Week 3 day 6 (overall day 20)

Well I only slept 4.5 hours again. I need so little sleep on this diet it’s nuts. Hope I take a nap later. Got up at 3:30 am.
Hoping I don’t have the major tummy issues again today. Took 3 servings of pepto bismal and will continue for the trip unless I need something more serious to take – I hope not.
Thank God I have the best hubby ever!

Today I will stick to plain fish and a little rice with vegies. Found a couple restaurants that look to serve that here.

Weigh in day tomorrow. So far this week I lost 4 lbs but traveling always makes me retain a lot of water so we will see.

Fingers crossed its a good tummy day on our travels.

Hi joy4life, glad I’m not the only one, so let’s show them we can do this!
Day 3 and it’s not so bad. Felt very hungry not long after breakfast, but I drank lots of water and it passed. I’ve noticed that I’m starting to feel jittery and shaky like my bs is too low, but I checked it and it’s 11.9 so I’m guessing it’s just carb withdrawal. I won’t give in, you can shake rattle and roll all you want, but you hear me bs, you WILL submit to my demands and return to normal! Will eat lunch when I’m actually hungry, not just because ‘it’s time’.

Hi Eureka,
Best of luck on your Canada trip!! Where are you going? We’ve only been to Vancouver but love it!
We do always take a cooler bag with a frozen ice pack to keep the food cold. Fully frozen ice packs are allowed through security. We boil and peel 4-5 boiled a eggs and put pepper and salt on them. In another container we put salmon we made with a little rice. That way if the flight is delayed we have food and we just ate it when we got off the plane since the flight was fine. They offered food on the plane but we just said no thanks even though it was healthy. Because we didn’t want to overeat and knew we were going out to dinner.
You will do fine I just know it!
💜

Just bought a packet of pumpkin seeds from Lidl. (they are green in colour, but the packet does not state if they are roasted, dried etc.)
The nutritional information on the packet states that 100g contains 569kcal, and 1.9g carbs.
However, if you look at Calorie King for example, it says 100g contains 540kcal and 17.8g carbs.
My Fitness Pal is different again. and just googling “calories in pumpkin seeds” brings up yet more conflicting values.
Which am I to go by??

I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!

Thanks soooo much for the loving, supporting and comforting words! I’ve been good so far and don’t want to eat yukkies.

I woke up and planned meals for the day so I feel in control – I even wrote them in PEN today so I can’t erase or make changes, my silly phone doesn’t have enough memory for my fitness pal so my goal this payday I am going to buy myself a new phone. Means I don’t save a single penny but my health and sanity is more important and if I’m healthy and clear headed I can work harder and who knows hit target and get a bonus 🙂

I used to do Banting/LCHF for a while before – from looking at my food diary since Monday I can see I had little to no fat in my food so that was more likely than not the trigger for hunger mad bee!

9 more days….then I can do it all correctly and program my fitness pal to count protein grams, carb grams and fat grams and calories and water and and and and….yay!

Hugs! you’ve been awesome thank you – I felt like I was having a serious meltdown!

Hi Bumblebee
Dry your eyes & powder your nose! Your human, that’s all. We’ve had ‘bad’ food habits for decades. It just takes time to turn things around. The point is you want to. We can’t make anyone want this new way of eating/life. You/they/we all have to want to do this for ourselves. So stop berating yourself, come on jump back on the wagon, you know the route. 😀

Have just really enjoyed a carton of Icelandic Skyr, which I suppose is most like cream cheese. It came in a carton and I ate it with a spoon!

the 170gm carton was 104 calories, 6 carbs, 19 protein!!!, 53 sodium. No fat. I really enjoyed it as it was, but it would be great on lettuce, or rolled up in smoked salmon or ham. Really creamy.

Well worth seeking out.

Hi Bill
Snap! Good with ginger too. Just microwaved mine.
It’s nice getting new holiday clothes isn’t it. ☀️ ✈️ Very well done. Have great time in June

Hi bumblebee, you were really good eating one of your meals, still in control.. See my post re last weekend, I was very bad!! Now I’m OK again.I didn’t weigh for 3 days, I was just really good for 3 days, then weighed, and I was 3 pounds down. Just accept it as a blip, and carry on with your 8 weeks.

Please don’t be upset, put that out of your mind, start again NOW as normal, (I just tried to keep carbs lower than usual, about 30g).

