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Broke my 20 day Newcastle Diet...now what?

memememeiii

Well-Known Member
Messages
147
Location
Manchester
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Dislikes
Dunno. Strange question.
I'm so frustrated. I had to attend a five day conference in London and just could NOT hold it together. I broke the diet two days ago, ate sandwiches that they put out for the professionals here, as I was ravenous, cold and tired. I had a salad at night two nights ago. Yesterday I cheated again and had two boiled eggs for breakfast, then sandwiches for lunch and grilled chicken for dinner. Today, not so healthy, with more sandwiches at lunch and japanese skewered chicken with some sweet sauce and california maki roll. Then I came back to the hotel with an Americano and skimmed milk from SBUX. Drank five gulps of it and threw it out. I feel like ____.

They say that the problem is people's ability to sustain this diet. It is EXTREMELY hard, but I still want the results and thus am going to have to start again. Do you think that this is going to have a profound impact on this ability to re-start the cells? Again, I'm paranoid, hence I feel I must do this diet.

Sad tonight. As a friend says, nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. I am feeling and looking better - not sure what my weight loss is at present with there being no scale here. But I'm at least 24 pounds down, or I was three days ago. I can't really have gained, I figure, for the calories ingested.

So frustrated.

Help! (Moral support needed now.)
 
Maybe switch to a low carb high fat diet? It's a slow, but steady way to lose weight and improve all the other metabolic syndrome symptoms. It's also sustainable and not very hard to stay on after a couple of weeks.
 

Stop beating yourself up.

You have achieved a decent weight loss. Have you been testing BG?
If you have been feeling hungry on ND, were you sticking with it, or were you including high carb ' treats'?

No matter, what you need is damage limitation. Stop eating sandwiches and sweet sauce. Just because you have eaten that sort of stuff for a few days does not mean you have to continue.
You probably did not plan ahead for the conference, so learn from the experience.

If you feel you are 'paranoid' you are not in the right frame of mind to re-start the ND regime. That is not a failure to admit that. It would only be a failure if you repeated the same process, then felt you had let yourself down again.

So, stop trying so hard. Have some real food, make it low carb. Take stock for a few days. Check bloods, maybe HbA1c. Then formulate a sustainable plan of action. For me, the hardest part of ND, was not that I felt deprived of food, (i didnot feel hungry after the second day) it was the social kccasions when food is expected to be part of the occasion, or like you the conference. That is why it is important to plan ahead and decide in advance how to cope with such situations.
 
you can start again with the ND, you're not the first to fall off the wagon.
the only modification I would make is to have a tablespoon of oil on the salad to prevent gallstones and is only an extra 100cal.

If you find you can't stay on it, write down how you were feeling and don't go for carb, go for a protein to break it if you must. and commit to wait an hour, you may find the urge will pass.
 

What a pain! I think your 5 days, back to back was always going to be a challenge, and you did signpost the likelihood of you wandering off the perfect path before you went.

Looking at the dialogue on your profile, you have been down this road before. Maybe not specifically the falling off the wagon at a conference, but ND, then a bit of a relapse. Your profile only talks about weightloss, without reference to your blood scores, so I have no idea what happened to those when you regained your weight, but maybe I'm assuming they degraded a bit too?

Looking forward there are two credible options available to you:

1. Get straight back on the horse and treat it as a blip. Bearing in mind your feelings before your conference, and a couple of remarks you made about boredom on the diet (apologies if I recalled this bit wrongly), you may not be in the best place to get back on that horse and stick with it for the coming weeks.

2. Make a conscious decision to adopt another way of eating, for say, 4 weeks, then reconsider the ND, having recovered from your ND Burnout (I think I just manufactured that term. ) If you're going to do this, I would suggest this period should be structure around how you intend to cope after you finish the ND. So, not a free-for-all, carbtastic holiday, but a carb and maybe portion controlled way of eating.

