Hi,
I am still suprised that I didn’t give up after two weeks which is my normal pattern.
It is a crazy way of doing things, but when you think about it…….
If you don’t put it in your mouth , it won’t go on your hips. Duh!!
I get the picture now.

I think on Saturday I will put one blog in the section called … After eight weeks. Just to show my face.

I think as I still have a long way to go, I will continue for a little while longer, then change to the 5:2 diet.
If anyone meets up with doctor Michael Mosley, please give him a hug from me. He will never realise what gifts he has given me just by writing this book, making this website at the right time for me.

If you are reading this message and not sure you have the will power to do this diet, please read all my blogs as I have had ups and downs. No one has told me I was a failure putting weight back on, they held my hand, gave me encouragement, and got me going again.
The nicest thing is ,… You all have laughed with me but never at me.

Oh and the best advice for newbies, beware of the dollop of yoghurt… You will have to read my early blogs to understand the daftness behind that episode.
Love Lucia
Xxxx

DO IT!! just do it. No more thinking, no more procrastinating.

It isn’t as bad as you think, I found it much easier than I expected.

Jump on the wagon as soon as you get up in the morning try not to overthink about it, just do it.

Best of luck to you 🙂

woohoo you are already ahead of me! I appear to have hit the dreaded plateaux! but that’s Ok I can be patient.

Glad you felt well again so quickly too 🙂

so I was good last night and that mashed potato went straight in the food bin 🙂

Todays menu…

I’ve had coconut pancakes and raspberries for breakfast

I have cheese, cherry tomatoes and cranston pickle for lunch

Dinner will be roast chicken with salad

I have a portion of salt and vinegar chickpeas to nibble.

I appear to have hit the dreaded plateaux … I weighed today out of curiosity and I haven’t lost any weight since last friday 🙁

However I have read of so many of you having the same so I refuse to be discouraged. I am tightening up my controls however to ensure I am staying true to the rules. Can you eat too little? I’m often under 700 cals, and I’m going to try to bring down my carbs a little bit more too.

outside is definitely helpful, as is self care and enjoying the alone time. The mindfulness group didn’t help but chatting 1:1 with a counsellor might. Sounds like you are on the right track though 🙂

I’m also cold – but it *is* cold here today lol

Hi

Well here I am sitting in bed sipping hot water and lemon and hoping and praying that the kids don’t wake up soon so I can enjoy my, um, er, water!

I weighed myself first thing and have lost 3.5lbs so far which quite frankly I’m amazed at. I’m not diabetic but am overweight 5.1 and 10.9 as of today (does a little happy dance) and want to lose 2 stone and kick my sugar habit.

I’m having goats cheese and Walnut salad for lunch, followed by berries and yogurt then a book recipie for tea (meatballs or harissa chicken).

I’m about to go and make the kids packed lunches so gearing up for the first willpower battle of the day lol. Then it’s hi ho hi ho it’s off to work I go,

Hi

I’ve not compared the book calories with actual, I’ve been taking them on trust so will have to double check today.

I’ve been skipping breakfast, just having water and lemon when I get up, then a green drink mid morning, followed by a salad and fruit and yogurt for lunch, then a book recipie for tea.

I’m only on day three but have already decided will need to branch out into my own recipes as finding the book ones a bit bland so far.

When you check your calories on your phone are you sure you’re putting the correct weight in? I was shocked at the number of calories in a satsuma until I realised my phone was giving me calories per 100g not per fruit.

I need to do this diet and I just haven’t quite managed to start.
I have so many reasons to do it but always seem to put it off to tomorrow.
I need more energy for my 3 young children. I need to feel better and get my confidence back. If I don’t sort it out I am going to have some serious health problems coming my way. But still the urgency doesn’t motivate me. Maybe because my head is in some kind of sugar addicted fog!

I finally weighed myself today after quite some time – I am 98kg.
That’s around 30kg extra I am carrying around.
I am quite shocked at myself. And so I have to start tomorrow. I am going to start tomorrow.

So I thought if I wrote that somewhere and had somewhere to record my progress I will do it.

So here goes – pre diet weigh in – 98kg
Lets see how much damage I can do in the first week!
Game on!

