Hi Lucy I’m not normally on this thread but noticed your post in the Latest Posts section and just wanted to send my sympathies to you at this very difficult time. I’m an only child too and have now lost both my parents and I know how hard it is. Just be kind to yourself : you will have a lot to do and also there is a lot going on emotionally, some of which you won’t even be aware of. So look after yourself and once things start to settle I’m sure you’ll feel able to address the weight loss again. Sending you love and hugs X

Hi Pootle, thanks for the message.
Very up and down, can’t believe he’s gone. Have had to wait all this time for death certificate. So going to register death and collect that this morning. Was due to go on holiday tonortow to Spain but have had to cancel . My mum has little other support and I couldn’t have gone away and had ro come back to funeral.
Diet wise I’m fine for a few days and then I go off the rails, I can’t seem to sustain it. But my weight is holding around rhe same so that’s something.
Hopefully when things settle down I can get my head in gear , I don’t know why I can’t at the moment. It upsets me but I’m still 2 and half stone lighter. …so that’s what I keep in my head x

Hi Lucy, just touching base so you know we haven’t forgotten about you.

You have been in my thoughts and prayers. Look after yourself and look forward to the new grandchild!

XXX

Hi everyone,
Thank you for the kind words. These are challenging times for me and your support means a lot.
My therapist was very pleased with the boundary I set and the fact that I reached out to my godmother for support. We spent most of our session though filling out the forms to try and get my appointments funded. Unfortunately, this meant disclosing a lot of information in detail that we had only just barely touched on in our previous sessions, which has left me feeling quite vulnerable over the weekend. She did warn me that this would happen and gave me some strategies for coping. Our next session is on Thursday because she didn’t want me going too long without being able to talk about what might come up. I had a really severe flashback yesterday, a nightmare last night and a good cry today, but I am managing with the coping strategies so far and not spiralling out of control, so that is a positive. One thing that I had to disclose on the forms that we hadn’t spoken about yet was how what happened to me has led to negative body image and struggling with food and exercise since I was very young. That was really tough as I hadn’t revealed any of that to anyone in person before. In fact, all of you probably know more than anyone else! I am seeing the connection now to how it is strongly related to me not wanting to attract negative attention.
In spite of all of this, I am still trying to eat healthily. I watched a video that talked about strategies that we use to numb our emotions, including comfort eating. The video suggested a strategy is to tell yourself that you are allowed to comfort eat, or whatever numbing strategy you want to use (mine also involves watching too many videos, ironically!), but you have to sort through the feelings that are driving you to engage in that behaviour before you can let yourself do it. It has been really working for me. I am working through my feelings by journalling and even though I would be allowed to comfort eat after that, I usually don’t want to anymore. So that has been really helpful, especially now when I have so many big feelings and painful memories coming up all at once.
Keep on keeping on everyone! One day I’ll catch up on everyone’s updates.

Hi Annie, thanks for the info it’s very much appreciated.
I’ve really only taken up running over the past 18months owing to an op that didn’t go according to plan but I love it and the community that comes with it. As a cyclist in a previous life I always carb loaded and drank high sugar drinks whilst out on a cycle but keeping the weight off wasn’t an issue… until I came to running…. I was very surprised to hear runners have a propensity to putting on weight probably because of carb loading.
I’ve always feared fasted rides now fasted runs as they’ve never been pleasant when you bonk but possibly down to incorrect fuelling to begin with. I’m definitely not running to place and most definitely running against myself and my pb’s although they’re not that important to me. I have a race in 2 weeks time but my time isn’t important on this one so I’ll maybe try and start the BSD this week and see how I get on with energy levels go. I had a race on Friday passed and had an unintentional fast which didn’t go well but made me more aware of what I should be fuelling with leading up to the event. I’ll take a look at Prof. Noakes as he sounds interesting.
Thanks for the info really appreciate it.