If you could do this second option, it may give you more confidence to tackle the ND again with renewed gusto, if you have the belief you know how you will manage yourself at the end. There seems little point in puting yourself through weeks of deprivation (meaning the VLCD definition of the ND), if you don't believe you can make it work. Sadly doubt is often a self-fullfilling prophecy.

I wish you well on this. Option 2 could just give you some breathing space to plan and sort your head, and who knows, you might like that way of eating enough to just stick with it. If your carb restriction is done sensibly, it is highly likely you would lose weight pretty steadily. It might be a kinder way to achieve your objective. Don't forget, this is the long game.
 
I think you're right. I feel a bit of ND Burnout. Good one!

Tonight, I bought a ribeye and had it with a green salad, oil and balsamic. I've lost weight on a high protein, low carb diet before (beef, fish, chicken - pure), and followed the 4 Hour Body diet the last time. Got bored as I have with this one, but maybe variety is the key for a little while. I just need to erase the feeling of YUCK after three weeks of protein shakes. I was losing the will to drink them.

I need to review, again, the terms of the Newcastle Diet. I believe it is about caloric intake, and not necessarily the 'how' you do that, if I'm not mistaken.

Thanks, guys. I feel a bit better.

MM.
 
Regarding blood testing, other than through the NHS, is there a fast and cheap way to do this in the UK? Do the BG monitors measure this? Recommendations? I haven't been measuring. I'm obviously playing with fire? My doctor told me the last time I saw her that I was 'barely diabetic'. But that was on 500 mg/2x per day Metformin, so...I consider that irrelevant.
 
I've been wondering if I can get the same results if I carry on with the protein shakes but add *some* stevia or banana (a bit) and frozen raspberries to take that edge off. Watch this space. At least my head is in the game re. losing the weight. I've got 80 pounds to go to goal - 130 lbs.
 
If I can add ... how about using shakes on just two days a week a la 5:2 diet? If you did LCHF for the other five this would help you lose weight whilst getting better bg levels.
 

Professor Taylor stresses the weight loss is important (to breach the "Personal fat threshold"), rather than the methodology. I understand initially, he just wanted to replicate the common byproduct of bariartic surgery, which is effectively normalised glyccaemia control, by way of the enforced very low cal diets used, post-surgery.

The adoption of a steady low carb diet could better prepare you for the maintenance phase. So many of us, who have lost what we needed or wanted to have actually found it a challenge to halt the weight loss, such is the power of "good habits".
 
 
I think LCHF is much more manageable ad believe that it will help you achieve your goal...I an not sure what your aim of never fearing food means in your profile information...but food should be respected and understood...the right food should be eaten in the right portions so that you can lead a healthy and fulfilling life....I got to an Hba1c of 38 in 12 weeks but intend to continue to respect food, and ignore that which is bad for me and enjoy that which is good. I am sure you can get back on track. Good luck.
 
It will make no difference. You are just driving the fat from your organs so why would a little indulgance ruin it. May delay the end point but I doubt it really.
As I said to you I ate more but compensated with exercise. Horses for courses. If you are not comfortable on 800 calories try 1000
 
Meme, I do feel for you. Yes, it is indeed 'a substantial undertaking' as Prof Taylor says, to do a VLCD/ND. Eight weeks seems, and is, a very long time when deliberately not meeting your nutritional/calorific needs! Lucky people who stop feeling hungry after 48 hours - which happens to more than a few I take it. (Not to me sadly.) (I am only seven days in on a 'deviated ND/VLCD, but am just very grateful that the brain fog has now cleared.)

I am intensely admiring of people who go to work and conferences and so on, while on a VLCD. That the conference was particularly hard for you is not hard to imagine.

I am only a week in, but I handle the time ahead by breaking it up into weekly periods, two weekly periods and so on, with the first four weeks as the foreseeable goal. (To be renewed at the end of, if necessary, to bring it up to eight weeks.) Otherwise, it seems too big a mountain to climb. And I want to climb it. (Why am I using a mountain climbing metaphor? I would never dream of climbing a mountain unless I had to!) (OK - that is why I am using it. And it's an effect of the hunger probably!)

