some others.

Don’t worry, stick with it and the weight will come off. Some people who lose lots in weeks 1 and 2 then go on to stick for a couple of weeks, we are all different. Keep up with it, it does work.

Congratulations on a great weight loss and good BG results. I had the same problem (although not really a problem). I was having lows of around 3.5 in the afternoon and read that it is Gliclazide that can cause serious lows so I was on 90mg and cut to 60mg. I am also on insulin so I have slowly reduced from 38 units at night to 24 units. However, this has been over a 6 month period. I asked my doctor, what do I get rid of first, the insulin or Gliclazide and he said insulin then reduce the Glic even further if I am getting low or normal readings.

You have only been on the diet for one week and already drastically reduced the Glic from 200 to 40 mg. If you are on insulin I would reduce that first. If not on insulin I would leave the Glic at 40 mg until your body stabilises. Give it until the 8 weeks are up or until your next official HbA1c, as the readings you get on a daily basis may not be your true overall reading e.g. my BG daily runs at around 3.8 to 5.0 but my HbA1c was 5.9. The only caveat to that would be if your BG constantly drops really low, just reduce a bit more. I see you are going to discuss with medical team, remember they might be totally against it. My doctor knew I had reduced my Glic but kept my prescription for the full amount until last month when he dropped it to the 60mg I am taking. He says you never know what might happen to derail the good results, ie greed, hunger, Christmas, birthdays, holidays, infection, illness, many things.

I am sure that now you have found this plan and know that it really does work you will not go back to your old way but give yourself some leeway for those days you just cannot resist that cake or pizza and dont chuck the meds just yet.

Hi all…started the Bsd 7days ago – have stuck rigidly to it and done 10,000 steps per day but I’ve only lost 2 pounds. Feeling slightly gutted considering the hard work and I’m freezing all the time. Has this happened to anyone else?

On whether this diet is restrictive or not is dependent on each individual, not so much in terms of what you choose to eat but what your body needs. I never realised till just a few weeks back that my RDI when I reach my target weight will be just 1200 calories (I just read the blurb on food packaging and assumed it applied to me, but seeing as I’m a shorty, it doesn’t). The upshot is that for me to drop to 800 calories of healthy food now is not a massive problem. But if you’re a six-foot bloke, then 800 is restrictive. And hats off to anyone achieving it or thereabouts.

There are a couple of people in my life whose attitude to food and exercise I really admire. Neither are skinny minnies, their weight tends to be seasonal, bit chunkier in winter. The key thing about them both is that they see food purely as fuel for their bodies. Right amount of good fuel in, good performance, wrong amount of bad fuel in, worse performance in every aspect of life. No angst, no guilt. No ‘ooh, let’s be ‘naughty’ and have a treat’ – everything they eat is something they want – they just make better choices.

Food isn’t a treat, or a punishment, or a reward, or a consolation for them. It’s just the fuel that helps them live the life they want to live. Coming from a family and a culture where food could be any or all of these things, this was a huge revelation that didn’t kick in till my forties. At a truly desperate point in my life, one of these lovely people showed me how doing exercise I liked – swimming, cycling, Zumba – would make me more inclined to do it, feel better. He set me achievable targets until I was cycling 100 miles in the rain – and loving it. Low carb eating suited me and I didn’t find it hard.

T2d diagnosis and associated meds after 8 years of stable weight on low carb derailed me for 6 months. Why me? Poor me…and I now see I’d fallen into my old consolation pit. But actually, why not. Limiting fuel, putting the right stuff in, making the right choices, will fix me. It’s just fuel. I’d forgotten that for a while.
MK x

Hi everyone, welcome to newbies and us oldies (only been BSD 1week lol), really good to read all the posts and yes i feel i can associate with every one of them, ups and downs! I’m happy to report that BSD is working, my first weign in and I’ve lost 2.5kg , so I am very happy with that. Natalie, welcome back, you can and will do it this time👍you were such an inspiration and full of hints and tips on your previous attempt. Good choices today everyone, oh and i’m intrigued how the rose-hip oil helps?

The only thing I can see against kefir is the one cup has around 150 calories but it is rich in nutrients, depends how you want to use your calories if you are on 800.

Hi. I’ve just finished my first week on the 800/day BSD and I’ve lost 10 lbs. The most surprising effect is on my my need to continue my medication. I’m checking my BS 4-5 times per day, and it’s come down remarkably to the point that I’ve reduced from 200Mg/day Gliclazide to just 40Mg/day and my BS is still around 4 (used to be 8 – 10). I’m just a bit concerned that It’s coming down so quickly – what are other peoples experiences? And I know I need to speak to my doctor/diabetic nurse!

