Hi Barby,
I am vegetarian and have completed the 8 week programme and now part way through week 10. I have lost on average just over 3lbs per week.
In terms of the book, I would not buy it for recipes and the menu section is impossible for a veggie to follow. However – I would recommend buying it so you understand the principles. I bought it without realising how few veggie recipes there were, but I use it regularly to look up what I should and should not do. I did have one of the 5:2 Recipe Books by MM and Mimi Spencer which has more veggie recipes, and I’ve adapted them. Having said that there are now a good number of tasty vegetarian recipes in the recipes tab on the website. Check the calorie and carb counts yourself for the portions you use as it does make a difference quite a difference.
I had followed a low GI plan a few years ago and found the Rose Elliot’s Low GI cooking to be useful. Others have used her Low Fat book (try searching for Rose Elliot in the search at the top and you will get the forum discussions around recipe books and ideas). I found the Newcastle University site a useful place to start for the first few weeks – ignore the shakes, but the soups were a great starter until I had got some planning and ideas of my own going. http://www.ncl.ac.uk/magres/research/diabetes/documents/StudyRecipes.pdf
I have the veg soup and have a variation pea soup – I use a lot of fresh mint (40-50 g not hard stalks) to the peas without the watercress and use 1 large bag (1000g) peas with a litre of veg stock) and blitz. I also add a tin of beans to my soups for protein. The rep pepper soup is also good, I add a tin of tomatoes and a tin of beans to it as well. Also, use your search engine and look for Rose Elliot’s chunky ratatouille. It is available on one of her websites. Make enough for 6-8 portions and I top with 15g parmesan. Again – freezes well.
I agree with your comment about it being hard to keep under 50g carbs. I don’t. Everyone is different and I find under 50g leaves me with cramps overnight. Also, the only way I can get to under 50g is to live on cheese and eggs! I have been targeting 60g and found that worked for me – I did a test today using a ketostix and I am definitely fat burning. Use the search at the top of website for ketostix if you want to know more about them.
What is important is to be consistent so you body does not move in and out of ketosis, so be consistent.
I started with Slimfast shakes and stopped after a week and a half as I was not losing the weight from my belly. Three of them a day plus soup or stir-fry – yes it was 800 cals, but 80g+ carbs and it is the carbs that are important. When I stopped them, and moved to my own food, the inches dropped away. I am down 2 dress sizes.
The hardest change to make (everyone will tell you the same) is to move to full fat dairy. I eventually did it in week 3. This is a very hard change to make, but once made – you never look back :-). Stop the ‘low carb’ stuff. I bought full fat greek yogurt and had it for breakfast with blueberries and seeds (60g yogurt, 30g blueberries, 3g linseeds, 3g sunflower seeds, 3g pumpkin seeds, 3 almonds chopped plus a good pinch cinnamon – mix). This keeps me full till lunchtime. I then have either scrambled eggs, feta cheese with a Portobello mushroom or more often one of the soups I have made. If you are working, I used to take them into the office frozen and microwave them for lunch.
A hardboiled egg or come cheese after that if you want. I normally have 350’ish cals left for the evening.
For dressings, I bought a couple of low cal ones to begin with then looked at the labels and realised the ‘normal’ ones were better for me and although the calories were higher, the carbs were not!
I drink black coffee, tea with milk (semi skimmed, not quite got myself onto FF milk yet), and fizzy bottled water from the fridge. I chop up lemons and limes into slices and freeze them. Take one out at a time and add the cold water – it have a lovely taste and refreshing. Try that instead of the Robinsons?
Chickpeas – throw into soup and freeze? Mix them up with tahini, lemon juice, garlic, olive oil and paprika to make humus and freeze portions. Count the calories as this is quite high, so smaller portions. Had some a couple of days ago with a lot of sliced veg and a dollop of FF yoghurt with chives for lunch. Avocados are also good if you make guacamole and freeze portions – again watch the cals!
A number of folks don’t bother about the calories, but plan using the carbs alone – this had worked very well for them. The great thing about this diet is the flexibility it gives you – just forget the bread, rice, potatoes and for now squashes – that for me was the hardest – I love squash and sweet potato soup :-(.
Whew – long post – if I missed anything you asked, let me know!
Good luck on the journey!