Day 3 – 75.8kg Thats 2kgs in 3 days!! I know its mostly water and next week it will slow down but it feels great to loose 🙂

Hi KathrynA — don’t despair, don’t give up — stop weighing yourself for a couple of weeks and use a tape measure around your waist instead. It will track the important loss of internal fat and relieve you of the tyranny of the scales. Check your carb intake, keep it low (as low as 20 grams per day ) and be patient. This diet works — I am down 7 inches at the waist in 10 weeks. You can do it too! Be patient.

Hey RobB,

Thanks for the info regarding what was said on the SBS show… Unfortunately I did not get to see it as I was not in Oz at the time it was aired – must do a catch, up if I can, when we get home end of June… But the info is very encouraging to me… I figured there must be a difference in response for longer term Diabetics – but it is really good to know it ha been seen and recognised. Will consider buying some scales – weight is a tricky thing for me psychologically – but I might just have to get over that – and try to see it as a health goal not a vanity goal…. anyway – Thanks for you input and insight.

Cheers – actually, three cheers to you,

Fatty.

So happy for you! It really works for me for sure. I have lots of energy and have lost 9 lbs in 5 days!

Wow good luck, I will probably stay in 800 once done as consistency works best for me.
It’s day 6 and I am down 9
Lbs already so clearly this works for me. I feel amazing although the first two days were hard energy wise.

Diabetes reversal. Pure and simple. Generally I don’t believe very low calorie diets are a smart way to lose weight (the faster the loss, as a general rule, the more likely it is to return), and it is hard to get all the micro nutrients you need in 800 calories/day.

The research data is small – but compelling (remission in 100% of recently diagnosed, obese, type 2 diabetics, with a smaller remission rate in people with a long-standing diagnosis.)

I’m less than a year into my diagnosis (making remission a good possibility), significant weight loss alone has not made a dent in my insulin resistance (meaning if I can’t induce remission, I will be stuck eating fewer than 20 carbs per meal forever). Eight weeks isn’t long enough to cause significant harm – and it might give me the option to eat a moderate quantity of healthy carbs (and be better able to balance my diet) than if I just continue to eat a ketogenic diet and manage my diabetes.

Unfortunately I’ve been told I need to stop eating at a calorie deficit to prepare for surgery :(, so this 6th week will be my last. I plan to try a home OGTT early next week (after my next A1C) to see if I have been successful.

Day 6
Lost 9 lbs so far!!
Feeling great. Cold went away in 1 day!
No joint pain! No cravings! No hunger!
Normal energy!

783 cal / 51 carb
B- 2 eggs, 1 oz cheese, herbs
L- 2oz salmon, 1 apple
D- 1 cup asparagus, 1 T butter, 1/2 can Amy’s lentil vegie soup, 1 oz Parmesan

Hey Janet1973,
Thanks so much! I just read it and it makes total sense now since we are fasting for part of this at night so it keeps our metabolism high.
😀

Hi Linda,
I am going to try the Alternate Day Fasting plan for a week or 2. Its by Dr Varady ( she was featured in Michaels BBC documentary). on this plan you eat 500 calories one day and anything you like on the alternate days) seeing I’m so used to eating 800 calories a day its really no ‘biggie’ to go 500. and I have all the freedom the next day. You get all the health benefits of fasting and no guilt on the ‘feed’ days. We shall see how it goes 🙂
T

Hi hawke,
Just wanted to let you know, I too (like everyone) had a great weight loss in the first week and I was weighing myself daily for motivation in the early days (when I felt the diet more challenging). I experienced a small plateau in the second week but after that pretty consistent weight loss each week ( 1.1-1.4 kg.) I also found it much better to weigh weekly in the second half of diet…I found it motivating to see a big loss on scales rather than daily ups and downs…I wish you the very best…. its simply a factor of time and you will get to your goal.
T

I had a great day today but I also messed up. I was so happy to be going out to eat, I thought yes I can have a salmon salad and a gin & slimline Tonic. fantastic. unfortunately all would have been good, If I hadn’t made 2 boiled eggs. As this took me over my calories by a lot. You live and learn. Next time I go out, don’t eat when I get back. I’m having my 2nd weigh in tomorrow so will see.

fbs: 7.1
Breakfast: Greek Yogurt with blueberries & Flaked almonds
Lunch: Salmon Salad and a G & T
Tea: 2 Hard boiled eggs.

