YOWZER lovely to hear from you and thanks so much for the positive thought. It can be easy to fritter away time or spend it in a negative frame of mind whereas we should really be grateful for every minute and put it to good use – even if that means taking time to care for ourselves and rest and relax. I’m very good at being busy for busy’s sake, if that makes sense!

CATHY very well done for your ongoing loss. That’s fantastic! Are you noticing changes to your body and clothes as well as on the scales? I’m so pleased for you. Also good to hear your tooth is now gone. And I hope you get your new hair system sorted quickly.

ARCTICFOX well done for staying on track despite a disappointing weekend. It’s so easy to turn to eating or drinking all the wrong things when we feel fed up or frustrated, even though that then exacerbates the negative mood!

BECCA I’ve lost track : have you been on your holiday yet or is that still to come? Either way, I hope you have/had a wonderful time!

I had an unexpected gain of almost 2lb this morning which was disappointing. But then I had a thought. I’m on antibiotics at the moment and I Googled it and found that they can cause weight gain due to messing with your gut microbiome. Things like probiotics and fermented food can help so I’ll look out for those when I go shopping today, and the antibiotics are only for a couple more days so hopefully any effect will be short lived anyway 🤞 (btw it turns out that after my fall in NYC the broken tooth is still embedded in my lip! It has become slightly infected so the antibiotics are to deal with that. I’m being referred to a dental surgeon to remove it. Will keep you posted . . . )

Hope that everyone has a good week. Here’s to more losses 🙂. I’ll report back at the end of the week X

Oh wow, Newbie, I read your list and while you are on a pretty good track, the blueberries jumped out at me right away. You are consuming 12-15g of carbs in blueberries alone. As Verano says, if you can stick to blackberries, raspberries and strawberries which have less than half the carbs, that is a good tweak for now. If you do that and cut the portion of fruit in your yogurt by half and add a few nuts and some seeds like hemp or pumpkin (bonus, these are also very high in magnesium and diabetics often have a magnesium deficiency and it is a super important nutrient for glucose metabolism), you will improve the composition of your breakfast by a lot. Of course it is much better to be eating fruit than sweets and bread, so if you need them for now until you manage to change your tastes, that is fine. I’ve had to ditch the blueberries too. I thought I was doing a healthy thing by eating them as a dessert, but they were spiking my blood sugar a lot. I’m down to one portion of fruit per day. Maybe try snacking on some low carb veggies like bell peppers and cucumbers in addition or add a high fibre, high protein item with them? I like lupini beans for this. I toast them in the oven with a bit of salt and 3 tbsp of nutritional yeast. The nutritional yeast is great for adding in B vitamins that you might be missing from cutting your grains back, and is a good source of iron as well. I get the lupini beans from a local Mediterranean shop, so if you have an Italian or Greek shop nearby, you may have luck finding them there. I looked it up and it seems Tesco may have them too. They are cheaper dried, but they are quite hard to prepare (they have to soak in constant changes of water for weeks on end to get all the bitterness out) so I just go with the pre-cooked ones.
You’re already doing well to get your carbs under 100g. Keep it up! This is a learning process and you can’t be expected to know it all at once. I still get shocked by some things. I had to stop eating imitation crab. I thought it was just pollock soaked in crab brine, but I was getting it at the fish counter in the supermarket so it wasn’t labelled and I didn’t know that was what was spiking me until I saw the reading on the cgm after eating it in nori wraps with avocado and cucumber (so I knew it had to be the only thing that could have caused the spike). I looked into it and realized that they also add loads of sugar to the brine. So we all get tripped up now and then.

Wow, carbs before I started the BSD were up to 250 (on a bad day) so I’ve cut them down to under 100g I’m happy, will see if the tweaks above help too

Hi Verano, I use my fitness pal to log all my food as I’ve used it for years and found it quite reliable so far. I didnt realise blueberries were so high, I shall keep them for my breakfast and cut them out for my afternoon fruit and stick to strawberries thank you for the info. In all fairness this batch of granola has some oats in which I shall omit next time round and keep it to nuts and seeds. I will have a go with the bulgar wheat and keep to a low portion to ring the changes with cauliflower rice. Thank you for the advice, im intrigued by what my carb intake was prior to this so shall go back through MFP and have a look. Have a good day all

Thank you Yowser for your thought for Monday morning. What a wonderful, inspiring post.
I am feeling so much better since the tooth has been extracted. No earache and no gum ache. There.does not appear to be any involvement with the sinus and everything seems intact! Phew! I’ve been very lucky and so thankful to the wonderful Oral Surgeon who was so kind. Am so grateful for his expertise.
I still can’t believe how well I am doing to lose 22 lb in the last few weeks – I am the lightest weight I’ve been since June 2019! This morning I was 144.2 lb. All those years of getting absolutely nowhere! The difference has been sticking rigidly to 800 calories and doing keto and NOT CHEATING ONCE! I am lucky to have a superpower of willpower! I’ve eaten fresh food for the last 10 weeks whilst doing the online plan. I can’t eat nuts and seeds for two weeks til things start to heal up in my mouth and I’m missing them. I’ve had no crisps, chocolate, chips, cakes, biscuits, bread, crackers. Not even a crumb or a rogue chip that fell off my husband’s plate! I really hope my HbA1c reflects my effort at the end of April. I’ll keep going til the end of April then take a few days off for my book club holiday to Corfu and then get straight back to basics. My plan is to enjoy holidays, festivities etc and then in between eat keto and be mindful. Let’s see what happens. I know maintenance will be hard.
Have a good week everyone. We’ve got this. I think we really have!