Have you tried Marigold bouillon? It is a low cal/carb thin soup, you mix a teasp with hot water and could have a cup when hungry, might help?

I too play around with My Fitness Pal, seeing what I can eat for lowest carbs. A big stir fry with good veg is filling.

We’re all human and there will be blips at times, but we can all overcome them and carry on xx

Hi, I’ve also upped the water and am on sparkling with sliced lemon/limes.
I’ve recently, first time in my life, been suffering with constipation so thought the extra fluids might help. (I’m not complaining tho ‘cos for me for the last 5 years I’ve been “going” up to 6 times a day all due to Metformin, so once a day now for me is a dream!). Week 11 for me and still at it!

Stacey how exciting that your husband gets to see a big change all at once! Almost worth him being away for a while.

Hi Bumblebee
Today is over, just pick up where you left off as of now, not tomorrow. No going back to day 1, no eating less calories to make up for it, just get back on the wagon and move forward.
For me, this is my new life as this is the chance for a healthy me forever, not just 8 weeks.
You can do it, I know you can😀
Linda

Hi bumblebee
I did exactly the same yesterday, I was out all day and didn’t plan my eating properly, so by the time 7pm came around I was ravenous and ate a kfc! It was the ‘healthiest’ option available to me at the time but it took my calorie count way over. But you know what? I’m not going to beat myself up about it, it’s one day. So today I will be back on track, and I’ll learn that next time I need to plan it better. And no I don’t think it means you have to start all over again, just chalk it up to experience and move forward.

I’m jealous Bill – when I finally move and have a garden, growing rhubarb is first on my list!

I love ginger with rhubarb too, but didn’t think I had any – this morning I spotted some of those tiny packets of ginger slices left over from ITSU sushi in the fridge – I’ll have to look and see if they add anything to it, but the whole packet is only 6g including the plastic, so it can’t be too horrendous. I’ll make the next batch soon!

Without sugar/stevia added, I love rhubarb as a vegetable too – it’s great with smoked mackerel.

I bought a cabbage the other day, planning to make coleslaw with home made mayonnaise, but it’s huge, so I might look at trying sauerkraut as well.
Hoping that my spiraliser arrives today!
Just realised that we very quickly drifted away from the thread of supermarket foods!

Today is another day 🙂

Congratulations on not stuffing yourself with cream cakes or crisps or chips, you had a wonderful success with a home-cooked meal and some Babybels – great choices!

As far as I am concerned, your 8 week journey continues, and you should just carry on planning for 800 calories, and probably over the time this very minor blip will average out! After all, you were only 427 calories over, which would be about 7 days of 740 calories! No worries!

However, if you really got the munchies, perhaps you should look at your food via something like My Fitness Pal, and see if you are giving yourself enough fat to make up for the lesser calories? Don’t forget you need to keep it balanced. I found it really helpful to enter my food in, and make decisions about how many grams of carbs and so on.

Good luck and you are a success, not a failure!

Wow, Whalleyrange you’re doing so well!

I find Magnesium in a powder really good for constipation, might be worth a try?

Am drinking loads of sparkling water (I hope no one tells me there’s something bad about it!!:-))) with lime or lemon – really nice and easy to drink a lot.

I’m on day 4 YAYY 🙂

Love rhubarb! So nice with some ginger in it too.

So far (only day 4 so hopefully will have loads more suggestions along the way!) I found radishes really good – just on their own, they are so nice. Maybe it’s because they’re a nice bright red colour and circular and remind me of sweets 😉 I bring some to work.

Also eating lots of sauerkraut – basically pickled cabbage but it’s delicious with fish and really filling and low in calories and high in fiber. We make our own but you can get in the supermarket too as long as not loads of extra stuff put in. (Myfitnesspal says it has high level of salt which might be bad for some people, though the homemade stuff doesn’t – it’s v easy to make, tutorials on youtube) Who knew cabbage was so delicious 😉

So I went over my 800 cals yesterday – I was so hungry and I realised its the afternoon coffee I had made me insane with hunger to the point I could have eaten the paper cup!!!!.

Luckily I told myself – bee if you’re hungry eat your food don’t eat rubbish! So I ate one of my home cooked meals then had 3 baby babybels and a cup of tea. total for the day added up to 1227 calories.

I weighed myself this morning – I didn’t put on weight thank goodness but wanted to know does this mean I’ve got to start counting Day 1 from Today to get to 8 weeks? or….Do I eat lesser calories the next few days to make up for the extras from yesterday? I’m so sad and upset I cried myself to sleep from guilt – luckily its spring/summer so I can come in to work and pretend its ‘allergies’ that gave me puffy eyes!

