Thanks Hopeful. I don’t need a fancy one as I have not been tested, but am curious as I suspect after reading the book that I may test as pre diabetic. I see that some do all sorts of things. I looked at the Aviva one that you could click the link to on here ( the one with the cartridge ) and this was where I saw quite a lot of people reporting an inaccurate reading. I will look at the strip prices thank you

Hello Lisa,
I am Type 2 diabetic on Insulin and have been using the Freestyle Freedom Lite which is very good, but be aware that the testing strips can be expensive(I get mine on prescription)you may use 4 a day, I test before each meal and before bed.
Can I suggest you go on Amazon or Ebay and type in ‘blood monitoring testing strips’ and see which are priced reasonably then go for that make of tester,I think most of them are pretty accurate, or speak to your diabetic nurse at your surgery and she may be able to help, may even give you a tester!!!
Regards
Hopeful

I too am starting on Monday. I could not get the book as it is unavailable on amazon, but have the kindle version, not good for following recipes. So I have the menus from the Daily Mail. Will shop on Sunday for the first three days. I like the Total greek yogurt (not 0%), as the texture is nicer.

Hi, I started th diet 5days ago now and immediately noticed that a lot of the foods weren’t really my kind of foods. I do cook a lot and am a bit of a foodie but from a Yorkshire background we like our meat and two veg in large portions as well. I’ve basically gone off piste this week making all my recipes from scratch not the book but incorporating then stuff I don’t like very much ( don’t know if they are correct nutritional but hey it’s working and I’ve lol 3kg already and my blood sugar is trending down daily) not been hungry once and strangely feel absolutely fine, no headaches etc. I’d be willing to share my recipes with you if it helps. As for frozen veg, this is just as nutritious as fresh providing the are low starch and there’s much less waste. As for not being able to use the scales I would suggest getting the book carbs and cals for him as its in association with diabetes uk and is a brilliant book generally as it has info along with pictures of portion sizes, for me it’s an invaluable resource I use many times a day. I got mine from Amazon and th ISBN was 978-1-9082610-6-9
As for cost, it doesn’t cost a lot to be on this diet for me. I didn’t buy loads of stuff, I am ploughing through loads of fresh veg though but that’s my choice, and I do supplement with frozen berries and veg if I run out of fresh. The portion sizes I make usually make 2 or 4 and I’m freezing the spare ones so this might suit your dad as well.
Anyway good luck, and a huge well done for taking on the challenge

I notice a lot of the recipes contain nuts; all very healthy but what do you do if you are allergic to them? For the recipes that contain nuts, do I add more protein and should I add a multi- mineral to maintain balance across the 8 weeks?

Hi all. Just finished reading the book and going to start on Monday. Looking for some advice from those in the know. Is there one type of yogurt I should be using? In the recipes different ones are mention and I know that plain yogurt is pretty awful? Also same with cheese as I love all cheese except feta and goats. Ideas and thoughts would be great before I do the new shop! Exciting but a little bit scary too!

Hi everyone! Looking forward to being a member of the Forum, and I am currently preparing to start the BSD. As part of this prep, I am going to buy a blood glucose test machine so I have an idea of my start point. I started to read the Amazon reviews on one of the machines linked on this site, and there seem to be quite a lot of mentions of inaccurate readings. Can anyone recommend one that is known to be consistent please?
Thank you! 🙂

Thank you so much for correcting the errors.

That’s now going to be my dinner for tomorrow. So looking forward to trying it.

Hi Luis,

I think the Brown rice has more Fibre, have you tried Quinoa rice, very tasty and really low in carbs.

Hopeful

A warm welcome Stephie and good luck. I’m on my 2nd day since getting the Blood Sugar Diet book but for 2 days before that I started cutting out some no go foods. I had to guess what they were at the time until the book arrived. I seem to have lost 3lbs in the last 3 days. Tomorrow is my weigh day so can’t wait to see what the final weight loss is for this week.

