Tag: BSD

8 weeks is up!

Picture of clothes too big for model

Finished 8 Weeks

I made it through the full 8 weeks of the 800 calorie Blood Sugar Diet (BSD) though I was rather lax in the last week! I lost over 10% of my starting body weight, more than the diet expects and managed to fit into my designer jeans that have sat untouched in my wardrobe for several years, YAY!

At the start of December, I could not do up my designer jeans. Over Christmas and New Year, they did up no problem, though I had muffin tops overhanging the waist. Now there are not even muffin tops.

But best of all, the chest problems that prompted me to start this diet have disappeared! That’s the best of all.

Keeping The Weight Off

Some nutrition specialists seem to be very sniffy and iffy about diets, whether they are based on low calorie, very low calorie, low carb, high fat, low carb, Mediterranean or paleo diets and all the other diets available, whether promoted by doctors, wight loss gurus or others. Their constant cry is “But it doesn’t stay off”, as if it were the fault of the diet for not being both a weight loss AND a weight maintenance diet at the same time.

Some diets are weight maintenance in a later phase, for instance, some low carb diets, such as the Atkins diet, provide phases of dieting, with phase 1 being weight loss which transitions gradually into phase 4 which is weight maintenance. The 800 BSD diet recommends 2 possible methods of keeping weight off after losing it; to move onto a Mediterranean diet, high in salads, good fats and fish or to gradually add calories back into your diet after reaching your desired weight, until you stop losing, so that you may move to a 1,000 calorie daily diet for one week, then a 1100 calorie diet for the next week, etc. There is of course the 5:2 intermittent fasting diet which will work whichever diet you used for losing weight. I have seen one recommendation that says a maintenance diet in terms of daily calories, is 10 times your desired weight in pounds. On this basis, someone who wants to weigh 140 pounds (10 stone, 63Kg) would need a daily calorie allowance of 1400 calories and someone who wants to weigh 145 pounds would need 1450 calories daily. Whether or not this works, I do not know, as I have not yet tried that. But I am coming to the place where weight maintenance instead of weight loss will be necessary – exciting!

800 Calories a Day For 8 weeks January 2017

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Cucumber

This Way Of Eating – WOE – Week 2

I started back onto this diet, the 800 calories for 8 weeks Blood Sugar Diet on 31 December 2016. I don’t bother with New Year’s Eve and all the cake from Christmas was gone, so there were no real temptations to hold me back from starting again. I knew that Christmas week had reversed the weight loss, so I didn’t weigh myself for a couple of days and was relieved to find that I was “Only” just over 1 kilogram (between 2 and 3 pounds) heavier than my lightest weight before Christmas. That meant I was back over the 70Kg weight level but not so far that it was dispiriting.

Support Group

I found a great support group on Facebook. It’s very useful to have support when you are working on something like weight loss or even weight gain or body building, come to that. Getting the support and encouragement from a positive group of people on the same journey as you is very helpful and motivating. They even have their own abbreviations and language, so that WOE is shorthand for “Way of Eating” and NSV is a “non-scale victory”, such as being able to fit into a size smaller piece of clothing. There is also a shorthand way for describing which week of the diet you are on and whether this is your first “round” or a subsequent round. It is recommended that you take a break between rounds. The group suggests that it is possible to lose 10 per cent of your body weight in each round of dieting, so that someone weighing 100 kg could lose 10 Kg over the 8 weeks. This would be great.

Weight Loss

My weight loss has not been as high since I started back onto the program, probably because I am eating more fiber but maybe not taking in enough water to move it through quickly. But I HAVE Lost just over 1 kg in weight (just over 2 pounds) and I have also lost half an inch from around my abdomen. Two victories to celebrate!

Continuing Weight Loss

I am going to buy the diet book that goes with this WOE in order to gain the most possible information for remaining healthy and losing weight quickly. Why? I don’t have diabetes but my grandmother had Type II and one sister has it. That means I may be at risk for developing it and I would rather not risk blindness, limb amputation, and nerve damage. Also, I KNOW I need to lose weight and this has so far been a very useful exercise in moving that stubborn belly fat!

