Advice please….. they say pride comes before a fall….
I have been so careful to adhere to low carb diet and really thought I was doing well… BUT…

Testing with a Freestyle Libra tester… strips bought from the internet, with a “use by” in August 2026. For the past couple of months my fasting BG has been ‘pootling’ along at between 4.6 mmol/l and 5.2.
Then yesterday it went up to 5.6 and this Morning was 6.9!!!!! 🫣
Yesterday we ate out at lunchtime:- an all day breakfast, Sausage, Eggs and bacon with mushrooms and 1/2 tomato. Went home and ate 1tbs Greek yoghurt plus 2 blackberries, 1 strawberry.

Supper was 1 slice broccoli bread toasted with 150g runner beans topped with 50g grated hard cheese.
Followed by 100g dessert apple cooked without sugar and a little cream.
I then had 30g dry roast peanuts and 12.5g 85% chocolate during the evening.

By my reckoning that was a total of 48.6g carb..

However, I was violently sick at about midnight… would that affect my BG??? 🙄

I am concerned as I thought I had it licked….
Help!!!! 💐💐💐

Thanks S-G,
I rather like “Awesome August with the BSD”. As the annual thread is sort of ‘on a cruise’ maybe “All Aboard” is a but confusing??

Great that you enjoyed your family time and that they seem to be changing their minds about the glaucoma!

I feel so fortunate to have ‘met’ you and Verano on these forums. Your encouragement and advice really made a huge difference to me. I would be delighted if I can pass it forward to someone else in need!

I feel I am still learning about my body and my diabetes. A lifetime of having a sweet tooth is difficult to overturn….but I am mostly doing just that!!

Keeping on keeping on!! 😄😄xx

Thank you for sharing the choc mousse recipes, Pootle. Will try out the first one over the weekend.

Positives from my little corner……
🌻🌻 got my watercolours out after a few weeks break. Not having had a chance to paint for awhile, it felt really good to play with my paints again.
🌻🌻 made carrot cakes for OH and GS to take to work with them tomorrow. Don’t often bake, but it worked out pretty well and was quite fun.
🌻🌻 couple of pleasant catch up phone chats with friends
🌻🌻 my garden is starting to bounce back, after having been a bit neglected during our absence.

Hope everyone else is noticing some positives each day too.

I picked the first ripe blackberries today… very early this year!!! And at 5g carb per 100g they will be a great addition to my Greek yoghurt! 🫐🫐

Prep for this weekend’s wedding work is going well! 💐💐💐

Prep for next weeks work is also well in hand… it needs to be with a bank holiday on Monday! 🤞👍👍
I hope you can all find some positives if your life… please share if you can! 😄

Thank you for keeping things going Pootle, I like All Aboard for August as we have used so many alliterations like Jubilant July, Merry May etc, so your idea is good for a change.

I too cannot wait for you to see the diabetic nurse and it would be nice for her to be educated and not so stuck in her ideas.

Margaret, I didn’t say anything about being in pain as everyone is different but it took a while for my cousin to start getting back on her feet (literally). She has children around her as her husband died some years ago, and I think she is being well looked after but not able to do much for herself for a couple of months and she is not allowed to drive so needs help with shopping etc.

I had a wonderful week with my daughter and grandson but, of course, ate way too much. My weight is now too high although my BG is staying pretty stable. I had a bit of a mind blown moment when I was at the opthamologist. They still are saying I have signs of glaucoma but it is getting better (checked Dr Google and it doesn’t get better on its own). I think they are being over cautious but now want to see me in 6 months so it is going down, from 2 to 3 to 4 and now 6. However, he did ask me what my blood pressure was and that made me realise my weight is as important as my BG as they are all connected. If I stay or gain weight there is every chance my BP will go up and that will then affect my eyes.

I will still pop in from time to time but thanks again Pootle for taking over the reins. Let me know if you want any help in the future.

Hi everyone,
Thanks for the follows, DCT and Pootle. I finished the garlic harvest today, just in time for the start a little heatwave. It should help to get this very wet garlic dry. I’m going to try and put a reel together of all the photos I took during harvest. Just not tonight as I’m too tired.
Unfortunately, it turns out that the continuous glucose monitor is not suited to my lifestyle. The adhesive is not sticky enough with all the movement and sweating that I do, so it slid off my arm before it was fully activated. I’m super disappointed by that. I don’t know if I should report it to the company as well as the one that didn’t work. I don’t really want a replacement if it isn’t going to work for me. I know some people put them in other locations like chest or abdomen, but I’m not sure either of those would have worked this time either. Anyway, I got a regular glucose monitor and am using the lancets and strips to test. It is going well so far and is still motivating, but a bit more confusing given you can’t see what is happening moment to moment. It was quite shocking to see that my last binge eating episode put me into diabetic range, and then I’ve spent the last couple of days in pre-diabetic range, but I know what to do, so I’m eating really low carb and getting back on track. I had some pretty good numbers today in the low 5’s so fingers crossed for a good reading tomorrow morning. I think this may have been the wake up call that I needed to finally buckle down and get serious about losing weight and breaking my insulin resistance.
Another part of the wake up call was going to my mental health support group on Friday and one of the ladies who has diabetes had brought a huge bag of crisps and two big bags of sweets, supposedly to share. I declined when offered, as did most of the others, but she and one other lady polished off most of them between them. I didn’t even notice what they were doing, as I was listening to people sharing how their week had gone, but saw at the end when they needed to get rid of the wrappers and their laps were piled high with sweet wrappers and the entire bag of crisps was gone. The lady who brought them in had previously shared that her latest HbA1c result was 12! I didn’t say a word, but it really upset me very badly. Partly because I seemingly care more about what she is eating than she obviously does, but also because the group knows that I struggle with binge eating, and it seemed rather unfair of her to not only bring in those things as snacks but then have me witness the evidence of their binge even if I didn’t notice them actually doing it. Does that even make sense? Not sure. If I had been in a more vulnerable state, that might have led me to go and buy similar foods after and binge on them at home, but it is lucky that I was being pretty strong that day and I was already measuring my glucose at that point and didn’t want to increase my numbers again. I did go to the supermarket on my way home, but only bought greek yogurt and soy-free tofu. I’m fairly pleased with myself about that, and the fact that I’ve been making really healthy, very low carb meals this weekend, in spite of being so tired at the end of the day from the garlic harvesting. I think I will have to talk to my therapist about how upset I got in this situation though, and what I’ve been doing with tracking my glucose to manage my own intake. I just hope she doesn’t think I’m being too restrictive now in response.
Anyway, this post is too long already, but here are the meals I’ve been having:
a ramen noodle bowl with konjac noodles, red pepper, romanesco broccoli, soy-free tofu and prawns in a salty veggie broth made with wakame seaweed, bouillon and tamari.
pizza made with cauliflower sandwich bread as a base with flax and chia instead of eggs, toppings of kale, red pepper, rainbow chard and mozzarella.
A rainbow chard salad with the left over tofu, green onions from the garden, and sardines with an olive oil and vinegar dressing.
I’m not feeling deprived at all, just a bit hungry, but that is to be expected as I go through a bit of carb withdrawal, I think.
Anyway, thanks for putting up with me if you’ve managed to read all of this. Keep on keeping on everyone!