Hi Stevie, I was a runner until 2018 when a serious injury and unrelated surgery a couple of years later put paid to that, so quite a while since I have run but I do walk a lot now. I follow(ed) the 5:2 and later the BSD whilst running. I often ran a weekend training half marathon distance before breakfast, so fasted. My weekday shorter training runs were also pretty much fasted i.e. pre evening meal. I stopped carb loading when I went low carb/higher good fat (there are no essential carbs, there are essential fats and proteins). I will say that I wasn’t the fastest runner, I did it because I loved it, but I wasn’t the slowest either. Racing for me was against myself more than anything. So I would say that unless you are running to place, just go ahead with your races for enjoyment; take the first one as an experiment to see how you go; or choose one where you want to go hard and take the others easier. If you take to this (diet) way of eating well and become fat adapted quite soon you won’t need to carb load. Professor Tim Noakes was an athlete who promoted a high carb diet and carb loading for years but he saw the error of his ways 😀 and, after research, changed his mind to running fat adapted. If you use You Tube there are many videos of interviews with him. I will say that he did become diabetic which he ascribed to family history and his years of eating high carb. “Getting through a day eating no fat was a good day” paraphrasing him. Obviously he overcame this.

Yes me too!!
As soon as the bill comes I’ll send the remuneration in the post!!!
Thank you once again!

Thanks for the advice. Think it’ll be very much trial and error for the first while. I have done the 5:2 before and had great success but carb loading and a higher sugar intake is taking its toll on my belly 😂 Running a bit slower won’t hurt.

Verano, I will send you my bill later 🙂 You have to pay for going private. I wish someone like Ben Bikman or Jason Fung were my doctor.

Heidi you truly do have a ‘positive’. Hope you have many more ‘extra’ days with your husband.

👍👍🎉🪅🎊🎉Sunshine-girl … thank you, thank you, thank you.
It never actually occurred to me that I am having a ‘normal’ reaction to bread!
After 8 years of normal HbA1c results it’s only this year that I’ve finally been registered as in ‘remission’. So, I still think of myself as still beingT2.
Maybe I actually no longer have T2. Who knows but I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. In saying that I will always remain low carb. Apart from anything else my taste buds have changed and I really can’t eat sweet food.
S-g I wish you were my doctor!

As you can see from comments above many people do manage to continue to exercise while on the 800 calories. As you are not diabetic when it is dangerous to have a very low blood glucose reading, your body will soon learn to run on its fat stores. Dr Bikman, who advocates long fasts, says you have around 20,000 calories stored in fat so why not use that. Obviously that is an exaggerated example but you could do 3500 calories of exercise and still only use 1lb of fat. Maybe work up to racing level at a slower pace just to let you body get used to it. If you think you will not be able to manage, make sure you eat just before a race but don’t carb load – load with protein and some lower GI carbs. Try also to have a snack with you on the race.

As I am not an athelete that is the best I can do for you.

Just want to say I will be going back to ‘square one’ on Monday, using the original BSD book and the recipes and meal plans. Hopefully, I will see an improvement all round.

Right now I have a lot of stress with house going up for sale, although in France it can take up to 2 years so I have to learn to sit back and relax instead of jumping up and cleaning every little spill or out of order items. Relax………

Heidi, I am so sorry for what you are going through and hope you get all the support you need, both from this site and the real world. I really don’t know how you cope and we are all sending you lots of love.

Hi all,

Sixturkeys this site is not about villas and cruises. Just happens you have popped back at the time of year when some of us have just had a holiday. Mainly we are moaning about how hard it is to get our heads back around dieting and lose the holiday weight.

My positives are:
Going to get to 35 degrees by Tuesday so I hope to be in my pool in a day or two (sorry sixturkeys but I have always had a pool but only mention as it is my main exercise).
All vegetables planted out and, due to quite a bit of rain, they are coming up lovely.
Sad that family don’t want to visit as a holiday destination, they have been here so many times but it is our home and they should just want to visit us. Anyway, positive is, daughter was booking for 2nd week in July when 17 yr old grandson said ‘but I want to come with you, book it for the week after when school ends’. Bless him, he is lovely, so I will be seeing both of them in a few weeks.

Hi all

Verano, I don’t know where the 14.6 came from, it was probably from the night I had a slice of hubbys birthday cake and a couple of cocktails. To demonstrate how HbA1c works I was giving averages before (low reading) and immediately after (high reading) food. If you measure 6.5 in the morning you cannot count that as what your HbA1c would be as you will have higher readings during the day after food. 3 months is the amount of time it takes for your blood to replace itself, therefore giving a new set of figures.