I do nights sometimes, they are awful! I usually eat some high fat and protein food just before (chicken + cheese) to keep myself going. My night shifts are pretty sedentary though, cant imagine how hard a super active one would be.

weight + looking good (vain I know!), being healthy, controlling my relationship with food, avoiding heart disease, diabetes + dementia and being more active and energetic

Counting carbs isn’t essential but many of us have found that the weight shifts faster if we aim for no more than 50g carbs a day. It also helps us gravitate towards choosing low GI foods.

Can you rearrange the way you serve the food, so that there isn’t likely to be food left on their plates?

For example, instead of dishing up say, lasagne with salad beside it, and having them leave some salad because they prefer the lasagne, serve the salad as an entree.
Sit down at the table, and let each person serve themselves from the salad bowl.
Then once that is eaten, have the next course.
Then, because it is still not served out, what is left is fine to be kept for another day.

Then, do the same with the lasagne, as a second course. The remainder can then again, be frozen or kept for another small meal.

It is good practice for kids to learn to serve themselves, to see how much food there is to share, how much needs to be allowed for others to get a portion, and to judge their own appetite and not take too much and leave it on their plate.
I’d let them know you are doing this so that you can minimise waste, and say, that it is OK to get it wrong the first couple of times, and to look for seconds if they misjudged, but that waste is something you want to avoid.

Hi Chrisnor
Me too! I was very tired all the time for the first three weeks. Fuzzy head & cold too. But it cleared up after that & I’m feeling good all over now. I’m 12 weeks on the diet now & T 2. I’m slow to lose weight but 1& 1/2 stone down. Drink the 2 – 3 litres of fluid daily, it’s important. You stop running to the loo soon!
Stick with it. It is just the body getting rid of all the rubbish we’ve put in it

Give the cat a pat from me. They are great and proven stress relief. To that end and keeping mindfulness meditation on topic, there are a series of books commencing with ‘The Dalai Lama’s Cat’ all by David Michie that read as novels told by the cat. The books are a delight to read and it wasn’t until I’d finished reading the first one that I realised that the cat had taught me about aspects of Tibetan Buddhism.

Last year I was doing a lot of DIY at home, and I finally got a plot on the local allotment. And it was all too much for me – I realised I was knackered all the time, found it difficult doing things which I had been able to do easily just a few years ago. I knew I’d been putting weight on but hadn’t done anything about it until the cardiac nurse at my annual check up said I really ought to do something. So general health is my motivation.

barby – your point 5 – know where you are coming from. Always seems harder when I’m on my own. I’ve been very good at eating the evidence – “No, officer, I haven’t got any junk food in the house, honest!” If you feel the urge to binge, have a drink, then log on to this forum and post a message – the liquid will help fill a gap, and composing a message will be a useful distraction.
There’s a lot of sense on this forum, ready to help keep you on the right path.

I have just had a look at my first blogs.

I started blogging on 8th March, on a prep week.
I started BS800 on Saturday 12 March.
This weekend, this Saturday, I will have done my eight weeks.

WOW 👀👀👀👀👀👀
Where did the time go?
Nearly 1. 1/2 stone down, what a journey.
I am in shock”………….

I feel emotional. I got here. I never gave up.
Dear goodness, I have done it!!!!!!

I am gob smacked.

I want to say one thing from my heart.
Something I say all the time

This is a personal message just to me, from me, I…… LOVE LUCIA XXXXXX

Yes, I actually like me now.

God bless each and everyone of you who contacted me and carried me on my path, when I learned that there is REAL life to live and not live it through the telly.

I hope you all walk along our path towards me, and am at the end of this path. I can go left and put it all back on, go right and keep losing, keep going and achieve my size 12.
I haven’t got there yet, but I have got here. I AM HERE. Look at me, I have not given up, I have achieved it, finished it. Wow.

Party at my house Saturday, you are all welcome. Lets dance, lets laugh, lets socialise, lets drink, lets eat…. I that order.

