Blood sugar diet thread 13

[thenewaveragebear1983]

Here’s the new thread for the BSD followers. Everyone is welcome to join us. Here’s a quick recap!

The BSD 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:
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, 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.

Someone was asking upthread about cook books- this one is very good

I've lost another little bit! Woo hoo.

Made the Spanish aubergine and chorizo stew for lunch and couldn't finish half (meant to be for two people) so joint my stomach has finally got used to a smaller portion.

Froze the leftovers for a quick lunch one day.

Off out tonight but have my order planned and some dark chocolate drops for my dessert.

Really really want to see the scales falling bit by bit. Once I get to a healthy weight I can try the odd extra and see what happens.

Some great losses and some good plans for the week ahead. Well done

Watching monsters inc, looking out at, quite frankly, a rather heavy snow storm outside-, and writing my menu/shopping list for the week. It's a thing of beauty I tell you. All (loosely) calorie counted, to give a rough idea, but will add up properly as I do them. Fast days/running days sorted out. Carbs for the kids sorted. All good. I am gonna kick this week's ass...

bear I love that planning! Devising my own right now, you have inspired me.

seawig hope the meal out goes ok.

Thoughts on carbohydrate and dietary fibre?

I’m browsing for soups I can make that are low calorie, low carb. Lots of lovely bean or lentil soups are coming up, but I was vetoing them as the cab count can be up to 40g for one helping, which is way too high for me. But then I also looked at the fibre in these, which makes up about half of the carb content. I remember when I was doing keto, some people used to deduct the fibre from the total carb content, giving them the ‘net carbs’ as we don’t digest the fibre.

I really don’t want to get into micromanaging every gram of everything I eat, but I do want to include some more pulses in my diet. Have people any thoughts about eating higher carb, high fibre foods?

Incidentally....as of today, I have lost a stone!

Macca I think we've worked out before that it's about 14g per 1000 calories, so if you're doing 800 calories you need about 12g a day. You can deduct fibre grams and use 'net carbs' if you are tracking carbs, but the reason why the carbs that are allowed on this plan are allowed, is because they have higher amounts of fibre. As with most things, if you follow the plan and eat a varied diet you shouldn't need to count carbs grams, nor be too fastidious about achieving fibre targets (at least on a daily basis)- the issue comes if you want to substitute in something 'off plan' but still stick to 800 calories because then you're removing nutritional value from an already tight plan. So if you use 200 calories on a few slices of white bread for example, you may be within cals, but you're losing out on 200 cals if potential nutritional value. Do this daily and you'll struggle.

It can't hurt to be aware of how much fibre you're getting, and especially if you're feeling hungry or not going to the toilet for example, and increase if necessary.

Can I ask a question about this WOE please? I haven't rtft so apologies if this has already been covered.

There are lots of claims that LC diets mean you lose muscle mass as well as fat which in the long term is not a good thing. What does MM say about this? (I have googled but can't find anything)

Just to clarify I am asking in reference to fast800.

Slinky I'm not so clued up on the fast 800 but on BSD (which is the same basic principles, just over 8 weeks rather than 2) he advises to do strength/resistance training exercises plus does talk a fair bit about protein. You will need to eat a decent amount of good quality protein, in order to prevent muscle wastage. I think you're more vulnerable to muscle deterioration if you're vegetarian or vegan as your protein sources are not always 'complete' - basically you need all the different amino acids in your diet or you'll start to digest them from your existing muscle.

Not vegetarian. Do you know how much protein a day to aim for or is that dependent on what you weigh?

I read somewhere that it should be between 0.5 and 0.8 g per pound of body weight (the upper amount being if you are doing more exercise), so depending on your body weight and activity levels (if you are doing exercise that causes muscle gain)

Thank you averagebear very helpful.

Near the beginning of the Fast800 book, MM explains that relatively little long term research has been undertaken into LC diets, but that the latest research shows that losing weight has health benefits which outweigh anything detrimental. The only long term diet study found that low fat diets didn't work ling term. You need fat and protein for energy and cell renewal but you don't need refined carbs.

Hello just popping on - I used to be on here before - have also checked on to the fast 800 thread but I need all the motivation I can get right now I need to prioritise this for a couple of weeks as I was eating lidl crosissants and nutty choc while walking home from the supermarket this afternoon - always a bad sign.

Hi yumyum, welcome back!

I've done a fast day today, stuck to my plan so far at least, and will come in just shy of 800 cals, plus I did actually run despite not planning to. So a pretty good day.

Slinky at my weight I reckon I need about 80g minimum protein a day, taking into account my activity levels. Today I've had 66g, from a 150g chicken breast, some toasted seeds and dairy. To be honest, I'd be hard pushed to get more in that that given the calorie restriction, and I'd have thought a chicken breast was pretty much the best source of protein in terms of grams protein/total grams. I suppose that could be why he doesn't advocate vigorously exercising on the 8 weeks plan, maybe it is simply too difficult to achieve enough protein to sustain a rigorous regime? I am glad I'm aware of this, as I can now allow more in my non-fast days to compensate. It will be interesting to track it for a few days.

Doing well today. I have found the key for me is not having breakfast and if I'm hungry before lunch, a bit of cheese is satisfying.

Wow yes, I've worked out that the only way I can get 800 calories is to only have one, albeit massive, meal! Breakfast just seems to switch on my appetite so much!

I have a real notion for Peanut butter and toast. Obviously being a model BSDer it's not going to happen today so any ideas for what to put Peanut butter on when a soup spoon just isn't cutting it?

On you could have it on apple slices? But to be fair, I don't buy peanut butter anymore because I just eat it spoon by spoon. Why sully it's deliciousness with any pointless extras??

Just trying to be healthy bear you know how it is 😆

I have peanut butter on celery, tis yum !

Celery is the work of the devil! 🤢

Found this about building muscle on low cal diets thefast800.com/basal-metabolic-rate-weight-loss/ seems to suggest that studies show that resistance training during low cal diet prevents muscle being lost- I imagine this applies to people who are beginners with resistance training and overweight - possibly not people who are already lean etc.

Thanks yumyum.

2lbs down this morning after my good day yesterday.

Today: aiming for around 1200 cals. Chicken salad, and real chicken soup with veg. A run this afternoon (provided the weather improves) and circuits tonight, plus a few calories left for a cheese-based snack while watching Shetland tonight!

bear well done on your good day and loss

yumyum thank you for the link. I have started some resistance training today. My muscles are not used to this!

Regarding peanut butter - I tried it on apple slices and loved it, but it ends up a bit high in calories and carbs - I’m definitely trying the celery option as an alternative.