I’ve just started making clean out the fridge mini frittatas too, sunshine. They are absolutely perfect to have prepared
when O/H returns late after an evening lecture (professor). Have you had any success freezing them? Thanx!

Hello everyone and Happy Wednesday! Jennie what great news about your latest loss and well done for getting into the healthy BMI range. I’m also amazed you previously lost 6 stone – that’s phenomenal! I’m sure you’ll shed the rest of your regained weight very soon.

Welcome back Denise susan: sounds like a long diversion but you are now back in the right place and we will definitely be continuing our road trip after this weekend!

Hope everyone is doing well and looking forward to a big celebration at the end of our trip on Friday. As several have said, we may not be quite where we wanted to be due to all kinds of circumstances and wanderings – but we are still here and still keeping on. We’re in it for the long haul! X

Big frittata the night before I do my weekly shop. So use up eggs, stir in crème fraiche to make it light and fluffy, red peppers, onion, mushrooms, tomato (just one to slice on the top) bits of meat and top it with cheese. It is called my clean out the fridge meal.

1. The sun is out in Glasgow.
2. I have a protein bar for the late afternoon munchies (instead of eating nearly a whole bag of almonds like yesterday 🙁 )
3. THE SUN IS OUT IN GLASGOW!

Scottishgal, when you eat guacamole, pile it on green peppers cut into spears. It’s crunchy with a sharp flavour that goes with hummus as well.

Wendy, you can also be a house sitter and combine the two. You find somewhere you want to go and offer to sit for however long they want, then you arrange to have someone come and sit for you. Makes it a bit more to organise but it really is quite simple.

Birdy76 sorry I spelt your name wrong, in the middle of my post I scrolled up to check spelling and I must have been at the bottom of a page so I couldn’t see your previous post. Dont worry about not being perfect, we all do our best and that is all we can do.

Still got loads to do to get ready for trip but packing is all done now except for those last minute things, oh, and I have to prepare the meal for tomorrow night’s dinner. See you all in mid May when I will need a kick start to get me going again.

I had the identical experience Caron, about 20 years ago when I put myself on a ridiculous semi starvation diet (500-600cal).
After 5 months, my hair was thinning and filling my brush. This time around, I did my research, and settled on 50-60g
of protein/day, and no problems this time. I’m glad you were able to recognize the problem and reverse it 🙂

Hope you realize that I spoke “tongue in cheek”, Birdy! I use E.’s recipe for devilish deviled eggs all the time. Type
KIMCHI into the search box and you will find it there.

Happy that you found Julia’s (californiagirl) post informative too,, Avisa. I always reread it on the verge of a holiday or a
special occasion, when my powers of rationalization tend to be working overtime..It truly sobers me up! 🙂 Julia
is definitely well and still around! She’s in the throws of a big move from California to Bath, so is wildly busy at
the moment, but she will DEFINITELY be back. Her posts are always “must reads” for me. I hope you are settling
in with this lifestyle! Best,

Allie

This is a very helpfyl article, JGwen, thanks for posting it. It seems to validate a lot of the recommendations we
discuss here on a routine basis, and it’s eminently readable and easily understood. Just to add another data point
for you, 102g of protein from roasted pork tenderloin (for example) would be 635cal of our 800/day on the Fast800.
That certainly would be out of whack with the BSD, which is built on the premise of low carb, moderate protein, and
high healthy fat! When I was doing my own research almost 3 years ago, I found this data with respect to a restricted
calorie diet: #1 The average woman doesn’t require more than 50-60g of protein a day to maintain muscle mass. #2
I settled upon this formula to calculate daily requirements: ,5-1.5g of protein for every kg of ideal body weight.
I chose 1g for myself, did the calculation, and that turned out to be 62g. I interpreted that not to mean that I had
to eat this much, but saw it as a “not to exceed” quantity. Since this fit comfortably into the paradigm of 50-60g.,
I was comfortable with that. What you have to say about the use of a breathilizer is probably the most accurate way
of charting individual responses, and perhaps I would have considered it if I experienced weight loss stalls along the way.
I realize I was the exception, and could count on a dependable 3.0-3.5lbs lost per week, so I never investigated it
further. There are a lot of other variables of course, such as building muscle for a higher metabolic rate, maintaining
strong bones, etc., to name but a few. We’re so fortunate to have you here to uncover all the research, and keep
all the balls in the air! You’re an expert at it, so I generally leave that to you, which you of course already know! 🙂

