Oops – just realised I was still on first page of the thread, and have replied to an older post, thinking it was for today. Oh well… brain fog from work today I suspect!

I am half way through week 3 and am really getting on well with the BSD. I struggle with veg but have managed to do pretty well until now.

I have been diagnosed with shingles and have been feeling pretty rough for the last week. I have kept under 800 calories and 50g carbs without a problem but am finding it really hard to eat any vegetables and fruit, other than raspberries with my yoghurt. I have been having scrambled eggs for breakfast, just cooked in a little butter, yoghurt and raspberries for lunch and then differing things for tea like a small can of chicken soup or tonight I had 3 slices of ham and a chunk of cheese (which I really enjoyed!).

I am keeping my water intake up but can’t do any exercise at the moment and only walk a bit at the best of times, I am not very fit though have been moving a lot more over the last 3 weeks. I am not diabetic but at 13st 2 (was 14st when I started), 5ft 4 with a round middle, I knew I needed to do something.

My worry is that the last three days I have struggled to get my calories up past around 600. I have had more than enough to eat today and don’t feel hungry at all. I have been falling asleep very early so not even got time to squeeze in a full fat snack before bed. Do you think this is OK or should I really be looking to hit 800 cals?

I still can’t believe I am on an eating plan that keeps me this full on less than 800 cals!

Hi Hashimoto – I have the BSugar book at home, not with me sorry. It doesn’t say buckwheat flour, it says buckwheat, cites it along with other products like chickpeas, lentils, pulses etc as a ‘healthy’ option, took it too literally obviously, as it didn’t mean flour, all about educating ones beleaguered palate away from things. Back at home Saturday PM, will get page number.

Yep, cooking from scratch is what I tend to do, and opening the vino with it too unfortunately… I can do water without any issue but husband is a problem on that front. What are these fruit water bottles I keep seeing come up in this site, can find people saying they will get one & pictures of them, but what are they for, or am I being dense?

With dinner I shall do soda with a squeeze of lime, but if the fruit water thingummys have another way of using berries/fruit without making a smoothie then I shall invest!

Incidentally, when I type in your name-tag, it comes up as Hash-too, hilarious, ROTFL!!!

Hi Carommartin,

I weigh/measure practically everything, or check it online or in either MFP or Sparkpeople. My first job when I get home from food shopping is to enter every new buy into the app in my favourites, so it’s easy to find again! I am concentrating on the calorie count, and the carb count seems to be taking care of itself! Like Hashimoto, I like experimenting with recipes, changing things around to suit what we fancy, (and what we have in the house!) I confess to sometimes ‘guestimating’ my milk in my tea/coffee, but it doesn’t seem to have caused any problems so far.

Bill .. so sorry to hear the worrying news about your daughter, its not a wonder your levels are all over the place. Keep positive loads of breast lumps turn out to be benign. Take care of yourself and your wife. X

Hi fifip – you will need to drop a trouser size after a few weeks of this diet 🙂

Bill’s post is also only showing a blank screen for me. Can anyone point the way to the pasta recipe please, as I rather fancy trying it out. I have googled and found several, but would like a tried and tested version if possible.
Thanks.

Hi fifip, chickpea and coconut flours do have some carbs but in a small percentage – much less than buckwheat flour.
Do you mind me asking which book you are reading? I can’t remember a mention of buckwheat flour in michael Mosley’s blood sugar diet BUT I may be having a senior moment lol
I think it isn’t traffic lighted because there is no commercial ready meal system attached to this diet, no doubt some big manufacturer will jump all over it at some point grrrr 🙁
The emphasis is on wholesome food freshly prepared and it sounds like you are a skillful cook
Best wishes on this journey 🙂

You’re welcome Jeff. I have always hated low fat yogurts with a passion, so full fat greek yogurt for breakfast is such good news for me!

Thank you hashimoto – guess my food caddy is going to do well out of this diet, chucked out all my rice noodles today, the couscous will follow and am debating the barley ! Thank you for the steer about buckwheat, it was a big yes on Sirt, I will be bringing some Sirt ideas into my Blood Sugar Diet, but not buckwheat evidently…..

Thank you for directing me to the recipes, I shall do the cod one tonight as have all the ingredients to hand and investigate chickpea flour flatbreads tomorrow.

