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Fasting / 5:2 diet

Talk about intermittent fasting and 5:2, including what’s worked for others. Mumsnet hasn't checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. You may wish to speak to a medical professional before starting any diet.

Blood sugar diet and fast800 thread 19

999 replies

thenewaveragebear1983 · 10/05/2020 22:25

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

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" target="_blank">TDEE calculator to calculate your daily calorie requirement

information about the ‘whoosh’ phenomenon

OP posts:
Thread gallery
35
Clevererthanyou · 21/06/2020 23:30

Ty for the welcome messages everyone, much appreciated. I bought a scale today as old ones smashed during house move 😡
Today was plain Greek yoghurt for B, tuna mayo with lettuce for L and 3 eggs with some cubes cheese and cucumber for D. Went to 1003 calories so not great but at least it was still low carb. I won’t give up!

veryveryquietly · 22/06/2020 06:36

Hey folks, sneaking back in as I need a spell of BSD to get myself back on track. I was maintaining decently for a while but lockdown stress eating plus rediscovering baking has made the numbers climb upward a bit. So will be quietly watching and occasionally posting here for accountability.

madcatladyforever · 22/06/2020 06:49

If a man said that to me he'd get a divorce petition slapped on him. I couldn't live with somebody so vulgar.

madcatladyforever · 22/06/2020 06:51

Sorry wrong thread.

thenewaveragebear1983 · 22/06/2020 07:26

@madcatladyforever ....what did he say????!!

Morning all.
Weighed in at 10.11.4 - so a gain of around a pound last week. Feel motivated for the week ahead, 1200 feels infinitely more doable right now and at least I'm going into the week feeling like there's a possibility of success.

Going to be a scorcher this week as well! I love the sunshine although it does make running difficult and so I'm going to have to set out early!

OP posts:
Bestbees · 22/06/2020 07:29

Morning everyone!
Great start @cleverthanyou hope it continues.
Sounds like it was worth every mouthful kimlek.

I am up a lb but that's ok for a weekend!

My plan for today:
Lunch cottage cheese salad
Dinner turkey burger, coleslaw, a tiny bit of halloumi and salad
Lots of water and no booze!!!!

Itshotoday · 22/06/2020 07:51

Hi - I’m hoping to start for week days only.

Lots of messages. I’m partly hoping to just lose the constant snacking and resultant weight during lock down. I went to see my parents and sister (socially distanced) and they’ve all lost lots of weight following low carb ( I followed low carb many years ago and and they were very dismissive At the time And everyone was so annoyed with me !) it’s now become socially acceptable to follow low carb.

I just don’t know how to start. This looks a great forum how are you all doing it? Are you just following the recipes in the book? Do you have unlimited greens? Anyone interested he website too?

Lastly has anyone noticed an improvement in mood and energy ?

Thank you

fufulina · 22/06/2020 07:59

👋 this thread is moving fast! I have loved the fat head pizza chat (and oddly, I saw my sister on Saturday and she has embraced Keto (and is slimmer than I have even known her) and also highly recommended fat head pizza - an almond/mozzarella one. Although I am on a streak and so don’t want to go for substitutes!

Closing out week seven with a 1.8kg loss, bringing the total to 11.6kg, a BMI closer to healthy than obese and firmly in the 70s! And my lowest recorded weight since March 2018.
A much needed boost after the paltry loss last week.

Signing up for another two weeks of the same regime: TRE (12-6), less than 30g carbs, under 800 cals, no booze, no snacking. July is looming. Many social occasions. Not drinking until then.

@Kimlek so pleased you had such a lovely day Smile

@thenewaveragebear1983 I’ve been thinking about your conundrum. I wonder if you need to go higher cal (more fat) but lower carb? The running in massive deficit I’m not sure about. And maybe slightly higher carb than you think and you are super sensitive to carbs so not accessing fat stores? Or lay off running for a week and see what happens?

Anyway - as ever thank you all for posting, this thread keeps me bolstered!

fufulina · 22/06/2020 08:00

@madcatladyforever I want to know as well!!! Hilarious.

Kimlek · 22/06/2020 08:21

@madcatladyforever yes, please tell us!!
Up a pound this am. But gluttony usually hits my scales a few days later so I expect it to show in a couple of days. To combat that it’s Black coffee first thing & then lots of water today. I’ve not planned today but it’ll be a salad & maybe a BBQ dinner. I’m finding that my protein is really low. I’m about to go on a dog walk now and it’s already warm! ☀️☀️

thenewaveragebear1983 · 22/06/2020 08:26

@fufulina I think you're right. I think because I can do eg. Monday/tues/weds really well on plan, by Thursday/Friday I'm chewing my arm off, coinciding with the time dh gets all 'weekend' mode and the two collide every week. I think I need to eat more on the early days and keep the same cal count throughout the week, and less of the feast/famine mentality I think.

@Itshotoday welcome to the group! Have you got the fast800 book? I'm currently trying a lot of recipes from there, they are all really good so far. There's a bit of info in the opening post in this thread with the basics as well.

