Hi all. Blood sugar monitor arrived today. Date is set in diary to start next Monday so we are busy preparing this week. I had a look at the yogurt shelves and was bamboozled by which ones to have! I have avoided them for years as most of them seem to have gelatine in them. Which ones are people using?

Which grains are peeps using? I like couscous, giant couscous etc but maybe these won’t work. Also what salads are peeps doing for lunches? I work in one well known coffee shop and another independent coffee shop so not many chances to have a quick lunch. I find that salads work best rather than picking bits so wondered what kind of things people are doing. Sounds awful but is anyone using prepared soups like the super greens from m&s? I love this one and frankly when you’re exhausted this seems like a good option 🙂

I am going to take measurements this week and finally weight, blood sugars on monday morning day one 🙂

Wow, thank you all so much for the advice. I love how helpful everyone is on this forum, it’s actually making me quite excited about starting the diet so I can be a part of this family!

Just one question. Are grapes ok to eat? I love grapes and would probably eat lots of it if I’m allowed.

Day 59 weight 10st 4lbs
Blood sugar 10.3 (up again?!) Had battered chicken yesterday – so – possibly that.

Not impressed by Stevia but still sticking with it. Having a gammon omelette with salad and homemade coleslaw for tea. Have been working my way through the fruit I won the other week, trying to have at least two pieces a day.

Bought four garlic “bulbs” a few weeks ago, will try to use them in the next few weeks. Bought a garlic crusher thingy as well. I might make a bolognase sauce, only have one portion left in the freezer.

Hi Jilly,
have you got a nutribullet or similar? In which case you can mix greens, nuts or seeds, carrot or beet + a bit of fruit (green apple or berries). I’ve not calorie counted yet, but a dollop of live yogurt is also good for your digestion. Water is fine as a mixer. I also like chopped ginger in mine.
If it doesn’t do hard veg, then I’d add some chia seeds soaked in water for 10 mins, to counteract possible blood sugar spikes.

Hi all, haven’t been on the forums much. Working working working !!! I am so happy to report that I have now lost 4.5 kgs!! I am halfway through week 3. I am not finding this too tough which really surprises me. I know I have my head switched on and do get strong hunger pains but I just reach for a big drink of water and I’m ok again. I am eating really healthily and loving it. I’m not experiencing the sugar peaks and troughs and feel like my energy levels are much more even. I really am starting to believe that I will permanently drastically cut down on sugar from my diet. For the first time in my life I feel encouraged that this can be a permanent lifestyle change. I love Dr Michael Mosley 😍 I am starting to fit into clothes I haven’t worn in years, and my work uniform is much more comfortable 😊 It is so encouraging to hear all your comments too. It really helps to know there is a global community of support

Hi Christine
What will you do now that you have no holiday weight to lose?!

Thanks Cherrianne.
I hadn’t picked up on the 2 week blues, but I definitely had them last night. Much better today. I think I’ll stick to a weekly weigh in, instead of daily- better for morale. I hope.

Thank you Captainlynne.

I really don’t need to feel left out when the kids/grandkids come round for their weekly fry up on Sundays!

Hi geobl,
If you are eating from a wide range of foods within the 800 calories then you shouldn’t need to worry about electrolytes, unless you have a medical issue where you are losing excessive fluid.
You will get most of the necessary electrolytes from your fruit and vegetables. The western diet tends to be quite high in sodium, so it is usually a case of needing to lower it rather than reach a particular level. Diabetics are recommended to have less than 1500mg per day, to help prevent complications from high blood pressure or heart and kidney disease.

Hi Barby,
It’s the week two blues that are responsible for the way you are feeling. It happens to quite a few people around week two or three. You might hit a plateau, have a gain of a pound or two, or feel a bit tired and teary. A couple of people have reported feeling angry. Hang in there and next week you’ll feel better.
Your body is doing an amazing amount of adjusting right now. You need to treat yourself kindly during this time, rest if you need to. Maybe plan a little non food treat to celebrate a particular weight loss milestone. It will give you something to look forward to and keep you motivated.
You might be feeling bloated because you are having more fibre than normal?
Read through some of the other threads and you’ll see that frustrating as this week is, it does get better 🙂

I have just finished my 3rd week, have lost only 8 1/2 lbs…a little disappointed, but at least I haven’t put any back which has been happening to others.
Can anyone suggest any tasty recipes for shakes ? Nothing too weird, and I hate kale !! I love raspberries, natural Greek yoghurt, spinach. I would really appreciate any suggestions.
I am happy with my BS as it has gone down to almost normal quite sooner than I expected. I have not had any insulin since the day I started.

jillyB

Today I ate two eggs for breakfast !
Before I’d eat a McDonald’s then gregs sausage sandwich and a bacon with sauces
Before 10 am !!!
Just having subway chicken salad bowl I’ve taken my own olive oil as they don’t have it
Alan 👍

I don’t bother about cutting fat off the bacon I buy. There’s not a lot on it anyway.