I like that your BG was 5.2 a few hours after a bagel – I think that shows you are no longer diabetic and your body is regulating the normal way. Mine would be around 10 immediately after and still around 8.9 four hours later and probably 6.8 to 7.0 the next day with it taking a couple of days of higher insulin to get it down. Shows I am still diabetic as my body cannot regulate itself.

This morning weight is still the same so I am still just one kilo down. BG was 5.2 but I am on 24 units of insulin (12 units pre-cruise). I will get it back down but it takes a couple of months. For some reason taking longer as I have found it difficult to get back on track although I am getting there. Still hoping to be under 73 kgs by Wednesday.

Hey sixturkeys. It’s nice to see your name again. I”ve been a member here since 2017 I think. Believe me the site is still as welcoming and supportive as ever – which I can know since I have been posting under a new name for the last few months. How is life with you?

And i love this thread, so maybe time to chip in:
1) I have another day with my husband, who was forecast to die before March this year. Every day is a blessing.
2) I am on day 14 of eating more healthily, and feel so much better already.
3) We had loads of rain overnight and the garden is celebrating.

Have a good day everyone!

S-g that’s really interesting but I have to admit I find it very difficult to understand how an HbA1c can measure ‘daily average’ blood sugar as well. I don’t think we should get too hung up on ‘ numbers’. Obviously your 14.6 was a bit concerning but that was a ‘blip’ rather an upward trend.

Pootle I think we have all been on a ‘learning curve’ with this way of eating. I think we just have to accept that we are individuals and some foods raise some peoples BS but not others. I think we each have to work out what works for our individual body. I had a bagel this morning, a rare treat, and a few hours later my BS was 5.2! Sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason to how we react.

Anyway, I have given myself ‘a good talking too’ and have decided as long as my BS remains stable then all is fine. Weight is something else and as long as it doesn’t increase then it will be what it will be. I need to relax and not waste energy fretting over it. So let’s see how long this lasts ……..

Welcome Auntiekag.
Don’t worry too much about sticking to the recipes religiously. As Pootle says substitute the squash with something like cauliflower or you could add green beans or broccoli. I think the secret is not to substitute with ‘carby’ vegetables like potatoes! Actually, squash has around 12g of carbs per 100g so you would be safe using swede, celeriac, caulifower or any green vegetables.

Hello. Thought I would pop in with a few positives as I’ve not posted for a while.

😀😀😀 Had the result of my CT scan and all is stable so having another in 9 months but won’t worry about that!

📖📖📖 Bought some books for holiday reading. Had to get some recommendations from my daughter! Got 30% discount by buying three books so a definite positive.

🌶️🧄🥦 Making green chicken curry today, which I haven’t made for ages, so really looking forward to that. I use green vegetables as a base rather than rice and it works really well.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend.

Six turkeys. I am so sorry you feel like this. My ethos is live and let live!
I last had a holiday away from home in 2016. That was a long weekend at a b&b in the Lake District. But I don’t begrudge those who can afford to get away, getting away.
I thought we are all on this site because either we need to lose a lot of weight or tackle diabetes and appreciate the support of others in that aim. At least that was what I assumed and if the positives in someone’s life help give an uplift in spirit, surely that is to the good.
As I said, I am sorry you feel that this thread is elitist,
I am not privileged and I had been posting here for some time.

I have not been on for a while. But really. Having a Mediterranean villa to which to escape for several months is “simple stuff”. Check your privilege. I thought this might still be an encouraging and inclusive site for those who it is primarily aimed at. Just seems to be about cruises. And villas.

Sorry for resurrecting an older post but I’m looking for a bit more detail in the reply.
I’ve read the BSD book now I want to put it into action but I currently have a number of races coming up and all 3 weeks apart unfortunately and they are all 10k. Is there any possibility of maintaining training and starting the 8 week plan or should I take a race out of my calendar? TIA!

Hi Auntiekag,
I am not a curry buff (actually can’t stand spicy food!)
But I have omitted an ingredient or substituted celeriac, cauliflower or courgette in other recipes.
I am sure there will be some cooks on here who will be able to advise! 👩‍🍳🧑‍🍳
I started following the BSD 12 months ago. With great success.
Good luck and welcome to the BSD. I hope it works as well for you as it has for me. 😄

Help please! We have just started BSD and the week1 veg curry recipe says to use butternut squash. I really don’t like it. Any suggestions as to what I could use instead please?
TIA

SG, V and Pootle, thank you for keeping things going on the positive thread … ashamed not to have been contributing more often. It’s not been for oacknof positives, just an avoidance of tech.