Wow.

With love from a very humble, average, lumpy person, who has got less lumps today.
🌻🌺🌼🌸💐🌻🌺🍄🌹🌷🌸🍁🌺🌸🌻🕸🎃🌸🌼🌼🌻🌸🌷🌷🍄🌷🌸🌸💐💐🌸🌸
For you all.

Love Lucia

Xxxx

Hi gang,
How are we all doing?

I have been asked how long I have been on this diet.
Sometimes it feels like a life time, other times it feels like a few days.
I have lost over a stone, I have found myself, found happiness and laughter.
I have found THE ANSWER.

I have gained the odd pound then lost it, gained wisdom ,but most of all I have found a FAMILY.

Love Lucia xxx

There’s so much I want to do and see and being fit and healthy will help me get to more places and do more fun stuff.

I lost 4 kgs in 2 weeks. Doing the 10000 steps per day. i eat poached eggs for breakfast soup for lunch and meat and vege for dinner. no snacks and trying to drink water regularly. Nothing has changed since I started. however i have put 1kg a week on for the last 2 weeks! It is a bit demotivating and I am not sure what i am missing? has anyone experienced this and if so any recommendations?
love your thoughts

1) I suppose the final thing that made me start this, was worry about health. I was getting so very unfit, because of my size, I had trouble just climbing the stairs.. My knees hurt, it has stopped me walking with some friends as I can’t walk as fast.
So I want to join them again and stride out easily.

2) I haven’t had a diabetes test but suspect I may be pre diabetic. I take BP tablets.Over the last 6 years, I have got worse – since I lost my Dad, it really hit me badly. I want to get off BP tablets if poss or at least reduce my weight by at least 5 stone.

3) We have a family holiday in UK early June and I want to be lighter and fitter and happier with myself by then. I would love to have lost 2 stone by then.

4) I had almost grown out of my size 22 clothes, and the choice for me was sooo limited. I would love to get a pretty dress in a size 14 – cannot believe that’s possible yet, but sometimes dreams come true.

5) I was another who had food constantly on my mind. I’d binge on junk food when alone, hide the wrappers and then mentally berate myself for being such a pig.It is a relief not having those guilty feelings all the time.

To be honest, at times I still don’t feel totally confident I can keep to this. When I feel a bit lonely I do think having some nice junk food would make me feel better ( even tho I know it doesn’t)

I think this forum could be my lifeline, to keeping going, as so many of us are battling through together.

Hi Bissell, I’m cold all the time too and I’m in almost the 4th week now. Not sure if it’s dieting or something else.

Hi Izzy, I got sent on a course to do mindfulness but it was a group effort and I found it annoying. The trouble with depression and mindfulness is that you can’t be bothered to help yourself and I’m not a tablet sort of person. Trying to just get out when I can and not just stay in and enjoy being on my own on the day centre days.

Polly x

Wedding on 18 June – I won’t be slim, but I may well be less fat than I was when we met 2.5 years ago, and I hope I’ll be a size 16.
New job – I’m starting a new role in September, I’m 30 but the majority of my colleagues will be skinny graduates and I don’t want to be ‘the old, fat one’
Riding my horse – I want to be able to ride long distances on her again, which we both love, and not to cause her physical issues through my weight.
Joint pain – I have a duff foot full of screws and all sorts of compensations going on, my body will be better able to cope without carting round 50kg of excess lard.
Running – I love trail running, but don’t want to run much while I’m this heavy for fear of what it will do to my joints.
Snoring – I stopped snoring almost immediately I started this diet, so was allowed back into bed with my fiancee! Don’t want to be banished to the spare room again.
Clothes – I have an extensive wardrobe at smaller sizes, it’ll be nice to get back into them.

Yeah cheese is good stuff – I’ve had the odd emergency cheestring at a garage when I’ve been desperate! Just got to watch the calories if it’s frequent but TBH I figure better to go a bit over on cheese calories than make a stupid 3am choice.