Big tummy goodbye, roll on size 14 trousers!!!

Hi misssay,

Thank you for your support and feedback. Thank you for the info on the full fat yogurt-I am glad to hear this as I don’t much like the low fat at all. This is a great example of what this forum is for!

best wishes,
jeff

Hi FiFip, welcome to the forums, you are in the right place for support, as you are right, there are loads of lovely, kind people on these forums.
You will find the recipe for the chickpea flour flat breads on this website. Scrolll to the top of the page and click on the recipes tab, you will need to go through a few pages as there are quite a few recipes posted.
To do this diet properly you will need to forget about the delicious buckwheat flour as it is higher carb than coconut or chickpea flour.
It sounds as if you have already had some great successes on the sirt diet. You will find the blood sugar diet effectively burns fat from your middle if you stick to it’s principles.
I look forward to reading your further success 🙂

Hi Mosleyfan – I have been on the Sirt diet since mid Jan – 10 days in I had lost just over 1lb…….grrr……everyone else on a forum I was watching lost at least 5lbs a week, but slowly my body caught up and I have lost 1st. Can no longer accommodate green-slime juice though & want to do a diet with my hubby, so the Blood Sugar Diet looks perfect for us and seems to have lots of good support, great recipes & a wide range of followers. Onwards & upwards, or should I say downwards!!!!

Hi Holoso,

Welcome to the forum. Did you start today? If so, how did your day go?

Hi Jeff,

You’re absolutely right – this is a very supportive forum. Well done on your first day, Just one thing – no need to have the fat free yogurt – full fat dairy is recommended in the book, and the fat helps to fill you up too. A lot of fat free stuff has sugar and/or thickeners added to make up for the loss of volume by taking the fat out. This quite probably isn’t the case if it is just natural plain yogurt you are having, and to be honest I have semi skimmed milk by choice instead of full fat in my tea and coffee, because I find full fat ruins the taste of the drink for me. I have been enjoying full fat greek yogurt though! I thought I’d just mention it, in case you think you ‘should’ have fat free yogurt.

Best of luck.

Hi all – I am a newbie on the diet & the site. I have just bought some buckwheat flour, it has carbs as does chick-pea flour so I am confused about some points raised in this posting. Chick peas also have carbs, but much less, so am assuming it’s the concentration/sheer volume of chick peas in the flour that boosts the carb level. Buckwheat is mentioned in the book as a suitable foodstuff, so am now all over the place! What would be.

A good idea might be for this diet to have a traffic light system (oops, I know…) of green, amber & red foods, perhaps buckwheat is amber?

I just know that hubby ( has similar weight/mid-life fat issues to me) especially will falter unless I can. Find something that is a bit like bread, I will try tamznlaws recipe above though, the one for a ‘heavy bread’ sounds a great idea.

M&S do a good line in beetroot crisps, could find nothing negative on the pack & I make kale crisps, I alternate the flavours with chilli flakes & Parmesan – very tasty & nutritious.

Yes, I know I could make my own, but I have just had the most delicious salted caramel ice cream. Low calorie , less than 40 per scoop, low carb, 5g. Available in a high street store. Not sure if I can name brands on here, but it was on Dragons Den a few weeks ago. They also do vanilla and mint chocolate.

Hello lovely people, this forum has restored my faith in human kindness, what an amazing bunch of people you all are! I have lost 1st on the Sirt diet but have had it up to my eyeballs with green slime, the smell is what does for me, not the taste. It took me longer than anyone on the forum I was on, to lose 1st, 6 weeks, but hey it’s a good start & I have bought down my blood pressure to normal levels for the 1st time in an age. However I know I absolutely MUST shift my gut-bucket as must my husband, we both like more than a drop of the laughing juice & are carrying far too much around our middles. This forum has been very enlightening and I need to find the recipe (as opposed to the method) for the chick-pea flat breads, perhaps I have missed it in the book, found the scones & have found a buckwheat pancake recipe online, as if we can have an egg on something that resembles toast at weekends I think this will help us stick with it. I wanted to start the 8 weeks properly on Tuesday, but the fates have conspired against me, but despite having to travel I have kept the calories to under 1,000 and relinquished refined carbs (have more or less given them up since mid Jan). We are not into much sweet stuff or pasta, but am fast learning that this is only the tip of the iceberg and will be swapping spuds & gnocchi for alternatives, guess buckwheat will become a staple, along with celeriac in small portions. Am fascinated at all the butter bean options – yummy, works for me and will investigate flour alternatives. Will post again when I have started properly. Good luck & big hugs to you all.