Anyway, here are a few from me ….
🌸🌸 weather is fabulous 👌
🌸🌸 mum is still doing well
🌸🌸 bought a gorgeous dining table for the villa
🌸🌸 eldest DD and partner arrive in a week to spend some time with us
🌸🌸 enjoying spending time with our Turkiye based friends

All simple stuff, but enough to make life easier and pleasant.

I haven’t posted for a while, but have been lurking!

So a couple of positives for today:
1. Husband has cleared the kitchen work surface that has been covered with leads, chargers, letters, bearings, a cv joint etc etc for over 2 years! I can actually see the surface and have been able to wipe it down!!! 🤔🫣
2. My BS readings have been steady and I have got through the ‘carb hunger’ stage again! 😁
3. I have another new hat! 👒🎩 😁😂

Hope you all have some positivity in your lives.

Thanks S-G.

For 6 months I thought eating a 25g portion of porridge for breakfast was doing no harm. The ‘reader’ that I had bought off the internet was misleading me! I think it was faulty as well as the instructions stating that 6 was a normal reading for a healthy person!
I had a chat with a friend who is type 1, (incidentally she had always been told that vegetables are ‘free’ from carbs! So learning that I am relying on veg for all the carbs I am eating was a shock for her. She looked them up in her book and said she now understands why she sometimes has an unexpected high reading.) She passed on to me a tester that has been superseded. I ordered the strips from Amazon and have been having steady readings. I did one last night which was still 5.3 mmol/L. This morning (fasting) was 4.3, so I am hoping that, if I continue as I am, my next HbA1c will be non diabetic!

Sorry to hear of your struggles, wishing you all the best for the move.

Thanks for the shout out. I am also still lurking!! 🫣
Dr Mosely’s death marks the start of my journey.
This time last year I had just been diagnosed as type 2 diabetic. I had been to see a consultant for the problem with my breathing that had become totally incapacitating with the treatment the GP had insisted was correct. Specialist diagnosed asthma not COPD as the GP had kept saying!
So correct inhaler for asthma started to change my life but the diabetic diagnosis then knocked me sideways. Reading about the Michael Mosely BSD made me determined to try it!
12 months on, with plenty of support from these forums, I am in remission for diabetes and 5.5 stone lighter! And continuing to live the BSD way of life.
I know I cannot thank him personally, but I hope he knows how much he changed my life.
My sincere sympathy to his family and huge sadness that he is no longer here!

Good luck to all on the ship for this voyage… it is possible to change your life!

Thanks for the shout out, DCT. I am still lurking! Like others, I have been thinking of Michael Mosely and his family today particularly. I have been following his eating advice (more off than on) for about 7 years. I owe him a lot. Even when I am off the wagon, I know the right approach to get back on.

Arctic Fox, your post was so moving to read. I wish you lots of strength as you move forward with the therapist. . It is good to hear that your renewed contact with your godmother is proving such a support. Our emotional links to food can be so strong and it must feel good to be eating more healthily and taking better care of yourself.

I have been battling comfort/stress eating for a while now. Without going into gruesome detail, two very close family members have incurable cancer and another has worsening dementia. For the last two years, life has been full of hospital appointments and difficult decisions. I have ended up bingeing on all the wrong things late at night. As if that will change anything!

Anyway, I had a lightbulb moment two weeks ago, when I breached another kilo going the wrong way; * I can’t change all that is happening around me, but I can control what I put in my mouth.* If I can eat in a way which cuts out cravings, it should help me to resist the comfort/stress bouts.

So I am on Day 13 of eating healthily, drinking more water and getting to bed early. I am not counting calories or carbs, but just avoiding all processed carbs, sugar, rice etc, trying to eat things in a better order, and take a walk after each meal. I could call it the non-Magnum diet (!), but it’s really a combination of Michael Mosely and the Glucose Goddess. It’s early days yet, but I feel a lot more in control, and already healthier than I did.