I’m on my 4th day and have already lost 3.5lbs and an inch off my waist more importantly. Haven’t felt hungry once and am really enjoying it. It certainly gives you the motivation to keep going!

Carbs = blood glucose. Insulin controls carbs. Not enough insulin production or it isn’t working properly = too many carbs for a diabetic to control unaided.

I need to know how & why things do or don’t work. I found these companion sites helpful

Google : prof Roy Taylor 800 calorie diet
Look at : diabetes uk = The Direct Study
: ncl.ac.uk. = Newcastle uni Magnetic Resonance Centre
: nhslothian.scot.nhs.uk
: http://www.phlaunt.com. = Diet 101 the truth about low carb diets. (Jenny Ruhl)

We have personal FAT thresholds in our livers & pancreas. Too much in each = diabetes!
The 800 calorie a day over 8 weeks diet is designed to rid the liver & pancreas of this FAT. We should then be able, if we are fortunate, to use our insulin properly again & deal with carbs for energy

However, if we can unblock the drain be very careful not to overload the pipes again.

Find out what your own personal threshold of carb toleration is.

These sites & book have the info & recipes. Use them.
Keep going. Good luck

hi all, this is my first post although I actually started the diet on Wednesday. I remember the initial publication of Prof Taylor’s research a few years back, and was very interested in the results, so now it’s ‘official’ I’m all for it.
Day three going well so far, I think the ketogenic euphoria is kicking in now, which helps to deal with the ravenous hunger pangs lol! I’m sure it will get better

Steph

Hi All,
Second week of the BSD diet, all going well I am averaging 100g of carbs a day but finding the accurate calories counting hard. We are not use to weighing everything so I am probably over estimating the amount I am having. I am finding it OK except for the weekends.I miss my sugar in the coffee badly, so much so that I am drinking much less of it, which possibly is not a bad thing. I don’t want to have artificial sweeteners, so when I get pass the 8 weeks and get on to “normal” diet will need an alternative to sugar for the coffee will honey be ok? Anyway I bought some brown rice and my wife was just comparing the carbs and sugar labels with the ones of the normal white rice and they are pretty much the same. That got me a bit confused… Is it just that, because brown rice takes longer to be processed, is better for you or did we get the wrong type of rice?
Thank you.
Best Regards
Luis

Thanks Happywife. She’s I saw the book I thought ‘anyone can do anything for 8 weeks’ so decided to go for it. Cleared out the carbs from where they lurked in the kitchen and decided my plan for Christmas Day. I live alone, but my neighbour was sending a meal round so I had to decide what to do. I ate some of the turkey and froze the rest in portions. I replaced potatoes and parsnips with other veg. When the pudding arrived (with cream) it was replaced by blueberries. I hate wasting food, but rather that than upset the progress I was already seeing. I’ve been looking for new foods yo add variety. Unusually for me both fridge and freezer are full of fish and veg, with some chicken ne not much red meat. My treat (don’t laugh😊) is going to BHS once or twice a week for their small breakfast – no longer an ‘all you can eat’ breakfast, just 4 items. And no sausages!

Oh and Toedipper, your menu sounds lovely. Could I come round for dinner? 🙂

Today, I’m having grapes and nuts here and there through the day (all measured out) and beef stew for dinner. Not too Mediterranean either but I think it doesn’t matter, so long as the carbs you eat are “good” carbs and you keep away from processed junk.

Hiya – on day 3 here, but veteran of other VLCDs (the milkshake kind). Having real food is fabulous. 🙂

I posted this yesteday on another thread about how many carbs to have per day – hopefully it’s helpful here too.

***
There is a recommendation for grams of protein per day in the book – from memory I think it’s around 50g.

And there’s some research on VLCDs that suggests that you do need to make sure you have at least 7g fat a day (and preferably more) in order to reduce the risk of gallstones – http://www.foodedsoc.org/marks/MARKS34.htm
I’d go for at least 20g of fat, and there’s no reason to be scared of having much more than that now that we know fat doesn’t make you fat.