The sausages I buy are either Debbie & Andrew’s Harrogate sausages – 97% pork. Per sausage: 114 calories, <0.5g carbs, (<0.5g sugars) 3.7g fibre, 9.3g protein, 7.7g fat. Or Asda Extra Special Gluten Free Pork sausages 90% pork. Per sausage: 146 calories, Sorry, but not got label for other information per sausage. They’re slightly higher in carbs. I buy the Harrogate sausages when I can, the Asda are back-ups for when I can’t get the others. I shop in Asda or Tesco.

Neither of these have a negative impact on my weight loss or blood sugar readings.

My exercise has always been fairly limited to a little bit of walking, although I did do a fairly active job. I took early retirement last year, so the exercise dropped even more.

Since starting the diet just over a week ago, I have started doing 100 situps a day, as well as some weight training.

The thing which concerns me is, that I carry a bit of weight around my belly, but other than that, I am fairly skinny, my belly has shrunk dramatically, but I don’t want to lose too much weight elsewhere and end up a stick insect!

Any tips?

Amazed by this never hungry every diet I’ve tried I could eat my own arm after two days constantly thinking of food
Weird stuff going on
And Energy levels really high I’m buzzing
I see the copy cats are already out there tho !
Alan

Hi. I’m with Hashimoto too.

Full fat helps us feel full for longer.

As a type 2 diabetic I avoid oranges as they spike my blood sugar.

Thanks Patsy.

Buxtonmick. My fasting blood sugar at starting was 10.9. Prior to starting the BSD I struggled to get it below 7.

Now that reading is consistently between 4 and 5.

I test any new foods during the day to see how they affect my blood sugar, but find the fasting test (on waking) to be the most reliable indicator for me.

That sounds great VenusFT. I have been thinking about sausages (a lot actually!) and to know that it is doable is great.

I plan to look at this kind of breakfast maybe twice a week, although I have been enjoying the fruit/Greek yoghurt or just poached eggs in the morning.

Breakfast has always been a hit and miss kinda thing for me, a lot of the time in the past, I simply haven’t bothered with it sometimes, so this diet has also ensured that I do get a good start to the day.

Hi Alan, it’s so exciting to see those sugars coming down isn’t it?

Hi Nella,
I’m with Hashimoto on this. You need the full fat to keep full. I used to have 100ml skimmed milk yogurt with seeds and oats and berries for breakfast and then a slice of bread. That has been replaced by 60ml full fat yogurt with seeds, and more berries and I am full.
Likewise fruit – MM’s book has soft fruit including pears and apples as an occasional treat, but soft tropical fruits as a no.
If you have Rose Elliots low GI book, a number of those recipes are easily adaptable to this – chunky ratatouille with parmesan cheese is very filling for both a meal and the freezer!
looking forward to your progress.

Hi HairyD,
the best thing for an overfull plate is a smaller plate! Seriously it does work. Start today so you are used to picking up that plate next week. I have been using smaller plates since I started and your brain soon accepts that is a portion.
Could you persuade your husband to take flask of 200 ml full fat milk (134 cals, 9g carbs) and a wide necked flask of soup (120-200 cals)! Greek yogurt (150g) plus fresh berries mixed through would also fill him and be around the 200 cals, but under 15g carbs.
Anyhow – have fun planning the menus – it is part of the learning for your future as this is al about making a real change to how we live not just losing weight, but keeping it off.
Looking forward to seeing more posts as you progress.

Thanks for your guidance so far. I’ll measure out milk as suggested and make it last through the day so I’m sure of calories!

I’m glad I’m not the only one with a weird and wonderful shopping list! My delivery later includes gram flour, pine nuts, almonds, tinned beans and lentils and various cheese. The driver will think he’s got the wrong house!

There is a pot of plain yoghurt with rhubarb and ginger compote on my desk, looking at me. The brain is still struggling to accept that as the viable alternative to the custard creams I usually scoff about now!