Two Week Review of Blood Sugar Diet

How I Started BSD

I started the 800 calorie Blood Sugar Diet on a whim, a couple of weeks ago. Not exactly a whim but I had read Dr Michael Mosley’s book on the 8 week, 800 calorie BSD and finished it on the Sunday. It made a lot of sense and it mentioned that the patients in the clinical research trial run at Newcastle University had been put on liquid “shakes” to ensure their calories were counted correctly. I had protein shake in the house, so I decided that from the next day, I would try the 800 calorie 8 week diet. I told myself that I would try it for one day, that I could last one day and then I could go back onto my normal low carb diet. I was just going to try it out. It can be useful to tell yourself this kind of story, looking forward just one day at a time, rather than saying, I HAVE to do this for 8 weeks, when it can seem like a life sentence!

Two weeks later, I am still on this diet and it has been completely possible, I have NOT felt like eating the table leg because I was so hungry. I can’t say that I haven’t felt hungry at all but it’s odd, the hunger has just been a sensation, a feeling, that I was able to acknowledge was there, without salivating or feeling I had to get something to eat.

I have kept a chart of my progress, with the number of calories I ate each day and with my abdomen girth and my weight taken when I had access to a weighing scale. Over the two weeks, I have now dropped 4.5 Kgs, this is 10 pounds in weight! I am at the lowest weight ever for years and I have every expectation that I can break the 70 Kg barrier tomorrow or the next day. This is REALLY exciting for me, as I have not been this low a weight since I discovered (or was introduced to) the Atkins diet back around the year 2000.

What am I eating?

I don’t have breakfast until about 11.00 am most days, because I go for a walk and do not eat until I return from that. I have found that a 100 calorie protein shake, with a cup of tea or coffee to follow, fills me nicely. I have a shaker bottle and a scoop. I add a little water to the shaker bottle, add 1 scoop of protein shake, put the top on and shake to mix it up. I then add more water up to the 500 ml level (about 15 fluid ounces). I drink this slowly. The current flavor is chocolate smooth. I also enjoy blueberry and strawberries and cream flavors. The shake I use is NOT marketed as a diet aid but as nutrition for athletes. It is high in protein and uses artificial sweeteners, to keep the calories low. It is my feeling that by taking a large amount of fluid with the calories, my stomach can feel full even BEFORE the calories hit the digestive system. I take another of these at about 2 pm. By that time, I am starting to feel a bit hungry but the shake fills me up again, so I last until dinnertime with no problems.

For dinner, I generally have what everyone else is having, except, no potatoes or rice or pasta or bread. I just have the meat and a non-starchy vegetable, such as green beans, or cabbage, or cauliflower, etc. I was surprised and pleased to find that a dinner like that is about 400 calories. (I haven’t actually tried any different recipes but there are plenty of recipes available for the BSD if you want.) Together with the shakes earlier in the day, this makes about 600 calories. You might think that is great but NO! Read on to find out why.

Since I realised I could stick to this diet for at least a while longer, I decided to find a support group online, to share experiences and help. I found a closed Facebook group for the 800 calories, 8 week blood sugar diet and applied to join. They were very quick in approving my application and very welcoming, with lots of members there. I immediately found that I should NOT try sticking to 600 calories a day, as my body might think it was being starved and possibly reduce my metabolism to slow weight loss! They advised that I should add a little fat to make my intake up to 800 calories a day. I love almond butter and have that in the house but a small teaspoonful of that has about 100 calories and I have been used to eating a LOT more than that. I was concerned that I might go back to eating a lot of almond butter, so decided instead to put butter on my vegetables at dinner. One ounce of butter has about 200 calories, so that made me up to the 800 calories a day. Other alternatives suggested, were to add cream to coffee, also very nice. They were also able to point me to information on dealing with constipation.

The group talked about various “rounds” of the diet. It seems that some people go on the 8 week diet, take a rest, then do another round. I had never even thought of that! There is a LOT of information, recipes and support available if you want to do this diet.

Positive Points of the BSD

  • Quick weight loss. I have lost about 10 pounds in 2 weeks and feel I could lose a bit more with no real problems. My target weight is 126 pounds, 9 stone, 57 Kgs. According to the height and weight charts available online, I am currently in the overweight category. My target weight is in the middle of the “normal” category.
  • Not feeling especially hungry
  • no loss of energy

Difficult Points with the BSD

  • Constipation. It’s the same with many diets, the reduction in carbohydrate intake reduces fiber intake. In my case, the almond butter provided a lot of fiber. I need to replace that with more vegetable fiber.
  • Felt a bit cold during the first week of the diet. The weather was cold but I don’t normally suffer too much with it. Not as cold feeling this week.

Future

Christmas will be here in less than one week and I feel it is highly unlikely that i will stick to this diet over Christmas. BUT the Facebook support group for BSD has planned an 8 week round starting 2 January. I will be on that.