BTW Arcticfox I made a variation of your yogurt dressing and it’s lovely. Gone are my mayo days!

Newbie it looks like you have lots of good low carb stuff but I wonder how you calculate your carbs? Do you use an app like fatsecret? The reason I ask is that it seems to me that there are one or two items that maybe you don’t realise are pretty high carb. Strawberries are around 4g per 100g whereas blueberries are almost 15g per 100g. Maybe have a few more strawberries in the afternoon and fewer or no blueberries. I have no idea how many carbs there are in the granola you’re having but maybe leave that out and just add 10g of walnuts?
Bulgar wheat isn’t too bad but lentils and pearl barley are pretty high and make sure you are checking the carbs in cooked v dry because the difference is huge!

Truthfully, if you were to calculate the number of carbs you were eating on average day pre-blood sugar diet you will be shocked, maybe even horrified! If you having less than 100g a day that actually is low carb compared to an ‘average’ persons diet. Don’t stress too much about the number and just follow the general rule of not eating bread, pasta, rice and any vegetables that grow underground and you’ll be fine.

Thank you Arcticfox. I live in the UK and have looked but neither of the lupini beans or rapini seem readily available, so I shall keep my eyes peeled for those when I’m out and about.

Verano –
Breakfast at 10am is 100g Greek yoghurt, 50g raspberries and 50g blueberries, fiber supplements, and 2 tablespoons of homemade granola following a recipe I found on this site. Lunch is mixed salad (pepper, cucumber, celery, radish, asparagus, cherry tomatoes, small amount of sweetcorn) with either tuna or chicken, no dressing. Snack at 3pm of 50g strawberries, 50g blueberries, 50g blackberries (I need this to help me get through the afternoon at work or I’ll go home and snack on naughty stuff). Dinner is a meat protein, veg including tenderstem broccoli, beans, spinach, cabbage etc, and cauliflower rice (almost for every dinner), sometimes I have lentils or konjac rice, I’ve got edamame noodles and black bean noodles to try and bulgar wheat and pearl barley, (once a fortnight I may have 25g lentil pasta), followed by a sugar free jelly or if calories allow a small piece of 85% dark chocolate (finish eating by 7pm). Cup of tea at 8.30 and 2-3litres of water during the day.

Good morning!

Wendy a loss is a loss!

Pootle well done! I think you have found the secret in cutting back straight after any indulgent time that way you don’t ’drift’ back into bad habits.

Becca it’s a good idea to write down what you are going to eat BEFORE eating then you might decide to leave something off your plate! Have you tried Greek yogurt instead of cream? It’s so easy to underestimate how much cream you are actually pouring. Also it might be an idea to try and do without the sweetener that way you do eventually lose any ‘sweet tooth’ and in fact I find lots of foods too sweet now!

Newbie what a good idea to print of the sheets and pin them to your fridge. I don’t know if you used the dietdoctor site but that has brilliant graphics.

Anyway, the sun is shining here this morning, hope it is with you too. The start of a new week so a ‘new start’ for each of us. One day at a time….

Newbie it might be more helpful if you tell us what you eat in typical day then we might have some lower carb suggestions.

Thanks for the thought Yowzer. It certainly applies to my situation this weekend. I was enrolled in a teapot making workshop at the pottery studio. Saturday was just dreadful. I was struggling with my clay being too wet and soft and did not mesh at all with the instructor’s teaching style. I really wanted to just be able to pick up some tips and tricks, but in the end was upset at myself for getting frustrated by it all. It was so interesting that I just wanted to get off the wagon after and have some very high carb/high fat treats. So I said to myself, what could I have that would feel good? I was too tired to cook, so I decided on palak paneer out of a packet and went to the supermarket to get some. It hit the spot and I avoided buying things I shouldn’t have. Then I called my godmother and had a good chat. I went back to class today and although I still wasn’t meshing with the instructor, it went better and I got more out of it.
I stopped at the organic market where I get my soy free tofu and duck eggs on the way home and I did splurge on a few things that will just make my life a bit easier now that I am headed into busy season on the farm. They were supposed to have gluten free keto bread on special, but they didn’t have any left, so I did get some buns and a pizza base instead. Also, I got some almond flour cookies and some hemp seed protein bars. Then I found cauliflower oven chips! They are pretty highly processed, but very low carb, so will do for an occasional treat on a day when I don’t feel like cooking from scratch, and will be nice with the fish filets I have in my freezer. So hopefully all these things will allow me to stay on track even on busy or upsetting days.
So, there were times when I definitely would have used being upset and tired as a reason to abandon this way of eating, but I’m quite proud that I remembered what kind of weekend I would like to be having eating-wise and how I need to stay on track for at least 3 months to meet my initial goal and I’m only on week 5. Actually, next week will be week 6, so half way!