Sunny, I have made 2 different chocolate mousses.
1. 🥛400ml can coconut milk.
🍫120g melted chocolate (recipe calls for 70%, I used 85%)
Whisk coconut milk for at least 30 secs to get lots of air in.
Add melted chocolate whisking all the time… continue to whisk… the more you whisk the better it will be.
Pour into 8 small ramekins and chill overnight. (4 hours min)
For 8 portions, Carb 6.4g, kCal 170 per portion.

2. 🍫125g 85% chocolate, melted over Bain Marie.
4 tbs water,
🥚4 eggs separated.
🥃1 tbs brandy.
Add 1 tbs water to egg yolks and beat well.
Add 3tbs water to melted choc and mix well still over heat.
Add yolks and beat until light.
Remove from heat and add brandy (optional)
Beat egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff and fold into choc.
Pour into 6 small glasses and chill overnight.
For 6 portions Carb 7.8g, kCal 268 per portion.

As I am maintaining weight but remaining low carb, I have found the 2nd better, but the 1st is very good!

So I am going to use the above as a positive as I am delighted to have found something good! 😄😄😄

Or “ Awesome August with the BSD” ???

So sorry to hear you are in so much discomfort Margaret. Hope the outpatients appointment goes well and they are pleased with your progress!

Lacy, I agree that the medical professionals can be too dismissive at times. Sometimes a well phrased encouragement is invaluable and patronising dismissal destructive!!
My experience with the diabetes nurse last year was horrendous! She was actively against me trying this diet, despite the GP saying that I should try it for a few months to see how I got on! I ended up making a complaint to the GP… saying I was 65 not 5!!!
However, the best bit for me was seeing the look on the GP’s face when I went to see her 6 months on…with a 5 stone weight loss and HbA1c of 40! She was stunned at my achievement!
Still waiting for the follow up with the diabetes nurse! I cannot wait as I am now 5 1/2 stone lighter with a BMI of 24 and 🤞 not in the diabetic range of HbA1c!! Just want to thumb my nose at her!! 🫣😂

Thinking of “All Aboard for August…” or ????? Something will come to me!
K xx

Hello everyone, I do hope the heatwaves are settling down for those suffering through them. Here in Melbourne (Australia) it’s freezing – the coldest winter we’ve had for a while!
Sorry to hear you’re having trouble sleeping because of the pain, Margaret. Hopefully the pain will ease enough as you heal for you find a comfortable sleeping position!
Pootle, you mentioned Prof Roy Taylor, and I checked out our local library. Both his books, and also Emma Porter’s recipe book were on the shelf, so I spent this week reading! Fascinating stuff, and some fantastic recipe ideas. And I noticed that you’d bumped a recipe thread – some great recipes on there too!

I’ve been on the BSD now for a month, and have lost 5kg – and more importantly, 5cm from both my waist and my hips! But when I saw my GP this week (blood pressure meds review) she was completely dismissive. She informed me that “lots of people were very enthusiastic on new diets, but soon got sick of it and packed the weight back on again.” And you know what, that might be true for some people, but definitely not everyone. And a bit of encouragement and positive reinforcement would have been a lot more helpful than patronising dismissal. Apparently this is not an uncommon reaction from doctors, though, so I’ll just continue on with support from the lovely people on this forum, and see what happens when I have my next blood panel review in 3 months.

Title ideas for August, hmm? I’m terrible at coming up with things like that so I’m afraid I’m not much help!
Take care everyone,

Lacy xx

Hello everyone & sorry also for my absence I am having rather a difficult time at the moment with pain/discomfort & lack of sleep only getting about three or four hours sleep each night. I think part of the problem is I am a side sleeper & my knee will only let me sleep on my back because it’s too painful if I try to put pressure on it lying on either side. My back also hurts which I think is again lying on my back. I have been good doing all my exercises three times a day & can now lift my right leg back onto the bed on its own 😀. I am going to Outpatients today to have the clips removed & apparently then all dressings stay removed to air the wound🤔🫣. I don’t think my lack of sleep can be helping my healing but I will find out today if I am on track.
My husband is doing well Pootle & produced a very good stir fry 👏😀
Look after yourselves everyone!
Margaret xx

V, hope you’re doing okay and the positives are easier to identify again.
Pootle, love a bit of choc mousse. If you have a moment could you share the recipe here please?
Heidi, how lovely people are noticing you’re slimmer.