Thank you Peter. I love the welcoming and supportive nature of the forums!

cheers,
jeff

Welcome to the forums Jeff. Good luck
Regards Peter.

I too have had the plateau effect. The last three mornings I have stayed at exactly the same weight (15.8.2) down from 17.4.0 four and a half weeks ago. So I am very pleased with weight loss so far as well as all the other positive benefits of weighing over one and a half stone lighter!
Still a way to go to target but I am enjoying this new way of eating.
My plateau’s seem to happen if I try out new things. Yesterday I made Coconut flour pancakes (drop scones)
They were very nice and I probably ate more than I should. But they were so good!
Also I have been off work the last few days taking care of my wife post Carpal tunnel surgery. So have had more time to indulge!
But I am determined to stick with it, and have many projects around the house planned once the milder weather gets here. Just ordered a lean to greenhouse for the back patio, so I can grow our own salad and vegetables.
On the subject of cravings, I did hanker after one of those chocolate covered ginger cookie’s I so used to enjoy with my coffee. But it soon passed after a small handful of Almonds.
Kind regards Shrinky.

I’very been struggling working this out as I’m worried about having too much protein as this can muck things up. However today i found a UK site that gives the percentages of all foods searched. It’s called http://www.fatsecret.Co. uk Can highly recommend diet doctors.com too, lots of info, videos, success stories of those on high fat diets.

11 days in and 9lbs down. Not hungry at all so using cals up with a soya milk shake which is delish.

I thought they were disgusting, a complete waste of 6 eggs.

Excellent! Well done!

Wahay Judith
thanks for being the guinea pig on that.
Hope you enjoy it, Mmmm raviolo this weekend 😀

Great – yes, I will, thanks. Another pound today so it’s a steady lb every day so far…

No worries. Just on the last point there about being in ketosis. I am having 50 ish grams a day and I test positive for ketosis. All the best, let us know how you get on.

Ah – brilliant, thank you! 🙂

My first day of BSD has arrived! This morning I had 2 sauteed portobello mushrooms, with a poached egg on each. It was so simple and quite tasty. I meant to have a Bircher from a recipe given me by Cherrianne, but forgot to put it together last night. Will do so this evening. A really nice thing was, that while making my breakfast this morning, I was thinking about all the folks on this forum. How all of you are committing yourselves to the BSD, a new lifestyle, and health and how many helpful words of encouragement and experience I have heard.
I want to say to anyone new like me, that if you are hesitating, plunge in! (and post on the forum to get support, it really helps)

For lunch I am having FF yogurt and berries. For dinner, chickpea chili (BSD website recipe)

best wishes for a great day to all.
jeff

I’ve cut and pasted this from the ‘how many carbs’ thread:

100-150 grams per day: This is a decent maintenance range, and is good for people who exercise a lot.
50-100 grams per day: This should lead to automatic weight loss, and is a good maintenance range for people who don’t exercise that much.
20-50 grams per day: With a carb intake this low, you should lose weight quickly without experiencing much hunger. This carb range should put you into ketosis.

Oh that’s reassuring. Bill 🙂

Hurrah folks, I’ve just made the chickpea flour pasta, see Bill’s post. I had 9oz of flour left in one of my bags so I used that and added 3 medium eggs rather than water.
The author was right – it really sticks!
I tried kneading it – dreadful. So i poured a little olive oil onto my hands and rubbed it in. Also rubbed a little on my rolling pin. Success!
The knife wasn’t successful but a pizza wheel works brilliantly.

When cooked it is so much more like pasta than the gluten free pasta i once bought ( and binned ).