Hi Newbie,
I don’t typically count my grams, but I am eating very low carb at the moment. I note from one of your other posts that you sometimes have a small slice of bread or some lentil pasta. I am celiac, so can’t have bread anyway (except for gluten-free keto bread, but it is very expensive so I rarely indulge). Before going this low carb, I would sometimes have lentil or chickpea pasta as well, but I realized by wearing the cgm that it was spiking my blood sugar. In fact, even chickpeas and lentils themselves are spiking my glucose at the moment which can lead to overnight crashes (reactive hypoglycemia) for me. It’s too bad because they are so healthy otherwise. But my goal is to be less insulin resistant and more metabolically flexible so they are off the table for now. So, at the moment, if I want noodles, I have konjac/shiritake noodles or zucchini noodles or thinly sliced cabbage (instead of chow mein noodles for instance). Instead of lentils or chickpeas, I have lupini beans which are higher in protein and much lower in carbs. My other low carb proteins are duck eggs, soy free tofu (allergic to soy and have a chicken egg intolerance), hemp seeds, Greek yogurt, different types of fish and seafood, and a few nuts and a bit of cheese. I combine these with lots of low carb veg and nori seaweed snacks for iodine and salt and incorporate nutritional yeast for iron and B vitamins. If you want to lower carbs further, look for things like rapini instead of broccoli. Broccoli is a very healthy vegetable, but subbing rapini for it half the time will lower your carb intake, especially if you eat it as often as I do (3+ times per week). I try to also have lower carb nuts, so macadamia nuts or pecans instead of cashews, for instance. Put together, all these little swaps can really add up over the course of a day or week.
Hope this helps.

Hello all, I was diagnosed in December 2025, so I’m new to the whole BSD way of life but have been following it for 3 months and have lost weight and reduced my HBA1C levels by over half.

I was just wondering if people could tell me what they eat on an average day to keep their carbs below 50g. I eat all the right things but seem to never get my carbs below 50g so I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, any advice would be great and seeing what other people eat in a day would be good.

Thanks in advance

Very well done Pootle I wish that I was so self disciplined but I have managed to lose 0.5 lbs but must do much better!
I hope everyone has a good next week.
Margaret xx

Yowzer that is a superb ‘thought for the day’!
Thank you! 💐💐

Hola chums! I amstill crawlin and creepin about like a snail and havent got muchto say except mainly CCATHY,I am so pleased to hear that the tooth is out. Also well done on the weight drop! If anyonedeserves it,its you xxx
Enjoying reading everyones posts.
Love to all and specially to the newbies,you are very welcome xx
Enjoying the blossom but sad it doesnt live very long xx
Thought for Monday morning..
This is the beginning of a new day.
Youhave been given this day to use as you will.
You can waste it or use it for good.
What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.
When tomorrow comes,this day will be gone forever.
In its place will be something you have left behind.
Let it be something goodxx

🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿 🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿 🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷🌿🌷

Good evening all,
It seems to me, reading all your posts that you are all amazing in April!

I, once again, struggled with Easter, my birthday and our wedding anniversary all in the space of a week! Too much Hotel Chocolat! 🤦‍♀️
However, I am pleased to report that in the last 6 days I have been extremely strict with myself, no bad carbs, eating supper by 7.00 then getting out and about with a few jobs! So I have lost the weight I put back on over Easter and weighed in at dead on 10 stone this morning! 😄 lowest since before I indulged over Christmas! As I was 9.5 last summer, there is still a way to go but I am determined not to let it all creep back on as I did over the pandemic and illness! 15.5 stone in 2024 was incapacitating!
I still write a diary of everything I eat, but omit cups of tea and coffee! All last spring I also calculated the carb and calorie content…
Newbie, I remain low carb and did actually manage to keep under 50g for nearly a year by only eating the low carb vegetables ! I have now added carrots etc back into my diet so it is more like 80-90 now.
I printed off sheets with pics and carb levels (found on the internet) laminated and stuck them on my fridge… a good reminder of what is higher carb even if it is not high carb!
Working up to the diabetic clinic at the end of the month!! 🤞🤔
As S-G says, keeping on, keeping on!
Happy weekend everyone.
K xx

Good evening everyone, so I’ve lost 1.5lb since Easter so I’m happy with that, its very slow and steady. I’m sticking to eating between 10am and 7pm and that seems to be helping with my fasting reading so thats good, I’ve been taking the dog out after dinner for a little walk so hopefully that is helping. Ive kept a food diary and a personal feelings diary since January just to help me on the way, its nice to go back and read how I’ve been feeling etc.
I’ve been having salads for lunch everyday as it’s an easy thing for me to take to work, but I understand how everyone feels about salads in winter. What do people have for their lunches if you aren’t at home to cook anything? I made cauliflower egg fried rice today and it was actually ok I was pleasantly surprised. I’m struggling to keep my good carbs to under 50g, how is everyone doing it? I don’t have any naughty carbs and I try to be careful but by the end of the day it’s still over 50g.
I hope everyone is having a nice weekend, keep battling on 😀

OH, my gosh, Cathy, that’s terrible. I hope they waived any charge and offered you a free re-do (if a re-do is possible). I mean, you deserve some kind of compensation other than, “Oooops, sorry.”

Congratulations on the excellent weight loss this week!