Wishing everybody here every success in moving towards their goals. x

Hi all, Simon dont worry, Verano was referring to me on the BG subject.

What normally happens is I have tests mid December, then my next lot at mid March so I have managed to get over Christmas and get both my weight and number down. This time we are only 3 weeks back and I still have a lot of work to do.

On that subject I wanted to have a word with Pootle about her confusion as to why her monitor was showing a lot lower than her HbA1c. It is not something I thought about and was reading something the other day that I should be aware of. Your HbA1c is the average of your BG over 3 months, but it is also the average over every day. If you measure before breakfast and you are on 6.5 you then think your HbA1c would reflect that – but no – now eat a lunch of reasonably good food but measure immediately and your reading is say 9.7. It will go down again as the day goes on but after a larger dinner your next reading is 11.9. Now lets tot them up and you will find a reading averaging 9.3 – that is what your HbA1c would have calculated – all the ups and downs of the day. Annoying isn’t it – and I am not going to test before and after every meal – once a day is good enough for me.

In my case I am testing at around 5.2 but a fortnight ago it was 6.8 and actually on the cruise I had one morning at 14.6. Hence, my HbA1c is averaging way higher than the 5.2 of this morning and is completely out of whack. I will explain to my docor that I am just back from a cruise and she will factor that into how many tut tuts I get 🙂

Hopefully, I can get my weight down a bit between now and Wednesday – I was 71kgs on my last visit and today I am 73.5kgs. Not quite lost the holiday weight but going in the right direction and should be under 73 by next week.

Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Thank you Verano for the welcome back – although the post about blood sugars etc wasn’t me, it was Sunshine Girl.
I did four days of fasting with 18:6 but slipped last night after a long day when I couldnt get home in time to eat within my window and ended up taking a night off. What a fail after less than a week. I will continue though because having tried just fasting in the week before I’ve found it’s fine once the weight has come off but too slow and indisciplined when you need that kickstart.

Anyone else had successful experience of doing 2:5 etc?

Welcome back Simon!

S-g sorry to hear your latest results. The good thing is you know ‘why’ and you ‘how’ to rectify the problem. Had your blood sugar gone up for no obvious reason then there might be an issue. I know it’s not easy to get back on track but at least you now have the impetus to push forward. Your next results will be better.

Nothing much to report here. Just finding it a little bit difficult to settle back into a good routine. I have no idea why but it is what it is! Anyway, onwards we go ……

Just received my BG results and they are the worst I have ever seen for many years. 7.2 – which of course is the remnants of my 3 week holiday and not managing to get things back on track. Just shows how important it is to watch the carbs. On a cruise how can you resist the beautiful food even though I do try to miss out on the cakes, desserts etc. I think I had a total of 3 cocktails so the main thing would be eating the beautiful soda bread my daughter makes, having the occasions carby meal when there are no choices available and, of course, the wine.

Seeing the doctor on Wednesday and I can already hear her tutting but at least I am not seeing my regular doctor who would probably give me a bollo–ing.

Hey ho, BG is going down each morning from 120’s to the 70’s I the transition has started.

Today is the one year anniversary of the death of our beloved Michael Mosley. Sending all our best wishes to his wife and family. Without him many of us would not still be here or would be in a much worse state of health. He was our hero and always will be.

Remembering Michael Mosely today on the anniversary of his untimely death. He brought us all together on this wonderful forum. I am forever grateful for his teachings and for the friends I’ve made . When I read the blood sugar diet book in 2017 it changed my life. Here to express my gratitude for Michael and to my wonderful BSD friends. ❤️

Arctic Fox- what a brave and honest post. It’s good to see that you’re beginning to feel stronger and that your therapist is helping you come to terms with your past. It can’t be easy dealing with the impact of what has happened to you. Thank you for sharing your story with us. We are all here for each other. I’ve been given so much support over the years by my friends on the forum and please know that we are all here for you. I’m looking forward to seeing you flourish.

ARCTICFOX thank you and well done for such an open post. It sounds like you are really beginning to face up to so much of the stuff that has happened to you, and work through it with the help of your therapist. You really are sounding stronger and more self-accepting, and it’s great that as part of that you are realising the importance of looking after yourself well. I’m delighted that you have reconnected with your godmother too : someone who knows first hand everything that has happened and is giving you the unconditional acceptance and support you need. Sending you a big hug and look forward to being part of your ongoing journey, albeit remotely.

