Starting a low carb diet - anyone interested in going for it with me?!

[RatherBeOnThePiste]

I did this very successfully indeed for about 6 weeks in the run up to the summer break. I have been trying to lose weight for a while and was doing OK but then reached a plateau which was when I decided to try something new. And I easily lost a stone doing this.

It was hard in the beginning, for about the first week, then I sort of settled in to it and it just became how it was. And I like the rules of it, because you just can't cheat on it. But it was sometimes hard juggling what the family were going to eat.

I have been cutting down since Tuesday, but will be going for it completely on Monday 5th. I want to lose a stone. Is anyone interested??!!!

What about fish and/or eggs?

Very nice supper dish - rich and filling:

Per person, 2 hard boiled eggs, cut in half.

In an oven dish that will hold the eggs snugly, put them in cut side up.

Spoon over some thick, natural yoghurt (or creme fraiche), top with a generous amount of grated cheese. Season with black pepper, and then grill until the cheese is golden brown.

For those of you who take lunch to work, or want an emergency snack to keep in the fridge, try these:

Breakfast muffins

Streaky bacon (1 rasher per hole in your cake/muffin tin)
eggs (1 per hole that is in your cake/muffin tin)
dspn double cream
handful finely chopped mushrooms
grated cheese
butter
chopped chives

Preheat oven to gas 3 / 325

butter each compartment in the bun tin/muffin pan

cut each rasher in half, and lay criss-cross in each compartment.

Whisk the eggs well, with the cream and some seasoning, then pour evenly between the compartments. divide the cheese and mushrooms and sprinkle on each compartment. Top with chives

Bake for 25-30 mins till set, Remove from tin when cool.

I think I am officially in ketosis! Well according to my sticks I am on ++
So am I??!!

Do I need to be at the maximum ++++ to officially be in ketosis?
Or is that the extreme and I am in but not very far in?

Of course I didn't keep the leaflet that came with them!

Waits patiently for someone who knows.......

Are you finding that you're not hungry any more? No need to snack between meals? Then you're in ketosis.

You don't need the ketosis sticks. They shouldn't be going purple anyway, as you should be drinking enough water to flush the ketones out!

If there is a plus then you are in ketosis. As I said earlier up the thread and Parce has just said you should avoid deep purple or ++++ on the sticks, this doesn't mean you are in "better" or "deeper" ketosis it means you are not drinking enough water. Ketosis is one state, in or not simple as that but you need to constantly flush out the ketones by drinking a LOT of water. Flushing out the ketones will speed up weight loss.

Whoop! Whoop!

OK so I need to drink lots too - I have been trying this morning but now I factor milk into my carb allowance, I am drinking less tea/coffee. I used to be a 10 mugs a day kinda girl.

I bought the sticks out of curiosity really...
But I am hungry
But I haven't had lunch yet..

so any + means in ketosis?

Any + means ketosis, also any colour apart from pale pink means ketosis also. Good for you, Keep drinking!

... water, obviously

Apologies, this is BIWI here, in my Gallic Troll-fighting name.

Puts down
Loving the Gallic Troll-fighting name!

Yes I quite like being French. Makes me feel all soignee. Whatever that is

Pale pink also means ketosis - it's the skin tone/buffy colour that means nothing. If there is a pale pink tone you are in ketosis but you have drunk a lot of water. My husband often mistakes the two colours and when there is clearly a rosey tinge he says he is not in ketosis but he is - try weeing on a stick when you are not in ketosis and you will definately see the difference!

hello - had bad weekend and so will give weightloss tomorrow - waiting for ketosis to kick in. had a pizza pocket for dinner and the most gorgeous chicken curry for tea.

How long do you think it takes for you to get back into ketosis after you've eaten carbs Custardo?

I'm sure it varies from person to person but I reckon it's taken me 2 days. Does that seem likely? I think I cracked it once I had the magical figure of 20g carbs to work with.

2-3 days

2 days is very likely Rather, I know I have got back into ketosis within 1 day before if I haven't gone too mad on the carbs.

1 rubbish pound

Custardo - if you had a 'bad weekend' then I would suggest one pound isn't too bad?

Still in ketosis, but not seemingly losing weight Maybe I will prove to be the exception to this plan!

Stick with it Ratherbe. I know that's easier said than done, but I have had that a couple of times, even so much as put on a 1b whilst in ketosis, then 2 days later the scales drop 3/4lb overnight.
That's probably where I have failed on diets before, they haven't worked, or I have stayed the same, and I've gone on a pig-out in frustration.

in my defence - the scales at the doctors surgery are broken - i made a special trip to use them yesterday and no-deal. So i jumped on the dodgy scales at the gym and they showed another couple of lbs off - but I don't want to update my place in the roll of honour, until I can get to the same scales IYSWIM.

bacon and egg for breakfast (love this!) supplements as advised in pig2twig (don't think I can remember them all, but physillum husk, co-Q10, milk thistle, 1000mg vit C. b complex. omega 3 & a multivitamin. theres one other. can't remembber what it is...) that's a lot of supplements... lunch was left over steak from yesterday with big leaft salad, chased with a handful of almonds and a bizarre '24hour' deli stick I picked up in sainsburys yesterday, which is basicall ycheese wrapped in ham. in a stick. not brilliant, not ghastly and only 1g of carbs. my downfall is alcohol. I love a big jack daniels and coke zero in the evenings and I'm sure it's doing no good at all. :(

I bought some green and blacks 85% chocolate at the weekend and it's in my fridge. untouched.

well done everyone. :) you are doing brilliantly.

emmanana - I will stick with it, maybe my expectations are too high, I want the weight to melt away. I am weighing myself every day and there was poss half a pound loss since ketosis.

and Snapespeare - my downfall is always the gin!

Rather, without being too TMI have you been to the ahem loo since starting this? I just remember (again this is far too much information but what the hell) when I first did a ketosis diet a few years ago, I didn't go to the toilet for 5 days when I did it was rather enlightening and the scales told me the next day that I had lost 5lbs

But even still, this diet is a bit weird when I first started it in January I plateaued for about 4 weeks and then suddenly dropped about 6lbs seemingly overnight. Also there is an absolutely fantastic write up on the Pig2Twig forum about how the scales can lie and how sometimes you lose inches and not necessarily weight, also goes into great detail about water filling your fat stores for some time so whilst you are losing fat the stores are filling up with water until it really believes you are on this diet for good.

Keep it up, it does work. Interestingly in the last 2 weeks I have lost 5lbs one day and 3lbs the next - I keep going up and down by 2-3 lbs but so many people have suddenly told me how much weight I have lost it's bizarre. I lost 22lbs between Jan and April and have stayed the same since then. I only got back on the wagon properly 2 weeks ago and I have had 6 or 7 people tell me how much weight I have lost when they have seen me regularly since April....I must be losing inches I reckon!

Rather - I don't know how long you've been doing this now, but it seems that in weeks 3, 4 and/or 5 it is very common for weight loss to stall completely - sometimes there may even be a slight gain. Then it will start again.

Keep doing what you're doing and don't give into to temptation to cheat!