Blood sugar diet and fast800 support thread #18

[thenewaveragebear1983]

Here’s the new thread for the BSD followers, plus those following the Fast800 plan. Everyone is welcome to join us. Here’s a quick recap!

The BSD/fast 800 is a low carb, Mediterranean style way of eating, with the primary aim of stabilising your insulin response when you eat. You achieve this by: eating fewer carbs, cutting out sugar and sweet tasting foods including most fruit, and by following a low calorie plan that reduces your visceral fat meaning that everything functions more effectively. Less insulin means less fat storage (in a nutshell, although more info can be found on this online). The diet was designed to reduce T2 diabetes symptoms (or even reverse it entirely) but can also be used for weightloss.

Eat:
Meats and fish
Oils
Eggs
Full fat dairy products
Nuts, seeds
Pulses/ beans
Veg that grows above ground
Limit fruit: apples, pears, berries- in moderation, with meals, with fats

Occasional alcoholic drinks allowed (spirits, red wine are preferable to beer, lager, etc)
Tea and coffee, herbal tea etc.
And water- drink lots of water!

Avoid
sugar, sweets, and ‘naturally occurring sugars’ such as fructose, maltose, honey, agave, puréed dates etc....

Potatoes of any variety
Pasta
Rice
Breakfast cereals (occasional steel cut oats are ok)
Breads/ flour based products

Exercise:
Michael Moseley recommends HIIT workouts to increase calorie burn and help to tone up, and recommends walking more (increasing your steps weekly until you hit around 10000 a day)

Mindfulness
MM also suggests a programme of mindfulness, meditation, practised for a few minutes each day.

How to follow the plan:
Fast800: follow the plan above, sticking to 800 calories every day for 2 weeks. Ideal to give your weightloss a real kick start, plus improve your insulin function and reduce your sugar cravings.
8 weeks BSD- 8 weeks, follow the guidelines above- 800 calories a day. You don’t need to count carbs grams because the diet is naturally self limiting.
BSD 5:2- for a more leisurely weightloss journey, or as maintenance, or once you’ve done an 8 week stint or 2 weeks of Fast800, you can play around with a combination of increased calorie count, ‘free eating’ and fasting days (800 cals) until you achieve your goals. Many of our long standing members now follow this approach.

You can stop 800 calorie days at any time once you achieve your goal. It’s advised to limit yourself to 12 weeks maximum at 800 calorie days, but you should get excellent results in 8 weeks. Depending on your weightloss goals, you can do further ‘rounds’ of either the 8 week BSD or the Fast800.

Time restricted eating/TRE :
In addition to the fast800/ BSD plan you can incorporate a strategy of time restricted eating. Put simply, this means only eating between certain times each day to maximise your fasting time. TRE has shown to have positive results for weightloss, even if there is no calorie restriction, and increases insulin sensitivity/reduces insulin resistance. At first, try for a clear 12 hours without food each 24 hours, increasing to 16:8 as you get more adept at fasting.


Some useful links:
BSD and Fast800 support thread #17
http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/fasting_diet/3787860-bsd-and-fast800-support-thread-17

Previous thread

Meal planning ideas thread
Blood sugar diet recipe thread and menu planner meal planning thread


<a class="break-all" href="http://go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=healthyeater.com/important-tool-weight-loss" rel="nofollow noindex" target="_blank">TDEE calculator to calculate your daily calorie requirement

information about the ‘whoosh’ phenomenon

[Kimlek]

Hello shiny new thread!!
I had an ok day today... an hour of tennis followed by an hour brisk dog walk and then a cup of broth on return for lunch. Dinner was pan fried salmon with green beans and corn on the cob. I’ve not drunk much water / herbal tea today though.

[Kimlek]

I’m up again this morning despite my 24 hour fast yesterday. But that could be a delayed response to my previous excesses. I’m great avoiding the nasties but a bit rubbish avoiding sugar and the odd alcohol is beginning to slide in. But after 10/11 weeks this is getting hard. Especially when life gets in the way with lunches our, dinner invites and holidays...
Can I have some ideas please ladies? I’m away with my youngest for an event. It’s a 4 hour drive so staying in a hotel overnight and then all day at the event (9am til 5pm) then a 4 hour drive home. The event serves sandwiches and that’ll be pretty much it. There’ll be a buffet bfast at the hotel but I usually don’t have bfast. What can I take to eat at the event and en route home that’ll last / be relatively fresh after 24 hours?