ArcticFox, I hope you continue to settle in well with the new meds! And I’ve never heard of savoury cheesecake, but want to learn more, am intrigued!

–Becca

Postscript to this morning’s whine…
I actually did manage to get started today, in a manner of speaking. I had a premade protein shake followed by coffee with half-and-half (which, if you’re from outside of the US, is half cream/half milk, sold mixed together in a carton – more satisfying than milk, fewer calories than cream). Later had a small salad with ham, turkey and cheese. This evening I had a chicken thigh, a baked potato with cream cheese (yes, a potato!) and afterward some strawberries with cream and liquid allulose, which is a carb-and-calorie-free sweetener which supposedly has some possible benefits, if I remember correctly.

I feel very satisfied tonight, and kept my calories to 910 and my carbs to 50. Protein was 76 gm.

Will see if I can lose a bit before next Friday’s weigh-in. One day at a time. I feel more relaxed knowing that I’m not going to try to do without carbs entirely, which is a mistake I often make. It’s not only hard to do, but I’m convinced it raises cortisol, a stress hormone.

I like the journal idea, Verano. Just writing down what you eat, even without counting, is helpful for accountability, I think.

I’m having a hard time getting myself onboard with the idea of going back to extreme low calories and low carb, because I know it’s not sustainable for me. I tell myself, just get the weight off, and then you can work on a sustainable life plan. But as you said the other day about everything seeming stale… I feel the same. It’s all very depressing, to be honest. I’m 71 and have been doing diets since I was 14. Dieting has consumed a tremendous amount of energy in my life, and yet I still haven’t mastered intuitive healthy eating.

I fear I’ve announced an intention that I’m not really up to following through on. Maybe your idea of just writing down what I eat, and not worrying about numbers, is the most gentle and encouraging way to proceed. I bought a pretty new journal on my trip. Life is short, and food is one of my only real pleasures and comforts, so I want to honor those feelings while still taking better care of myself.

With a big sigh… Becca

Hello everyone
I slept well following my tooth extraction and went to the hair salon today which was pre arranged weeks ago but the least said about that the better! They dyed my hair system the wrong colour and now i am brown instead of salt and pepper silver grey! She apologised but the damage is done and I’ll need a new system. I am so sad!
In other more positive news I was 2.2 lb down this week. 145.2 lbs
I need to calm down after my hair disaster so that’s all for now. I’ll be back!

Good afternoon.

Arcticfox thank you for that you made me look up yogurt dressing recipes and there are loads mainly with lemon and garlic and then more or less whatever herb you fancy. I’m having fish tonight so I think I’ll make a tarragon and yogurt dressing as I don’t have any dill. I think it will be lovely with salad.

Today I started new ‘journal’ just noting down what I’m eating at each meal but not the amounts at the moment. Becca your post made me think!
So far Friday has only been ‘healthy’ with just one more meal to go!

Verano, I have to sheepishly admit that the dressing came out of a bottle, so I don’t have the exact proportions, but it is essentially Greek yogurt, lemon juice and dill.

Cathy, so happy that you finally have your tooth out and that it has gone well so far.
So after reporting about getting stuck on the couch and wondering if the medication was doing enough, I’ve had a bit of a realization after going to pottery. I am working on finishing up a special project I have been working on that has been taking a lot of concentration and I have to book back to back sessions so that the clay doesn’t dry out too much while I’m working on it. So I was in the studio yesterday afternoon for 3 hours and this morning for 3 hours. Two weeks ago I did the same and I was completely wiped out after. I had to hyperfocus to get it done and was irritated by others in the studio constantly walking past me, etc. I just came home and crashed and couldn’t get anything else done. Well, I guess I can stop wondering if the medication is doing anything other than making me calm because this time I had what I can only describe as a nice, peaceful, open focus. I could concentrate but also chat and laugh with the other people. I noticed them going past me but it wasn’t distracting so I wasn’t getting irritated. And because it was so much easier to concentrate, I was nowhere near as tired after. I was doing better with remembering to eat and drink today. I have had a headache since starting the meds but not sure if it was them or the fact that I was dehydrated. It has eased off today, so I guess I have my answer. I made the savoury cheesecake from The Stone Soup for dinner (it is in the recipe section here if any new people wish to search for it), but substituted two duck eggs for the 3 chicken eggs. I think it was better than the chicken egg version. Duck eggs make everything so nice and fluffy.

Gosh, Cathy, what a stressful and probably painful thing. I hope it’s all over now and will heal up just right and allow you to go on your trip. Also a hearty congratulations to you for your excellent result with the online program. You’ve been very disciplined, despite it having been a real challenge. Again, I hope you can really enjoy those great results on your trip, and at home, too, of course!

Welcome to Newbie and BlueOcean, and how nice it is to see fresh “voices” on here. Wishing you both a successful experience. Actually, Newbie, you’ve already accomplished so much in how far you’ve brought your A1c down. I wonder if you realize that those kind of results normally take quite a lot longer, so kudos to you.

ArcticFox, I LOVE the idea of you becoming a Diabetic Educator and helping us all navigate the path toward remission or at least improvement! Go for it, please! Maybe Fast 800 Online will employ you!