Thought I’d pop in with a couple of positives…
🌿🌿 gardening at the village hall yesterday, lovely to be in the sunshine and it looked so much tidier and more presentable when we’d finished
🌿🌿 an informal date night last evening, with a meal eating on the patio and a chance to relax and catch up with each other after a busy week
🌿🌿 at last all the post holiday laundry has been completed

Hi, sorry to hear you and your Mum are struggling! Such a sad time!

Great news that you are feeling strong and that you have got onto target! I know you can do it!

We have had no internet or phone for most of the week… just back on! As we have no mobile signal here, and I usually use my mobile phone via the router, I have had to go out to the top of the veg garden to pick up emails etc… thank goodness it kept reasonably dry!!

Take care, 🤞🙏 for this week! Xxx

No prob Heidi24, I realised you meant DCT. I am not energetic enough to warrant a Gym!! I walk for exercise…. and garden, and carry hay bales, and carry water buckets, and feed sacks and lug heavy equipment for work…. I sometimes think it would be a simpler life if I gave it all up, 🤪 moved to a flat in a town and joined a gym… 😄 but then I realise how much I would miss the animals and outdoor life! 🫣😄.

I must admit, I am not brilliant at names… I easily get very confused!!!

I made a chocolate mousse at 10.00 last night.. just felt the need!! Melted 85% chocolate, added water and eggs, and worked out carbs as 7.2g per portion… as I am trying to maintain weight but keep carbs low, this seems quite a good indulgence for a Sunday! I didn’t dare work out the calories!!

Thanks for sharing your FB info Arctic Fox.. you have gained another follower! Love your flower bunches!

As I am a terrible sailor, I’m now going up on deck on this ‘cruise’ … Hope you are all doing well!
Xxx

Sorry I meant DCT not POOTLE re posh gym. x

Hi folks,
Sorry I have been absent over the last week… we had no telephone or internet, and as we have no mobile signal at home, I wasn’t able to check in!

(I use a pay as you go phone, as at home it operates through the internet router… over 4 days it used £40 worth of credit just picking up my emails etc and making calls at the top of the veg garden!! Thank goodness it wasn’t raining!!)

So.. Margaret, I hope your husband excelled at the ‘from scratch’ meal.

All else much the same here… coming up to an August thread… anyone any ideas for a ‘title’.

Take care everybody. K xx

Hi all. Another week of healthy eating where I, and not stress, have been in control. Two months now. And that feels great. Only 0.5 kilos of this week, so 9.6 kilos in total. It would be really nice to report over 10 kilos next week…

DCT I am certainly not giving up yet. I was probably not very clear. My first goal is to get to the top BMI end of my healthy weight. That’s another 4.6 kilos to discard. The next goal is then to look good in size 16 trousers and other more non-scale victories. I have a ring that I really want to wear again, for example. And lots of nice clothes from my previous thin period. Ho hum! It still feels more like failure than success to be on this journey yet again. But I am definitely pressing on.

MARIET, I have been thinking of you and hoping that the operation went as well as it could. It sounded quite traumatic.
YOWZER, Are you there? How are you feeling?
CLARINET I am crossing fingers for you that you have finally seen some results.
ARCTICFOX Good luck with the harvest and your next steps. I have never tried a glucose monitor and would be interested to hear how you get on.
POOTLE I love the idea of your near and posh fitness place. Go for it!

I found another good quote this week from Dr Mark Hyman (other doctors available….) which I have found helpful when tempted by a what the hell moment:

“Food is not just fuel.
It’s code. Every bite sends biochemical instructions to your body, activating or silencing genes, feeding good or bad gut bacteria, regulating inflammation and mood.
You feel how you eat.”
Not sure I agree that mood is totally generated by our food choices, but you get the idea!

Best wishes for a good week. Mine is going to be very rocky on my husband’s health front. But I shall be doing my best in the circumstances. xx

ARCTIXFOX thanks for the info. Am now following you on Facebook and also Instagram (which I’m much less familiar with : only use it for writing work and stalking my daughter 😂). Not sure if you can see followers, but my photo is me and my dog 🐕

Hope that you get your glucose monitoring sorted 🤞

I’m a bit all over the place with gyms. I liked the first one (close but expensive) so much that I nearly didn’t bother going to see the second one (further away but cheaper). But when I did was blown away by the setting and grounds and nearly signed up. But since then have thought carefully about how dilapidated the actual gym and pools are, and how much further away I would have to drive. I know myself very well, and any excuse can make me bottle out! Have also chatted with a former colleague who used to go to the posher gym (but moved away) and is still totally in awe of it. So I think I will go for it, ie the nearer but more expensive option. I have to sign up for one year so if I’m not making the most of if I will cancel after that. But I do feel the need to “elevate my life” – sounds a bit pretentious I know 😂. – and start really looking after myself. Otherwise I can visualise my semi-retirement years just getting frittered away and me ending up doing my bit of work then just spending the rest of the time as a couch potato.