And absolutely - plotting Blood Glucose readings, especially that all-important upon waking fasting blood glucose reading. I cannot imagine doing this difficult thing without BG readings, myself. I totally encourage you to start metering Mememe... - the weight loss is the method to get to the goal - which is 'righting your wrong' blood glucose and insulin regulating system - that Prof Taylor and co tell us is more than likely caused by too much fat in the liver, and the pancreas. And seeing your blood glucose measurement, as we don't have our own MRI machines - drat it - to see our livers, hopefully with less and less fat in them! - that reading is our only insight into what is happening within us. Or hopefully beginning to happen.

And if you eat to the meter, as I have read it being referred to in this forum, you will find out if the stevia and berries on your VLCD works for you too.

But you probably do need to be tracking your BG as well as your weight in this, so that you know that it's working. You could just get right back into it, and plot away (your BG on a graph)? along with your weight loss, as you are doing now. And put the conference experience behind you?

Otherwise - absolutely - take a leaf out of some the marvellous veterans and legends in this forum - and go it slower on a food regime that lowers your BG, and see if that works for you, over time, for sure - seems absolutely sensible too. (Lucky you that you are 'barely diabetic'! If that is the case you could be a very good candidate to be post-diabetic from a longer slower lowering of your BG/defatting your liver.)
 

@memememeiii ,
You don't specify which diet products you use for your version of ND.

If you want to continue with the meal replacement shakes have a look at the website for Shake That Weight products.
www.shakethatweight.co.uk

They have several VLCD programmes, some include meals with real food. So you have some choice, but can still keep under 800 cals.

Shake that weight products were recommended to me by @paulins who has successfully lost all the weight she needed to, and has appeared to have reversed her T2 diabetes.

Best of luck, whatever you decide.
 
Hi all. Just saw your messages...not sure how I missed the replies, as I'm subscribed to this thread.

Okay, well, my motivation to continue the weightloss is strong. I'm good. Back on track. But I'm deviating from the shakes approach and am definitely over 600 cal at present. For example, I had a boiled egg in a salad with avocado and a SMALL drizzle of olive oil, plus crunchy lettuce and 10 almonds. ie. It's the high protein high fat - but good fat brunch today. Tonight, I'm trying to decide if I'll have merely baked or grilled chicken and a salad or make a konjac noodle (20 cal in 200 mg of the high fibre Japanese noodles - and NO idea how many carbs) pasta. I'm still confused. Been reading Holford's low GL diet book, and he advocates the high fat low carb diet, as does Dr. Hyman. People seem to vary in their views on meat based vs. vegetarian/vegan approaches. It is THIS CONFUSION that has me really...perplexed. I appreciate you all throwing in your two cents' worth, because somehow it does help.

I'm holding off from buying a glucose meter right now, and am motivated by my weight loss. Today I'm at 203 pounds from 230 - so 27 pounds down since Jan 3rd. My goal is to get to 130 lbs, or possibly 125, depending on the weight of muscle. I know it's going to take me 6-12 months to get there. I'd like to be optimistic, but my time is limited for the gym. Working on the EXERCISE component of reversing diabetes.

How much do you think this can all be achieved without obviously sorting this out? It seems absolutely critical.

So, decisions to be made re. whether to get back on the whey shakes - I was using GNC powder - awful. I have three tubs of soy protein - absolutely PUTRID. Worse. Now, I've stocked up on skinned and all fat removed chicken breasts from a local butcher, and am thinking - salads twice a day (small ones, obviously) and an egg in the am, chicken at night. I don't know. Just trying to keep going.

I have a gym membership and go a few times a week. Not hitting 10,000 steps daily, but that is also the goal.