[thenewaveragebear1983]

@Kimlek I'm up again too today which is annoying as I've been doing well. I think it's probably water retention as I'm feeling quite stiff after a few days vigorous exercise. This is why I try not to weigh myself every day but it's very tempting when it's going well and when I'm close to goal- but I do get pretty cheesed off when it doesn't do what I want!

Back to basics today then: food as planned yesterday, 5/6km Run in the spring sunshine, and back to no mindless nibbling and weighing and tracking everything. I imagine that a few extras are sneaking in that I'm not counting.

[bluepixie]

That pie sounds great @thenewaveragebear1983

Brekkie today chicken sausages (toddler ate one of them - standard). Avacado
Lunch - prawn salad and Greek yoghurt
Dinner - turkey story fry
Will come in at 805(!) and 28g carbs.
Must not deviate!

[bluepixie]

Oh I’ve lost half my message

Rice from Iceland it’s frozen cheap and I think it tastes fine and in separate bags

Thanks for new thread!

Ideas hmmm cheese? Olives?

[bluepixie]

I’ll be thinking they r rubbish ideas!

[L4ur3n123]

Hi everyone!
Day 2- I’ve revised the bananas and bread after seeing @thenewaveragebear1983 reply to me, hopefully with the support of this group I’ll get the knack of it soon.
I’ve just finished putting all my food for the day in MFP and I’ll be finishing the day on 44g of carbs. Does the below seem ok?

Breakfast:
100g Greek yoghurt with 10 grapes - 71 Calories

Lunch:
1 mini cheese bite
Pepperami stick
Cucumber
Hummus
247 Calories

Dinner:
3 eggs with a laughing cow triangle stirred through, 1 cup of veggies and 50g wholewheat pasta with another triangle.
(I prefer having majority of my carbs in the evening, I know that’s ‘wrong’) 405 Calories

[FluffyEarMuffs]

@L4ur3n123 ideally you need to stop the grapes and the pasta. Both are very bad.

I am not sure about the processed cheese and the pepperoni; my instinct is not to, but if you need to hold on to them right now, do as an interim measure?

The best thing to aim for is protein in an unprocessed state (chicken breast, piece of fish, etc) and then half your plate of salad or green veg.

[RubbishSwimmer]

Day 2 here too.

But good lord I’m nowhere near as organised as you all, with your food set out for the day.

My only preparation has been to buy some goats cheese. Bloody love goats cheese.

[bluepixie]

@L4ur3n123 I would make slow changes while you adapt otherwise you won’t stick to it. But swap the grapes for berries if you want fruit and swap pasta for veg rice. But as you do this more you will notice that these swaps will also keep you fuller for longer and often it’s a healthier choice (except I never eat sausages but I was bored of eggs and yoghurt for brekkie I try stay away from red and processed meat but I am prob having more of it on this diet). I eat loads of Avacado smoked salmon eggs and stir fries your doing great cal and carb wise :) nuts are good snacks too. Get the full fat yoghurt too it’s so much tastier and will keep you fuller for longer

Kimlek why don’t you take some boiled eggs and ham in the car in this weather (maybe in a cool bag) I think they would be ok? But if not I think the next bet is a protein bar with lowest sugar and carb content and accept your gonna have more carbs than usual but least it’s calorie controlled? They usually have 20g carbs in and I’ve in the past on pervious diets which I’ve calorie counted And not watched carbs often just had one of those for lunch or dinner and they kept me going for a meal. And often around 200 cals....

[L4ur3n123]

Hi @FluffyEarMuffs

Is the pasta still bad if I am maintaining under 50g of carbs a day?

Also why are grapes bad?! I have so much to learn

Myself and DP are trying to use what we have in fridge and cupboards currently - once we hit payday again I’ll make sure to buy some fresh salad and unprocessed meats!

