On the 16th July 2016, I started the 8 week Blood Sugar diet that is just 800 calories per day. I completed week 4 on Saturday 13th August 2016. Once again it has been a week of highs and lows.

The lows. Not too many again this week, but I have had moments where I felt really hungry and my next meal wasn’t for a few hours. So my cure was to drink water and have a black coffee too. After 15 to 20 mins the hunger pangs tended to disappear. As they say “mind over matter”.

The highs. My overall wellbeing is improving every week. As you will read in a moment, my weight loss after 4 weeks is amazing and represented a major milestone for me. I haven’t confessed to my start weight because I was embarrassed but it was 21st 10lbs. For the first time, I am now under 20st, weighing 19st 13lbs. More below. My neck and waist are smaller. I am wearing smaller size clothes. I feel fantastic in Week 4. Full of more energy and highly motivated to keep going. Willpower is important and being in the right frame of mind. Somehow I have managed both. As you all know, typing this diary helps keep me motivated. Once again, I cannot stress how important all the support across the internet and at home makes to helping me through each day and week. It makes a big difference.

I have been asked what the secret is to living on 800 calories a day. Think positive for a start. Phrase the journey in your head as it is only “8 weeks of my life” and “this is such a small amount of time in reality and in 8 weeks I could fix so much because of the diet.” Make sure you have plenty of support. And really important, plan like hell your meals for the next week(s) along with all the ingredients you need and make sure each day has the correct balance of nutrition needed. At the half way mark, I have learnt a lot about the meals and now have mapped out every day for the last 4 weeks.

My breakfasts on work days are simply a healthy shake from one of the menus in the Blood Sugar Diet book. One of my kitchen gadgets is an Andrew James soup maker. (More info and Amazon link on the Andrew James Soup maker –  Click HERE. ) It also does shakes which makes light work of creating a superb shake each morning. The shake is made from Fage Full Fat Greek Yoghurt, Green Tea, Blueberries (sometimes I use raspberries or blackberries) and flax seeds. It may sound boring having the same breakfast, but I need simplicity during workdays. I normally use my soup maker to produce my soup for lunch, which is placed into a thermos. In addition to the soup, my lunch also consists of a banana or apple, and sometimes if I have enough calories a small cheese cube.

But just how easy is it to make restaurant quality, low carb soup? Well for this week I put together a short video showing you how. The video below includes a photo of the ingredients, then the prep, a time lapse of the soup machine (this was 20 mins into 10 secs), the soup served and the calories and carbs values. The ingredients shown are for 2 portions (or 2 people). But the calories per person are 126 calories and 14.9 carbs.

To keep my body going to the loo properly, I am still drinking 3 litres of water a day. I was drinking 4 litres, but I now find I can manage on about 3 litres of water. Obviously drinking that amount of water has side effects of needing to pee a lot. I also find if I can plan my day’s calories correctly, including a small banana helps with the other aspects.

Just as a reminder to help me make this diet work, I am using various gadgets to help me record and monitor accurately my progress. I am also taking selfies along the way which I will reveal the final before and after at 8 weeks. If you want to recap all the items I’m using , read my first post –  Click HERE. I also have a dedicated page where all my diet posts are being kept. This can be found using the Menu or Click HERE. . It is worth checking out each week’s posts as I also show a selection of the meals I ate.

Feedback. Thanks again for all the positive feedback received. All your support is really helping me keep to the plan. I still receive comments that you cannot manage on less than 2,000 calories a day. Well, that’s nonsense. First to understand why you can, read the book. Second, the diet uses food to help keep you feeling full, but also as a method to reset blood sugar levels. More and more people are getting in contact each week all amazed at their results on the Blood Sugar Diet. I have spoken to many who have reversed their Type 2 diabetes, which is incredible. I don’t have type 2, but my blood sugar levels were very high and close to being pre diabetic and my weight was too high.

As mentioned before I am using a notebook to plan my week’s food out in advance. I am using many of the of the suggested menus in the Blood Sugar Diet book. Amazon Link to Blood Sugar Diet book – Click HERE.

Below are a selection of my meals from this week, from lunch, breakfast and dinner. These are all from the Blood Sugar Diet book. What amazes me is the fact that full fat items are used in this diet. The full fat helps keeping you feel full and is healthy. Who’d have thought that! Click on any photo to open the gallery to see photo in a larger size. Don’t forget to check out Result Week 1, Week 2 & Week 3 Posts which has more food photos 🙂 The dish at the top of the page is a pork stir fry using butternut squash noodle, carrots and onions.

So how did week 4 go in terms of weight, blood sugar levels and more ? Below are the measurements from Saturday 13th August, exactly four weeks after being on the 8 week Blood Sugar Diet.

Here we go – 

– Weight – lost 4 lbs this week – Overall weight loss – 1 stone 11lbs. Incredible to think I am only 3lbs away from losing 2 stone in just 4 weeks!!. Start weight was 21st 10lbs, current weight 19st 13lbs.

– Waist – lost 0.5 inch this week. Overall 3.5 inches loss on my waist. My overall body shape looks a lot slimmer. My butt has shrunk too 🙂

– Neck – Neck stayed the same this week. 2.5 inches overall since start of plan

– Blood Sugar levels – Continued to read at normal levels. That’s 2 weeks in a row now.

– Blood Pressure – My blood pressure is now just a fraction above the normal healthy range. My pulse is normal

– Body Water Percentage – now increased by 1.4% since the start of the diet.

As a consequence, my BMI and body fat has also dropped again.

Finally I would like to say thank you again to everybody who wished me good luck. It really helped keep my motivation up!

So all that remains is to complete the next 4 weeks. Amazing to think I am already half way through the diet. 

PS – Just to re-iterate I went to my doctor to discuss going on this plan as recommended by the book. My doctor was very supportive and offered a number of ways of helping me at different intervals. In fact, I was surprised just how helpful and supportive my doctor was when I mentioned I wanted to start the 8 week blood sugar diet. When I finish the 8 weeks plan, I will move to the 5:2 diet, which is no calories tracking for 5 days but still on the Mediterranean style food plan, and 2 days at 800 calories.