Just harvested some lovely rhubarb from the garden.
Guess what’s for pudding tonight 🙂

I’d say 6 and below is very nice in the circumstances.
Keep it up, nice to hear you’re a lot more relaxed now 🙂

A helpful tool to count your cals and carbs is a phone app called MyFitnessPal. You can scan the barcode of almost all products and it will load the nutritional info straight in. It also has a really indepth list of all types of food. I do a lot of meals in the slowcooker and I just add them into the app as raw ingredients and let the app do the work 🙂 Hope that helps

Very complicated this BS reading thing
I think I’ll just stay off the meds and simply aim for a decent regular average reading
6 and below seems a nice number
Do we agree? Alan ,seeming much more calm n relaxed five weeks in,strange 🤔

Day 4 update.
The cramps have eased, but so has the weight loss, but amazingly I’m not discouraged like I would have been previously. Generally finding it relatively easy. I think it has really helped me that I have been busy at work and therefore haven’t had time to boredom eat. Hubby is doing a spectacular job.

Thank you for the encouraging words Eureka.

Hi Whalleyrange,

You’ve had such great results on the BSD. Sorry to read about your saga over the week-end – ah yes, “listen to the wise ones” (said in the voice of Yoda or Obi-Wan Kanobi).
One thing’s for sure, you’ll definitely be keeping up your water intake from now on.

Hi Switzerland
Just great! Bloods so good👍 Happy patient. 😀
My new GP does 5:2 so there you go. Keep going 🖖🏻

Hi Tallyhoo
A brilliant story & achievement so far! You will do the rest. Good bloods & I hope you can get rid of the metformin in the future. Keep on keeping on. 👏🏻

Hi Eureka,
Yes, this whole BSD thing really sorts out the GP’s. My new GP has just phoned with my blood results Fasting glucose 6.0 HbA1c 5.8
Cholesterol 5.7. I’m excited about my results coming down and here’s the HUGELY exciting thing……when I told him I’m doing MM’s 8 week BSD (which he hadn’t heard about) he said ‘Go for it. I’m a huge fan of Michael Mosley’s.’
So now I know I did the right thing by changing. As you know it’s a huge step.
Best wishes.

Hi Frog,

Great idea, I love rhubarb, must get some stevia and rhubarb today! My mouth is watering.

if you now eat full fat Greek yogurt, you know how different it is to the artificial tasting low fat yogurts? Very creamy, and no comparison..

Well, you’d see the same with the Longley Farm cottage cheese compared to normal stuff, it is rich and seems as if its naughty to eat!

Hi HappyLife
Pleased to hear about your trip & the plus side of travel. Love hummingbirds! Enjoy it all 👍 ✈️
I’m off to Canada in 3 weeks & will take your cue of no food in flight. I’ll just keep well hydrated. My husband eats the BSD Med way too. Intend to pick healthy foods & really enjoy this trip of a lifetime. Can’t wait to wear all my new clothes too. 😀 ✈️

I’ll look out for those, thanks Barby
I can’t remember the last time I ate cottage cheese!

I cooked a huge bowl of rhubarb yesterday – it was a bit tart, so I added a flat teaspoon of stevia.
Rhubarb is in season so in most supermarkets at the moment.
100 grams is just 11 calories and 0.8g of carbs.
It was delicious with a couple of teaspoons of yoghurt on top, and I’m going to have some with porridge too.

Hi jimnz
GOAL! That’s the way to do it! Great bloods & result for you. Well done 😀🎯

Hi Switzerland
So glad you now have a supportive GP. It makes all the difference. I too had to change my GP after twice facing point blank refusal to help me at all with the BSD! I’m happy, supported & feel positive with my new GP. 😀

Well its the end of week 9 and this week I lost another 1.5 kg and now weigh 103.8 kg. That’s down from 120.3 kg and a total loss of 16.5 kg ( 2 stone 8 pounds). Over the last 4 weeks the weight loss has stabilised at around 1 to 1.5 kg a week and so should hit my initial target of 20 kg loss by week 12. Reading all the positive posts on the Over 8 and 16 threads really encourages me to continue with the BSD 800 just to see how far I can go.
The only problem I experienced for the first time this week was severe constipation. And it was very bad. Needed suppository laxative and caused a lot of discomfort. Realised that I had not been following the water guidelines and advise from the forums. I drink lots of tea during the day but not water and feel that this contributed to the problem. I now have a bottle of chilled water ready in the fridge to dip into and this has, hopefully, resolved the problem. So lesson learnt, listen to the wise members and avoid a weekend of pain and discomfort.

