Week 8 - Low Carb Bootcamp - Last Three Weeks!

[BIWI]

I'm starting next week's thread a bit early as I have to be up and out of the house at sparrow's crack tomorrow.

Here's the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness

And don't forget the weight tracker

It may seem like we're nearly at the end, but still the chance to lose up to another half a stone, if you can lose 2lbs a week!

Hope everyone has a good week. Mine is a bit of a minefield - out tomorrow night to celebrate both of my DCs' birthdays, and then out on Thursday with some MNetter friends, and I don't think we will be drinking sparkling water!

Good luck everyone.

Marking my place.....now to go back and read more

Heir - think we have similar fitness levels! I couldn't do the jumping Jack's for the right length of time either. Not looking forward to tomorrow but I am determined not to be fat this summer. Dig deep!

Hi everyone,
Whoosh I expect the are calculating leisure time from "not-working" time - more women are part-time, etc., because they are looking after children and homes not relaxing and going to the gym Aaargh! Studies like that do nothing to narrow the pay gap, or bring the glass ceiling down. I'm infuriated with you. Oh, and don't look in the mirror, go by feel. You want to feel good, most of all don't you?

Sayra surely your scales are dodgy/ were in the wrong place/ etc??

Heir and Bowie I don't think I could even do 1 press up!! Well done you for starting.
I have just swum half a mile, it's taken me ages to get back to that distance post op thanks to ketoadaptation and four weeks of sinusitis

Tooth much better today (not quite painfree but ok). I've got lots to do this afternoon, need to put myself on a MN ban so as to get on with it!

Hogwash, what about Insulin Resistance diet or Paleo ? More geared ti what you want.

Sayra I enjoyed your tale of the disrespect you got on the Respect training course. I imagine your colleague is still cringing. You cannot possibly have put 10lb on overnight, so - are your scales on a solid surface? And I agree - change the battery.

Trash your posts are on fire! Sorry you felt so unwell - hope you're continuing to feel better/ get DS sorted/ come down from the pinnacle of stress.

I had such a long day at work yesterday - I had scrambled eggs and mushrooms for breakfast at 5.30am before leaving house at 6am.

3.5 hours travelling later, I had a second breakfast - bought from shops so I ate the filling of a small stilton and broccoli quiche! and some nuts.

Thank goodness I had the second breakfast because the meeting ran late and lunch wasn't until 2pm. From a deli I bought a box of salad - roasted veg, coleslaw, salad, cheese.

In the afternoon meeting I had a stomach-ache. I'm pretty sure there were roasted potato chunks in the roasted veg... but would this really have been enough to give me a carby-tummy-ache? Or was it just the insanely early start?

After travelling all the way home again, I ate leftover spinach & feta bake at 8.30pm. I was so tired and hungry it barely touched the sides. But I did feel a lot better after that!

I suppose there are two points to this Shouting-of-my-shit:

1. - eating low-carb when you're out and about is HARD - we stopped at service stations and EVERYTHING they stock is carby (and I looked like a mad-woman eating the quiche filling only)

1. - do I really have a face a tummy-ache everytime I go slightly off-piste?

I was on some of the earlier threads, but I've name changed since.
I have 2 questions if someone can help me!

1. I seem to have plateaud! (Not sure how to spell that!) I'm quite a small build, and overall I have about a stone to lose, lost half. But the last few weeks I've stayed the same. Do I need to gulp add some exercise? I really don't want to! It's really hard to get to the gym at the moment, and I'm not really getting out much to walk etc.

1. I'm drinking my 2 litres of water a day. When I drink a cup of coffee should I be adding more water after as coffee is a dehydrater? I remember reading something like that years ago.

Any help is appreciated!

Eva service stations are AWFUL - but here are my learnings:

• The general 'cafeteria' bit at Fleet services does a low carb fry up for breakfast, I expect others do too
• Crappy WH Smiths usually do Pepperami, Babybel, cheese snack packs and Mr Porkys
• Waitrose and M&S not bad either - cocktail sausages, prawns or just a pack of ham

(We drive a lot. Can you tell?)

Having said that, I've just nipped out to get some lunch as was not very organised today - every single 'salad' in Sainbury's and Waitrose also had potato, noodles, couscous, rice or pasta! Grr...

I try to use the service stations that have waitrose or M&S as I can buy a small pack of cooked chicken or ham slices and maybe a small bag of baby bell. Its not a 'meal' but enough to keep you going for a few hours and stop you falling into the endless shelves of flapjack, chocolate, panini, rolls etc.

I was keeping a real eagle-eye out for babybel! Unfortunately on the way back we needed petrol so I was just in the BP garage shop rather than the main service station. The two colleagues with me cheerfully bought and munched sandwiches/cakes. It is just amazing to look round shelves of carby crap with "new eyes" eg thinking about the bad effect any of it would have on insulin levels etc.

I was almost tempted to look for dark chocolate as I often read on this thread of people eating such a thing!... but I didn't want to make the tummy-ache worse.