CATHY I just love your determination, it is so inspiring! I completely share your sentiment : “I haven’t achieved what I had hoped to achieve at the half way point but I tell you what, I am not giving up.” as I’m in the same position as you. But unlike you, I haven’t been trying as hard. I keep rebooting, setting myself challenges, and get off to a good start, then just lose my mojo. I think part of it is that it’s a time of change in my life in various ways. All positive, it just feels as if all the pieces have been thrown up in the air and are gradually resetting, and in amongst that there always seems to be a reason to overindulge in some way. But I’m feeling good and not going to stress about it, I just feel I’m at the stage where I need to give myself a bit of time to regroup and then hopefully will be more focused.

YOWZER how are you doing? I do hope that you’re feeling a little bit better? Thinking of you x

MARIET how are your teeth now? I really hope everything is sorted. I’ve had root canal treatment over the last couple of weeks and I was dreading it but all seems well. But I can only imagine how awful your experience was. I hope that it’s now all behind you.

NOKIE how are you doing this week, now you’re back from Switzerland? And DAWN have you dared weigh yet?! My scales are higher than I’d like them to be but I hope to reverse that very soon!

Hello to everyone else too. DAWN, NOKIE, SUE, MIXNMATCH, VERANO, HEIDI, POOTLE, STARGAZER and anyone else I’ve missed! Hope you’re all having a good week.

Hi everyone, I’m still here and checking in on occasion. Yowzer, sorry to hear you have shingles, that is nasty.
It has been a really big week for processing my cptsd and I’m really very tired. But some good things have resulted. I was invited to attend my dad’s birthday dinner, but in an exclusionary kind of way. My dad called me to invite me, but said he was doing it so I wouldn’t feel left out. He said they were ordering chinese takeaway. I asked if they could order a dish that I could eat, but because I can’t have gluten anymore and I’ve just come off a bad attack after getting some accidentally last week, could they ask that the cook give the pan an extra wipe before cooking. He couldn’t wrap his head around asking them that. I thought that would be the end of it, but he called me up again the day of and said that he and my mum had come to a solution and that was for me to cook my own meal at home and to bring it over and eat it. I had thought about doing that, but with how busy I am right now, my meals are pretty much just healthy ingredients on a plate. It didn’t feel good for me to just take my seed crackers, cheese and veggie batons over and to eat them while they were all having a special meal. My therapist has been trying to get me to stop pushing on them to accommodate my needs, because they never will. This isn’t just about food, it is about an attitude they’ve had towards me for a very long time. It sounds a bit petty to write it out here, but believe me, I have been accommodating them for so long, and it is never reciprocated. It has led to my emotional eating a lot of the time. Now I’m starting to recognize this pattern – they treat me like I’m being needy, I feel bad for being needy, and then I go eat to soothe myself. My therapist says there is a difference between being needy and having needs that aren’t being met. So anyway, I didn’t get upset or angry with my dad like I would usually do. I just said, ‘sorry dad, I don’t have time for that’ (I’m hoping my therapist will be proud of me for that). The indifferent reaction I got was pretty stunning. It became clear to me that he didn’t really want me there, he was just inviting me so that I couldn’t say he hadn’t and to avoid that conflict later. I’ve also been noticing a pattern that as I’m getting mentally healthier and stronger, my family is treating me more and more like the problem child. Now, it feels almost like they are shunning me. My mum has been dropping some pretty vile comments about me being in therapy.
So anyway, I stayed home and made myself a simple celebratory meal for setting boundaries with my family. It was delicious and I didn’t overeat. My stomach wasn’t upset after like it might have been if I had risked the chinese takeaway.
Then the next day, I called my godmother who I haven’t spoken to outside of social media for decades. My mum cut her out of the family after my grandma’s funeral, in spite of her being the closest thing she has ever had to a sister. My mum hasn’t even liked me being in contact with her over social media, says she is stupid and uneducated, etc. My older sister says that she is a needy wreck. But I thought I would call and judge for myself. What I got was the most amazing, warm person supporting me. She knows what I’ve been up to on the farm through social media, knows the difficult family dynamics I’m dealing with and offered her unconditional love and support. We talked a lot about how the things that happened to me in my family if known to be happening today would cause somebody to call child protective services. She said I’m doing the right thing by being in therapy and says I can call her anytime. My therapist will be happy, I think because she has been wanting me to make connections with supportive people.
Anyway, the shift that has happened as a result of this has been incredible. I’m looking after myself. Eating healthy meals in the right amounts for the volume of farm work I’m doing right now, and not comfort eating.
So sorry about the long post, but all of you have been so supportive of me and I wanted to provide a bit more context about what has been going on. I’ve been minimizing the abuse and emotional neglect from my family for so long and feeling like it wasn’t bad enough for me to deserve help and support over it. Now I’m getting the help and realizing just how bad it really was, and it is having an amazing, immediate impact on how I’m nourishing myself too.