ADD and DCT, I’m right there with you as far as having been a bit lost in the woods recently. I have a bad habit of always trying to tweak and improve and personalize whatever plan I’m on, and it nearly always causes me to backslide. Well, both the over-analyzing and also the chocolate. : /

I’m starting a fresh 12 weeks tomorrow, hoping to stay very low carb. I must admit that low carb is kind of depressing to me, but that’s usually because I try to take the carbs too low. Will be careful of that this time.

Hope everyone has a lovely spring! I’m cheering you on!

–Becca

Cathy…. all sounding wonderful. Keep positive!

Hello everyone
The tooth is out. HURRAH! Seemingly one of the roots was within the sinus cavity and that’s why it was complex and he had to be careful not to perforate it. He has put a dressing in and stitched the gum closed and hopefully a clot will form and everything will be secure. He said he may have to operate further in six weeks if my voice changes or liquids come down my nostril which indicates a problem. I had to risk having it out today or waiting til after my holiday so I took a chance. If it is perforated then I won’t be able to fly on 1st May. He said he was fairly confident it would be ok. What a palaver. Anyway, I’m keeping positive – no nuts or seeds for two weeks and soft food. So lots of Greek Yoghurt, scrambled eggs, soup for me.
I’ll weigh tomorrow and I’ll be a few grams lighter without that back molar! 🦷

Good afternoon.

Arcticfox I love spinach and I must say your dressing sounds lovely…. recipe please?

Becca you’ve done really well to keep off your original weight loss. I think lots of us suffer during the winter months. You sound like you have a really solid plan now and you know I think that’s half the battle. I always think the ‘first flush’ of any eating plan is the simplest, for want of a better word, and usually the most successful part of any plan.

I think I’m just ‘stale’ . When the Blood Sugar Diet first came out it was refreshingly different. Now 10 years later, with numerous ‘scientific’ studies, lots of ‘new’ theories and endless books I know that my priority is to keep my blood sugar in the ‘normal’ range and I know that refined carbs are my ‘enemy’. I admit that over the last few years I’ve been indulging more and more in my ‘enemy’ and whilst I’ve managed to ‘manage’ my blood sugar my weight has had a ‘mind of it’s own’!

Anyway, I guess, in truth, we all actually know what we need to do and how to do it. Maybe it’s just the ‘motivation’ that’s lacking???

Just for one day let’s make Friday the day when we only eat ‘healthy’ food. One day at a time…….

I hadn’t realised how long it’s been since I last posted.
Sunny, happy hols, safe journey.

So my positives……
☀️🌈🌤️ A mixed bag of weather today but the sun is shining now!
🥦🫒🍅 Managing to stick to two meals a day at the moment so I’m really pleased about that.
🧺🧳🧺 Almost caught up with my washing. So now I a start to think about packing!

Hope you can find some positives too!

Verano, your question has jostled my thinking about what has worked for me and what has not worked for me up till now in regard to weight loss. That’s easy to answer. At the end of the year (2025), between mid-October and mid-December, I stuck mainly to 800 calories and low carb. I lost 33 pounds in 2 months. Bear in mind, I am extremely overweight, but that is still an amazing result. I also lowered my A1c from 7.5 to 6.0.

A lot of up and down since then. The bad news is that I did not keep off any more weight lost, and probably did not keep the lowered A1c, but the good news is that I kept off the initial chunk from those first two months.

So I’ve reached a fairly obvious conclusion. Go back to what was working before Christmas. Use the next 12 weeks to get off another sizeable chunk. Get the blood sugar back down. Start to build a bit of muscle strength. Clean up my sleep schedule.

Tomorrow I’ll go shopping and Friday I’ll begin. Every Friday I’ll weigh in and post here for accountability. Between April 10 and July 2, I hope to succeed in losing another good chunk of weight. Then I’ll decide how to proceed after that.

Basing this on Dr. Mosley’s Fast 800 Keto:
— 800-1000 calories
— Protein at least 60 gm, but hopefully higher.
— Carbs below 50 gm, but hopefully lower, and these should be healthy whole-food carbs like vegetables and low-sugar fruits.
— Avoid processed foods and artificial sweeteners.
— Aim for an 8-hour eating window (in my case, usually 11:30-7:30 or thereabouts).
— I’ll be trying to get to bed by 10 (will be a challenge for me) and up by 7 (also a challenge for me), so that I can be more productive in the mornings with caring for the house and yard, getting some exercise, etc. Hope to clean up my environment along with my physical health.

Thanks in advance for all the support, friends.
–Becca

Hi everyone, thanks for the encouragement on the career change. I’m getting more excited about it the more I think about it. I had an appointment with my counsellor this morning and she thought it sounded like a solid option as well. We did walk and talk again and went nearly 5km!
I’m still feeling very calm on my new medication, but almost too calm now as I have to be careful because I can get stuck on the couch and lose my get up and go. I think it means we haven’t quite got the dose right or perhaps not exactly the right medication. The fact that I am calm on a stimulant seems to indicate that this class of drug will work well for me though once we get it dialed in.
Still sticking to very low carb, but I do have to watch very carefully about remembering to eat during the day. Once it wears off around 6pm I can get very hungry and want to eat a big meal if I haven’t eaten through the day. My counsellor suggested putting myself on a schedule with alarms on my phone if I need to and to stick to it. I’m being very active around the farm at the moment so I should have an appetite, but the medication is really suppressing it. The good thing about it is that my compression tights are fitting a bit looser and looking at myself in the mirror I think I have lost some back fat.
Cathy – so pleased for you with what you have been able to accomplish so far this year. It is great to see you setting goals and hitting them after being so frustrated for the past couple of years. Best of luck with your tooth.
In the interests of not getting stuck on the couch, I will say goodbye for now. I need to get something to eat and then I am headed to the pottery studio for a few hours.