Hi Tippytwo — ugh, me too. I quickly lost interest in any recipe and food started looking so boring so, I switched to very simple meals — meat and vegetables for lunch and dinner (lots of dark leafy greens with garlic and more garlic), a couple of macadamia nuts for snack and usually cheese and coffee with heavy cream for breakfast. I also added a minuscule pour of wine at dinner (1oz but it made me feel less deprived). I stopped trying to eat anything with bread, or a “pretend” bread or baked. I am on week 10 and it has worked brilliantly. Hang in there — find YOUR sweet spot.

Good news about full dose of Metformin for a while yet, Fatty! I keep in the mind how often Dr M and Prof Taylor repeated in the recent SBS TV Insight show here in Australia about long-term diabetes Type 2 people will probably take a lot longer than most to respond to the diet, e.g. compared to those who’ve been diagnosed very recently (3-4 years ago). Obviously most dramatic results (in the books and in these forums) are for those who’ve recently been diagnosed as D2; from what I can gather, not so much research has been on long-term D2 people but Dr M was adamant about them having a go. Agree totally with Cherrianne about not being too concerned about 7s. Go the whole hog and work towards Week 8, focussing on weight (and blood sugars will start take caring of themselves, but slowly); all power to you on the journey!

Hello! My motivation is three-fold… My job changed to a largely sedentary one with a lot of train travel and the weight piled on because I had no time to exercise and I want to be fitter and healthier. Also I too want to be able to wear nice clothes and not look like a sack of potatoes. I do think that being overweight has had an effect on my everyday mental health and well -being so very much hoping to improve that! Today I bought 2 pairs of trousers that didn’t have elasticated waists – a momentous day I can tell you….

Hi, thanks for responding ladies.
I’m imagining that slower weight loss gives skin more time to sort itself out, but I could be wrong.
My blood sugar is now ‘non-diabetic’ so I’m not worried about about that any more, but would quite like to lose some more weight to ensure I keep it that way. I’m not giving up, so much as thinking about a different, more longterm approach. But as you say, don’t want to undo my hard work.
It’s weird, being fat has almost been a political act for me for 30+ years, so even thinking about dieting feels wrong. It wasn’t a health problem until a couple of years ago, which I blame on my hormones.

Many thanks for the meal ideas. He does indeed like bolognese, meatballs, steak, chicken and the like. He’s even eaten the courgette spirals. He loves the lettuce fillings and the no carb ploughmans which he’s taken to work. Sunday he had the cheesy beans on mushrooms and enjoyed it.
I will check out the forum for more ideas though.

He’s really determined, and although I realise 4 days isn’t long, Im so proud of him sticking to this diet since Sunday. He used to weekend snack on rubbish.

Anyway, good luck to all, and thanks once again for all the help and advice given

Hi evil weevil
Thanks for reply , interestingly enough at 0430hrs I was struggling and ate a small baby bell cheese it made a difference and got me through the rest of the night. I will defo try more protein , I do days and nights very random pattern so can establish a rhythm . Here goes , it will be great to reduce my bulk . Ha !

Hi, and thank you all so much for your kind wishes and helpful replies.

In answer to the medication question, my husband takes metformin for diabetes, prevastatin natrium for cholesterol and perindopril for blood pressure (hope I’ve got those in the right order). So not sure the dizzy spells are due to low blood pressure. He doesn’t self test by the way, his diabetes councillor doesn’t think it necessary (and at the moment she’s on holiday), I don’t know if things are done differently here in Holland, but maybe I should just get him a monitor anyway – I’ve been looking at the mobile Fastclix system on Amazon.
Obviously our aim is to get his weight down and be healthy enough to come off all meds.

To give an idea of his working week, he’s up at 04.30, eats breakfast at work round 07.30; and because he doesn’t get home till 7pm he eats lunch at 1pm. Today around 11.30am he started to feel queezy and light headed – if this feeling carries on he gets double vision, so he had a Diet Coke, then lunch as usual at 1pm – so as you can see, the long gaps between eating can be a problem, and I don’t know how to solve it.

Are snacks allowed if within the 800 cal daily allowance? Is it also the case that if he doesn’t stick to 800 cals his diabetes won’t be reversed – or can this still happen if he eats slightly more calories but takes longer to lose the weight? I’m a little confused to be honest.