Will report back in due course ……

Hi everyone,
Garlic harvest is still ongoing. Made some good progress yesterday and hopefully some more today and tomorrow. I took Monday off work just in case I don’t finish tomorrow, but really hoping to and then I’ll be able to have Monday as a rest day.
DCT – I will hold back around 1/4 of the crop to have enough to replant, and will sell the rest. If you and anyone else would like to see photos of the harvest and my farm and you are on facebook, it is Whistling Fox Farm. I am on instagram too, but have not been posting much there lately. Good that you have been checking out gyms. It is so hard to do that analysis of what is better, cheaper but further away vs. expensive but closer. I once ended up doing the more expensive and further away option, but it was worth it because they had classes with fantastic trainers and I got super fit and healthy while I was doing that. Only stopped because I had to move away for work, and never been able to find anything like it since.
I am also a 2017 veteran. I lost a lot and was within 5kg of my goal weight, but couldn’t sustain it. Peri-menopause plus my accident really wreaked havoc on my system. I am finally at the point where I feel like my hormones have stabilized enough that it is time to get serious again. I am starting to wear a continuous glucose monitor again as that was really motivating before. I decided that it was worth the out-of-pocket expense. I applied the first sensor on Wednesday, but it didn’t work. The company is sending me a replacement for that one but it won’t arrive for a couple of weeks, so I got a new one yesterday and will activate it this afternoon as it needs about 24 hrs after being inserted in your arm to give accurate results. I got the tip about inserting it the day before you activate it from an online diabetes forum. The sensors only last 14 days, so this saves you from using up a whole day with inaccurate results. Fingers crossed that this new one works. I’m not looking forward to seeing the initial results though. I know my insulin resistance has increased since I last used one, as I have new skin tags and a bigger waist circumference. But I just have to think of it as keeping my eyes on the prize and how much it will help me. I really want to beat the binge eating and get back to being more insulin sensitive. I have just over 2 months to go until my leg surgery and I think it will only help with the healing if I am healthier.

So have continued my walking, now do it 6 mins quicker than when I started.
Lost 2lbs this week which is double my goal. Doing my “10 weeks, 10 lbs” target for holiday. But part of me is a bit disappointed ….I shouldn’t be i know. But I have been so busy and not strayed from the diet at all. But when I looked up 2 lbs of fat it actually looked a lot.
Losing has definitely become harder. The 2. 5 stone came off quite well but that’s weight ive out on in last couple years. Now im back to my original need to lose weight size its a lot harder .
6 lbs off 3 stone now. Feeling positive. And walking is helping with the stresses and strains.
My mum isn’t coping very well and its a struggle for me im not going to lie. But im feeling strong and trying ready for hols. Hope everyone is OK. Xx

Morning all!

POOTLE I am so impressed with your ability to lose so much weight twice. Very well done – you are an inspiration! And I’m so sorry to hear about your brother, particularly the awful circumstances of his death and the limitations on your grieving. That’s so sad. And it feels so strange now to look back on those times when everything was so very different. I’m so glad that you have managed to move forward in terms of your own health and wellbeing since those dark days.

HEIDI you have also done really well to lose your weight twice, and how lovely to be able to put away those larger sized trousers and look good in the 16s. I hope that at some stage you might start needing the smaller ones too – especially as sizes vary so much. So don’t rule them out : you are really on a roll right now!

CATHY it sounds like you are doing all the right things and I’m so disappointed for you that weight is not coming off. I wish I knew what to suggest. I would only echo what HEIDI said in terms of increasing protein (which is often difficult for vegetarians) and also VERANO’s advice to check the carbs. But I think your attitude about getting as far as you can this year then accepting yourself as you are is a very positive one. Whilst on the one hand doing all we can to keep fit and well is really important, on the other hand we don’t want to be completely obsessed with it to the extent where it is interfering with enjoying day to day life. As MARIET said “my longing to achieve my goal was robbing me of life happiness.”

MARIET do let us know how you get on with your hand surgery. You’ve had a rough time recently in terms of medical/dental intervention. I do hope that this will be the end of it for a while. And I’m so glad that your mother is feeling less anxious now. I used to find it so hard seeing my mum struggle in terms of decreasing mobility and ability to do things. She did her best to put a brave face on it but it must be so awful to be in that position. I hope that she is now able to enjoy some of the good things in life again.

ARCTICFOX how is the garlic harvest going? I so admire your resilience! What will you do with all the garlic? Is it all for home use or do you sell some of It on? I’m always in awe of your growing and farming abilities, and that you manage to keep your eating on track at the same time.

I’ve had a pretty good week so far. No further loss, but after a bit of a regain over the weekend, I am now maintaining the three pounds off from last week. So here’s hoping more will follow. I went to see a fabulous hotel pool / spa / gym yesterday which I think I may join although it’s very expensive. I’m off to see another one later which is cheaper but is further away whereas yesterday’s is only 10 minutes away from me, so no excuse not to go every day! Will report back in due course.

Hope the rest of the week goes well for everyone X

Mariet- good to read your post and so sad to read about your mum’s recent anxiety episode. How sad for you to see her suffering. I’m glad she is feeling better. It must be very scary getting old and feeling vulnerable. I hope your surgery went well today. I do feel we are lucky to live in the 21st century with the wonders of medical science. I hope you have not ended up having the amputation and that the surgeon was able to fuse your joints . Get well soon. I am having my big toes fused later this year. I am slowly being rebuilt!
It does feel so much harder to lose weight now and so like you I am coming to terms with new goals and looking forward to maintenance next year. Whatever I weigh at the end of the year I am calling it a day and accepting that weight and will then ensure I continue to maintain. It feels like a good decision for me. I am grateful to everyone for your kind advice and wise words .
How is everyone else on this thread? Yowser, I hope you are OK? SueBlue- how are you? I’m going for a brisk walk around the top deck and I hope to see you all out and about.

Hi everyone. Happy Wednesday.
1) my supermarket delivery came yesterday. As I was manhandling a pack of 6 x 1.5 litre bottles, I realised that I have now lost more than that weight since 25 May. A good feeling.
2) a friend asked me on Monday if I had lost weight. Good to know that there is now a difference to spot!
3) hubby and I have a lovely quiet day today, enjoying each other’s company. Looking forward to chilling and enjoying the garden.

Have a good day everyone.