Hi debs14.
What’s not to like …..weight loss and feeling much better?.
Will stick with 800 cals until I reach my healthy weight range and review options after that.
Happy days.

Well done Barby….. looking forward to the email with 10% achieved 🙂

Hi Tallyhoo
Woo hoo. 🙂 Congratulations.
Fantastic post.
Can’t officially join this 16 week place till next Monday but there are many people who will soon be taking these steps to change.
Power to the ‘ vets ‘. Hope more people can find this ‘happy’ place.

May I please join you??

I’ve now been on the BSD for 16 weeks this week………..

I’ve lost 3 stone 2 lbs aka 44 lbs……….I’ve gone from buying size 20 plus clothes to my latest purchase of size 12 jeans from Next after a good friend took a horrible pic of my bending down in my old jeans ‘they’re way too baggy get some new ones’ she cried. I’ve halved my metformin (thanks Bill) and it hasn’t made any difference to my blood sugars which have gone down from 10.6 to a regular 5.7 ish on fasting.

I’ve been staying in hotels every other week since I began this diet and have been extra vigilant and have never put on weight as a result. I now walk and walk and walk and have totally changed my way of thinking about food. I automatically scan menus to see what I can have as opposed to ‘I’ll have what I want and then go back to the diet’ – can’t do that anymore because I’m not on a diet – it’s just the way I eat. Totally amazed by the quantities of food people eat around me and the type of food – amazed because that was me until 16 weeks ago and I could no more do that now – I’d throw up at the thought – fantastic change of attitude!!! I now never order a main meal but always order a starter as a main and have a coffee as a dessert – used to have 3 courses – always. But – I do drink wine when I feel like it and have tea and coffee with milk…..

I’m away on holiday in 17th June and when I started this back on 25th January I stated my goal was to be 11 st 7 lbs – I’m now 11 st 10 lbs so only 3 lbs to go……………..at that point I will revise my goal weight as I really could lose another stone after that.

Have had my blood tests done at the doctor’s and get the results next week – we’ll see how positive or not they are.

Heard Dr M on the Chris Evans show yesterday morning – hope the message will get across to more people now – he is my saviour and I don’t say that lightly – have been trying to lose weight for the best part of 30 years and never EVER have been able to achieve results and positive attitude like this – feel truly blessed to have found this way of eating and so happy!!!

I have discovered these items in the supermarket, that really help my low carb eating, and are also very delicious. Any one else got suggestions?

Longley Farm Natural Cottage Cheese 250g £1.22 Asda
nothing like the normal wet stuff, much thicker and creamier and dryer – you also don’t need much of it.Really different.
100g is 104 cals/2.2 carbs available Asda & Sainsburys

Waitrose spinach falafels 2 packs for £4 atm
Really tasty and one crumbled in a salad really lifts it. I got 8 in a pack, + can be frozen.
Two falafels is 158 cals/ 7.9 carbs, but one is enough to boost a salad.

What a cracker Jimnz
if you have your doc and his family eating this way, it’s a certainty that he is recommending this way of eating to others
Well done you, you may have inadvertantly saved some lives 🙂

Alan
you gave your body sugar and carbs in the wine.
Because your body had to process that overnight, the probability is that there was no need for it to release stored sugar as usual, hence the lower reading.
It’s all a very complex puzzle that we are only scratching the suface of at the moment.

Hi
a few of us have experienced this in weeks 4 to 5
It was explained as stored sugar being flushed from the organs overnight, a sort of exaggerated dawn phenomonen.
It does seem to settle down again after 2 to 3 weeks.
TBH if your other readings through the day are ok, I wouldn’t worry too much about the FBS reading

I have lost another 3 pounds this week, I am 1 pound off losing 10% of my body weight.

This is truly amazing for me, because last weekend I “fell off the wagon”. Last Saturday I was eating chocolate bars mindlessly, and next day I had omelette and chips, and toast.

So Monday I just got calmly back to normal BSD without beating myself up mentally, I have been very strict for 3 days (under 30 carbs).

I’m going out to a pub meal tonight, so have found they do goats cheese salad, I’ll have that without the potatoes, and black coffee for desert.