So, given there’s 4 calories per gram of protein and 9 calories per gram of fat…
4 x 50 = 200 calories
20 x 9 = 180

Total intake from protein and fat = 380 calories.

Which leaves a maximum of 420 calories for carbs – so up to 105g of carb a day (given carbs are 4 calories per gram).

According to many low carb gurus, anything less than 100g carb a day is considered a low carb diet.

But to be honest, it’s probably not worth worrying exactly how you spend your calories (quantities of fat and protein aside) provided you eat a good range of foods each day.

***
I’m tracking everything on an app call My Fitness Pal but there are loads of other apps like it. Yesterday I had 25g fat, about 60g of protein and the rest was carbs.

Hope that helps a bit.

Morning Captainlynne, brilliant news – you must feel really pleased with the results. An inspiration to the rest of us new starters, especially as you have been 800ing it over the festive period and in some really cold and gloomy weather. Fantastic!
All the best. Ax

Tomorrow I will have been following this plan for 5 weeks. Up to today I have lost 21 pounds. 😃. My BMI has gone from 40.9 to 37.1 and I only have another 1.4 pounds to lose to have lost 10% of my starting weight! From a fasting BG of 10.9 all my fasting bloods are now under 6, with those in the evening either 4s or 5s

Stop you’re making me hungry!!

I can’t say if what I’m doing is right or wrong either but the Mediterranean diet is not a low fat diet. It includes lots of fish, lamb, eggs olive oil etc so you don’t seem to be doing much wrong. I’m not afraid to use fat (mostly butter, olive oil) but the only restriction I have is that calories stay at 800.

I’m averaging about 60 grams protein, sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less (about 240 calories), about 40 grams of carb (160 calories) and the rest fat (about 45 grams) to make up the balance to 800 calories. I often have a knob of butter on vegetables as fat enables the nutrients to be absorbed and used so I’d say just keep doing what you’re doing and look at it again if you aren’t making the progress you want. To be honest, the amount of fat you can have on an 800 calories allowance isn’t enough to worry abour 🙂

Hi all,
I am day 5 today. Was doing really well until today. I had started each day with egg and avocado, adding in a portobello mushroom on some of the days. Worked really well, then could have a salad for lunch and a more substantial dinner with chicken and veg/ salad.
Yesterday I tried something new, I started the day with yogurt and berries. I then had my salad for lunch and chicken with cauliflower rice and veg for dinner.I was hungry after dinner last night, and ended up having more yogurt and berries after dinner which helped. Still was around 800 for the day. I think I didn’t have enough fat yesterday, as I feel terrible this morning. I also didn’t sleep well due to stress about work, even though I used the headspace app for the first time last night.
I have gone back to my egg avocado and mushroom this morning, hoping that sets me up better today. Going to be a tough day today!
Janet

Hello all, started on Monday & already lost four pounds (probably water to begin with). Keeping within the 800 Cal’s – give or take, however not sure if I am incorporating too much fat (mainly olive oil & butter) and eating too much protein (red meat, chicken, fish, eggs & small amount of cheddar). Any guidance on quantities/grams per day of protein & fat? Old habits die hard.

Finding it easy & not hungry, so must be doing something wrong?? Maybe eating too much or even too little protein & fat. Eating lots of above ground veg and salad.

Today – two egg omlet cooked in little butter with chopped bacon rasher and two chestnut mushrooms for brunch. Slow cooked lamb caserole with french beans and broccoli (steamed & drizzled with small amt of olive oil) for dinner.
Tomorrow – kipper for brunch and red lentil dahl and veg curry for dinner planned.

Above not really Mediterranean Dishes.

Thanks for all of those responses, I’m pretty confident the carbs we are eating are all good carbs and we are trying to incorporate good fats into all of our meals so I am going to stop worrying about it! According to myfitnesspal I’ve been anywhere between 25 and 50% carbs, protein and fat each day, it’s been fluctuating a lot which I am pretty happy with, I’m sure it will all balance out by the end of the week. I am having trouble getting enough iron in though… definitely having a Friday night steak dinner!