Hi everyone, haven’t looked in for a while but I’m reading so the posts and always meaning to reply but some how time gets away from me. My mother (91) who lives with my younger brother but is quite independent has just come through a horrid period of crippling anxiety which seemed to come from nowhere and take over her life. She couldn’t put it down to anything initially and of course, when you most want them, doctors are away or appointments unavailable. Anyway after some really hard weeks she has been started on an anti anxiety med which has done wonders for her and she’s just about back to normal.
She told me the other day that she thinks it came from two things, one that her BIL (also 91) fell and broke his hip and was hospitalised and won’t be able to go back to his own home. The other was her own birthday and the sudden fear that this kind of episode might be in her own future. I can see how scary that must be but I hope never to go through that with her again. It’s terrible to see such suffering and be totally unable to relieve it. All my siblings except the brother she lives with are out of Sydney and with all the will in the world, couldn’t be here with her.
I’ve been reading the troubles that so many on our cruise are facing as well. I feel so much for you and am amazed by the toughness and bravery of how you cope.
C Cathy, another 2017 veteran here and I remember the happiness e all felt as we hit our targets then. I don’t know why it was so much easier the first time and do hard now. I am the same height as you and much the same age. I’ve also reconsidered my goal which previously was 62kg or 136lb. Now I am trying to maintain at 67kg or 148lb. Yes there are still some bulges that I wish were not there but I also came to the conclusion that my longing to achieve my goal was robbing me of life happiness. I don’t have your health challenges and only you can decide but it’s hard to describe the lightness I felt when I accepted this weight as the end of my weight loss goal. Now the equally challenging maintenance goal is here for the rest of my life!
Tomorrow I am going to hospital for the seventh and final operation on my hand for Dupuytrens disease. If successful some fingers will be fused in a curved position, if unsuccessful they will be amputated at the first finger joint. The surgeon is hopeful but realistically there is a good chance I’ll have a stubby hand from tomorrow on. Luckily it’s my left hand and I’m right handed!😁
Congratulations to those seeing progress and thinking positive thoughts for all who are struggling xx

Wow Verano, that sounds delicious….hope it turns out well!! Sorry you are struggling to find positives, but that is a really good one!

On a positive roll with food:

1) I found a brilliant recipe by Luv2cook on this site, Broccoli sandwich bread. It has really given me a boost…I can make my packed meals so much more easily with this and it has filled a ‘gap’ in my repertoire, that has been a problem since I started the BSD. Still to try the Cauliflower version, but the Broccoli one is delicious!!

2) in the Life Without Diabetes Cookbook, I found a chocolate mousse recipe that is giving me a change from Greek yoghurt as a ‘dessert’. I have to have something to finish a meal…and was getting pretty bored with yoghurt!

3) My Celeriac plants are doing well….I’m now talking to them…telling them that I expect them to grow very big and strong! (First time I have grown Celeriac!)

Hope you are all finding some positives in your day!

Hi Cathy, You have a huge amount of issues to juggle, and I am full of admiration for your determination. You are already at the high end of a healthy BMI for someone over 60, as I understand it. So you should be patting yourself on the back for what you have achieved so far. My post was taking issue with your mention of “defeat” if you choose eventually to recalibrate your goals. I thought you were being hard on yourself . But it looks from your final paragraph as if I was reading too much into it. Wishing you all the best in the run up to your cruise!

Yes I guess I should ‘pop in’……
Very difficult at the moment to find a positive but I will ….. making duck and watermelon salad for dinner tomorrow. A wonderful dish we ate on a cruise and am now going to try and replicate tomorrow and the bonus is its very low carb!

Cathy can I just pop in here and say it’s not weight per se that affects ‘diabetes’ but carbohydrates! Please forget your weight for the moment and take a look at the amount of carbs you’re eating. If you can stay at 50g a day you might find a great improvement in your bloods.
Just give it a go.
Good luck!

Time for more positives …..
🙂🙂 lovely catch up with youngest DD over lunch today.
🌹🌹 had notification from a seller, that a particular rose I’ve been seeking is now available again and have successfully placed an order. Now I just have to wait until early winter for it to get despatched.
🌦🌦 have been enjoying the rain showers and the garden is definitely appreciating them too.

Hope plenty of positives have been littering your day too.

Hello Heidi
To answer your question about why i feel I want to throw the towel in and accept defeat- I’ve been battling with trying to lose about one stone for a very long time. I’ve tried fasting, time restricted eating, counting calories, keto, low carb. I’m fed up of trying to get my weight to about 145 lb. I am currently at 155 lbs.The weight doesn’t budge. I want to be as near a normal healthy weight as I can. My BMI is 29 and I’d like to aim for a BMI of 27. I have arthritis and being overweight is no good for my joints. Am 5’2” and being small I don’t carry weight well. My HbA1c has risen to 43 so I am now pre diabetic and I know I am carrying too much weight and my cholesterol was also slightly elevated so I have been advised to eat less fat so I’ve gone back onto skimmed milk and 0% Greek Yoghurt! . The aging process as well as my feet issues – plantar fasciitis and hallux rígidus have slowed me down and I find I can only walk about 7000 steps a day. Having said that I did 13,000 steps this weekend!! I’m paying the price now! Maybe you’re spot on and I am fighting with my own body. I will try and up my protein intake. I eat Greek Yoghurt, eggs, cottage cheese, nuts, tofu but have eliminated cheese in an effort to try and get my cholesterol down. I have also stopped eating butter to try and get my cholesterol back down. I won’t take a statin. Can you see why I feel I am battling? Sugar doesn’t play a part in my diet and I’ve just read the new edition of Life without diabetes by Professor Taylor and it’s clear that I’m pre diabetic as I am carrying too much fat. So I’m trying to reduce my weight, reduce my cholesterol, reverse my pre diabetes. I am limited to what exercise I can do because of my painful feet so aim to walk 7000 steps a day . Today I ate my first meal at 1.30 pm and had Greek Salad with feta and a nice lemon dressing and I’m making plant based chilli tonight which I will have with tender stem broccoli and strawberries with Greek Yoghurt. I’m giving it my best shot before heading off on my cruise on 8th August. I will never take my eye off the ball where my health is concerned but maybe trying to achieve my “ideal weight” of 145 lb (revised since 2017 when it was 133 lb) is too much of a challenge.
I am not stepping off this cruise but I might have to readdress my goal! I want to step off this cruise ship in December knowing I did my best this year and whatever happens then I will accept that. I’m going to focus on maintenance from January no matter what happens and if my set weight is 155 and my BMI is set at 29 then I will accept that. I can’t keep beating myself up year after year jist because I can’t get my weight down to where I want it to be.