[thenewaveragebear1983]

@L4ur3n123 the processed cheese is ok as a grab and go, but I would be mindful of processed meat things- largely because often they aren't as high protein as you'd think and they are bulked out with rusk or starch. If you want 'grab and go' options, I find that roasting a chicken to keep in the fridge cold works out better both on cost and diet than having individual portions. You can weigh and portion out in Tupperware eg, an Oz of cheese and a chunk of chicken, and keep them ready. If you like pasta, you can get red lentil pasta or edamame bean pasta which is ok, but check that it doesn't also have wheat flour. As a rule, you probably want to avoid anything made with flour, even wholemeal, at least at first. It is a massive change, especially if you've done 'traditional' diets before, but ironically it's actually far easier if you go cold turkey on these things than if you try to cut down. The other thing with 'grab and go' is that actually, it's nice to sit and eat, and savour your food, and one thing this diet does is makes food really taste amazing because you're not dulling your tastebuds with sugar.

Yogurt and berries is a good choice, I buy frozen raspberries and mixed berries and have 50g in my yogurt and it is really satisfying. I also like kiwi or passion fruit- try to get fruit that has a high 'seed' content (which is why banana and mango are not ideal for example)

@FluffyEarMuffs advice is sound too- if you are freestyling in terms of recipes etc (which must of us do) then aim for eg. 200 cals of protein (chicken breast, steak, egg etc) and then i go for a huge handful of lettuce, one other veg (so eg 5 cherry Toms), 1tbsp mayonnaise/olive oil, sauerkraut. Sometimes I have cooked veg but usually I have raw. Sometimes some seeds.
I basically do that x 2 meals a day, with around 90 cals for my yoghurt and 35 for my 100ml soy milk. Use plenty of seasoning, garlic, chilli- whatever you like.

The book will explain this in much more detail and had some really nice recipes if you want help getting ideas. The opening post on here gives a summary but you can't beat the books really for their scientific knowhow!

[thenewaveragebear1983]

@L4ur3n123 re the pasta- and the grapes- it's all to do with insulin. When you eat sugar/carbs, you pump out insulin to remove it from your bloodstream. When we are overweight, with weight round our middles, we are very likely Insulin resistant which means our cells don't recognise the insulin and pump out far too much. Insulin is the hormone that stores sugar as fat. So if you've got insulin in your blood, you are storing fat- regardless of how many calories you eat. Pasta/flour/potatoes/rice/glucose causes high insulin because it is easily digested = raises insulin = fat storage.

Grapes- they are very high in fructose and have very little fibre (compared to eg, a sour green apple- high fibre in the skin , lower fructose) Fructose is different because it is not ever (ever ever ever) used by your muscles for fuel. It is always sent straight to your liver, where it is instantly stored as fat (unless you are low on liver glycogen, you need only a few grams a day for this). If you eat small amounts of fructose with fibre (eg in its natural state, a green apple) then your liver can cope with this. If you eat large amounts of fructose you simply can't process it. You will store loads of fat around your organs. This makes you apple shaped (ironically) and more insulin resistant, and leads to all sorts of metabolic nastiness in later life.

It's not just fruit- fructose is used now to sweeten everything. White table sugar (sucrose) is actually 50:50 glucose and fructose so if you see sugar on a label, 50% of it it fructose. This is why I shudder when people who know best say 'oh but it's natural sugar' because all sugar is natural and fruit sugar/fructose is literally poison to our bodies.

The purpose of this plan is to a) reduce your insulin output and b) reduce your fructose intake. Fructose is the real bad guy here.

[thisyeargoodyear]

Thanks for the new thread.

This week has been ok for me, had a few things on but trying to make good choices! I was out for breakfast yesterday which was not on plan but basically didn't eat anything else all day except some ham and cheese as a snack at dinner time. Managed the gym last night but scales haven't moved. I have ordered the fast 800 journal to track my progress - I am a sucker for these nice pretty books, but I do fee they help me!

[thenewaveragebear1983]

@thisyeargoodyear totally with you on that, I bloody love a notebook.Dh has banned me from paperchase now and I'm only allowed supermarket offerings

[CaptainBrickbeard]

L4ur3n the diet can be a lot to get your head around if you haven’t done low carb before but it’s very effective. One thing I will say is that I have found it more expensive - I’m eating less food, but a lot of it is fresh so I’m definitely spending more. However, pasta/bread/low fat yoghurt would make it impossible for me to stick anywhere near 800 calories. All of the insulin information helps the process of weight loss click into place. And for me, I lose weight eating over 800 calories when I keep my diet low carb.