Alliecat, thank you for the link to the Wino thread. Enjoyed reading it and Californiagirl sounds like my kinda lady! I hope she is well, if she is no longer posting here. Thank you everyone actually, I am only sad that I am the grand old age of 45 (and becoming plus-size for the first time in my life) before finally learning helpful things about myself 🙁

Hi Arcticfox, it sounds like you’ve had an awful time! Here’s to a new start xxx
Happyhel I love gin but haven’t had any since I started, I intend to try it with soda water eventually as I have an entire 1950s drinks cabinet full….staring at me 😕
Its a beautiful day here in sunny Cumbria so I’m off for a long stroll on the beach with the dog 😎 xxxx

Yes I did see that difference, its quite a wide range in this article, there are so many different recommendations on different sites for protein. – I suspect from the wording that these figures may be the recommendations for both men and woman and its usual to see the recommendation for men to be higher.
What I have also seen recently is advice to test your blood sugar levels when eating keto after eating protein and if the blood sugar levels go up you are eating too much protein.
One of the issues with protein levels again will be the amount of weight you want to loose and if you are including time restricted eating. If you have a lot of weight to loose then you will want to engage autophagy for your body to break down the loose skin which is a process switched off by eating protein.

Welcome back Arctic Fox – I remember you from last year. It sounds as if you have had a rotten time. So cyber hug from here and best wishes for a restart. There is nothing better for long term morale in my book than eating healthily and discarding unwanted weight!

Hi Fatbob. I take a general vitamin supplement for 60+. After five months of low-carbing my hair started to thin this time last year. Difficult to know if this was age-related or diet-related. But I suspect that I had let protein levels go too low. I now try to ensure at least 50-60g of protein a day (which MM recommends) and my hair has stopped thinning. Have you looked at this aspect?

Thanks for the article JGWen. I thought it was very interesting – not just for post-menopausal, but for general problems with stalling or slow weight loss. Did you see that their protein calculation related to actual rather than target weight? “the general advice from our group of experts is to eat between 0.5 to 1.5 g of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. A 70 kg (154 lbs) woman would therefore eat no more than 105 g of protein per day, and perhaps significantly less.”?

Allie I am sure Essie has enough for everyone 🤣🤣

As it happens I came across an article about this topic which posted a link to on the weekly thread yesterday morning. Hope it helps.
https://www.dietdoctor.com/top-tips-lose-weight-low-carb-women-40?fbclid=IwAR2lBZNPoFa7uz5rKHtaqh0O8mxOoE5cFZymie7Li1HnN_iHMcmYaD80pWY

Welcome back arcticfox- sounds like a tough time. I feel very isolated from family and friends and I worry that if something happens to me, no one will know and my cat will get hungry and eat me. I hope you’re improving and good for you for making steps in the right direction.
I have a question, people, do you count cups of tea toward your water intake or do they not count because of being a diuretic?
Physically my body feels much better after just three days back on track and mentally I know
I feel better but then in that very same thought, I want to eat something bad. Such a mental game and I feel like I go back and forth all day with “yes I can do this, no cravings, I’m good “ and “I wanna have something bad, I’ll start again tomorrow etc”. Does anyone else do this???

Thank you, everyone.
Love, Your Honor.

1. Day 3 of my restart completed successfully
2. I love butter. I never knew about butter, it had always been a no-no. But now it’s a yes-yes and it’s delicious
3. I have all day tomorrow to study for my Spanish mid-term – I need all year but after tomorrow, I’ll know more than I currently know now.