DCT Go for it! We are all worth it. x

Hi POOTLE, and thank you for your kind words and encouragement. I am really sorry to hear of your brother’s death and in such awful covid circumstances. That must be incredibly hard to live through. I was very encouraged by your weight/health story though. I am just sorting through my trousers, which vary in size from 12 to 20. I’ve put away the 12s, 14s and 20s and one of my goals is to look good in the 16s! It does take a real act of will to do it all over again. I have now lost 3 stone three times over, twice with WW and once with BSD, and I know I will be healthier in all sorts of ways if I get back to a sensible weight. It’s difficult sometimes not to beat yourself up for the pounds creeping back on. But that is water under the bridge.

CATHY “Part of me wants to throw in the towel and accept defeat”. That left me wondering what battle you are fighting, why and how! Only you can work out what is best for you. But if your choice is for a different goal, or different method, or whatever, it can be a positivie choice surely, not a defeat? Your will power is clearly beyond doubt, and you are eating healthily. It sounds a bit as if you are at war with your own body, rather than with sugar/ultra processed food etc. Have you had a look at the amount of protein you are eating to see if you should be raising the level? I know I bang on about it, but it just makes sense to me that the job of the brain is to ensure you are sufficiently nourished. If you don’t have enough protein, it will message to hold on to available stores. How many grams do you have a day? All that said, the weight figures you mention are beyond my wildest dreams, so (as before) who am I to comment!

Like you, Cathy, I felt with BSD that I had hit the jackpot. I don’t expect to get back to the weight I reached then – the lowest in 30 years at the time – but if I can get to the top end of my healthy BMI at 60+, then that will be my healthy “why” accomplished… So 4 kilos to go for that first goal. Keep on keeping on…

Thanks for bumping the Good Eats thread, Pootle. It made me remember about the cauliflower tortillas that I discovered way back when. Now I’m realizing that they were gluten free. I am struggling with shop bought wraps not holding together and a lot of them don’t have great ingredients either. This original recipe uses eggs, which I’m still not coping well with, but I have had success substituting flax in other recipes, so may give that a go with this one too. Just have to finish harvesting all the garlic so I can get my life back for a few weeks before I have to clean it all! About 1/2 out of the ground now.
https://www.wholesomeyum.com/recipes/cauliflower-tortillas-recipe/

Thank you very much Kath & I hope you are sleeping better now?
My return to much lower carb eating will have to wait awhile until I can stand & get back in the kitchen! I am very grateful to my husband helping me so much & I don’t know how someone living alone could cope returning home after knee replacement surgery.
Amusingly when we first got married my husband was the more adventurous cook having completed a Cordon Bleu cookery course! But we soon adopted the more usual pattern of me cooking & doing housework things whilst he has always been good at practical stuff being an engineer & gardening because I don’t have very green fingers although my house plants have survived well😂
I may challenge my husband to cook a meal from scratch to see how he gets on perhaps starting with an omelette ?😀
Keep on going everyone & take care.
Margaret xx

Yes seem to have given up so much. Have t drunk wine ina long time due to the calories etc. But I do love a short, like rum, vodka, gin etc. With coke zero or something.
Need to rein that in a bit, got into a habit of enjoying the evening sun and having a few glasses.
So strictly weekends only from now on. 🥲
It’s definitely not helping the weight loss.
However I am still getting up most days and heading for my walk. 2.2 miles around local reservoir. Non stop. It’s so beautiful. Free and helps the soul.
Not going today as have the house clean to do so that will keep me active.
I have 10 weeks until my holiday and have devised a pound a week loss in my head.
I think I can do it ,.onwards and upwards. X

Just come across this thread, so bumping it up … I think extremely useful as I try to maintain !! 😄

Evening all, I hope you don’t mind a ‘newbie’ butting in. I know ow that all the old hands have soo much more experience than I do, but I want to let you know that you aren’t alone!

Heidi, I wasn’t on the BSD or Fast 800 in 2017, but I was dieting! Not only because, over the years, my weight had climbed, but also to help husband lose before an operation. From January 2017 to July 2018 I lost 56lb and went down 4 dress sizes…however even then my pre diabetic numbers were climbing. I kept the weight off until late 2020…the pandemic and the death of my only brother ( not permitted to be with him, or even see him through a window still hurts) made me gradually start to put weight back on. In July 2024 I had put on 70lb, gone up 5 dress sizes and become diabetic. I am sad that you ‘feel ashamed at putting your weight back on”.

We are all human, stresses and emotional events will affect us in different ways, but they will affect us! I think having the courage to recognise that you are ready for another go is brilliant.

CATHY, taking the time to think about why you are trying and what you want as an outcome, is part of making the right decisions for you. And don’t forget, it is ‘YOU’ that is important. Not what anyone else might think or say. Anyone with empathy and experience will applaud you for taking control.

DCT, I think taking control with changing the venue for your exercise is a great step….can’t wait to hear how you get on.

Heidi- thank you for taking the time to post about my dilemma! You have definitely not spoken out of turn and I am grateful for your advice and helpful comments. I lost 42lb in 2017 and put back on 20lb. I don’t even know how I managed to get so low as 133 lb but I did and my couldn’t maintain it. Like DCT I am intrigued as to who you were and I hope I would remember you 😊 It’s sad that you felt shame and therefore felt you had to change your name. I feel I have the most willpower out of anyone I know- my fiends tell me the same! Through thick and thin I’ve tried a variety of ways to lose weight and when i found the BSD I hit the jackpot and lost 3 stone albeit slowly. For the last couple of years I can’t seem to lose except a few pounds and then they go back on and then they come off and I’m getting fed up. I’m going to think about the why? It’s a really interesting question. I am vegetarian and eat a healthy diet but I feel I am constantly battling to keep the scales from creeping up. Anyway, just wanted to say thank you do your thoughts and I am going to seriously think about my why! Part of me wants to throw in the towel and accept defeat.
DCT- I’m really pleased your treating yourself to something lovely. You deserve it.