Next step . . .portions …I. Divided the ‘pasta’ into 6 portions of 105 calories each. Some for the freezer for future use 🙂

Thanks Janet
Yes – I’ve spotted more discussions about this now, but no definitive answers. Like many others, I’m using MyFitnessPal and wanted to enter the goal percentages of fat, protein & carbs. As Dr Mosley recommends using an app like this, it would be hugely helpful to have a steer as to ideal percentages, even if it doesn’t need to be strictly adhered to. Actually, the one I’d like to know most is maximum recommended carbs per day, if anyone knows…

I’ve just completed 4 weeks of the Fast 800 diet and have noticed that the weight loss has slowed down after 3 spectacular weeks – I lost none at all in the fourth week, which is disappointing, but then I did have to negotiate a full-on Mothers Day dinner cooked by my kids! However, I’m feeling better, not getting much in the way of hunger pangs, and getting more energetic. So I decided today that I should do something about getting moving. I downloaded a Couch to 5K running app for my phone and spent half of my lunch hour doing a brisk walk/jog to the instructions given to me by this disembodied American voice from my phone. It was surprisingly easy, although I was definitely out of breath at the end of it. Listening to fast disco music certainly helped with the pace and motivation. Anyone else doing the same?

Thanks hashimoto! I have written that phrase down on an index card and put it on my fridge.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone – have noticed that it does also depend what I eat as to whether I am having to get up earlier or later. If I eat meals with loads of salad and veg than I have to get up earlier, I guess due to the water content.

Am trying to drink more in the day than night and touch wood it seems to have made a difference.

Hi Mosleyfan
As I understand it, you can test any time of day but you are more likely to find the ketones in your urine first thing in the morning. I have been aiming for 50 ish grams of carbs with a good dollop of fat and have had ketosis yesterday and today.

Sort of Mosleyfan, it gives you an idea of whats going on
I read somewhere the other day that 30 – 50 grams of carb a day will put you in to ketosis.

lachlanh I messaged the team about this, their reply is,
Chances are it is nothing to worry about. Your body is still adjusting and it’s not unusual to see a little fluctuation.

Also, if it’s first thing in the morning, your levels will naturally rise slightly during the night.

Keep an eye on it and I’m sure it’ll get on track again. If you’re at all unsure, consult with your doctor.

Best of luck, keep up the good work.

Thanks Bill i will do.

OK I messaged the team about this both for me and another user and the reply is :-
Chances are it is nothing to worry about. Your body is still adjusting and it’s not unusual to see a little fluctuation.

Also, if it’s first thing in the morning, your levels will naturally rise slightly during the night.

Keep an eye on it and I’m sure it’ll get on track again. If you’re at all unsure, consult with your doctor.

Best of luck, keep up the good work.

2 hours after lunch and the reading is now 7.5
Doesn’t sound like a food thing, just a 1.4 point rise there.
***Pulls on the Sherlock hat***

It will get cheaper as you get more used to buying what you need…try fresh herbs on window sill too?? haha I live in Australia so growing is easy used to live in Manchester so parsley, tomatoes , mint ( its hard here because it loves cold and wet feet) You can buy dried lentils, chick peas etc soak what you need and cook rather than use tins…better for you and cheaper but wait to do that until you are used to it all.

me too..loved them straight out of oven..froze rest individually bagged so can grab one for work, emergency etc. see my photo already uploaded

Glad you are losing weight…day 5 for me no weight loss!!! Strict 800 cals never happened before so postmenopause is a drag

Hi guys joining the chat late…so do i gather that it is good to use the ketostix once daily and you should be in ketosis every day? Im not diabetic just no weight loss day 5 strict 800 !!!

Does Dr Mosley recommend a maximum carb figure please?

Thanks Janet will check that out 🙂

Tezryu
the general idea is to get your body into burning fat instead of carbs. Thats why full fat is recommended, it keeps your digestive system busy and keeps you feeling fuller, and it works, ask anyone on the forum
Give it a try, you could be amazed at the results.

Hi mosleyfan
I have been visiting a website called Diet Doctor which was set up by a Swedish doctor. His plan is almost the same as Saint Dr Mosley’s and he refers to it as low carb high fat. He said that some people may be able to tolerate the sugar in berries but others might not and that dairy products still contain some sugar so if a person is still not losing, it may be because of that. I have really taken on board the low carb high fat mantra and have had a couple of better days of weight loss this week.