Hi everyone, I’d like to join this week if I may as I’d really like to get back on track. Nice to see many familiar names here as well as some new ones. It’s been almost a year since I last posted. I was in quite a bad accident last year shortly after my last post. I have been recovering from some pretty significant trauma to my back and pelvis and some sustained effects from a head injury. Impulse control with regard to food has been pretty difficult. On top of that, I’ve been feeling quite sorry for myself as none of the people whom I thought were friends who live in close proximity seemed to want to know me after the accident, never mind offer any assistance. I’ve had a few good cheerleaders among friends who live quite far away and my sister who lives 2 hours away picked me up from the hospital and stayed with me for the first 24 hours, but other than that I’ve been on my own. It has been quite difficult to cope with as I was very unsteady for quite a while and was feeling very vulnerable and scared.
Grocery shopping has been a nightmare as there are so many things in the supermarket that set off my symptoms. I was resorting for quite a while to just going in and grabbing quick things like ready meals so I wouldn’t have to think too much and could just throw it in the microwave. Needless to say this has not been great for my health and my weight has crept upwards again. I’m not feeling very mentally ready to get back on the calorie restriction yet, but I need to do something and feel like I need the accountability. So for this week I plan to stick to BSD principles and to start tracking what I’m eating again.
Feels good to be back! This was such a supportive group when I was posting before and from the little bit I’ve read just now, that seems to not have changed.

Hi all,

Can anyone recommend what vitamins they are taking during the 800kcal phase.

I’m taking wellman – but when you look at the rda of each vitamin, and think about the super low calorie diet – I doubt it’s enough.

It’s only made me think – as my barber noted that my hair is starting to go thin. Something no one has ever said before as usually my hair is very thick. But now he mentioned it – you can see my scalp a lot more now.

I did the “fast 800” last year – went from 20.x stone to 17 stone. 3 stone in 8 weeks 🙂
But my goal is 15 stone. So I’m going back on it.

I like avocado in so many ways. Just a few of the ways I use it: In an omlette with some cheese or just some black pepper, diced in a spinach salad, half of a small one eaten with a spoon as a snack, and I’ve started recently making riceless California rolls. Those are really quite a quick meal and much less fussy than trying to make sushi with rice.

Ha! No jumping the cue, Birdy! I recognized Essie’s genius first, around here 🙂 🙂 🙂

Hi all. Thank you so much for the reply’s to my previous despairing post. I can report I have now lost around 8lbs although I’m not strictly relying on my ( completely useless )scales that basically give a different reading every time I stand on the things!
My waist line has certainly shrunk and my wife has noticed this as well as myself. I’m still with it and have ‘upped the ante’ by doing an hour long swim 3-4 evenings a week. I’ve upped my endurance by 50 x 25 metre lengths of the pool each session already and feeling really proud of myself. I’m sleeping better too which is a big bonus as this is something I have always struggled with especially recently having hit the menopause head on.
I must say tho, I’ve been particularly strict with my diet over these weeks and still think that this menopause state has a lot to do with the stalled rate at which i have had a slow start. There was a time when I could kick back on a few carbs and the weight would drop away within a couple of weeks. I’ve never had to worry about my weight until around 6 years ago and my metabolism seems to have changed drastically. I have a job that is a lot more physical than I ever had and theoretically I should be burning a greater amount of calories nowadays. I would love Dr Mosley to do a study/research on the the impact the menopause has on the body and how we can combat this with diet in a similar way to how the blood sugar diet has reversed the pre diabetes state. I would for one find it interesting. I was ignorant to the whole menopause phase and thought it to be a bit of a myth that consisted of a bit of occasional overheating and a whole lot of fuss about nothing! Well didn’t I get my comeuppance! I’ve never moaned about anything so much in my life and I’m normally a ‘ put up n shut up’ kind of a girl! It ain’t fun and it ain’t pretty 😩
Well if any ladies in the same predicament would like to share their experiences and interestingly if they have had similar experiences regarding weight and losing said weight, I’d be an interested and supporting ear.
Thank you again for the kind replies. It really does make that difference between sticking with it or throwing in the towel and heading to the nearest ‘ popular fast food burger establishment ‘ . Lotsa love from menopausal Mel 🤪xx

Coarse mash with lime juice, salt and garlic. Mix it into scrambled eggs when they’re a minute from being done. Top with a dash of hot sauce.