Interesting what you say about salad in winter, Verano. I find the same. This winter with the global situation we were trying to buy local and we don’t have much in the way of fresh salad except some head lettuce from a couple of indoor farms and greenhouses, but I really only just had it a couple of times and the last bag went rotten in the fridge before I could finish it, so I just stuck with mostly frozen local veg this winter and it was perfectly fine. A farmer friend who grows veggies across the valley from me gave me some leeks last fall and I chopped them up and froze them and I’ve had them all winter to put in soups and stirfrys. I just had the first harvest of my overwintered spinach (fresh greens at last!) and now that the weather is warmer, I have been having them as a salad. I had some last night with feta cheese, kabocha squash cubes and pumpkin seeds with a Greek yogurt lemon and dill dressing. Delicious!
Newbie, I know that the phase you are in feels a lot like deprivation. It is no small thing to completely change the way you are eating. Rest assured though that you will find new favourites and if you do eventually try some of the old foods that you used to eat regularly, you will likely find that your tastes have completely changed and you may even wonder how you used to tolerate such bland stodge. Your brain likely is remembering them as delicious now because the food you are eating now is not giving you as big a dopamine hit. One of the things I have learned to do as I’m in the process of probably being diagnosed with ADHD is to recognize that food cravings are often a sign that my brain is desperately trying to raise dopamine levels, and I’ve written up a ‘dopamine menu’ of things other than food that I can do to satisfy it that may even be more effective. If you do a search for ‘non-food treats’ there is an old thread that comes up where everyone put their ideas for doing just this.

Quick drop in to post a few positives….
🌸🌸 all garden chores I wanted to do before we go away have been completed
🌸🌸 I have shingles, nitbin itself a positive of course, but was able to get an appointment and now have meds, which are already helping
🌸🌸 packing pretty much done, just last minute things to go in tomorrow
What positives have come your way?

Good afternoon and a lovely sunny one here!

Newbie I both need and want to lose weight but I always find it so hard during the winter especially with the long dark days. I’m sure I suffer with SAD and I’m afraid a heart warming stew looks much more appealing than a ‘salad’! Anyway, no more excuses. The clocks have jumped forward, the days are longer and brighter. I’m still not a salad fan but at least I don’t feel the need for ‘winter’ food.

Hope everyone is enjoying the sunnier weather. Hope those of us who are floundering have all found a way forward. Onward we go, and s-g says we just have to keeping on keeping on……

Dreamscometrue, well done for getting back on track, I think thats one of the hardest things is getting back in the saddle. You have a goal set so now you can work towards it and how lovely to have a reward in place ready, you’ve got this.

I’m plodding along and doing not so bad, trying to get in to a better routine and back on it after Easter. Hope everyone else is doing ok 😀

Welcome BlueOcean, I too am new hear and find these forums very good, everyone is friendly with lots of good advice and plenty of encouragement so keep on coming back and let us know how you are getting on. 800 calories is surprising when you plan well, keep on going 🌞
ArcticFox2 I definitely think its worth you exploring other employment options, you’ve got specialist knowledge and would be good to put it to use, even if you dont need to in the long run it will certainly keep the brain going.
Cathy thats really impressive, well done, great results.

BLUE OCEAN welcome! Look forward to getting to know you and following your progress. Sounds like you’re off to a great start.

ARCTIC FOX I think it’s great you’re looking at other potential career opportunities. Your job change may not even happen but I think taking a positive view of the possibility is very healthy. And with your skills and determination I’m sure you can make a success of pretty much anything 😊

Talking of determination, CATHY you are on a roll! I’m so pleased for your ongoing weight loss. Really good news. And well deserved! X. I hope you finally get your tooth sorted tomorrow 🤞

I’ve been a bit off piste over the last couple of weeks but am getting back on track. So am not as far forward as I wanted to be by now but am still hoping to be at 148 by the end of April. It’s my birthday then and I’m going away for a few days so it’ll be nice to be securely below 150 by then. Will keep you posted!