Margaret, Brilliant to hear you have had the op and are home! Keep up the good work and heal quickly! Give your husband a great pat on the back…mine would find cooking for us an impossibility! Thinking of you and wishing you a speedy recovery!
xx Kath.

Hello S-G & very kind of you to message me. My op was now one week ago & I came home after the third day. I’m ok but trying to balance pain meds with the side effects & unfortunately still as usual spending lots of pennies through the night which exercises my leg of course but continues to interrupt my sleep. I am tired & Tramadol of course is a soporific & also causes constipation which is inconvenient 🤔🙁. My leg is very swollen & black & blue because of the blood thinner I have to take for another week & I do wish I wasn’t pear shaped with my extra weight on my thighs & legs 😀.
I’m pleased to hear that your cousin is doing well & I have a check up in a weeks time when I’m told the clips will be taken out & I will be reviewed in the physio department. I am doing all my exercises & my husband is doing stirling work feeding me & supervising me exercising 😀. We are eating more M & S convenience meals to make catering simpler but also lots of veg & pulses.
I sympathise Pootle with your dessert eating because it is very difficult to resist when placed in front of you. My husbands idea of portion size is also much larger than mine😂
Take care everyone & take it day by day doing the best that you can 👍
Margaret xx

HEIDI I completely agree with everything you say. And now I’m intrigued as to what your previous username was 😊. Lovely to interact with you as your new identity, and we probably know each other also from 2017!

I’m having a serendipitous weekend! Having been low carb all week, the social scene has kicked in and brought its own challenges. The buffet at a friends party yesterday made me realise how brown many carby foods are! And a slug of Prosecco – which I usually love – just tasted like liquid sugar. Between them though another pound has jumped back on 🤬 Lesson learned. I feel like I’m on the brink of another step forward in terms of breaking bad habits. Here’s hoping 🤞

On a more positive note, I’m going to look round a couple of local hotels with pools this week. I’ve been a member of a big chain gym and pool for quite a while now but have gradually stopped going because I just don’t like it any more. Noisy, blokey and smelly!! So I recently cancelled it rather than continue to throw money away. But I want – and need – to have somewhere to exercise, so have been having a big think about what is important to me. And have concluded (I think!) that if I’m going to pay to go somewhere I’d rather pay more and go somewhere nicer. A bit of a breakthrough for me as – a bit like ARCTICFOX has said – I’m always reluctant to put myself first and do things for me. But I thought as long as I’m still doing freelance work after retiring why not splash out on myself. So will be looking at nearby hotels with pool / spa / gym to find a place I can swim, exercise in peace and also rest and relax. Will report back in due course!

Hi all, time for my weekly check in. I have enjoyed another week of healthy eating with no major wobbles – just one small baked potato. I have discovered Lidl’s 85 per cent chocolate which is absolutely delicious. Particularly when crunched with a walnut…. That aside, I am not having much in the way of cravings. For me that is the most important benefit, since I had gone so far off track because of comfort and stress eating. I lost a kilo this week, so am now down 9.1 kilos since 25 May.

CATHY I have been thinking a lot about your post and whether to add my twopence worth. We both joined this site in 2017, both lost a lot a weight (me 20 kilos from Oct 2017 to I think June 2018). But you managed to keep a lot of that weight off. I, on the other hand, put most of it back by the end of COVID, and then added more after my husband’s diagnosis. So not sure if I have the right to comment. I even changed my user name out of shame!

Clearly there is no conflict between appreciating all that you have as well as eating healthily. It is the next step of depriving yourself by lowering calorie intake.. JGwen used to talk about the WHY. Why have you got a particular number in your head? BMI healthy ranges are so wide now, that you may already qualify as healthy? Is there a particular wobbly bit that bothers you, and would targeted exercise be better? Do you want to get into a a particularly swish outfit? Give yourself wriggle room for the holiday…?

Once you kinow your WHY then perhaps look again at the HOW. As DCT says, maybe you are reaching your settled weight, which may be different now from some years ago? Or could you be eating too little protein and thus holding on to reserves just in case? As you say, life is there to be enjoyed. A satisfying healthy diet is an integral part of that. Your friend’s death, and my weekly visits with husband to chemo are confronting experiences and do make us appreciate all that we have and how precious life is. And how life needs to be supported and enhanced by feeding ourselves properly. I do wish you all the very best in the balancing the arguments. And I remain in awe that you, unlike me, succeeded in keeping some of the original pounds off!

I hope I haven’t spoken out of turn. And am also sending lots of good wishes to Arcticfox, DCT and Dawn and all others in the group.x

Good afternoon all!

An interesting weekend….very sleepless night on Friday, (about 2 hours in total!) Weather as unpredictable as my weight etc !!

Husband said ‘let’s eat out’ yesterday…so lunch of steak and salad, then I completely spoiled my restricted carb intake by having a chocolate brownie with cream…it was huge, and I ate it all!!! (If only husband would have one and let me have a spoonful taster….but he won’t! Once I have whole dessert on a plate in front of me, my self control just evaporates!)

Today, as we left church, he suggested Sunday Lunch out too. This time I was much more focussed! Roast beef and turkey, cauliflower, broccoli, swede and a few peas…no stuffing, or potato and only ate half the Yorkshire pudding! We didn’t have dessert! Came home for coffee!

I have been browsing the recipes on this site…found broccoli or cauliflower bread…so going to try that this week!