If you have an Indian grocer or supermarket near you it’s worth checking it out as they sell nuts in larger quantities and mostly significantly cheaper than Tesco etc.

Thank you guys for your take on this. I was looking at the boots site to see what they had to offer, and like you said most of them were high in carbs.

I have a naughty habit of overfilling my plate, and making myself stupidly stuffed, so thought a shake would be harder to ‘overdo’…

Plus my husband is away a lot with work, and I thought if I can tell him to just have a few shakes during the day then go to nandos for chicken and salad for tea, I’ve more chance of him doing it! 🙂

Thank you, I’ll do some prep work and have the cupboards and fridge ‘de-cluttered’ by Friday ready for hubby getting home, then we can aim to start next week! 😀

Thanks,
HairyD

Hi everyone, I’m at the end of week 5 now and another 1lb lost making 17 in total. A pound is reasonable given that life has been happening all around me in a major way and consequently I’ve had rather more alcohol than I should. Hoping for a more settled week ahead.

Congrats to all, some lovely results above 🙂

Hi Nalin, great progress! The morning fasting reading appears to be being widely disregarded these days due to the discovery of a couple of things that cause inaccurate / unreliable readings, one is a condition with a strange name but the other is a fairly common thing called ‘dawn phenomenon’. It has been found that our body prepares itself for waking and subsequent activity by releasing glucose from the liver. Of course, we all live various activity cycles so this will differ for each of us, so if you want a morning fasting reading try waiting for an hour or so and see how that is.
As I say, more attention is being focus send on pre- and post-prandial readings which give an accurate picture of how different foods affect your bsg and how your body is coping.
Mick.

Thanks to all that took the time to comment. At some future point we will all need to go back to some kind of energy balance intake. It might be low carbon, but it will need to meet our energy needs. Whatever that will be it will be north of 800.

To those well beyond 8 weeks, well done. And good luck! Especially you Lynne, who seems to have about the same goals as I do.

You may be interested to know that Michael Mosely often refers to a Melbourne University study on VLCD participants – I was a participant in that study. It involved around 800 calories a day (meal replacement shakes for all meals!) for 16 weeks. The researcher thought I must have been one of the few that stuck rigidly to it, as I lost 40kg in 16 weeks (i started at a massive 155.8kg, the biggest I have ever been). So I know that (a) you can go beyond 8 (or even 16) weeks and (b) they work.

I’m staying on until 16 weeks or until I hit 91.2kg (25kg lost) whichever comes sooner. Then I’ll give 5:2 Med a go.

Thanks all! Good luck!

I have ordered things on our shopping delivery which, when I look at the list, looks some other families’ shopping!
Organic coconut oil, lentils (three different colours) almonds ,no sweeties, cakes ,pasta ,rice ,cake baking ingredients or fresh orange juice .As a previous chocolate monster it is a very alien act.
I was worried that the new style of eating would be over our budget but having carefully looked at the amounts needed and other items not needed I don’t think there will be much of a difference as one will balance out the other.
I am wondering if buying much larger bags of things such as cashews/pecans would work out cheaper (if I avoided scoffing them in large amounts of course lol!) Does anyone have a good value source of larger bags please?

That sounds delicious, venusflytrap 🙂

Hi Hawks, record keeping is scary atfirst but over time, as you see the improvements those records become your friend! And the time is short for seeing those improvements. Like janet I record everything!

You’ll. Get over your plateau soon 🙂

Thanks Patsy

We do a nice coleslaw. Chop the white cabbage finely and add grated carrot, grated onion, a little chopped apple. Then additions can include celery and walnuts; peanuts; chunky chopped chicken, or other cold meat. The dressing can be any combination of yogurt, Mayo, or salad cream loosened with a little low fat salad dressing. It is surprisingly filling.

Hi Toofastblack

I’m in my 18th week on the BSD. I started with between 6 and 6.5 stones (84 – 91 pounds) to lose, and the need to get my blood sugar levels down

To date I have lost 47 pounds (over 20% of starting body weight). And my blood sugar readings are within the normal range.

When I asked the team about continuing past 8 weeks, they said it was ok for a couple of weeks if I felt ok and had no problems, but then go to 5:2. As I felt so well and have no problems sticking to 800 calories a day, I decided to stay with this longer, reviewing the situation every 8 weeks.

At this point I cannot say when/if I will move off the BSD. I feel better than in years and now realise just how much damage carbs were doing to my health. There is no way I will be able to eat many of the foods I used to – I can’t risk my health deteriorating again.