I have only just seen this. Allie you have no worries about my O/H trying to drag me back. I am the boss in this house and I don’t mean this in a nasty way🤣. It is just the truth. 😉. We do enjoy socialising in the pub but I am really ok,without drinking. I am out there, mad and full of fun and I really don’t need to drink to have a good time🤣. I know you know what this is like because I am sure you are the same🤣. I just loved drink. I must admit though I wasn’t happy with my job and now I can see I was definitely not happy with my weight so it was easy to binge drink. But as of April 1st 2019 I don’t need it anymore because I am happy, thrilled and excited about this WOE and what it is going to do for me and my life🥰🥰. I am going to get others into this too. My brother is in desperate need to lose weight even more so than I am. He is my next target🤣. Thank you for caring and I will speak out if I feel I am crumbling into bad habits, of that you can be sure 🤣🤣🤣. Love ya 💞💞🦜

Avis I love guacamole especially homemade. 😋😋

It sounds very positive happyhel. I have had the lamb mince and aubergine tonight and I was able to adapt it so my no veg eating O/H could enjoy all the lovely flavours. He enjoyed it so it has encouraged me to find more meals that I can adapt so I don’t have to cook three different meals! 🤣🤣💞🦜

Today i survived a full sunny day with the kids. I said no to the ice cream and easter treats and thoroughly enjoyed my mug of tea instead.

As its easter weekend hubby, the kids and i plan on a couple of meals out. The Amaxing thing about this WOE is im not freaking out. If i can’t get a nice salad or fish something I’m just going to find what i can eat and deal with it. I know it won’t lead to a binge.

I am having a few gins this weekend. I will probobky only have one a night – and seriously i like gin with water (seriously) or sparking water. If it did lead to the munchies i know i need to stop it entirely. But for me I enjoy a gin, i don’t think i have drank for about a month so I’m not worried. I might not fancy it at the weekend so who knows.

Today i feel very calm. I had a beef salad for lunch and only are a tuna and feta salad for dinner because i wanted something light. This is all very positive x

Much love x

Essie I wish you could send all those recipes to me🤣🤣💞🦜

Happy thank you but I am not diabetic, I was on my way though. I had it when I was pregnant and I was edging closer and closer to being prediabetic! But with this WOE my BG is at an all time low at 4.7. I am very very lucky. 💞🦜

I have it for breakfast too, on top of dark rye bread from Lidl, and with some bacon and eggs. I prefer weighing it for tracking, as I hope/think that is more reliable! Definitely have some salt with it though, as it really brings out the flavour. Also, home-made guac used to be one of my favourite fajita components, lime juice, red onion, fresh tomatoes. salt, pepper and tabasco (with apologies to the Californians on here who probably have much better recipes!).

Patricia that is lovely thank you. You have done amazingly even with your bad ankle. Mmmmm toast! When my son has it it makes my mouth water. I love loads of butter on mine and a Marmite. But a second later that craving is gone and I drink water🤣🤣. Not quite the same 🤣

Allie I love love wine. When I was young I thought all red wine tasted like vinegar! My brother trained me how to appreciate it by getting different ones for me to try whenever I vivsted him. So for years I learnt how to love it and now I kinda gotta to hate it🤣🤣🤣. 💞🦜

Scottish girl I bash it with some feta, lime juice and chilli flakes and salt and pepper, then wrap it in little gem leaves and eat it. Yummy 😋. I also have it for breakfast with poached egg and bacon. I find it quite versatile💞🦜

I’ve been reading a lot of posts lately that advise eating avocado. I’ve never tried it before except the guacamole dip…..but obviously need Doritos for that lol.
I’m not into fancy recipes so was looking for simple ideas of how to include avocado in my meal plan……or do you just eat it on its own? Sorry for my ignorance here but any ideas would be much appreciated.
Thanks

And you know mine, too, Patricia! 🙂 🙂 🙂 The dastardly wine creep. Stay vigilant my girl, and I will too!

