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Transition to real food post newcastle diet

brettsza said:
As far as the point of going for 3 0years is concerned I am only 33 so I might have to go for next 30 years like this and hence the reason for me to take a short break and have carbs just one meal in a week or two weeks as a treat, it keeps me going.
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I can understand that ... and I will probably do the same once I have lost a little more and ensured my BG levels are stable. I am only a few months in to this after all, compared to some of you who have been following this pattern for significantly longer.
 
I think Pasha meant immediately after the ND rather than a life time of starvation! Build up the (low carb) calories gradually over several weeks as your stomach gets used to more proper food.
 
Arab Horse said:
I think Pasha meant immediately after the ND rather than a life time of starvation! Build up the (low carb) calories gradually over several weeks as your stomach gets used to more proper food.
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Yes ,exactly. Also I understand that its best not to make sudden changes, and that you cannot go back to your pre ND calorie intake.
 
brettsza said:
I think our life is not just full of experiments.
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Fair enough. I think it works as a good coping mechanism for me to see it all as a big experiment! Allows me some distance from being chronically dysfunctioning (ill?) to actually go ahead and do things, like the D-ND - and compiling lists of numbers and graphs and so on. Especially when coping with disappointments, and for me, rising HBA1cs instead of decreasing. Trying to deal with the fact that I can only be healthier re my diabetes if I am lean and not just normal weight. Therefore I might not be getting any healthier. Having to just wait and see. But I do understand that the experiment-mode is not for everyone.

I think for me, I have really been coming to terms with the fact that managing my diabetes with diet and exercise - really is about a lifetime of tight food and motion control. And 'a lifetime' is the rest of my life. It has been freaking me out, I must admit. (This could be a post one-year-anniversary thing?) I keep reading about the strict attention to food and exercise entailed in the literature (I'm sure it was in diabetes.co.uk!), and I realise, that yes, that is what it means. And I think about when I was at a diabetes course, here in my sometimes adopted country, when I was listening to a Swedish endocrinologist speaking to we diabetics about diabetes treatment. He, a very nice, very intelligent and totally well-meaning chap, but a skinny non-diabetic chap it must be said, was telling us that it was too difficult to treat diabetes with diet and exercise alone - that taking medications was much easier. I asked him if taking medications was easy. (ie, I don't think it is either.) What's easy? Nothing is easy, regarding the treatments available to us. We just know we have to treat it somehow, with what works best for us. (Sorry if that sounds trite - but I do believe that.)

Another aspect of what I am feeling is dealing with people (friends and family) telling me how manageable diabetes is (and therefore no big deal). The only thing I can remind myself is - they have absolutely no idea! What 'tight control' actually means. And for me, it has been treating my diabetic body as an experiment subject that helps me. Otherwise I might want to ring the necks of another well meaning friend and family-member who tells me how manageable it is! Otherwise I might not want to keep up the 'tight control'.

But yes of course you are right - our lives are not just full of experiments. We are many things that have nothing to do with our diabetes. And worth being reminded of that. Quite right.
 
@Pasha
Increasing calories is just gradual so I went from 800 to about 1000 then 1400 and now settled at about 1600 to 1700, I try and do lower if I can but due to intermittent fasting (which I think really helps) I am sure I dont take too many calories in a day.
No breakfast
Lunch is salad meat and cauli rice (I have started loving it now) and I make my own version, not just plain boiled cauli.
Dinner is salad meat and some fat, I am not really overdoing on the fat side, I would hate to put the weight back on.
Snacks is cheese and nuts.
I think I over calculate my calories at about 1600 as I think it will be lower than that, but post ND I did not start eating too much as I was about 20 percent less than pre nd so I ate 20% less and then I did not get my body into the habit of eating too much. So I take small meals and snack on nuts if I feel too hungry with some water.
I can gain weight on no food, my body has tendency to gain weight very quick so I am quite pleasantly surprised with how much IF is helping, everyone looses weight on IF, I am atleast not gaining
 
Pasha said:
How about ca 1500-1700.? That should be plenty to get by on comfortably
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Yes. For me. But folk are different for sure. Different body types, gender, ethnicities etc.

I personally work on a food quality framework, rather than on a calorie-in calorie-out model. (I don't count calories outside of a VLCD.) But then again I am no model of post ND success, having regained my pre-ND weight while away on a trip.
 
Pasha said:
Yes ,exactly. Also I understand that its best not to make sudden changes, and that you cannot go back to your pre ND calorie intake.
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The Taylor research does specify that post VLCD it is important to not increase the consumption to levels previously consumed.
 

Pedant alert!! <<< me

Just being pedantic here, but if your "new normal" eating, plus IF is your weekly routine, you could be losing on IF, if you are sometimes gaining on "new normal", based on fluctuations. Bearing in mind, if I recall correctly, you are doing IF a couple of days a week, as opposed to a week a month, isolated days are far to short to judge either means of weight control.

Well done on finding a way to keep the scales reading the same, but for me, I wouldn't enjoy the self imposed requirement to fast. But, then, that's completely immaterial in your life.
 