Hi to everyone else too – do let us know how you’re getting on. Good luck everyone! X

Hello everyone
Hope you’re all well and feeling focused and had a nice Easter. I love your idea for becoming a Dietician ArcticFox. Sounds like a positive move. Such a good idea. How is everyone doing?
I am on week 9 of the online plan and am sticking with it. My family came over Easter and they enjoyed an indian take away but i abstained and made butter paneer and cauliflower rice. Didn’t feel like I’d missed out. Im getting a bit fed up with the same old meals but whatever has happened to me this last three months is working and i am almost 1.5 stone down- 21lbs, 9.5 kg! I can’t quite get my head around it. Clothes are loose! My summer clothes are going to be comfortable. I have treated myself to some Nespresso Caramello Coffee pods to have in the morning and I’ve also treated myself to having my nails done by my niece- I’m rewarding myself but the weight loss itself is a reward. It’s three weeks til my book club get away to Corfu for four nights and I hope to be 144 by then. As soon as I come home I’ll be straight back to 800 calories to offset any damage! I will have to be careful because I’ve not had any alcohol since New Year so I’ll be doing everything in moderation because it will be a shock to my system. Also, I’m quite happy being sensible!! It’s tooth time tomorrow (fingers crossed) I’ve been taking painkillers every day and I hope that once it’s out I’ll feel better. This issue has been going on since July last year! Enough is enough.
I’ll weigh in on Friday- I had a sneak peek today and I am 1lb down : I stayed the same last week. Today I was 146. I’m chuffed with that!
Looking forward to reading your updates.

Verano, in response to your message, are you happy to cruise along, or do you need or want to lose any weight? I’d say that the first 3 months were good as you maintained where you were at and didn’t put on any weight so thats a positive. You could maybe tweak one or two things and see if that makes any difference, see it as an experiment and if you get results you are happy with then stick with it, if not change it up a little bit. I know thats probably not very helpful, but sometimes plodding along is boring but it’s safe 😀

Thank you Verano and ArcticFox for your messages. So I’ve cut out bread almost completely, the only time I have any is if my partner has baked a fresh loaf of sourdough, I allow myself one slice toasted with almond butter then I usually go and run it off afterwards 🤣. I dont eat pasta now except lentil pasta maybe once a week, we dont cook with potatoes anymore, and I’ve swapped out rice to cauliflower rice or konjac rice or lentils, so I’m trying to cut the carbs down, I dont eat biscuits, cakes, and seldom have crisps, if I do they are for a special occasion and I have lentil ones or peanuts as I read on a feed that someone said peanuts weren’t too bad for glucose levels although very high in calories.
I’m pleased with how I’m doing and with the advice and encouragement from your messages I will continue the plan.
Easter was incredibly bad as my dog was poorly and I was in survival mode of no sleep and lots of dog bed washing (I needn’t say anymore on that) for 3 nights so I fell off the plan to a degree but got back on it today, I followed your advice about food times and finished eating my dinner today by 6.00pm, then went for a 4mile run at 7pm, I didnt have my normal pudding snack when I got in just a cup of tea, lets see if my results in the morning are better. I normally have my breakfast at 10am so will also be going 15 hours without anything.
Anyway thats a lot of waffle, but I just wanted to say thank you for your advice, kind words and encouragement, here’s to April!!

Welcome blueOcean. Yes, isn’t it surprising how daunting 800 calories can seem mentally before you try it? Keep in mind that it will likely get tougher as you go on. If you start feeling low energy or cold, you may want to switch it up a bit as those can be signs that your metabolism is falling and you don’t want that to happen.
I had an appointment at the optometrist this morning and I was rushing to get changed and pulled on some size 20 jeans I hadn’t worn in a few weeks. And after saying just a couple days ago that my jeans (my working outside ones) were not fitting any better, these were a bit loose around the waist but I thought manageable so I did not wear a belt. Well, after seeing the optometrist I went to the supermarket and unfortunately they started to slip down quite a bit! Anyway, I made it home without incident. I now have new contact lenses, new sunglasses and will have a new set of progressive lenses in a couple of weeks. So I’m all set for a while now as far as eyesight.
In other news, my counsellor suggested that I put my anxiety about potentially losing my job to good use by looking at what else I could do if that happens. Of course, I have the farm, which is not a big income generator yet, and my pottery which could become a nice little side hustle, but I don’t see either of those paying the mortgage. I had been considering becoming a counsellor, but honestly I’m quite turned off of it after my experience with my last counsellor, and I would have to do quite a few courses to improve my chances of being accepted to a Masters programme. So, I started looking into some other options and it seems I could do a Masters in Dietetics and from there become a diabetes educator even. What do you think? I talked to my godmother about it and she said ‘nutrition is such a strong interest of yours.’ I already have a minor in animal nutrition from my agriculture degree. The local health authority has lots of openings for jobs and are offering hefty signing bonuses for new graduates which would cover about 2/3 of the tuition, and private practice is an option too. A lot of dieticians work online now too which is more compatible with running my farm. Something to think about. I may sign up to do some introductory human nutrition and anatomy and physiology online as the university does not want to accept my animal ones as being equivalent. I should at least be able to get good results which will boost my chances of getting into Dietetics. The only frustrating thing might be that human nutrition is so far behind animal nutrition and a lot of the guidance is not based on very robust science as of yet. We all know about that, I think!

Arcticfox nice to ‘see’ you here. You’re doing really well. Just keep going it can only get better!

So Easter is over and done and I hope everyone enjoyed it. But …now we’re back to reality. I’ve managed to get back on track today but have to admit that the first three months of this year have seen me just ‘cruising along’ , no loss, no gain. I guess now is the time to make a decision …. to lose weight or coast along as I am? Don’t know how you’re all doing out there.

Carry on or make changes???

