Bootcamp - the questions thread

[BIWI]

From experience of past Bootcamps, in the first few weeks the chat threads move really, really quickly and it's difficult sometimes to see/answer everything.

So this is a place to post any questions that you might have. Those of us who are old hands at low carbing will check this thread regularly and make sure that we answer you as soon as we can.

My personal take on sugar v sweetener is that it's better to have a small amount of 'real' food than a large amount of 'fake' food. So I would make the cake in the conventional way, with real sugar, but only eat a tiny piece at her celebration - and none of the leftovers.

As for pastry, why does it need to be sweet? I dont make low carb pastry, but when I mske or use pastry for thevrest of my family I use the same pastry for sweet and for savoury fillings. Not quite true - my pâté sucré for mince pies has 2 tablespoons of sugar in enough pastry to make 2-3 trays of pies. So, again, a tiny amount of sugar per pie.

i agree with hergraciousmaj - if you're going to make a cake (and you really have to eat it), make a proper one and eat a small piece mindfully and enjoy every mouthful. bear in mind that it might trigger cravings for other carbs, and you might gain a little weight that should go with a couple of strict days and plenty of water.

low carb cakes made with flour and sugar substitutes are often poor imitations that leave you feeling short-changed and craving something better

Hi, I've been low carbing since 1 st Jan and following bootcamp since it started but all of a sudden I have an unquenchable thirst today. Does anyone know why this might be the case?

Thanks

Have you eaten lots of salty food or any MSG?

You're not eating enough salt, LittlePudding. All that water will be washing it out of your system.

Cook with it, add it to your food.

Thanks for your replies, I very rarely add salt to anything so that would make sense. I'll starting using some and see what happens xx

Another question. How do you cope with pressure from people to eat rubbish? I'm quite weak willed anyway, I've fallen off the wagon once already and it took me 6 weeks to get back on. I find birthday etc at work the most difficult. Family and friends couldn't give two hoots how or what I eat but colleagues seem to be determined to force cake on people and if I mention low carbing they look at me like I've grown two heads and make comments about faddy diets.

frilly i don't tend to tell people in RL about low carbing because i'm a coward and can't be arsed to argue, so i just make an excuse about being full from lunch, or say that i'm cutting down on sugar (no one can argue with that). you do have my sympathies though as you have to be quite firm, and remember that it is Up To You what you put into your body, no one else

Don't tell them.

But also, make sure you've done enough reading to convince yourself, as well as to argue with them. Most people don't have a clue about low carbing, so if you're going to do it and be challenged about it, it's good to be able to argue back!

It probably is better just to avoid the subject and tell little lies to get around it. The only diet they seem to understand is weight watchers which several of them are on, on and off, so it is the complete opposite to what I am doing.

Ah frilly I know the problem. But I have a mean streak and have perverse pleasure in the horrified faces as I munch my way through chicken with an enormous dollop of full fat mayonnaise

Agree with BIWI that it's beneficial (and jolly satisfying) to commit a few LC soundbites to memory if anyone queries why you're refusing the cake.

It's most fun to look as horrified as if they'd offered you a crack pipe

Or blind them with science.

Frilly I've just told my work colleagues that I'm trying to give up sugar.

They all think I am daft, a few have said things like "go on, once won't hurt" but I just refuse and they now know I am being serious. I am quite overweight though so maybe when they look at me they think "yes, I know why she's doing that" whereas if you aren't then maybe they think you don't need to lose weight/give up sugar etc.

The Three-Week Stall

I'm sure you've heard of the dreaded three-week stall when starting a low carb diet. It doesn't happen to everyone but it is very common. The best thing is to keep doing what you've been doing, an the scales will start moving again.

During the first couple of weeks of your low carb diet a number of things have occurred. You have depleted the glycogen stores in your liver and along with the weight of glycogen lost, you will have lost three or four times that weight in water. So if you have lost 10 lb then approximately two of that is glycogen, seven water and one of fat stores. Your glycogen stores are like a battery when you're eating over 150g of carbs a day: they get recharged every time you eat, and they release glucose steadily into your blood mainly as fuel for your brain. So by using up your glycogen store you are forcing your body to turn to other sources of energy. At the same time your body has been producing new enzymes to process the different diet you have been eating and your brain and muscles have adapted to using ketones instead of glucose.

At three weeks though your body has adapted to the new diet and now becomes more efficient. Your muscles have switched over to burning free fatty acids. And where do the free fatty acids come from? They are released from fat cells. So your metabolism has changed from carb-burning to fat-burning. But don't think you can shed ten pounds and your body isn't going to notice! You have lost a lot of water so your body releases a hormone (vasopressin antidiuretic hormone if you want to be precise) which usually operates to prevent dehydration and causes your body to retain water. So you are still burning fat, maybe from half a pound up to two pounds a week. But your body is hanging on to water and this will mask the loss of your fat stores. One way of helping things along is to keep drinking the water to speed up the process of adapting to your new way of eating, allowing your body to recognise that it isn't dehydrated so the hormone levels go back to normal and the retained water can whoosh away starting the scales moving again by week five or thereabouts.

StuntNun and others - could this have happened to me this week? Doing the same thing, and no loss. I did do the warm up week but not strictly, no sugar but still some complex carbs most days, and did drink the water that week, but I didn't weigh before it because I still couldn't stand up on the scales. Well, I couldn't stand up at all, not just on the scales. But it wasn't LC, it was lowER carb and still had sweeteners in diet coke every day.

I am NOT disappointed with my total of 9.5lb at all - I don't want to sound like I'm stealth bragging, I am just curious as to why so great and then nothing.

LittleMiss it's the nature of the WOE: stall and then whoosh. If we were weighing on a monthly basis then we would probably see a loss every time but who can wait a whole month?

"But I have a mean streak and have perverse pleasure in the horrified faces as I munch my way through chicken with an enormous dollop of full fat mayonnaise"

I agree on what Willie says - it's especially fun once you've already lost some weight on this woe. Although you do then get comments like "Well, sure people can lost weight by taking cocaine too, but it's not gonna be healthy."

But Frilly if your friends are WWers, surely they should just understand a simple "I'm trying to lose weight". I think WW and the like are quite rubbish, but I doubt they encourage cake...

The women I work with seem to want to persuade each other to fall off the weight loss wagon so it's a sort of 'oh I'll have one if you're having one', 'one won't do any harm', 'it's alright it was weigh in last night'. If they're being very good then they have weight watchers cakes.

Urgh, I once had a WW cake at work and it was tasteless, dry and flavourless, it was full if crap. And it was about 150 calories, may as well have had a Kitkat!

StuntNun - thanks for that post, it's brilliant

Eeew... Both at the sabotaging of each other, and at the WW cake!

Is there a list anywhere of the carb content in fruit like the one for veg?
Thanks.

Here you go

thanks

Not sure if this is related to lcing at all but today all of a sudden I got really painful stomach cramps. They took my breath away. They then eased off and I thought I was ok, it happened again a few times over the afternoon (started around 12).

By the time I left work my stomach was ok and no cramps until about 30 mins ago.

Does anyone have any suggestions? As I say might not be related to this WOE but I've never had cramps like this before.