Day two done - about to murder someone for sugar.

[NotQuiteJustYet]

This isn't the first time I've cut out carbs, with South Beach being my preferred diet of reference but I ALWAYS forget how hard the first few days are when you're going cold turkey from sugar.
Today I've presented with flapjacks, chocolate, biscuits and sandwiches by a well meaning MIL who didn't know I had changed how I was eating again. Just going to sip my sugar free flavoured water and pretend like it's getting me through this.
Anyone else at this stage?

[WetLettuce123]

I hate giving up sugar it's so so difficult so you have my sympathies. I find the rally intense cravings do pass after a while but iron willpower is unfortunately needed in the interim!

I'm not much use because I struggle to do it myself- are you allowed fruit?

[BIWI]

No! Fruit is just sugar in another guise.

[BabyGanoush]

Oh Biwi, you are so strict

Fruit cannot be that bad surely, it has fibre and vitamins.

Is a no carb diet really sustainable long term?

I always think starvationdiets arebad for you long term

A diet that does not allow any fruit sounds silly to me tbh

[ihatethecold]

It's not a starvation diet at all.
No one died from cutting out sugar!

[monkeyfacegrace]

Starvation diet

Yep, eggs and butter for breakfast, with a salad drenched in dressing with 2 chicken breasts and chunks of cheese, and a steak with roasted broccoli and cauliflower is really starving yourself

[NotQuiteJustYet]

I'm with BIWI here with the no fruit, I have insulin resistance so I know what the natural sugars in it do to my blood sugars and insulin levels as a result. I'm not going to lie and say I absolutely wouldn't sell a kidney/kill someone for a juicy peach right now, but I know it'll pass shortly.

I'm still getting plenty of nutrients from veg plus I'm taking multivitamins to ensure I'm not missing anything. It's definitely not a starvation diet, my meat consumption over the past 3 days could feed a small village.

Major headache as expected today so I'm guzzling water like it's going out of fashion but a sneaky ketone test this morning says I'm already in ketosis so it's renewed my willpower.

[BIWI]

I tried to post on this earlier this afternoon, but the problems with the site wouldn't let me. Hopefully this will post now!

It's not 'no' carb, it's 'low' carb. And you will get all the necessary vitamins and fibre from vegetables and salad - you don't actually need fruit.

It's only in the earliest, strictest days of low carbing that you can't have any fruit - once you're at your target weight, you can introduce it - but you do have to be careful and realise that fruit can quickly become very carby. Especially bananas.

It absolutely isn't a starvation diet, as monkeyfacegrace says

Nor, actually, is it a silly diet. There's lots of science to support it. And it is also a completely sustainable diet in the longterm, notwithstanding that the world is made for people who eat carbs! But what's wrong with meals based on meat/fish and vegetables/salad?

[BabyGanoush]

But monkeyface, that menu sounds really bad for your liver

[Emmiy]

I don't agree with no fruit and then taking a fake man made synthetic vitamin tablet. You don't need vitamins if you are eating well. Fruit is important and provides disease fighting nutrients. Too much protein from meat is not necessary or healthy. We don't need such amounts of meat nor is it good for our bodies. Adding fat to foods is also not natural. If food comes with fat then good but to add excessive amounts of dairy ie butter and cheese is not a good thing. Dairy is contentious and has been linked to a number of diseases and allergies. Cutting out processed food is good but eat fruit and veg, fish, chicken and meat, nuts and seeds. Eat what grows and you can't go far wrong and is sustainable for life.

[Emmiy]

And we do need fruit BIWI. Fruit contains bvitamins and nutrients that are essential to our bodies and help us fight off and prevent disease. One of the earliest cancer fighting protocols was the Geerson therapy which includes lots of fruit and vegetables. Fruit is natural and can be picked off a tree. Can't get more natural than that. I know this low carb boot camp helps to get people off to a good start but to add lots cheese and butter to foods rather than eat a bowl of fruit is not natural. If you eat fruit veg salad nuts seeds then you will help your body to be its healthiest and slimmest without causing a lack of nutrients and needing synthetic vitamins. You are what you eat is very true and the food you eat today is either going to fight disease or potentially cause it. Synthetic vitamins are not good for our bodies. Natural food is.

[Emmiy]

Should be "vitamins" not b vitamins.

[NotQuiteJustYet]

Just to clarify, this is not me swearing off all fruit for all of time but following a diet created by a doctor who has worked with countless patients with insulin resistance, PCOS and T2 diabetes. Some fruits will be reintroduced in a few weeks, but the first stretch is quite restrictive, yes.

The thing with insulin resistance is that it's self-perpetuating so if anything that breaks down to sugars is consumed, it'll have an insulin reaction. An insulin reaction causes fat storage for me which in return makes my insulin resistance worse.

I'm under the care of an endocrinologist who has given me the go ahead to go back on this, and has advised that this could be what prevents my insulin resistance becoming T2 diabetes, which as a 25 year old PCOS sufferer, I'm keen to avoid. I'm overweight but I don't feel anywhere near big enough to be disgnosed with T2 diabetes at this age though it runs in every generation on the paternal side of my family and has been found on the maternal side too.

I already have a prescription for Metformin which my endocrinlogist has told me to go onto if this fails, I'm pretty keen to stay off it due to the side effects it causes and it has a known drug interaction with other medication I'm on. Multivitamins are worth the lack of fruit here haha.

The good news is we're past the 3 day slump and I feel great!

[BIWI]

Why on earth wouldn't we add fat to foods, Emmiy? When you say it's not natural, that's silly.

Low carb is about making tasty, satisfying food. And that generally means higher fat food. There's nothing wrong with that at all.

And why do you think too much protein is bad for us?

Bootcamp only forbids fruit in the first two weeks, by the way, and it can be re-introduced after that, so it's not as bad as you seem to think!

Anyway, good luck NotQuite, and glad it's got off to a good start for you.

[BIWI]

...oh, and also, Emmiy, I forgot to say that a low carb diet will primarily be fat, then protein and then carbs. So it's not massively high in protein anyway.

[Iamdobby63]

Ditto everything BIWI said.

I may not eat fruit (apart from a few berries) but I now have a healthy BMI, my BP has gone down and generally I have never felt in better health.