Week 1 - New Year 2014 Low Carb Bootcamp - And We're Off!

[BIWI]

Morning all!

I see several of you have already weighed in on the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness

As of today, though, we also have our bright, shiny, new Bootcamp section on Mumsnet, including our own Weight Tracker, which will only show your own weight/progress.

You can either use the Spreadsheet as we have done before, which everyone has access to and can see, or you can go here and enter your weight.

Obviously you can do both!

When you're in the new Bootcamp, if you click on the tab that says 'more info' that will take you to a section which has loads of information about low carbing, as well as Bootcamp Rules

Before we get going formally, I have to make an important disclaimer:

I am not a doctor, a medic, a scientist, a nutritionist or a dietician. I have no formal training in food, dieting or low carbing. The information that I provide here is based solely on my reading on the subject, as well as my own experience. If you have any kind of medical condition and/or you are taking any kind of ongoing medication, you should consult your GP before starting a low carb diet

That done, good luck everyone!

Helium - keep on keeping on! You will get there. It must be so hard to hear your DD speak glowingly about the OW. But it would be so much worse if they didn't want yr DD around and she was horrible to her. You will always be her mum.

Not sure if it's been linked to on here but there is a great Bootcamp Recipe thread in th general Low Carb diets section and also in Food, under Rcipes there is a list of low carb Recipes too. You do have to be a but careful as some of them are Bootcamp Lite rather than full on Bootcamp but it's great for inspiration. And if anyone has become a celeriac fan I just got my BBC Good Food newsletter through and celeriac is featured heavily!

Helium, I have no words of wisdom either but have some because flowers are beautiful and always cheer me up when I'm down.

No-carb brain fog day here, forgot about hospital appt for DS until text reminder came so had a mad dash out of work

Anyway, you lot may find this interesting... DS1 has chronic skin problems, painful and hard to control, has had a lifetime of steroids. aAnyway he has followed a largely sugar free carb-free diet for a few months as sugar seemed to worsen his symptoms and I have been cooking from a cook book for low-carb family eating.

Well, after less than 3 months he is being taken off steroids, dr says he has never seen DS this good in7 yrs of treatment and what had changed? DS blurted out the no-carb thing and I kind of played it down but....

Dr says they cannot recommend until more research is done but thinking is changing re: benefits of a non refined carb diet for number of conditions.He also says it is widely misunderstood how vital fat is to health and he would like to ban all diet lo-fat products from houses with young children in! He also said we should never scrimp on the butter and oil in our family diet and high sugar is far more damaging than high fat!

How refreshing!

Helium - how heartbreaking! Don't reach for the sugar/chocs; don't give her the (unknowing) satisfaction! Keep on keeping on

Milg - double cream is used in everything to raise up your fat intake, and it's lower in carbs than milk or single cream! (and tastes great)

Kitchefairy - I've heard that before! I myself had rosacea for years, and it's virtually gone on this WOE. It's possibly hormonal, which this WOE helps, or because sugar in food resluts in sugar on skin, which results in bacteria growing on skin... who knows. It makes sense to me that a high-fat low sugar WOE would be helpful to skin conditions, and to nerve conditions, as fat is an essential part of the make-up of these.

plonky if you let yourself get hungry you are much more likely to suffer a loss of will power and eat stuff you shouldn't. Don't let it happen, it isn't worth it! If you're hungry, eat as much allowed food as you need to be satisfied. At this early stage you are forming new habits and breaking your reliance on/addiction to carbs. You can alter your portion size/food quantities later - for now, if you're hungry, EAT!

kasbah it's not ideal about the flour, but assuming that they were dusted in flour rather than thoroughly coated, the amounts will have been tiny. Onwards and upwards and don't worry too much, I think.

captain glad to hear you say that. I suffer psoriasis and always better on this WOE but I put that down to less wine.... Less sugar

DS tried WOE as last resort as he has had a pretty miserable year, he has also had to cut out fruit completely as he is anaphylactic to most and that brought the biggest change. He quite possibly the youngest Bootcamper!