Onmyway- i used to go shopping just to buy my weigh day treats when i was at weight watchers!! And don’t get me started on those fake chocolate bars i used to buy as they were low points!!!!

Birdy – thank you for your encouragement. Brill news on the gillet. I think its a matter of when not if you beat diabetes !

Enesca- thank you! I’m happy with the lighter breakfast but i have yet to feel comfortable doing a big run after seeds and yoghurt. However i feel a million times better for giving up squash. And my skin is much softer.

Thanks for the reply. I have found some information on the search engine, but nothing really unexpected.
I’ve had one week of 5+2 diet , then I was four days away last week and now I am on 5+2 again this week.
I have also started exercise, at least 1 hour per week.

Learning by doing while traveling – During the conference, I ate less than usual on monday, but not really dieting, and this was offset by a drinks reception. Conferences are difficult for dieting. I then decided to try travel day (thursday) as a fast day. This more or less worked! For breakfast, I asked the B&B to have only an egg (and a slice of toast) for breakfast. She gave me two eggs!. Skipping lunch was okay. What I found out that also works: you can get a meal, e.g. salad with chicken or shrimps from places like M&S or Waitrose, with less 400 calories. This and a bottle of water for dinner worked well during a four hour train journey. And I got lots of work done.

As expected I was losing weight during fast week and I hope I will lose some more this week. I am also doing a fasting blood sugar test once a week in the morning (before fasting day), but with only two data points, it is too early to say anything, as the variation could just be a blib. I will be away for two-and-half weeks starting friday. Easter with family, then another conference followed by a week of holiday, so I am wondering how this will work. My plan is to continue 5+2 for three months then have another HbA1c test.

Birdy you are amazing! You are doing great on the WOE, looking well and kicking the drink habit.

Scottishgal, I really appreciate you thinking of me, this ankle is a drag in every sense; but luckily DH is on leave, and has kept me busy planning things we can do to the house.

My very lovely husband made me breakfast today, with a freshly buttered piece of toast, (I ate and enjoyed it!)

Allie knows my weaknesses! It’s bread, toast, ryvita. It’s out there as a problem for me when I start maintaining and don’t have to count the carbs for weight loss.

Wendy I am so determined that I will not go back to my binge drinking. I may have the odd one now and again and it will be counted😉. I am away in the south of France in August as I have already mentioned, I will drink then but I think by then I will only need one or two to feel a little tipsy🤣🤣. Cheep date this bird will be🤣🤣. I don’t know how I will resist french bread at the moment, but again I am sure I won’t be that bothered! It will be the ice creams on the beach🤣🤣. How comes you break up so late? Thank you for you faith in me Wendy 💞🦜

OMG Birdy, cheese Easter eggs. That is so wrong 😉 I have fond memories of chocolate eggs in my youf (!) but I think now I would find them a bit thin and disappointing.. I would much rather have a square of very satisfying dark choc.

I won’t be in the Uk until after Easter so I might miss out on the cheesy offerings ! Don’t beat yourself up about the booze. You seem to have things well under control and even if you go to the pub ( just down the road if I remember rightly ?) I am sure you will manage admirably as you did with quiz night.