I see my diabetes nurse monthly to monitor my progress. Tomorrow I’ll be having blood taken for HbA1c – which will give the average reading for 3 months entirely within the time I’ve been on the BSD. I’m intrigued to see the difference compared to the last couple of tests 😃

They are a bit more expensive but I find the bacon medallions are the best. I find cutting the fat off bacon very tedious (because I want to eat it). If I cook the bacon with it on, and try cutting the cooked fat off, it is in my mouth before I can blink. So I find either the medallions, or a bacon or gammon steak is the way to go. Lidl is the cheapest I’ve found so far. You might also want to have a look at some of the all meat sausages. I find the Heck Chicken Italia are the lowest I have found so far. You need to look for high numbers on the protein bit of the nutritional info. When you are getting into the top 90s per 100g, you know it’s a possible. We add a poached egg. So today’s was a sausage, a medallion, a poached egg, 2 tinned tomatoes, some mushrooms and a bit of watercress as garnish. All cooked in 1 teaspoon of oil between 2 of us. Enjoy your fry up.

Thanks Robmac 🙂

Good luck both of you.

I tried the 5.2 before but couldn’t do it. I’m having better results with this one.

Hi Hawks, that’s good, you’ll get there. About the diary, I find it helps me to track everything – food and drink, weight loss, ketostix results, if I’ve got any diet related symptoms like carb flu, if I’m away so not eating as normal. It all helps give an idea of where the problem could lie if there is one, but also it makes you more mindful of drinking properly and of what you have eaten. And its good fun to look back on as usually I cant remember writing it!

Well done, Sabrina.

Good luck, Robmac.

We needed a snack while out shopping and happened to be outside an Indian Sweets shop. So we popped in for some pakora. Then the next day we had veg pakora for lunch made with gram flour. Recently we have been having a couple of poppadum with our curries and chillis. It just satisfied that toast urge! Can’t tell you the carbs as the pack came without nutritional info. Damn you bakery products!

Hi Rowantree, welcome to the forums!

I have it on good authority (Italians or people of Italian descent) that the Italian version of the med diet did not used to have so much pasta and pizza in it! A few generations ago Italians would have eaten a lot more meals based around fruit, veg, meat, fish or beans.

Cake for breakfast! Yuk!!! I often had an Italian friend of my son’s staying who loved cake or any other pudding for breakfast but he is young and extremely unfit as a consequence of eating the amount of pasta which would feed 5 people and as many sticky cakes and doughnuts he can get his hands on. So definitely NOT his version of the med diet!!!

I think the greek version, minus the bread, is closer – yummy vilkage salads topped with fresh mountain herbs, olive oil and feta! 🙂

Thank you.

There is a God!

I think most of us who have been on the diet for more than a couple of weeks have branched out to make up our own meals. I see it as using the lower carbs and the 800 calories as a template, and fit my preferred meals within it. Your proposed breakfast sounds perfect for the diet, so I’d go with it if I were you.

That is definitely acceptable Robmac. Have a look at the ‘ what have you eaten today’ thread for more ideas!

Good luck!

Now signed.

Morning All,

Beginning of week 8 & please to report that I have lost another 4lbs & now weigh 136lbs which is 10% of my starting weight (151lbs). I have stopped taking my metformin in the last week & blood sugars are between 4 – 6 mmol. Like some of the others I will continue on 800 calories until I reach my target weight of 110lbs.

Ironically my Doctor is called Dr Bacon, which is a bit cruel, but he has approved the diet for me!

I have been on the diet for a week or so now, and pretty much stuck to the recipes in the book and completely avoided Bread, Rice and all of the usual carbs.

The recipes are excellent, but I would like to look at alternatives. My wife suggested that as a breakfast, I could have 2 rashers of len bacon (grilled), a small poached egg, 2 small mushrooms, and 2 grilled Cherry Tomatoes and still come in within the 200 calories!

Would this be an acceptable part of the diet?

Or do you think she has maybe ‘upped’ my life insurance policy?

Hi Nalin, pleased to hear of your success so far!

Other snacks could be a boiled egg, a small piece of cheese or a few nuts or seeds. Cherrieanne fries some seeds in soy sauce to make a salty, satisfying snack! 🙂

Hi Chris, I’m so pleased to hear of your success with falling blood sugars. Cherrieanne is right about people reducing, even coming off, their meds on this diet!
🙂