Oh, and Newbie, one thing you could look at doing after your evening meal is just some gentle movement. It sounds like you are doing a lot of exercise already (do go carefully on how much you are ramping this up too because you don’t want to get injured!), and this does not have to be much. Just a 10-15min walk will be quite effective at dampening the blood sugar spike from your evening meal. If you don’t have time for that, a few sets of body weight exercises like squats and lunges where you are using the large muscles in your legs can help too.

Today is my first day of the plan. It’s the end of the day now and I am so shocked that 800 calories is managable with careful planning. I had many reservations before deciding to give this a go. I decided to modify my own recipes to fit the macros of the plan. The carbs have indeed called my name today and it’s made me realize how much bread and corn products are empty fillers in my eating.

Newbie, just popping on to say that you are doing incredibly well at 3 months, especially given how high your HbA1c was. Keep in mind that red blood cells take 120 days to turn over, so if you think about it, only 3/4 of your cells have turned over in the 3 months and you still have roughly 1/4 of the cells that are still whooshing around your blood vessels that are still in a highly glycated state that aren’t reflective of how you are caring for yourself today. I think if you keep going with the low carb eating and exercise for another month or two and get it checked again, you will be astounded at the change – I estimate somewhere in the 6.5 to 7.0 range, which is getting down into pre-diabetes territory. To do this in 4-6 months is simply amazing. Give yourself a big pat on the back! And keep going. You’ve got this!
I am not diabetic, but reactive hypoglycemic and I have definitely noticed through wearing a continuous glucose monitor that I really struggle with my glucose control in the evening, and if I eat too late or the wrong thing I will have quite a severe crash overnight. But it is very individual. Some people process food and carbs better in the evening than the morning. I tend to delay breakfast and have a light one around 10 am, and then lunch around 12:30, which can be my biggest meal of the day. Like Verano, I always try to finish eating by 7pm (so that means typically a 15 hour fast every day) and I keep my dinners very low carb. The only carbs come from vegetables like broccoli. If I’m eating higher carb, I do better if I finish eating by around 5pm which is usually not possible given the way my life works, so I choose very low carb instead.

Newbie firstly there is ‘no grade’! We are all individual and things happen at different times. Your HbA1c was very high and to get it down by 50% in such a short space of time is really good.

I think one of the great misconceptions is that ‘weight’ is the magic secret to reversing T2. Weight is a factor but carbs are the real secret. I’m sure you’ve probably heard of TOFIs, Thin on the Outside Fat on the Inside. So, yes you can be thin (on the outside) but still have diabetes. The real secret is controlling the carbs. Simple carbs are the real problem, colour isn’t that important. Brown rice is better than white but still high in carbs. Lots of ‘brown’ bread is really not much better than white. Even some fruits are high carb such as pineapple, mango and other ‘exotic’ fruits, and even apples, for example having roughly 20g of carbs in a medium one. Sorry if I’m ‘preaching to the converted’ but concentrate on the carbs before the calories. Most people try to stay at lower than 50g a day but some who follow a keto diet go down to 20g. I’ve never really managed to get that low but still manage to control my blood sugars. Trial and error.

I don’t know about an optimum time for eating your last meal in the evening but I personally stop eating by 7pm when at home but if we’re away or out it’s later and I can’t say that I’ve noticed much difference in my blood sugars.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend.

Hi everyone,
Still keeping on keeping on here. I don’t feel that I’ve lost any weight yet as my jeans are still fitting the same, but I am managing to stick to the very low carb way of eating, so that is a win. Actually, it is 1pm and in spite of some hard gardening all I have had to eat today so far is a bit of cheese at 10am, so I should have some lunch. I started on my new medication today and it does suppress appetite as one of the side effects, so the pharmacist told me to watch that as people can forget to eat while on it. I am starting to get hungry though. I was quite worried about going on these meds as I’ve never been on a stimulant before and I can’t even have caffeine normally without getting jittery or it affecting my sleep if I have even one cup of tea after 10am, but so far I am feeling good. Just an enormous sense of calm, which is what is supposed to happen if you have ADHD, whereas if you don’t have it, you would likely get amped up. So the medications might confirm the diagnosis for me. I have to try them for 2 weeks and then we may adjust the dose slightly if necessary, but if this continues, they could actually be life-changing. Already today I have done a ton of work around the farm, potted up some of my indoor plant starts in record time and noticed that the compost pail in the kitchen needed emptying and just did it without procrastinating or getting distracted along the way. And I’m not exhausted or completely brain dead, so after finishing this, I will have energy to keep going instead of needing to crash on the sofa for a couple of hours to recover. Is this what it is like to be normal? Wow! Here’s hoping this is what I needed to help me make good decisions about food even after hard days at work!

The Blood Sugar Diet is designed to support rapid weight loss by controlling insulin levels and reducing excess sugar in the body. By focusing on low-carb, high-protein, and healthy fat foods, it helps stabilize blood sugar and reduce cravings. This approach encourages the body to burn stored fat for energy, leading to faster results. It also limits processed foods and refined sugars, which are major contributors to weight gain. With structured meal plans and balanced nutrition, the Blood Sugar Diet promotes sustainable fat loss while improving overall health, making it an effective option for those seeking quick and lasting weight results.

Also, can I please ask what time people have their evening meal by, trying to reduce my morning reading and know this can be a contributing factor, thank you