Re: Newcastle study- new guinea pig
Sorry - this is a dreadfully long post.
14.11.11. finished the 8 weeks of the Newcastle Study diet.
Weight loss 2 stones 8 lb
BMI down from 33.1 to 28.0
FBG down from 9.4 to 4.4
Waistline reduced by 5 inches.
Disclaimer: inevitably my experience of the diet is warped by my age/metabolism/personality/family situation/other meds etc. Everyone is different and in a different situation:- someone else’s experience won’t necessarily be similar to mine.
At first I stuck absolutely rigidly to the diet; I had 3 slimfast shakes made with water and one cereal bowl of salad, plus the 3+ litres of water and Ceylon, green or white tea without milk when I wanted a hot drink ( black coffee tasted odd- no idea why). As the weeks passed from time to time I dropped one shake- either because I got up late or just didn’t want it in the evening. I genuinely didn’t have anything else- not out of virtue but because I knew that one lapse would be the end of it- I’m not very good at getting back on the wagon. I think self knowledge is a useful tool in this- I know that my self control is dodgy, so I tried to set myself up for success rather than failure. The first week was reasonably easy- I’ve never had any trouble starting a diet, it’s sticking to it that’s the problem and I don’t suppose that I’m alone in that. I didn’t feel hungry, and as I said at the start I was psyched up for it, having planned it several weeks earlier for a time when there was no socialising and the universities had gone back so the family’s two biggest eaters were gone. I stocked up on what I needed, bought some new accurate scales and a BG monitor and got on with it.
When you’re the family cook it is hard to stick with a diet if everyone else wants ‘normal’ meals. I got over that by either feeding them salad with chicken or fish and potatoes (which I’ve never been particularly bothered about eating) or ready meals which my daughter kindly heated and served up so that I didn’t have to be tempted. Weekends were harder- pizza, pasta, bread and cheese, salami, wine etc. I just kept out of the way until they had finished eating, though the smell lingered on and made it a bit harder. Everyone was very supportive- it would require absolutely cast iron self control (which I don’t possess) if the family weren’t onside. Still hard to sit watching TV or chatting with glasses of wine around, and fizzy water is no substitute. For those who live alone it would be more straightforward- just have the allowed foods in the house- no temptation (though we all know how easy it is to walk to the nearest shop to buy something we shouldn’t). As a sideline it was interesting to find that my husband lost 7lb, partly because he didn’t want to make it even worse for me by snacking (and there wasn’t much in the house to snack on), partly from the built in portion control with ready meals as opposed to my cooking, and partly from the extra ‘salady’ meals, which weren’t popular at the time, but did the trick for him too. (He would like to lose a few stone himself.)
The second week was definitely the hardest, not because of hunger but boredom with a largely liquid diet and still a long way to go- I am a person who likes to eat and whose social life tends to revolve round eating, so ‘eating’ just for fuel, without an enjoyment element is hard, and I didn’t see many people- mostly friends who were also on one diet or another. As the weeks passed I had more invested in it and luckily the weeks of the least weight loss seemed to be the best FBGs and vice versa, so there was always something to encourage me to keep going. I don’t know how J managed when he hit a plateau and the BG went up- I would have cracked I’m sure. The last weekend was also hard- everyone at home and without my daughter I would have cracked and had a glass of wine.
What helped me to stay on the wagon, besides moral support from the family? I kept my spare time full of things to do that didn’t involve food. Went to the pictures, an art gallery, the theatre; read a lot of books, played the piano, took an extra exercise class; cleared a backlog of little jobs in the house and garden, had a big decluttering session, and a lot of trips to the recycling place. Anything to keep busy. The house is really clean, cleaner than it will ever be again I suspect- I loathe housework, but if you’re doing housework you aren’t drifting to the kitchen and the fridge. A tip (from a friend) for the ladies- nail varnish- if you’re waiting for it to dry you can’t be eating, even if it’s just clear (my hands aren’t steady enough for colours!). I also think that posting all the figures on the forum kept me on the straight and narrow (thank you for suggesting it Viv!) and the helpful comments made and the fact that people were reading it even if they didn’t comment was a spur. Reading other people’s experiences had confirmed my decision to do it (that’s how I found the forum in the first place) - having John doing it at the same time and seeing his posts was an encouragement to keep at it. I admire his resolve to keep going until he gets to his target.