I’d love to know the answer to this too.

I burn around 500 cals through exercise at least 2-3 times a week and as Pinkypie said the remaining balance of 300 calories seems way too little.

There is a recommendation for grams of protein per day though – from memory I think it’s around 50g. And there’s some research on VLCDs that suggests that you do need to make sure you have at least 7g fat a day (and preferably more) in order to reduce the risk of gallstones – http://www.foodedsoc.org/marks/MARKS34.htm

I’d go for at least 20g of fat, and there’s no reason to be scared of having much more than that now that we know fat doesn’t make you fat.

So, given there’s 4 calories per gram of protein and 9 calories per gram of fat…

4 x 50 = 200 calories
20 x 9 = 180

Total intake from protein and fat = 380 calories.

Which leaves a maximum of 420 calories for carbs – so up to 105g of carb a day (given carbs are 4 calories per gram).

According to many low carb gurus, anything less than 100g carb a day is considered a low carb diet.

But to be honest, it’s probably not worth worrying exactly how you spend your calories (quantities of fat and protein aside) provided you eat a good range of foods each day.

Day 4…I’m finding this quite hard! I have moments where I’m doing fine, not hungry at all, then moments (like when I seem to be feeding my children endlessly) that I really miss things like bread, rice and pasta. I might have a little brown rice from time to time, see if that helps, and maybe some porridge oats.

I woke up this morning feeling ok, its just the evenings that are hard and seem to stretch out, with no wine or treats!

Still trying to get to grips with how to best spend my 800 cal. I think two larger meals might be better for me than 3 small ones. I hate that feeling of never being quite satisfied. No one said this was going to be easy I suppose…

Thank you, nice to know I’m getting it right.

I have only done 3 days but so far the recipes in the book have been excellent. Tried aubergine with lamb and pomegranate , foil steamed fish and the griddled chicken. Making the meals for my husband as well and he wouldn’t have guessed that they were part of a diet plan as they have been excellent and really tasty. I feel the no guilt brownies may be an acquired taste!

I have only done 3 days so far and am still feeling hunger pangs, but am absolutely determined to stick with it.

We would encourage you to have a generous amount of green and non starchy vegetables with your food. They fill you up, the fibre makes any carbs slow release and they are very good for your gut bacteria too! They need to take up at least half of your plate if that helps with measurements, but you probably don’t need to weigh them.

I have been weighing my veg, but not sure that’s right. It would be good to know.
Hedds

It’s day four for me and I am not hungry most of the time, the only time I have been was when I used a Covent Garden soup for quickness at lunchtime today and now can’t wait for my chicken curry with cauliflower rice.

Hi – I have just worked out the carbs in this recipe and it totals 17.1 – which is quite high for one meal. So am a bit confused as to why its called no carb bircher – anyone understand this?

CARBS
50mlapple juice 4.5
2 tbsp ground flaxseeds 0.2
½ tsp cinnamon 0.3
1 tbsp raisins 10.5
2 tbsp plain yogurt 0.6
1 tbsp walnuts 1.0
TOTAL 17.1

Glad that you like this approach – I notice you have optimistically called it the 8-Day Diet!
Regarding the question about what flour to use – none of them are low carb and they are all refined, though they may be lower than refined wheat flour. Almond and nut flours tend to do well on the GI as have a relatively high fibre and fat content which reduces the sugar spike. I’m afraid baking is a bit of luxury on the diet..

I’ve just started the 8 week and it’s going well, love the recipes but the veg serving with it isn’t very clear. Is it ok to have unlimited amount of green veg or should it be weighed too?

I just started the BSD and my Dad is also interested in starting it, because he’s pre-diabetic, but I’d like some advice on how to simplify things for him.

