I’m just back from a week long trip to Athens to visit our family there – sister-in-law, her husband (who is Greek), their 3.5 year old son who we’ve not seen for over a year and the “new addition”, a 4 month old little girl.

The hotel we stayed in (Brasil Suites Hotel) was truly wonderful – it really made the trip more of a holiday for us, as there was a small outside pool and the sun shone brightly most days.  The staff were so willing to ensure that everything was provided for us.  The breakfasts were amazing… and so was all the food we ate.

Needless to say, I brought back about 7lbs of excess baggage, which was carried around my person rather than in my suitcase.  And it wasn’t contraband!

It’s not too long before we are away again – 2 weeks in early December.  I am very keen to get shot of quite a bit more weight before then, but it’s less than 8 weeks away.

During our holiday, we visited a lovely beach cafe The Balux House Project which had lots of lovely low level seating and soft furnishings and shelves of books – many in English.  I read about the “Greek way of eating” and this got me to thinking about changing how I am currently doing things.

I most certainly am not someone to jump from one faddy way of eating to another, but I do know that my weight loss has stalled since the start of this year.  My losses have been small and every weekend or trip away causes a huge weight gain, even when I make an effort to “be good”.  My weight loss calories (1100 per day) just don’t seem to be adequate, and I haven’t been exercising to earn additional calories.

I have been toying for a while with the idea of the Blood Sugar diet.  Initially, you kick start things with a strict 8 week long blood sugar diet, restricting calories by either using fasting or limiting calories to 800 a day.

The Blood Sugar Diet principals are based on eating a low carbohydrate Mediterranean style diet. This contains few refined, starchy carbohydrates (because these convert rapidly to sugar in your blood), lots of green and coloured vegetables, plenty of protein, moderate amounts of healthy fats such as olive oil and even some dairy products such as full fat unsweetened yoghurt to keep you feeling full for longer.

I realised that this is more or less what I am doing at the moment – but my downfall is most certainly high calorie/high sugar “treats”.  Just a couple of sweet treats or meals out can undo all my efforts.

I sat in the cafe on the one and only day it was raining outside and placed an order for the Michael Mosley Blood Sugar books as well as a couple of recipe books.  I then made some drastic alterations to the on-line Tesco shop I’d scheduled for the day following our return, removing all the “sweet treats” and adding nuts, avocados, fruit, yogurt, quark, beans and pulses.

My first day of following the 8 week diet was Thursday 20th October 2016.  That gives me about 7.5 weeks until our December holiday.  Perfect.I’ll be up-dating my blog more regularly, which will keep me on track as well as encouraging me to try out some new recipes!