I get really angry about the whole "low fat" and "no fat" thing being touted as being great. Children should almost never be put on low fat diets, as they are growing and need all those fatty acids to make new cells! All cell membranes are made up of fatty acids and cholesterol to glue them together - remove a decent supply of fats, and cell growth becomes harder, and it becomes harder for the body to make cholesterol to glue everything together - which could lead to reduced growth in children.

I also get utterly pissed off when I can't find a decent yoghurt! I found ONE today that had 3.8g sugars/100g - that was the lowest - but it was 0% fat! FFS. I ended up buying 2 full fat yoghurts instead, but one has 4.8g sugars and the other has 5.2g sugar/100g, so have to be a bit careful with those. MOST of the yoghurts here are 98% fat free or more. Depressing, quite frankly.

Helium bless you that would upset anyone. Cider is absolutely right though - better this than the woman hating your DD and being unkind to her. The first woman xDp was with after me was a psycho bitch from hell had some serious issues. She was intensely jealous of me (despite me having been completely pleasant to her) and to 2 yr old DD. She had walked out on her own son when he was about the same and hardly saw him (by then about 7yrs) and I assume DD reminded her of that or something because she did everything she could to come between xDp and DD, including refusing to have her in his house. HIS house, note, she'd only been living there a matter of weeks. He used to take DD to the park for few hours every Sunday instead of taking her home. Eventually he saw sense and dumped her but this went on for months. All his subsequent girlfriends have been fantastic with DD and for that I am very grateful - it's much better that way, honestly! The most recent (and long term) ex keeps in touch with DD and still takes her to visit her family. I didn't have to cope with any of them being the OW though and that must be very hard.

Also, the novelty will wear off for your DD. No one else will ever be her mum except you, don't forget that.

ChippingIn thanks for your reply. I will buy Waitrose cream then . I did check the egg mayo thing in m and s and it was low but can't remember what it was .

Today has gone ok but I did sort of miss breakfast . I was hungry on getting up and managed to grab a packet of Parma ham small m and s one and ate that in the car and then didn't get lunch until about 3pm due to exercise , tea with a friend and then Physio.

B - Parma ham

L - 3 x eggs scrambled in butter and with cream with smoked salmon and 2 big grilled mushrooms with butter . Also had a bit of brie type cheese,

D - have cooked together chicken, mushrooms, leeks , bacon and shallot and garlic and will be adding a combo of mascarpone, creme fraiche and double cream later to make the sauce. Usually make it with a milk /flour sauce and kids love it so hopefully it will go down well. Am also making mashed swede for me and baby carrots for the others and will do a sachet of rice for them too. Find those v useful to give the kids some carbs .

Run out of yoghurt so need to get some more .

Thanks all. A very emotional day here, although I haven't dived into bad eating or wine. Or meths.

I have very complex feelings around it, and hate myself for them because of course I have expressed them to exH. He of course is being the epitome of moderate response which is making me feel more and more like a lunatic banshee. I am very happy to be out of the marriage (he is a very messed up man) and honestly couldn't have cared less about this woman until he introduced her to the children. And the day he introduced her - which he did without notice or consultation - it was in the same email in which he revealed that he was only doing so because until that point he had hoped we'd get back together. He's just such a mess. I don't want him back, I am already imagining the looks of utter horror on friends and family's face if I dropped that bombshell... :)

Aaanyway. All very complex. It is about fear of her assuming any kind of motherly role in her life, I know.

Oh Helium sorry to read you're feeling so down. No advice other than what's already been said, just wanted to add my support.

I'm having a tricky afternoon. TOTM arrived this morning and after a marvellous few days with hardly any PMT/cravings, I could merrily kill for some sugar right now. After 15 days I thought I had this sorted but apparently not

So in the last hour I've had...a decaf with cream, some total, cream, cinnamon and orange essence, two chunks of cheese and two pieces of ham.

I'm still struggling though - any tips to override the hormones?

Help, I'm so constipated, I'm in agony! I have been LCing for around a week and a half but I'm so blocked up, I've been taking benefibre daily but it doesn't seem to be working.