Normally when I eat badly, that just triggers an almighty binge for months, I still can’t quite believe the sense of empowerment I have.

Natalie
Thank you so much for that info re my FULL bottle of white vino last night,I was very very naughty .
I have just taken fasting blood this morning and it was 7.1.
It’s been much higher in mornings
Don’t know what to make of this since I stopped all my meds
Alan opinion welcome 🤔

I’m glad I chose today to measure (does happy dance) Ok so I’m two days late for a complete mid-point check in but it will do.

I’m down another pound, bringing me to my first target. 12 st 0. so 12 lb’s gone 🙂 next target 11 st 12, which will be a stone gone, then 11 st 8, which seems an odd target but I like to have lots of little ones as they are more reachable. 11st 8 signifies 10% body weight gone.

I’ve lost another inch off my hips, and 0.5 inches off my bust

and FBS 4.3

everything is awesome. (now singing the lego movie song in my head….)

about to have boiled eggs for breakfast, with soup for lunch later, chickpeas, and pork stir fry for dinner.

Time for my eggs, have a great day 🙂

its been 2 weeks back on BSD 800 and I am 5kgs lighter . I have a total weightloss of 7.5kgs since starting at the beginning of April, that 10% of my body mass. For the first time in a few years I am Obese 1 instead of Obese 2. Only 3kgs more and I will be overweight. Had a catch up with girlfriends today and got my first comments on how good I am looking. Pulled some clothes out from before I had my baby. I can’t get any of my skinny jeans done up but I could get them on. Before I couldn’t get them past my thighs. My husband works away and will be home in another week, I can’t wait for him to see the results.

The more water you put in the more fat you can wee out – thats what makes me drink!! haha

I also struggle to drink water so I soda stream mine, for some reason I can gulp down 500mls of fizzy water in one sitting but flat tap water..yuk. My soda steam was well worth the investment

Wow Janet that is shocking… I had no idea that sweeteners did that! I am throwing all mine out… If they raise our blood sugar then they are no good whatsoever…. Thanks for that!

Hi DemiMondaine,
I’ve had a similar experience to you with a non-supportive GP. This week (for my situation) I came to the realization that I was no longer in a professional relationship but an abusive one.
I changed my GP and have had my first appointment with my new GP. I felt comfortable and emotionally supported during the appointment and walked away feeling good about myself and the decision I’d made to change.

Hi jimnz,
I’ve been following your posts. What refreshing news about your GP and now a dietician on board too! Great news about your pre-diabetic status – that must feel good.

Hi SteveR,

Genius – vacuum machine – it makes so much sense especially with your long work hours. I’ve heard about them but not ever come across one.
There are two other aspects of the BSD that I’ve found helpful (1) Exercise – I try and walk 10 000 steps/day. It took me a while to work up to it. Some days life gets in the way and I don’t achieve it, but it’s a goal. The days that I achieve the 10 000 steps are the ones where I go for a walk. I’ve found the walks are just as important for de-stressing. (2) Mindfulness meditation – I use the Smiling Mind app, it’s free and Australian and it works for me. BUT there are many ways to achieve mindfulness meditation, you just need to research it. When mindfulness meditation is practiced cortisol levels are reduced (when raised, cortisol causes overeating). Stress eating doesn’t effect everyone, but if it does, mindfulness meditation is useful.
Within a few days of starting the BSD on 01/04/16 I noticed an improvement in my sleep patterns. Sleep got more sound when I added mindfulness meditation to the mix.
Enjoy your BSD journey.

Thanks Athorn223 and Izzy!
Day 1 of the trip and I did fine! I only ate 2 oz of salmon and 2T rice all day until dinner at 5pm. We went out and shared two fish dishes and a crab sushi and miso soup.
I had 811 calories and 61 carbs but we also sent the bowl of rice back!!! My hubby is on board to so he can help me while we travel.
So yeah for us!
I don’t eat on travel days (flying) due to tummy issues. Thank goodness as I had a major catastrophe at the airport before getting on the plane. My angels were taking care of me for sure!!
Bought pepto bismal to live on during the trip if I need to.
Tomorrow will be more planned out with 2-3 meals.
Great news:
1- seatbelt was easily set 5 inches smaller on the plane.
2- my purse is hanging super low because my stomach isn’t in the way (it’s still large but a lot less in the way)
3- I wore my new shirt (hummingbird) and new crop pants!
Life is great!