Dad’s in his 70s, and a bit nervous about cooking because Mum used to do all the cooking for him. He can cook meat-and-two-veg, a full english breakfast, a simple curry or stew, and he does know how to use the microwave. But he doesn’t know how to measure ingredients, or use things like food processors or complicated kitchen equipment.

Dad’s also a bit put off by ‘fancy’ or ‘faddy’ ingredients. He’s very attached to microwaveable ready meals, bread and potatoes. He does have quite a lot of frozen veg, but he hardly buys any fresh. His ‘spice rack’ is a cruet set: salt, pepper, oil and vinegar, mustard.

We’re going to have to buy quite a lot (and I don’t think almond flour or goji berries will be on his list) and I’m honestly not sure where to start. I really want him to find foods he’ll be comfortable with, and really simple recipes that can serve one without him having to throw away a lot of food. (Dad hates wasting food).

Any advice and suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

Agreed!

Hi, just wondering if you can eat back calories burned through exercise to give you your 800 per day total?
Today for example of have run 5k and swam 1k so have used approx 500kcals. If If I only eat 800cals of food that is the equivalent of 300 kals which I know for a fact I can’t manage on. If anyone knows the answer I’d appreciate it, thanks x

I started with the shakes on 3 January and decided to try the shepherd’s pie with cauliflower mash the other night just for a change. I had a few sprouts with it.

I was absolutely stuffed and could barely move!

Your tum must shrink or adjust to the amount you put in it- so if you don’t eat much, if doesn’t take much to feel full!

I think we have to trust that Prof. Roy Taylor (diabetes expert) would not recommend anything that would actually endanger diabetics.

Hi
I’ve been on the diet for 10 days and have noticed an appreciable decrease in my appetite. For the last 4 days I’ve struggled to hit 800 cals a day as I’m just not hungry and leaving food on my plate. Yesterday I only ate dinner. I’m drinking plenty of fluid. I’m also on the maximum Metformin dose, 2g daily, could this be causing it? Also exercise is difficult as I have polyneuropathy although have increased my daily walking regime. I’m feeling great by the way so not complaining. Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing this.

Dear Michael

You asked for feedback regarding the 8day diet – so here it is .

1 I bought the book on Sunday as I saw it on the supermarket shelves and had heard off
Professor Taylor’s work with diabetics. Couldn’t put it down and started a new way of
eating on Monday. The science quoted makes sense and many of the quotes regarding doctors so true.

2 However there are several points I would like to raise mainly regarding the plan itself.
I feel that there is too much emphasis placed on eggs. There are some people me
Included who cannot eat eggs ( I throw up). How can they be replaced with a protein
that has a similar number of calories? In other words what can I replace them with?

3 As a coeliac I have both almond and coconut flours in my store cupboard and also
quite a few others namely: polenta, chestnut,buckwheat, gram flour, oat flour, millet
Sorghum. I like baking and the concomitant eating maybe that’s why I’m diabetic.
Which of these can I safely use as carb free and which should I jettison?

4 Finally you were talking about personal fat levels. I am 5’1″ and weigh 133.2lbs. My
fancy scales tell me that my fat level is 34.2% which quite frankly horrified me.
However, this would indicate that I need to lose that percentage of weight is around
44lbs, which surely would make me slightly too skinny?

5 Finally, my blood pressure has come down slightly to something over 68 I am on
Ramipril and panicked. Phoned diabetic nurse regarding coming off the medication
And was told not to worry. I will keeps an eye on this but can you give me any
Guidelines regarding readings.

Keep up the good work, we need someone like you to look after the health of the country and challenge the accepted wisdom which can so often be wrong.

Regards
Marie Wilburn

I started yesterday and found it easier than I thought. The test for me will be when I go back to work a week on Monday – but I am determined 😀 Good luck to everyone else starting now 😀

Starting today but not sure how much veg to use in the recipes on pg 237 for chicken, salmon etc anyone any ideas or should I just do calorie counting off the net?