I hope you have all had a great weekend…not mentioning you all individually, but know that I am thinking about you all!!
xx

Just popped in to say hi to Margaret. When you posted on 6th July you said surgery this Saturday so I assume it was last week. Anyway, you should have had the op by now so wishing you a speedy recovery. My cousin had the same op a few weeks ago and it doing well.

Daughter sat in East Midlands airport with a lager waiting for their flight so we will be leaving here in 2 hours to pick them up. All the best to everyone and thank you Pootle for keeping it going.

Thanks Articfox, I will try the things you suggested and see how I get on. I hope you manage to get the garlic harvest completed without too many more interruptions. The EMDR sessions sound as though they will be really helpful but I would imagine can be exhausting too. I’m pleased the second X-ray of your hand confirmed it isn’t broken.
Dawn XX

Hi everyone,
Checking in quickly. I’m in the middle of garlic harvest, well not the middle, I’m only 1/4 done but had to stop because of the rain making everything too wet for now. Hopefully will be back at it tomorrow.
Heidi- well done on your loss so far.
Cathy- I hear you on the weight that won’t budge. Once I get through the garlic harvest, I will focus more on building muscle. I think that will help me the most as I age and hopefully might end up burning some extra calories for me too. I was slim-est (not lightest) as an adult when I was weight lifting regularly.
Dawn – I’ve had to go lower fat too with my gastritis. Saturated fats in particular seem to set things off, so I use more olive and canola oil. I also use high fibre foods like flax and chia and legumes to fill up instead of the fat. Hope that helps a bit.
So, I had a really tough EMDR session yesterday around the feelings of not being cared for that lead to binge eating. Turns out it is heavily tied to not feeling worthy or not deserving care from others, and it is amazing how far back this goes. The EMDR digs a lot of stuff up from very early childhood. The memory we were working from was when I was probably not much more than 2 years old. I thought we would be working from memories from my teenage years or just before because that was when I started binge eating, but the feelings of not being cared for are from much earlier. It turns out that my teen years were just when I started having access to the foods to comfort myself because my mum was working and I could strategically raid the cupboards. Before that, she was always at home and maintained pretty strict control over the fridge and cupboards, and we were never given any pocket money so I couldn’t have bought any food myself. We’ll have to see if this session has any effect. It sometimes takes a while for the reprocessing to happen after a session.
Anyway, I had to have a second x-ray of my hand this week to confirm for sure that it isn’t broken. They were seeing a shadow on the first x-ray, but it seems it was an old partial fracture that has healed and is stable. No idea how or when I did that! Anyway, just soft tissue to mend. Unfortunately, due to the garlic harvest, I can’t rest it right now. Wearing a snug glove helps though.

Thanks DCT, I’ve been on the MFP app this afternoon tweaking things on my nutrient goals and think I’ve managed to work out which percentages would work to make my food plans lower fat for the time being but still low carb and high in protein so will see how that goes🤞Dawn XX

DAWN so sorry you are having all these glitches. I hope that you can get back on the system and get fast tracked for your gall bladder removal. So frustrating!! I’m not an expert but would have thought the BSD WoE would be fine for your diet for now, but maybe with lower fat options if that is recommended. But do see if you can get clearer guidance from someone involved with your care. I really hope that you get some resolution on all this soon.

Best wishes, DCT X

Hi everyone and well done on the 3lb loss DCT.
I’m having a bit of a frustrating day, 2 weeks since I left hospital and I still haven’t even received a discharge letter(there were no staff available to properly discharge me on the day so I was asked if I would mind if it was done by post which I was fine with) and nothing to say I was on a list of any kind for my gallbladder removal. The consultant had told me I could either stay in hospital to wait for the operation or he could put me on an outpatient list to have my operation within the month as he said it was unlikely the acute pancreatitis would recur within a month. I decided to ring the hospital today, I didn’t want to be a nuisance but I had a niggling feeling I may get ‘forgotten about’ especially as there was nothing on my NHS app records regarding my transfer to a different hospital from A&E. I eventually got to speak to the consultant’s secretary who was very nice but there was no record of me being on any list or discharged (or I got the feeling, of even being in that hospital but I may be wrong, when I speak to her again I will clarify that) it’s all very worrying as the consultant is now on leave for 2 weeks so goodness knows when my gall bladder removal which needed doing ‘within the month’ 2 weeks ago will now get done. I said ‘so if I get the pain again should I just go to A&E’ and she said yes. She also said to watch my diet and keep to low fat food. Everything I read about pancreatic health says to eat low fat dairy etc which goes against everything I’ve learned in the past few years about eating healthily so it’s hard to know what to believe. I’m just feeling confused about it all at the minute😩 Dawn X

CATHY I agree so much with what you say in your post and didn’t find it negative at all. I think each one of us needs to find the right balance between being content and grateful with all that we are and all the good things that we have, whilst at the same time working to make positive improvements to our health and wellbeing. I’ve been thinking along similar lines to you in that I definitely do need to lose weight and body fat at the moment, but do I really need to doggedly pursue my long term target if that isn’t achievable or desirable/healthy for me? Right now I’d be happy to see some significant loss and end up a few pounds over my original target weight if I feel healthy and am happy with how I look at that point. I don’t want to be obsessed by numbers, but by wellbeing.

I read something else interesting today about “settled weight”. I’m sure it’s been mentioned on these forums before. But, as I understand it, your body kind of wants you to be a certain weight and if you go below that it will gradually ensure that you put the weight back on again to get back to your settled weight (though, sadly , I don’t think it works the other way round!). That may be a rubbish explanation, and it’s something I want to look into more but don’t have time today. But yet more food for thought so to speak . . . .
Anyway CATHY just to say you are not being negative and I think many of us are on the same page : wanting to achieve our best weight , health and wellbeing whilst also enjoying every moment of life the way we are now. And I hope that you get good results from your appointment next week. Will be thinking of you X