Problems/ unexpected aspects?
1. Liquid diet is boring- I had raw veg/salad every night to give myself something to chew.
2. Stale mouth- yellow tongue- the diet or the black tea? I don’t know but I got through a lot of mouthwash and brushed my teeth several times a day.
3. Not a big fan of sweet things so the shakes were not to my taste. Bread, butter, cheese and salami are my downfall not puddings and sweets. Would have preferred a soup type of diet drink like optifast if I could have obtained it.
4. Tiredness and headaches in the first couple of weeks, but that is usual on any diet as a friend who has tried them all reminded me. I haven’t had more energy as some people seem to have done- might be me, might be my epilepsy meds which tend to dope you down.
5. All that water- it’s very good for you but the number of trips to the loo can be a problem. I tried to get at least 2/3 of it drunk by lunchtime but it isn’t always possible if your day takes you somewhere where it isn’t convenient or even possible to keep going to the loo. I found that on some days I was making it up in the late afternoon/ early evening and then I was up half the night.
6. Weirdly by the 6th week my sense of smell was more acute- not always a bonus- for example a lot of people seem to me, but not to others, to have bad breath lately, and people who wear a lot of perfume are overpowering- very odd.
7. Feel the cold a lot- probably a result of doing it in the autumn when the temperature is dropping. I would rather put an extra sweater on than have the built in insulation back!
Advantages?
1. Simplicity- it might be boring but it is easy to do and you don’t have to think about what to eat- it’s prescribed. Making up the shakes doesn’t require much effort and you don’t even have to open the fridge to do it so the occasion of temptation is much reduced- just the evening salad bowl- hardly have to think about food at all, which helps.
2. Really fast weight loss which is a big psychological boost for me – plateaus push me off the wagon faster than anything else- but can I keep it off? Time will tell.
3. As a direct result of that it’s easier to cope with exercise- no longer have to routinely have a session with a hot beanbag on my dodgy knee after exercise class, which in turn makes me less likely to find an excuse to skip it, and more likely to push myself a bit while I’m doing it. General mobility much better.
4. Much improved BG figures- again, can I keep them that way? GPs blood test will be interesting. So will my own if I can remember to do them- will try and do the full set at least once a week- or would odd days be ok- breakfast one day, lunch another etc? That would be easier to manage.
Now the 6 million dollar question- has it put the diabetes into remission? I don’t know, and before someone else says it, I agree that I can’t know, without the benefit of the barrage of tests the original trial members had and a lot of follow up. None of us are going to get that but it doesn’t mean that we have to sit tight and resign ourselves to a growing list of prescriptions because there’s nothing else officially on offer, (unless of course we are happy with that- it’s a free country). In my case I won’t be returning to ‘normal’ eating until I’ve lost another couple of stones, so I can’t even do a meaningful self test after meals check until I’ve done that- in my experience it will be about 12 months (that doesn’t allow for the inevitable lapses and the age difference of 20 years since the last time I did this). I also don’t know what effect the sometimes very large doses of various anti epilepsy meds over 30 years have had. No one on the HCP side is able to tell me. It is possible that for me there is no going back. If I eventually have to take all those extra meds at least I will have done my best to avoid it.
Perhaps if I had been encouraged to monitor my BG when first diagnosed it wouldn’t have reached this point (and I intend to tell the GP so). The full test once a year isn’t particularly helpful when it comes to control- it just ticks an NHS box, which appears to be all that matters in this area, and don’t even get me started on what passes for dietary advice. But, FBG, BMI and waistline measurements are all encouraging. I hope that it has begun the process, I hope that I can carry on the good work, and I will keep monitoring myself to see. Even if it hasn’t, at the moment the fringe benefits of losing over 2 1/2 stones aren’t a bad consolation prize!