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ilovemydogandMrObama · 22/06/2020 08:31

@PhoenixMama - Not sure I know what a macro is? Am now 10 st 0 and although am in technically, not overweight zone, would like to get to 9st 5lbs, and then re evaluate.

@thenewaveragebear1983 - It's a fair point about not eating enough. I need to figure out ketosis. Confused

thenewaveragebear1983 · 22/06/2020 08:44

@ilovemydogandMrObama "macros" is just macronutrients (eg protein, fat, carb - as opposed to 'micro nutrients' like vitamins etc), is when @phoenix says look at your macros she means to look at the balance between P, c, and F. Ketosis is a tricky thing, in all the time of doing this I don't think I've ever really got into Keto and when I do I feel a bit weird, very buzzy and floaty and it's not exactly a nice feeling. To achieve it you need a very delicate balance of fat (majority of calories), protein (correct amount for your muscle mass or you'll break it down into sugars) and very very low carb (eg 10-20 g a day) plus fasting/TRE , although technically you don't need to calorie count so rigidly because keto acts as an appetite suppressant and in theory you won't be hungry enough to over eat.

OP posts:
Itshotoday · 22/06/2020 09:00

Has anyone found success with fast800 with binge eating tendencies?

Itshotoday · 22/06/2020 09:01

Thanks for the welcome waver.

collywobble · 22/06/2020 09:05

Good morning, I'm still stuck at 11.9 but I've had a great weekend sticking to plan with no alcohol so I'm really hoping something will whoosh this week. I'd be so happy to see 11.7 by the end of the week. The sunshine is very motivating so I'm heading out for a walk and looking forward to chicken korma with cauliflower rice for dinner from the recipe book. I've had it before and it's delicious and all the family love it. Feeling quite hungry this morning so lots of black coffee and water to push me through to my eating window at lunchtime. I find if I start eating too early I'll be hungry all day strangely.

fufulina · 22/06/2020 09:14

@thenewaveragebear1983 that’s interesting. I’ve been in ketosis since day 4. It depends on the individual for carb level. I’ve been up to 37g and not been kicked out of ketosis. I don’t know how this woe works unless you are in ketosis, because hunger would be off the scale. I genuinely don’t feel hunger. And although felt odd for the first day in ketosis, now I don’t feel that light headyness...

Ketostix (in the early days) can help. But now I go by the fact I am finding this ‘easy’ (all relative!).

Itshotoday · 22/06/2020 09:18

Sorry jumping in to a group I’m not part of but collywobble that’s so strange I do so much better when I don’t eat early in the day. Think that breakfast is the best meal thing is a lie?!

thenewaveragebear1983 · 22/06/2020 09:38

@Itshotoday look up the dawn phenomenon. Insulin levels do weird things in the morning and that can be why you find if you eat breakfast you eat all day.

@fufulina I do think my body resists ketosis whereas some people get into it very easily. I am clearly quite insulin resistant and carb sensitive (have you ever done that simple cracker test? I score very high on that!). I have had ketosix before but I was literally never in ketosis so I stopped using them! Maybe I will dig them out and try a proper experiment this week. Maybe also the fact that I don't easily get into keto is why I am always hungry and can't do 800 cals easily? It would make sense; I don't know enough about the science of it to be able to analyse my own data!

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Itshotoday · 22/06/2020 09:53

Waver I’ve heard of this but am not diabetic.
I do seem to find as soon as I start munching I want more - hence me thinking if may help.

fufulina · 22/06/2020 09:56

@thenewaveragebear1983 I am beyond impressed you are managing to do anything like 800 cals if not in ketosis. Honestly. I am writing notes everyday and on day 6 I wrote something along the lines of “now I understand the no hunger! It’s a sea change!” And it hasn’t moved since.

I would definitely attempt again to get into ketosis. And stay there for a while (alcohol knocks you out Hmm) and see how you feel? If you are insulin resistant, and not in ketosis it makes sense why you aren’t losing despite massive deficit (insulin barring access to fat stores) and why you are so hungry. I’d also lay off running while doing the experiment. You’ll likely feel quite odd for the first few days...? Just my thoughts but I think it must be sole destroying to eat this low, run as much as you do and not lose....

fufulina · 22/06/2020 09:59

Ha! Freudian slip! Sole and soul Grin

thenewaveragebear1983 · 22/06/2020 10:54

@fufulina maybe the fact it's going to be so hot this week could motivate me to not run. The thing is, I know that running increases my appetite, but if I don't do it I get very antsy and so it's a catch 22. The problem is with my food intake is that some days I do eat low calorie and low carb and some days I'm off the scale....what would be nice would be a steady amount throughout the week and even weekends. I didn't drink on Saturday or yesterday and I feel heaps better today so I'm going to try not to drink as long as I can...however it is beautiful sunny weather and these things do sometimes happen!!

OP posts:
fufulina · 22/06/2020 10:59

@thenewaveragebear1983 does walking answer the need? Is it time out alone, or the physicality of running?

fufulina · 22/06/2020 11:03

Anyway - just my thoughts and please ignore me if you’d prefer!! Smile

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