The new diet

Today is the start of our new very low carb, time restricted eating diet.  To recap, my GP has said I must lose weight in order to stop my Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) getting any worse, it's already progressed to Stage 2 (there are 4 stages, cirrhosis being the worst at Stage 4).  I've also got T2 diabetes, the start of a diabetic foot problem, high blood pressure and moderately high cholesterol, gallstones, osteoarthritis in both hips and trochanteric bursitis in my right hip.  And a bad back which is exacerbated by bad posture because of my sore hips.  I need to lose about 4 stones in total.

Husband was diagnosed as borderline diabetic this year, he has severe prostate problems for which he's having an operation, he also has heart failure which currently is reasonably well controlled with medication, although he's not so well in the winter.  He really needs to lose about 2 stones.

My GP sent me to the new practice specialist diabetes nurse, she has a reputation as a bit of a sargeant major and is fanatical about weight loss.  She's actually really nice, very encouraging and helpful, although certainly evangelical.  She wholeheartedly recommends very low carb, intermittent fasting or time restricted eating type diets, as advocated by Dr Michael Mosley - she has several patients who, between them, have lost collectively about 77kg following these principles.

Now, I'm very good at starting diets, but rubbish at sticking to them - my willpower is next to nothing.  So I know that realistically, it's no good me saying 'ok we're going to be doing A, B or C diet from now on' - I simply wouldn't stick to it for very long.  So, in discussion with Nurse Rose, we've come up with a plan for me (well, husband and me) to do a very low carb and time restricted diet on just 3 days a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and eat mindful and healthy Mediterranean style food on the other days, but without worrying too much about carbs and time restrictions on those days.  Husband is up for this too, there'd be no point otherwise, I'm not cooking separate meals or eating at different times to him.  We're going to give it a try and see how we get on, if it works out alright then we may extend the number of days we do the diet.  Nurse Rose is going to weigh me once a month, starting at the end of January.

So on the diet days we'll be having 2 meals - brunch at 10 am, dinner around 5.30 pm.  Before and after those times, we can only have clear drinks.....ie water, black tea or coffee or herbal/fruit tea.  The science behind it is that (forgive me, this is a simplified version) any calories (carbs in particular) that we eat or drink will be latched onto and used by our bodies as fuel, thus ignoring the fat reserves we already have, and any extra calories not needed as fuel will be added to the fat reserves.  If we have no calories for an extended period - eg overnight plus an extra few hours in the morning before eating/drinking, and in the evening after having our last meal, then our bodies must use the fat reserves for fuel.  So the longer a period of time where we don't consume calories, the more chance of our bodies 'eating' our fat reserves.  I hope that makes sense.

Dr Mosley advocates eating around 800 calories during the time restricted window on your diet days.....I'm not going to get too hung up on counting calories, severely restricting carbs on those days, plus only eating 2 meals and cutting down on the amount of milky coffees and teas we drink will cut calories enough without me worrying about numbers.

Every diet day I'll document what we've had, and try to remember to take photos.