Welcome back Simon. Glad you have decided to join us. I cant do 2 meals a day as the hunger seems to catch up with me, plus I am diabetic and have to keep my BG steady. Hopefully you have no such problems.

Nothing to report, weight the same. New gardener came and did a sh-t job and doubled the price he quoted. It wasn’t a written quote so dont think we have any come back. Will go back to my usual guy who does the job in one day whereas this guy kept coming and going and it took him 4 days (not full days). I have told the person who recommended him and she is going to have words, but I won’t be recommending him or employing him again. He will learn that you can’t come over the France, set yourself up and then not play by the rules. We have a joke here that Brits come over on the ferry and gain a certificate in building/carpentary/plumbing or whatever on the trip over and set themselves up in business – they don’t last long.

Raining today so not doing much. Nurse coming in the morning so I will be fasting from 8pm although cholesterol is not on my prescription but creatinine instead as well as HbA1c. Hey ho, will see what the doctor says next week.

Glad to hear you are sticking with us and you are welcome on the June thread. Do you have a medical reason for doing the diet or is it weight related.

Hello everyone
Am back in the zone and working hard to get into the 140s before my holiday. Had a text from GP saying my QRisk3 is 8.7% and to lower my cholesterol so that is why I am back on skimmed milk and low fat yoghurt. I know the full f at versions taste better and are healthier but I am trying to reduce my LDL. I reckon if I lose 1 stone and cut out the fats then my risk will reduce. At 64 I am on no medication apart from my asthma inhaler and I eat a healthy vegetarian diet so I am not too concerned about my elevated cholesterol LDL level but I would like to lose the weight. I am going to go out for a brisk walk after lunch every day and that is as good as I can do . My friend who died from a brain tumour was slim and healthy and she died aged 63 so no matter how hard we try it doesn’t always make a difference! My main priority is to reduce my weight by at least 10lb but preferable 14lb. I am determined to be sailing off on the maintenance cruise in January.
Yowser – I hope you are beginning to recover from your shingles . I feel lucky that my dose last year was obviously mild. I had a burning back for about 10 days and thankfully that was it. Nokie and you have both had a terrible shingles experience. Nokie- I hope you’re feeling inspired to take small steps. Be kind to yourself. We are all on this cruise together and sometimes it’s not plain sailing but we will get to port after Christmas and hopefully we will all celebrate this wonderful voyage together. My advice would be to make small goals. I am doing that. I’ve learnt I can’t be too optimistic.
Almost summer solstice and half way around the voyage. I haven’t achieved what I had hoped to achieve at the half way point but I tell you what, I am not giving up. Full speed ahead before August and then full speed ahead when I get back from holiday. It’s definitely achievable. I have bought my ticket for the maintenance cruise and I am not going to waste this opportunity.

Thank you – the positive news is that I am at least not feeling hungry – so I guess if it takes longer to lose the weight, at least the scales are going down! Down to 71.5kg now. Will join the June group if I may – think the fast 800 may be going on for more than 8 weeks for me! Good idea re logging everything – will do that

Hello – I’m back again. Time to lose it and really hopefully for it to stay off this time. 72 inches tall so my stomach should be 36 and instead it’s 42.

I’ve just completed day 2 and found it fine so far, as I usually do. I’m eating two meals a Day, one at 1pm and one at 6. Yesterday it was a protein shake and at 6pm, chicken breast, cottage cheese and salad, today two boiled eggs and at 6pm trout, prawns, cottage cheese and salad.