Thanks for the info Sunshine. House sitting is something we have to investigate when I retire as we will then have the freedom to plan longer overseas trips without work constraints. Right now we only ever go away for a Week or so at a time and my neighbour checks on the house and our cats but for longer trips we need to make arrangements. So we would definitely be interested in your scheme when I finally retire ( one more school year to do)
Enjoy your celebratory anniversary evening.I feel a complete beginner. We are coming up to 10 years at the end of May 😉

Ok my lovely people I don’t know if you have done this before, but I was wondering if we could share recipes for leftovers in the fridge. I don’t know about you guys but I hate wasting food. So I hope you will all jump onboard and share what you like to do with what’s left in the fridge. Thank you 💞🦜

Thank you, I just felt a little bad. I was a big drinker but not anymore and that is what counts I suppose . I must admit I do like a bit of cheddar. They are also bringing out cheese Easter eggs this year, so my other half can be me one and I can have a little treat munch on it every now and then as cheese lasts a while in the fridge as we know🤣 💞🦜

Oh Birdy, Birdy, Birdy! I don’t think you could be dishonest if you tried! A post as honest as yours gives license to
others to do the same. In that way, you help people that may not even have joined the community yet, and are
silently lurking. No one is disappointed in you, Cutie! What we are after is progress, not perfection. 🙂 I left a post
earlier today for Avisa on this thread. Californiagirl has an excellent post on how detrimental alcohol is to all of
our endeavors. If you haven’t seen it, take a look! What concerns me though is that your husband was your
drinking buddy…Is he supporting you in making these healthy changes in your life, or will he eventually try to pull
you back in the direction of the pub, and all the liquid bread and liquid sugar that lurks there? Alcohol dependency
is a big problem in the UK, and I’ve read that it affects @30% of the population. The fact that pubs there are so
deeply linked to socializing probably compounds it. We’re here to help in any way we can, Birdy. You may need to
develop strategies for avoiding those places for awhile, though. Men don’t like change, so let us know if that’s
going to be a problem for you, and we will work on a solution. xx

Birdy, nobody’s disappointed in you. We’re looking forward here, not dissecting every injurious habit we ever indulged in in the past. You’re doing great and that’s that.

Regarding being under 800 cals and 20 grams carbs, that happened to me plenty as I got more comfortable with the cooking. I usually stay below 10 grams even today, just because of the types of foods I eat. Calorie restriction should be a largely fixed point, at least in the weekly average. If you have a lot of calorie leeway at the end of your eating window, use it for a slice of cheese or a square of 100% salted chocolate.

Ah I see🤣🤣🤣. Thnak you though 💞🦜

I should have told you that’s what I was using when you made the spinach feta frittatas, but I didn’t realize you didn’t know. I have like 10 pages of recipes on MFP, no joke. Invaluable tool.

Allie, you can tell Wendy that I use http://www.trustedhousesitters.com. I could get her 20% discount but we would have to exchange private email addresses so I could link her to the site (I would get 2 months free). Normally it is an annual charge of £100 or euro equivalent so she can go on and set it up herself. Wendleg, let me know if you want a private chat, I can highly recommend them. We have had sitters from Oz, NZ, Texas, Amsterdam, Germany, England and now Argentina – makes life interesting.

Birdie, what you are saying is that you are normal. I like a drink and sometimes much more than is good for me, but now it is every 3rd or 4th weekend when I am being strict. On that note, I forgot to mention it is our 26th wedding anniversary today so, sorry guys, hubby is popping the champagne right now. Guess the holiday has started. Luv ya all

Oh avisamuelgrey, I was so glad to read your post and realise I’m not the only one affected by work. You’re totally right, afternoons are the worst. I swear if I didn’t have to work I’d be skinny lol.
So many posts to catch up on when I got home tonight. Well done to you all on your each and individual achievements, especially Patricia for managing to hobble onto the scales and still have a loss despite your injury. I would have felt sorry for myself and comfort ate, so well done to you!
I had a Snickers bar(not as bad as a galaxy as it has nuts in it 😉) this afternoon…….my first proper bar of chocolate since starting BSD………and I can honestly say I didn’t enjoy it as much as I expected to! So, I’ll be sticking with the dark chocolate from now on.
I finished up work tonight for Easter and I always associate chocolate and food with happiness and celebrating and so I thought what the hell I’m going to have the chocolate. At least it made me realise that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be and I can do without it after all. So all is not lost and I’m taking the positive from it 😀