Blood Sugar Diet Review
Half Way Through The 8 Week Diet
Those who have been through the 800 calorie, 8 week, Blood sugar diet and who support others in a group on Facebook have a method for describing which week of the diet you are on. Some of them do several rounds of the diet because they have a lot of weight to lose. It is suggested that you have a “rest” between successive rounds of dieting, so they say whether they are on round 1, round 2, etc. As it is an 8 week diet, they also say which week they are in, week 1, week 2 and which day of that week, 1, 2, 3, etc.
What I have Lost In The First 4 Weeks
At Christmas, I ate what I wanted for a week, then didn’t weigh for a couple of days! When I first weighed again after Christmas, I was 71 Kg, yesterday, I was 67.1 Kg, so I have lost nearly 4 Kgs in this New Year. Very pleased with that. The rule of thumb for this diet is that you lose ABOUT 10 per cent of your body weight in a round of dieting. So by the end of this 8 week round, I should have lost about 7 Kg, about 1 stone or 15 pounds in weight. That would take me to a weight of about 10 stone and that would be reasonable or a little overweight for my height. Ideally, I would like to reach 9 stone in weight but that won’t happen on this round.
Counting The Rounds
So someone on round 1, week 3, day 2, would write it down as R1W3D2. This allows for people starting on different days of the week – you don’t have to wait for Monday! If the time is right for YOU to start the 80 calorie, 8 week, BSD, then do it. I originally started it on a Saturday, after reading Dr Michael Mosley’s book and realising that I needed to “do something” about my weight. This was near the start of December. I stopped for Christmas and decided to start again in January and complete the full 8 weeks, unless I reached my target weight first! (That is highly unlikely, in case you were wondering.) At the moment, I am R2w4d4, although I did not complete round 1 – that’s still a benefit because I lost 4Kg in that half round, that’s nearly 9 pounds and well over half a stone.
Benefits From Being On The Diet
- Back, well before Christmas and for a long time before that, I had felt my heart was being compressed when I lay down on my side to sleep at night. It would bump and I would have to lie more on my back, which would lead to me snoring! It was my impression that the creeping amount of belly fat piling on my middle could be contributing to that. (Now let me say right here, that if you feel this way, go and see your doctor. It is my choice not to go but if you feel your heart is not behaving in the way it has done previously, then get it checked out!) By Christmas, when I had completed between 3 and 4 weeks on the diet, that was no longer happening and I was also sleeping better – a BIG bonus for me. Now, on round 2 of the diet, I have actually slept in a couple of days recently. Being retired, that is fantastic.
- I had 2 pairs of jeans in my wardrobe that I liked but haven’t been able to get into for a long time. I had even tried wriggling while lying on the bed sucking my belly in and pulling hard on the waistband to do it upYou might enjoy watching someone do this, because this is exactly what I would try, getting VERY red in the face! I can now get into the bigger pair of jeans, with no muffin tops hanging over the sides and can wear them all day comfortably and even bend down and sit down without either feeling they were going to rip or that I was gong to do myself a “mischief”, they were so tight. So big win there.
- The smaller pair of jeans will now fit on me and I can do the waistband up and the buttons, without spare pieces of belly poking out, having been pushed down from further up. I still have muffin tops though, so a bit to go here, yet.
- I go on a walk most days with my husband, it includes a climb up steps to about a height of 180 feet and it’s a lot easier, now that I am not carrying the equivalent of 10 bags of sugar in addition to me!
- My jogging bottoms, different pairs of which I have now worn for years because I couldn’t get anything else to fit, now feel much looser around the thighs. I was very surprised to feel that because I had been concentrating on my belly and hadn’t thought to check how well my thighs were progressing.
- I think my appetite is being reset because big meals now make me feel over full – that’s a BIG benefit.
Difficulties Of Being On The 8 Week 800 Calorie BSD Diet
I am totally surprised that it hasn’t been as bad as I feared before starting it. I read about it and thought it was just what I needed, so decided that I could do it for just one day and see how I felt. One day became, “OK, I have done this so far, what about 2 days?”. Just took it one day at a time and before I knew it, the first week was up. I hadn’t actually weighed myself at the start because I have not been able to lose weight for quite some time now and it’s discouraging but I assumed I started at 75 Kgs because that had been the lowest weight I had managed to achieve over the last few years (I was up at 81 Kgs this time last year).
- Being hungry. It’s not too bad, it’s just a “feeling” and doing something else puts it out of mind.
- Life can throw a curve ball sometimes and previously I would go to the kitchen cupboard and take a spoonful of something to “make me feel better”. It never worked but I still kept doing it. I had a big job to do last weekend and ended up on one day eating far outside my 800 calorie limit, although in my defence, all the calories came from “sensible” food, not candy. I didn’t have my celery available, so I should have taken some with me.
- Deprivation. It used to bother me when people could eat large amounts of chocolate with no problem. I have accepted that I can’t. Besides, the amount of sugar icluded is bad for anyone, even if they don’t put on weight, so I reframe it as “I am glad they are enjoying that and I am glad I can enjoy my juicy, crunchy, celery”.
Lessons Learned
I now keep a head of table celery in my fridge at all times, it’s a useful “go-to” food if I feel hungry or deprived or my mouth is bored. I am also taking in plenty of other sources of fiber and drinking lots of fluid, hot and cold. I have another 4 weeks or so to go on this diet.
From dieting over the years, I think I need to keep a watch on my weight once I reach my target weight and take action if it starts to creep up again.