I’m 52 and cannot keep putting the weight back on – it’s solely down to drinking wine and eating cheese in the week, which I really want to restrict to weekends once I’ve got my weight down. Wish me luck!

After night out at the quiz, we came 2nd to last…… I actually lost a smidge of weight. Feeling better today and had a well planned menu of boiled eggs then a grilled halloumi and bacon salad for lunch. Dinner is being made by hubby so I just have to put up with it but its not too bad – meatballs in a tomato, pepper and onion sauce. No white carbs.

Getting bloods done on Thursday and that will be a shock as I weigh 2 kilos more and my results might not be so good. Seeing doctor next week but not my usual Dr gorgeous – so I cant really go into all the things I want to say – like why do you give me a drug that makes me fat then tut tut when you weigh me.

House went on the market today – a couple of photos are a bit rubbish but I have asked her to come and re-take them as they are from when we had it up for sale 4 years ago and things have changed – like the bathroom.

Have a good rest of week.

Last post reported. and should hopefully be removed soon.

Quite what these spammers hope to achieve by making irrelevant posts on other people’s threads is beyond me! Even if I actually wanted their product I wouldn’t consider them on principle.

Hope everyone is ok and having a good week. And sending hugs to those of us who are struggling X

Hello. Thought I should bring this post closer to the top!

S-g you’re having a really ‘positive’ time. Best of luck with the ‘selling’. Hope it’s smooth. Our neighbour passed away early in February and his bungalow went on the market a few weeks ago. An offer was made almost immediately and the subsequent sale has been agreed. Fingers crossed our new neighbours are pleasant!

Sunny glad your mum is doing as well as she can and you’re enjoying life in Turkiye.

So as I’m here I guess I need a few positives! Not so easy at the moment, not for any particular reason, but really need this thread ….

🛳️🛩️🛳️ A cruise we have booked for October is now on sale so I rang the agent for a repricing and had a lovely surprise! Nice refund to put towards another trip!

🍓🍓🍓 I have been buying the most beautiful strawberries just from our local supermarket. They seem to be really sweet this year.

That’s me for today but hope you all have a ‘positive’ day.

Great news Pootle! Especially good to hear your bloods are steady too. It would have been so easy for you to give up when you had that one disappointing test. Just shows that nothing in life goes in a straight line and we just have to draw a line through the fluctuating graph to get the ‘real’ trend.

S-g you know I think we are just ‘stale’! It’s so hard to ‘keep on keeping on ….’ for as long as we have! Can’t believe we are coming up to our 9th birthday! I guess for me my ‘reason’ for staying low carb is to keep my bloods ‘normal’ and keeping my T2 in remission. We can’t know how many people actually use this WOL to successfully keep their T2 in remission but for me now it’s over 8 years. I’m just happy to be drug free and anything else is a bonus!

Freezers …. oh dear! I must admit I don’t have a great amount of stuff we don’t eat I just have too much of it! Then I forget to plan ahead and so I forget to take some chicken or something out and have to buy more, because I’ve not left enough time for it to defrost! Maybe I should just get a bit more organised!

Enjoy your night out s-g.

Not looking forward to weighing tomorrow but I will and then my ‘June’ will begin and hopefully June will really be full of ‘joys’.

Well done Pootle, I remember when you first started, seems an age away.

I think the mistake I am making right now is we are trying to clear the freezer and to be honest most of the stuff that has been there for yonks are rubbish, which is probably why we haven’t eaten it before. Saturday we had spare ribs which are high in calories but thought a salad would counter that. It is not because the house is for sale (or will be when we sign the mandate) it is just that we keep buying the same things and I wanted to be clear what we have and start using it all. For example, I have 3 bags of frozen peas. So basically I am not really following any sort of diet plan. I will get back on it tomorrow after our night out and still aiming for another kilo for June.

Keep on keeping on…

Hi everyone,
Yowzer I’m so sorry to hear about your shingles having such awful effects and am sending you lots of hugs and hope you feel better soon. Also sending hugs to everyone else going through difficult times at the minute.
I should be weighing myself tomorrow but am delaying it as had a week in the Scottish Highlands last week and doubt I will have lost anything whilst I was there!
Wishing everyone a good week.
Dawn XX