Mlig STOP OBSESSING ABOUT YOUR DAILY WEIGHT!

You will not lose weight every day, and trying to ferret around and wonder what's 'stopping' you losing is absolutely pointless and will drive you demented.

Seriously. It doesn't work like that.

You have already lost 5.5lbs - and we're only on day 3! That's almost half a stone. Step back a bit and just think about that. Be pleased and proud of what you have achieved so far.

I know you have a lot to lose. But you won't lose at a faster rate on low carbing (once we get through the initial couple of weeks) than any other diet - and nor should you want to. Slower weight loss is much more sustainable, and it gives your skin time to catch up with the fat loss as well. You don't want horrible baggy skin when you get to your target do you?!

On this WOE, whilst overall the weight loss will be steady, on a week-to-week basis it can often appear to be a bit more 'lumpy' - lose one week, stay the same the next, lose the next week, stay the same the week after that, etc. I have no idea why, but it's so commonly reported, that it's something you should expect and be prepared for.

Try to take a longer term perspective. Use the Weight Tracker to keep an eye on your overall progress, and be pleased with what will - I promise - be an overall downward trend.

blizy - drink more water, eat more fat.

Try - strong coffee, high strength vitamin C tablets

Are you getting your carbs in the form of veg and salad?

Helium

What a twat your Ex sounds.

Chester:

I ate a.lot.of.chorizo. That was what got me through last night! I nearly fell over when I read the calorie count [puts on blinkers].

Mlig in the kindest possible way (and because I have been similarly silly today), I am going to put a bootcamp boot up your arse!

I lost 3lbs in my first day, 2.5lbs on my second, and none yesterday
... and you're
... that's 5.5lbs in 3 days! You have lost getting on for half a stone in 3 days and you're feeling disappointed!

I never say this on MN, but get a grip woman! If you lost weight at the rate you want you'd end up looking like a deflated balloon. Slow and steady is better, and more sustainable. The big losses in the first week are mainly glycogen and water in any case - 1.5-2lbs a week fat loss is the ideal.

I have given myself a similar talking to this morning when I felt disappointed on weighing to find that I've 'only' lost 1lb since Monday. I wanted a great dramatic loss on my first week. I had to remind myself that when I weighed in on Monday, I found that I was only 1lb heavier than I was on 9th Dec, last time I weighed and since which I've been cramming myself full of carbs. I was and reweighed as I didn't believe it - I'd been feeling really bloated and could feel how tight my trousers were. So despite being half a stone lighter than I expected to be, I found myself sulking about only losing a lb. Thinking about it, I reckon that my lower carb weekend intro (albeit including the low carb chocolate tart ) dropped a few pounds without me realising. I should have weighed on Friday really.

Anyhow, just a reminder to everyone... the big losses are great and inspiring, but don't get hung up on that. 1-2lbs a week is what you need to expect, and probably no loss at all (or even a gain) in weeks 4 and 5. Just remember that you'll be losing weight whilst eating fantastically delicious and nutritious food and never feeling hungry.

Oh arse, cross post to find that BIWI has said it all much better! I keep doing that!

Where are you all getting Orange Essence from? DH is struggling with the lack of "pudding" and I'd like to find something to jazz up Greek Yogurt for him. I will look in Waitrose for this fabled vanilla powder; unfortunately our local one is closed for renovation.

Today so far I've eaten:

B - Two oopsie rolls and a small chunk of leftover sausage meat stuffing I found in the back of the fridge.
L - Home made Stilton and cauliflower soup, with some smoked mackerel on the side
D - Will be piri piri chicken breast and broccoli

Sarah why on earth are you reading calorie counts??

I got my orange essence from Waitrose. I was actually looking for the vanilla stuff but mine is only a little one and didn't stock it. It's 80% rapeseed oil and 20% orange oil so I assume it's ok, but there's no NVs on the pack.

I've found the vanilla powder on amazon but it's only a top up item for when you need to spend over a certain amount to get free delivery so haven't been able to order it yet.

Meant to add they apparently also sell the vanilla powder in Lakeland if you have one nearby.

I was checking the carbs and my eyes wandered!