week 4 review on the 8-week blood sugar diet

I have now completed the fourth week of Dr. Michael Mosley's program, The 8-Week Blood Sugar Diet.  In an attempt to lose the weight I gained due to Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO), I will be following the 800 calorie per day diet as prescribed by Dr. Mosley.  You can read my blog to see why I have decided to road test this program, and my review of Week 3.

This week was another emotional roller coaster as we said goodbye to my grandmother at a memorial service for her.   In the previous three weeks, I have written about every day, but with the upheaval death brings, my days blurred into one long week and I realised that I hadn't kept track of every meal.

So I feel like I need to apologise, as today's blog will be relatively short in comparison.  Life came and threw me a great curve ball, and I had to roll with it.

My immediate family came together for an afternoon at the Sofitel Melbourne on Collins in a private space.  They served us delicious canapés and sparkling wine.  My grandmother would have been in her element!  I don't see my family often, so it was testament to how lovely the afternoon was that we were still there four hours later, with the staff politely asking how much longer we'd be there.

My immediate family. Saying goodbye to your grandmother is hard. I shed many tears that day.

I made a conscious decision that I would eat without restriction at my grandmother's memorial, and that if I felt like it, I would also allow myself to drink alcohol.  I was giving myself a one-day blow out leave pass.  And boy, did it blow out!  I ate gluten, dairy, sugar and drank alcohol.  And after the initial excitement of eating these forbidden foods wore off, I just felt sick.

I was conscious that my mother had just lost her last remaining parent, so my partner and I took my parents out for a light supper at Movida Next Door after the memorial, not wanting my mum to be alone on such an emotional night.  By this point, I was feeling overfull so I only nibbled on a few tapas.  I literally felt like my digestive system was screaming up at me, saying 'No more! We can't fit another wafer thin mint in.'  That night I didn't feel good.  I had cramps, felt crap and could feel my system struggling with all the excess calories and foods I normally avoid.  The next day I still felt terrible.  My blood sugar was all over the place, I was starving and felt cranky, lethargic and flat.

I have realised just how much better I feel when I have very limited carbohydrates and sugars in my diet.  My blood sugar remains stable, my mood is stable and my digestive system works well. Plus, my weight doesn't skyrocket.  These past two weeks have been a brilliant experiment.  Prior to commencing this diet, I would eat some form of carbohydrates every week.  I have gained weight every time I have eaten carbs these past two weeks.  No wonder I couldn't lose weight - my system was just going from carb meal to carb meal, never losing the immediate weight increase between meals.

I didn't stand on the scales the day after the memorial, but I did stand on them the next day and was 1.2kgs/2.6lbs up from where I was on Monday.  Wow. That's a huge increase from one day of eating, and shows me just how overly sensitive my system is to those foods.

I spent the rest of the week slowly chipping away at the weight, ending the week on exactly the same weight as I had started it on.  So I hadn't lost, but I hadn't gained in the end.

On Friday I went to see my Naturopath for my mid-way check-in.  She ran her body composition test on me and told me that the majority of the weight loss I have seen has been excess fat. That was wonderful news, especially after the gain during the week.  Instead of having 15kgs/33lbs of excess fat sitting on my body, I only have 10kgs/22lbs. It's still too much, but psychologically it feels so much better.  I hope to be sitting at no more than 7kgs/15lbs by the end of the 8 weeks, with the view to have the rest gone by Christmas.

On Saturday my family and I went off on our first family holiday in many years.  We have ventured to Queensland for a reunion with several families who we used to holiday with in the 1980s and 1990s.  All of us 'kids' are now adults, and many of them are parents of kids the same age we were when we first met.

Eating a restricted calorie diet while away from home is going to be challenging, so I will do my best by choosing lean meat, fish and seafood, eating lots of salads and fresh fruit and keeping alcohol to a minimum.  Wish me luck!

week 4 results

After the week's gain, it was a relief to end the week on the same weight as I had started it.  So whilst there wasn't a loss, there wasn't a lasting gain, which was good.

Rebecca x