Seven Days In, Seven Weeks Out

Anyone who knows me, knows I love food. I eat when I’m happy, I eat when I’m sad, I eat when I’m celebrating and when I’m commiserating. I eat when I’m relaxing. I love to eat.

I love to eat anything. From healthy dinners full of vegetables to plates of pasta with creamy cheesy sauces and garlic bread. I love to eat snacks; biscuits, crisps, naughty little chocolates like M&Ms and Malteasers. I LOVE to eat ice cream and breads and cakes and pastries… The list goes on.  

I think about food a lot too. I think about the food we will have for dinner every day; I think about what I should have for lunch. I think about what food I could make to go on a barbeque on a sunny day. I think about what food I will cook for a dinner party or for the boys’ birthdays. I will start thinking about Christmas food at the end of September (not joking).

For these reasons, I was worried that I would struggle endlessly on this diet.

At the end of day seven – my first whole week on the Blood Sugar Diet – I can honestly say that it has been difficult, without a doubt (and if you’ve read my previous blogs you’ll know how much I struggled with those sweets and how tired I was to start with). But, and this is the important part, not impossible.

In fact, I have succeeded in completing the first seven days without the need of a ‘binge day’ or a ‘diet-day-off’ as I have with previous diets. Perhaps because there is a timeframe attached to this diet; after eight weeks I can have a cake or an ice cream, if I want to. Or perhaps because there is so much riding on this diet. If me and my mum succeed and successfully complete all eight weeks on 800 calories a day or less, there is the chance that my mum will have reversed her diabetes and will not need to take tablets any longer. If I give up, maybe Mum’s willpower alone will not be enough, so I have to keep going for moral support and encouragement. 

At the end of my first full week I feel different already. I feel happier, lighter (in mood and in body! Tomorrow I'll tell you just how much I've lost in my first week), slimmer, motivated and excited for the next seven weeks, and for life after the diet.

Getting through those first few days was difficult and I’m sure it won’t be plain sailing every day BUT I’m excited by the thought of what I will experience over the course of the next seven weeks. I'm excited to try new recipes, to research this diet further and to see how my body changes and maybe my brain too – will I be grumpy or happy, short-tempered or peaceful?

I am becoming more mindful of what I eat, when and how much I put on my plate. I am now starting to see that I feed my boys too much of the wrong things, for no other reason than they love these things and I want to make them happy. I will need to change this in due course, and I'm excited for this too. 

For those of you who are concerned about very low calorie diets or VLCDs, let me tell you a few things. Firstly, you will not faint and neither will you fade away. Also, believe it or not, you will not be as hungry as you think. 800 calories is more than you think, but a lot less than you currently eat, that, I can guarantee. You will struggle at times, so try to remove temptation. But mostly, even if you don’t think you can do it, let me for one tell you that YOU CAN. If you need to lose weight or lower your blood sugar, if you are on the brink of type 2 diabetes, even if you are embroiled in diabetes and you need to take tablets after every meal, you CAN do this diet and it might even fix you.

If you need to start a diet and you need a some encouragement, why don’t you join me and mum on our journey right now?

If you need some more help and advice, buy this book by Dr Michael Mosley right now. I promise, you will NOT be sorry.