Morning all, it’s the start of day 4 and my fasting BG is now 5.5 having been 7.2 on Monday morning 🤗🤗
I have not felt hungry since Tuesday and I am really enjoying cooking the different recipies. I’m off work at the moment due to having a flare up in my fibromyalgia so I am finding it easier to stick to the diet. Having been organised at the start has been a great help as I know that I can open my fridge and nothing is off limits.
I have also dropped 3lbs in weight which is fab, as I am quite sedintary at the moment.
Thanks Dr Michael Mosely for your book and website.
Good luck everyone
Hedds

10lbs is brilliant. WTG.

I’ve been looking up regarding carbs since posting above and it seems that the percentage of carbs to daily intake (calories) should be between 45% and 65% avarage of 55%. 20% to 35% of Protein – average 15% and the rest fat.

Having said that, all the information on the web at the moment is still giving importance to eating low fat diets. I did though find where it also said that the meditarranean diet promotes 40% fat intake.

So personally I’m not going to bother with all the facts and figures. I’m simply going to stick to plenty of veg, fruit and salad, a decent helping of protein a day (I’m a fish, cheese and egg person), and only eat what are considered good carbs and stick to the 800 cals a day. I bought a tub of Slimfast shake today as well for when I simply don’t feel like fixing lunch. That way, without even thinking about it I should be eating the right percentage of everything.

I’ve decided not going to worry myself about any sugar content that might be in the shake.

All I can tell you is since starting this after Christmas I have lost 10lbs and have not had any hyper symptoms, maybe even gone a little hypo on Sunday afternoon after a walk.

Maybe need to come of Metformin. Must talk to doc.

Best of luck to all

🙂

Yes, I’ve been trying to find out what is the right amount / minimum / safe amount of carbs.

But no one, not even my dietician has been able, or willing to tell me.

I find the withholding of this seemingly vital piece of information very disturbing.

Maybe it isn’t important in relation to the benefits of a rapid drop in BMI that comes with a 800cal a day diet?

@newmill – as you say it’s not a low carb diet which is true, but it is a diet that requires the right kind of carbs to be eaten and not the bad, along with learning not to eat foods containing high sugar content. For instance, bread is one of the bad carbs and should be avoided because it contains high sugar content. It’s also important not to eat excess carbs, even good ones, as all carbs sugar.

You are correct that living on only 800 calories a day is meant just for the 8 weeks or until our desired weight is reached. But thereafter it’s still necessary to stay sugar free and try to only eat good carbs if we are to remain at a healthy weight and in good health even though we are then able to start eating more calories per day.

Learning to live without sugar is not a short term project, it’s a life time way of life. If one goes back to eating bad carbs and high sugar again after they have reached their desired weight then they are going to pile on the pounds again.

People are obviously wanting to know what is the correct amount of the right carbs a human needs for good health along with needing to know how many calories are needed to keep us healthy.

Although I think that it’s more a case of needing to know what percentage of our daily food intake should be carbs for health rather than how many carbs should we be eating.

The question is do the shakes contain empty carbs with high sugar or do they contain the good carbs of which sugars.

With the Recipe Cottage Pie with Cauliflower Mash the ‘Method” ingredients aren’t marrying up with the “Ingredients”.

Several ingredients are mentioned in the method that don’t seem to be in the list of ingredients and vice versa, so it’s a bit hard to know if they have been added to the method by mistake or have been omitted from the list of ingredients.

1) In the ingredients is listed fromage frais but not in the method.

2) In the method is mentioned crème fraische which is not listed in the ingredients.

3) In the method is 1 beef stock cube and parmesan, neither of which are in the list of Ingredients.

4) 2 tsp of Worcester Sauce in the ingredients but not in the method – are both beef stock cube and Worcester Sauce required?

5) Spring onions in the ingredients and not in the method – so are both onions and spring onions required?

https://thebloodsugardiet.com/recipes/shepherds-pie-with-cauliflower-mash/

Thanks – I’m looking forward to trying this out once the recipe is a bit clearer.