Many thanks in advance

Hi Brazil-nut,
Welcome to the BSD. I’ve been doing it a while – there will be ups & downs but just work your way through them. You are clearly aware of the perils of falling off the wagon but know that the important thing is to dust yourself down and get right back on. I’ve had my blips (biggest one yet was this weekend just gone) – you just have to admit to them, try & figure out why it happened. There are plenty of people on this forum who will give good advice & encouragement – so don’t despair if you ever have a tough time. But as Bill1954 has pointed out on another thread sugar is an addictive substance and that’s why it has caused us all problems.

I think willpower is overrated (there are times when I have none) – I prefer the word “discipline”. Get yourself organised – little things like writing shopping lists, putting tempting things in cupboards (i.e. out of sight), taking every opportunity to be active (I used to curse when I left things upstairs, now it’s an opportunity to tear upstairs and burn another calorie or two).

Sounds like you have good role models in your sisters.

Take care & good luck!

You might have found it already but there is a very interesting critique of the biggest loser study on http://www.dietdoctor.com under the ‘science’ section.

Hi Collie

Fellow shift worker here – nearing the end of week 3 of the fast 800 with a mixture of exante shakes and food (shakes if eating alone, food if eating with OH). Nights are rubbish, I’m on last night now and turning round to 8am start on Friday so I feel your pain! The first two weeks I found I needed a lot of extra protein so I just went with it but it’s slackening off now, although definitely worse on nights.

A tin of tuna in a bowl mixed with a little melted mozarella is an amazing lift for me. I don’t have a microwave so it takes 5-10 mins in the oven but is worth it.

I like to eat beef for a good chew – chunks of pre-cooked organic steak are best but in a pinch a pack of sliced british beef does the job. Pre-boiled eggs are good too, boil 4 at a time for 10 mins then stick them in cold water before into the fridge. I don’t peel them til I need them.

Cucumber sticks + home made houmous or guacamole is another good one. My OH makes amazing versions of both!

Weevil

I don’t think slowing down the weight loss makes any difference. It’s all just the luck of your genetics how elastic your skin is. It will improve over time though regardless of how quickly you lose the weight, but some of us will always have some looseness 🙁

I’d still rather be healthy though.

Hashimoto, thanks for the tip I will look for those socks 🙂

Stacey welcome to BSD, you are doing well counting your milk like that, I mostly drink herbal teas now so that I don’t need milk/sugar!

Shaz, Hashimoto is right. Don’t wait just do what you need to be organised and start. If you wait for those ‘golden’ eight weeks you will never get started and always look back and wish you had. Good luck to you all!

Today has gone well again, my blister is more manageable lol and I’ve done over 10000 steps.

I had yoghurt and raspberries for breakfast

salt and vinegar chickpeas and some chicken at lunch

diced steak with gravy and veg for dinner, which I am yet to eat but it is sitting waiting for me. My husband has dished it up for me as I had to go to a meeting and he has put potato on there so once I am ready to have it I’ll sweep that straight off into the food bin so I won’t be tempted to eat it!

Hi Jane,
Saggy skin is, unfortunately, a side effect of losing a lot of weight so in a way it’s a good problem to have! If the skin has stretched a lot it loses its elasticity. It depends how bad you feel it is – some lotions claim to tighten up the skin. Exercises to tone up your muscles may help.
Sorry not to be much help – but don’t undo all the good work you’ve done, over a stone lost is great! Keep going.

His lecture at The Sydney Opera House is on YouTube if you want a taster…

With the snacks, can you have food which is just theirs, rather than for everyone? Keep it separate and if possible buy them snacks you don’t like much.

Hi Tippytwo,
I’ve been BSD-ing for a while now. Initially, I was keen to try out some of the foodstuffs mentioned like coconut flour/oil/milk but after a while I found I couldn’t face them. There was something about the smell of the oil/milk cooking in the pan (I was making a Thai-style curry) that I found unappealing and it put me off. However, I’ve recently given the flour & oil another go (I don’t want to waste them) and I seem to be OK with them now. Don’t know what was going on! But don’t try and eat things that don’t appeal to you – you’ve got to enjoy what you are eating. Good luck with your chosen menus!