[RubbishSwimmer]

Hungry.

Although I haven’t eaten yet so it’s hardly surprising, but I’m going round in circles trying to work out what to have.

I’m like you L4 - need to learn the ropes.

[L4ur3n123]

Thank you so much for all of your replies!

The roast chicken then divided into chunks is a great idea @thenewaveragebear1983, even messaged DP to tell him we should do it and he agreed (he isn't doing this diet as he works on his feet moving all day and is much much taller than I am - but he is eating similar food, just more of it and more protein) Thanks for explaining it to me, I think I have some frozen berries in my freezer so I'll use these with my yoghurt for tomorrow instead of grapes and stop with the pasta!

@CaptainBrickbeard Losing weight always means we increase our grocery money but I'd rather lose weight than keep gaining like I am currently... I'm going to cut out the carbs moreso than I currently am...

How do people get to 50g carbs without bread/ pasta?
I feel like eggs and veggies might not fill me up without something carby with it.. some simple filling dinner ideas would be appreciated anyone :)

[RubbishSwimmer]

I’ve just done that TDEE calculator.

Eff me, no wonder I’ve been putting weight on - it’s paltry!

[thenewaveragebear1983]

@L4ur3n123 the 50g carbs is not really a target, it's more of a max limit. You don't need to get 50g, in fact the lower the better really

[bluepixie]

@L4ur3n123 I eat more fat. So Avacado nuts salmon etc to fill up. It is hard at the start and I could only do 1000 cals but the week after I managed 900 and now I’m on 800. I must say I cheat at weekends so maybe why my hunger hasn’t adjusted. But that suits me for now as I have stuff going on and need some happy enjoyable time to let me hair down. But I’m sure if you stuck to it within a week or 2 u wouldn’t be feeling hungry.

Prob a good idea to see sample menus posted before of what to eat

I eat loads of egg and salmon and full fat yoghurt and berries for brekkie
Protein(tuna prawn chicken) and huge salad for lunch
Dinner I do loads of stir fries with soya and chillis and garlic and ginger (chicken prawn or turkey) with greens, or a turkey bolengase no rice/pasta. Omletes. Grilled fish. I’ve started using more olive oil in my cooking too which is calorific but meant to help keep you full.

You will get the hang of it. I’m still a newbie sure the others will guide u more!

[thisyeargoodyear]

@thenewaveragebear1983 my fast 800 journal arrived and I love it! I can't wait until Monday to start - couldn't possibly start using it mid week

For those just starting out, I highly recommend buying the fast 800 book. I have read it several times and go back to it often just to re-read sections - it keeps me following the plan and reinforces the science behind it all.

[bluepixie]

Kitchen closed 850 cals 30 carbs (I had 2 coffees With splash of milk and some cheese I wasn’t expecting due to hunger!)

Am exhausted today so getting into bed as soon as DS is and won’t be visiting kitchen again!

[L4ur3n123]

Home from working, veggies cooking - and I just want to eat all the crap possible! We have a gift basket from MIL with homemade caramels and french treats and DP has left the basket on the coffee table for me to ogle when I got home

[thenewaveragebear1983]

Kitchen closing on 1110 cals, 28g carbs, 17k steps (5.5k was a run). I'm about to go out for PTA meeting hence the early closure of the kitchen!

My dinner was so tasty- chicken thighs baked in a Chinese curry style sauce (made with a paste from the world foods section, tastes exactly like chop shop curry sauce) and egg fried cauli rice with petit pois. Really felt like a takeaway treat.

I only really ate that one meal today, although I did eat a chunk of cheese (weighed) at about 4pm which tipped the calories over the limit, and some olives as a sort of 'late lunch'

Tomorrow I will be at work til 12.30 so will definitely hold off eating til then, then Ds and I like to go into the town for a library visit and a babycino (coffee for me!) so will probably have a salad lunch after that. Dinner tomorrow is pork steaks, with some sort of ratatouille type affair of Mediterranean veg, so should again come in under 800. No run tomorrow but I might whack my punchbag for a bit and will Do day 26 (?) of yoga. I will need to find something new to do after the 30 days!