Looking at Soya yoghurt, for example Alpro with coconut or almond, I see that the card and sugar content is less than full fat natural yoghurt. Just wondered if this is a better option or is there something I’m missing? Thanks for any feedback.

This is a popular thread…it’s so nice to meet such like minded people. Congratulations to all losers out there and to all those who’ve made the decision to adopt a great eating plan.

This is my second 8 week stint having lost 11kg last autumn and I’m happy to be back in control…usually…but today has been really painful, I’ve been absolutely consumed by the desire to eat any and everything. I’m feeling a little better just now having lunched but may have to go out so I don’t consume the contents of the fridge.

For dinner last night I had white fish with some lentil dahl. If i eat carbs it’s normally at lunchtime so I wonder if the timing derailed me. Anyway I won’t be having my lentils in the evening again…i have them once a week because of the benefits they bring.

Have a great Sunday afternoon.

He is such a snob, bob bon dish indeed

sunshine-girl……I have just spit my cuppa out laughing about your husbands comments.

I have had my first proper…..you have lost weight Fairyface……:-) from someone I have not seen for two years.

Frog / Krysia I dont even like chocolate much except my 85% very dark which I have one square per day after dinner but it is my hand that just dips when it shouldn’t. We went to Portugal with the family last year and my daughter emptied a big bag of Haribo sweets into a bowl and left them on the sideboard and I reckon I ate at least 3 or 4 a day and that can add up.

I had a bad night last night and drank about 3 glasses of wine and it showed on the scales this morning knocking off the half pound I had lost the day before. I had an upsetting conversation with my best friend and we had a disagreement, that was around 11pm on Skype so I should have just gone to bed but I cried a lot and turned to the wine. Silly girl that I am.

Anyway, I might not have a best friend anymore but I still have to think about my health instead of wallowing. BG 88 (4.8) and weight still down 1.75 lbs.

Lovely reading all your updating posts.
I have just been calorie counting this week having to use up leftovers & tried to really limit my carbs but my husband has been eating leftover Christmas pudding with brandy butter, Christmas cake & nuts!
Weigh in on day 7. I have lost 3 & 3/4 lbs & disappointed but couldn’t manage a daily 800 calories more like 950!!
My husband has gained 3lbs giving himself more leeway trying to maintain his weight with bloods up to 11!
I suspect that has been caused by the pudding & cake & that some of the weight gain is water but I’ve recommended he gain extra calories this week by going back to low carb & eating breakfast instead.
I must admit on the vegetables & fruit front we are going back to BSD ones but I do like sweetcorn & mango & my husband will go back to eating oranges. So I suppose I’m going to be low carb & calorie counting to 800 days because I am not very good at identifying & counting carb “points”. I know it’s a bit of a compromise but it’s what I can manage & I am not pre-diabetic & just want to lose my extra weight.
Good luck everyone for the second week😀👍👍🍀🍀🍀 onwards & downwards!

Going! Not bing! Terrible typing skills.

Tyrefighting, how are you going? I realised my answer to you a while ago didn’t post but was so interested to hear about your time in Australia. Hope all is bing well at your end and you are still fighting the good fight!

Congratulations on your mini goals everyone, or just for keeping on going, which is massive!
Maharani kitten and Linda, I’m another Capricorn, I’m on the 13th! Happy birthday to you both this week and may all your BSD wishes come true!!

Hi Determinedthistime, so glad you tried the rosehip oil is working, it’s great stuff, starting my third bottle!
I’m having a similar pattern as you, a great day or two and the scales going in the right direction then the next day I seem to lose my head completely and eat every carb in sight!! Fortunately my husband is back to work tomorrow so that might help me ditch the holiday mentality and make me focus! Will start with a batch of broccoli and cheddar soup and some zucchini fritters do I have no excuse to raid the white bread!!
Wishing you a very successful week and I look forward to hearing how you are going.
You are so right, this does work, it can be done!!
Good luck to everyone on this thread as we head into a new week, the positivity and shared stories and support are the only thing keeping me going some days!!

I casually started on Wednesday. I avoided sugar and starchy carbs whilst I read the book. My shop arrived Friday, and I attempted a soup from the book which was really good. i have done atkins twice before, so am not unfamiliar with low carb eating. I’m hoping this will be easier as I can eat more veg and fruit and suspect having less animal protein/more pulses will keep my cholesterol from peaking. I have retained the use of almond milk over cows milk as I now prefer the taste. It’s also low in carbs. I’ve also been using slim noodles (0 carbs and 20 calories) and almond muffins. I’m hoping that I will be able to make more meals from the recipe book next week and feel I have enough energy to add some excercise.

Well done Getyourcarbon to both you and your wife.
I start day 2. I survived the first day!
Most people seem to find day 3 the worst, so I am prepared now if mine ends up on day 4 or 5, thanks for that warning.
Best of luck for the next week
Kate