Hi AndBreathe

I actually started IF as soon as I finished ND, I follow it strictly 5 days a week and on the weekends I stay on fasting till my family wakes up, I am an early riser so by the time we actually sit down for brunch I do about 15 hours of fasting so I would say I pretty much do IF everyday and have been doing since I finished nd about 10 weeks ago now.
I find skipping breakfast is easiest part of my meal, I want to have lunch with my colleagues and dinner with my family so leaving breakfast was easiest decision, but one thing I do is I am flexible so if any reason I wake up very very hungry and water or coffee does not do the trick I will eat something.
Breakfast was my biggest meal of the day, a big fry up of bacon sausage eggs, I dont think I could actually eat all that in one go now post nd, my stomach has definitely shrunk and will not take that much food anymore. So I left that out and swapped it with some coffee, a pint of it
 
We took our young son to Pizza Express yesterday for a treat (a year since we last went). Prior to going I was studying the menu online and planned a low-carb salad-type main course but in the end I decided to try a pizza and monitor the results - purely in the interests of science, of course .

No starter (only because they forget to bring the ordered platter to share )
Diavolo romana pizza as a main
no desert
large glass of Merlot.

5pm, pre-meal: 5.3
7pm, 1 hour post meal: 9.3
8pm, 2 hours post meal: 8.0
9pm, 3 hours post meal: 6.3
10.30pm: 4.8
11.30pm bedtime: 5.5

High peak reading, but a reasonable recovery and not too much of a disaster all-in-all I think. Also the quantity of food I ate was a marked reduction to a typical former visit of starter, pizza main plus a sweet desert, wine & liqueur coffee.
 
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And what do you conclude?
 
I was in Italy about a year ago and since I was in a remote part of italy I had no option but to have either pasta or seafood. I can not stand seafood except post ND I have started having salmon, I dont really like it but I dont hate it as much as a sea bass as it smells a lot less.
So while I was in italy, I used to test myself a lot, specially after pizzas and pastas as I would not eat those things here while in UK and I was there for a month, I never saw more than 6.2 there and when I came back and had my a1c done I was surprised to see it at 39.
This is all before I did ND, not tried pizza since after ND till now, I have had a piece or two of pasta with veggies but not a lot, I have had fully blown currys and naan breads and they have not really taken me too high, not seen more than 6.5ish even after a plate full of rice.
That day I decided to test me and my wife together and I posted the results here but dont remember where it is now.

I was 5.3 i think before meal
6.5 or 6.4 after 1 hour
and 5.6 or 5.5 after 2 hours

My wife was 6.6 or 6.7 after 1 hour
6.2 after two hours. I dont know what was her readings in the beginning as she said yes for testing after having food so I actually ended up having more than her.
These readings could be a point here or there but I actually came back better than my wife's readings whos non diabetic with a1c of 30 and passed a ogtt
She had a muffin before she went to bed after that too
 
Yes I agree but why a 9. I an just prodding because if you understand it you may change your behaviour
 
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Had my Doctors visit yesterday, and very pleased,
HbA1c 1/12/14 = 79
HbA1c. 4/06/15 = 54
Cholesterol 23/07/14 = 5.9
Cholesterol 4/06/15 = 4.8
TG or Trigs ?? 11/11/14 = 2.7. Now 1.6
Seems to be a great improvement although for some reason she was taking the blood results from 04/06/15 tests, and I was still doing ND, it was also nice to be able to produce a printout of all BG's with graphs and weight loss from 1st May to now, She spent a lot of time studying them and said that "it's a pity more people didn't take more control like this, as it would save the NHS a fortune " she is very supportive and understanding and when I mentioned Prof Taylor, she had heard good things about him, she took me off my 2x a day Metformin and will review again in 3 months time when the results should be better, I told her I was trying LCHF at the moment, and surprisingly she said that maybe a 5 2 diet would suit better as I was used to fasting, being like @Steve50, I have never been able to enjoy breakfast and am happy to drink coffee and soldier on to lunch time,
Lessons learned, portion size, eat only when hungry, if it means skipping a meal, then so be it, the system seems happy with that, after so long on Salads, Soup, Slimfast, and water, Total weight loss is 31 lbs, now at 211lbs and on a plateau, Goal weight is 203lbs,
Biggest lesson learned, ..... Was absorbing and understanding the knowledge on this Forum and the great people on it, for which I am truly greatfull, thank you all
 
Great results mate very well done.
Are you going to have another a1c in 3 months time to check how it's going.
I will ask my dn to give me a form for another a1c to see how I am doing or how I have done post nd.
 
Andrew Colvin said:
Yes I agree but why a 9. I an just prodding because if you understand it you may change your behaviour
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Well, the carb content was significantly more than I had eaten in over 3 months ... and significantly more than I intend to eat in the future.
 
End of week 10 for me and I have gained half a kilo this week, I did overdo nuts I admit but have been very good overall.
Had 1 carb treat of rice and bg did not go higher than 6.5 I think it was at any time.
Still IF 16:9 and negligible weight.
No exercise last week as did a lot of gardening on the weekend.
 
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