Will continue to read and carry on. I guess I'm wondering whether the high fat thing is really going to have an adverse effect on my cholesterol, which is high - and I'm confused again about whether to eat all those things I always thought were healthy for you - and are, in the right amounts, in the right contexts - beans, higher carb veggies, like carrots. You read one thing, and someone says no. You read another, and someone says yes. Clearly the common denominator is portion control, exercise and working A PLAN, whatever it is. But will it REVERSE diabetes, or simply prolong the absence of symptoms? Will it reawaken the pancreatic/liver functions or not? This is what I'm still thinking about.

Thanks, all, for any further thoughts. Sorry to keep harping on about this.

MM
 
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@memememeiii

Have a read of your post. Stop, and take stock for a few minutes.

You have lost almost 2 stones in 4 weeks. Well done! But, is it realistic to expect to continue losing weight that quickly?

I don't know what to suggest about diet. It seems as if you have had enough of ND with meal replacement shakes. So you need to decide how to proceed. Lots of people do well with LCHF, but not sure that they can keep to the level of 600 to 800 calories a day. Maybe someone else can advise on that.

Good that you have gym membership, but it can be difficult to fit gym visits in a busy schedule. January is traditionally the busy time at the gym with new members following new year resolutions. They usually tail off by mid February. To avoid being one of them can you see if the gym has instructors who can help with an individual programme, or is there a class you might enjoy? Can you increase the amount of general activity and movement in your day?

It is interesting that you are putting off buying a meter to test BG levels. Why? If you get those right first, weight loss will follow. I know you say you are motivated by weight loss, which is good, but sorry I think your goal to lose as much weight as you say you want to in the timescale is ambitious, especially as your plans are so imprecise at the moment. Don't set yourself up for failure. Formulate a plan, be aware that sometimes plans have to have some flexibility to accommodate unexpected events. Keep calm, find exercise / activity that you enjoy and can fit in. Decide on a weight loss / diet regime and work at it. Make it a sustainable regime. Most importantly start testing and recording BG levels.

Sorry if this is a nag. I do hope you can get it right.
Best wishes, and good luck with it all.
 
In regards to reversing diabetes, I saw a doctor who specializes in treating type 2 diabetic patients last week. He looked at all my lab test results and said I definitely had diabetes a year ago, but my latest results showed I no longer have diabetes as my blood glucose results are below prediabetes levels. He said my blood pressure was good and my cholesterol levels were fine.

A year ago, being about 50 pounds over a normal BMI of 25, I started on the standard calorie restricted low fat "healthy" diet to lose weight, which has always worked for me in the past. It worked again and my HbA1c improved, but not dramatically. Then I got a blood glucose meter and could see what the "healthy" whole meal pasta and bread were doing to my blood glucose levels. I started to cut back on the carbs and increase the fat intake. Eventually I cut out all grains, rice, and starchy veg. That worked exceptionally well to stabilize my blood glucose levels.

So for me, a LCHF diet turned out to be the cure (in so far as I currently don't have diabetes). However, since a high carb diet was what likely caused my diabetes, I don't believe I can go back to it without it making me sick again. I'll be doing LCHF the rest of my life.
 
Good, well done, @NoCrbs4Me. I do believe diabetes can be reversed.
I hope you don't get the same sort of contradictory posts I got when I first made that claim.
Reversed? In remission? Or well controlled? Whatever, it is a great achievement, and more people are showing that T2 does not have to be a progressive disease.
 
Pipp, I sincerely hope that you're right, and NoCrbs4Me, that's my worst nightmare...not to go back to at least a HEALTHY carbs way of eating. As much as I might feel physically a bit better - I am not emotionally happy with this, or mentally. It takes a lot of energy to sustain this functional way of eating. But...not to whinge on. I am just going to have to find out what, in this new way of 'being', is pleasurable. Right now, it appears to be salads with a bit of balsamic vinegar and oil.
 
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