Fukkigucci I would be happy to assume that you do indeed have to positively compensate for tea and coffee drinking on grounds of dehydration - and therefore drink even more water.

Some things that can help some people who are plateau-ed. you don't necessarily have to try all of these or even all at once:

drinking more water
eating more fat (but not more protein)
not snacking, particularly not in the evening
trying removing dairy for 1,2 or 3 days (see the ubercamp tab on the spreadsheet)
or just being "moderate" on dairy
cutting out the nuts, berries and alcohol
maybe, less caffeine (substitute one coffee with a herbal tea?)

Hogwash this is not a high protein diet. You should be eating about the same amount of protein as before. The emphasis of a low carb diet is replacing carbs with fats, increasing protein is not recommended both because there are health implications and because too much protein will impede weight loss as the excess will be converted to glucose.

Hogwash - I don't understand this:
"so what else is left to eat? I noticed in the newsagents just now that another leading nutritionist talks about not eating low fat foods but eating high fat foods in 'moderate' amounts. So that's all carbs, most dairy, moderate to high amounts of protein and moderate amounts of fat out!"

I'm not sure if you are not understanding the concepts, or if you are catastrophising a little.

You may still eat vegetables and fruits - these contain carbs, but the lower carb veg and fruits are recommended as opposed to the higher ones, there is a list to help with this.
You may eat dairy foods, in moderate amounts, unless you find that they prevent you from losing any more weight (as some people on here do, I am not one of them)
You may eat high protein foods, in moderate amounts, indeed you need to as protein is an essential dietary requirement.
You may eat high fat foods - fatty meat, oily fish, eggs, oils, nuts (although again, not the carby ones) in moderate amounts.

There is still plenty to eat! I don't go a bundle on processed meats, or smoked anything, but I still have plenty of choice. It's just changing the mindset away from highly refined carbs - I still crave bread, just to have a bloody sandwich or some toast! because it's easy food - and increasing the fat content of your diet, AND increasing the amount of water you drink.

Does that help or have I made it worse for you, in which case I really apologise, I am sincerely trying to help.

No worries, Hogwash - good luck :)

Different things suit different folk. It's what makes the world go round.

As always trying to keep up, and mostly failing.

I was supposed to be going out for dinner tonight and was on a promise of but sadly it has to be postponed. Even more sadly I have made my family a huge shepherds pie, a favourite, and I haven't got anything for me

In Good News though I have drunk all the water I should already today.

OK am off to RTFT

:)

Hogwash - I'm sorry if you feel it isn't for you. Bootcamp is strict - there's a hint in the name - but it's also designed for people who are starting a weight loss 'regime' - and if you are nearly at your desired weight it really isn't that relevant.

For you, it's more about a way of eating that will obviously help you shed some weight but, more importantly, that you can sustain over the longer terms, that you can adapt to be your 'default' way of eating.

Even Bootcamp light isn't necessarily going to be this!

Ultimately it's up to you to eat as you see fit, and if this WOE isn't working for you or you find it too restrictive, then there's no point trying to stick with it.

There is plenty of conflicting evidence - but there are also a lot of hidden agendas in the food world - and the power of the sugar/grain processors/manufacturers is massive. Not really sure what your problem with Dr Briffa is, but I would seriously suggest that you read Gary Taubes books, and also have a good look at the work of people like The Diet Doctor and Robert Lustig. Oh, and John Yudkin's book "Pure, White and Deadly" is also worth a read.

However, it's not my job to try and persuade you, evangelical though i am!

Good luck with whatever you decide to do

Funnily enough, my plans have also changed, Pistey . I'm having to go out with my husband now ...

Good luck Hogwash, I'm sure you will find a woe that suits you better.

I don't want others to be put off though, especially where newspapers sensationalise journal articles and papers which provokes a panicky sensation that we are doing something wrong. There is good science to support a low carb diet. I like Volek and Phinney as they clearly believe a low carb diet can benefit a lot of people but they don't try and sell it as 'one size fits all'. They take the approach that if you are overweight and insulin resistant then you will do better on a low carb diet than on a low fat balanced diet.

As a biochemist I find the science behind nutrition to be particularly fascinating, especially as it applies to my health and my diet! As a child I was very skinny and I only started to put on fat once I was in my 20s then in my 30s the process seemed to accelerate. Given that my dad is diabetic it seems likely that I had been developing insulin resistance over time and that was causing the problems I was having with extreme hunger pains, cravings and weight gains. Apart from the weight loss (30 lb between last June and November) I have seen health improvements in mood, sleep quality, my skin, menstrual cramps have ceased, IBS has completely cleared up, reduced nasal congestion and my DH tells me I have even stopped snoring! I have hopes that continuing to eat low carb will drastically reduce my risk of developing diabetes, certainly it will minimise the effects if I do develop diabetes as it's the glucose that does the damage. Also both my parents have high cholesterol and high blood pressure and this woe should benefit me there as well.

Oh yes, I forgot about Volek and Phinny. I like their work because they do their own research as well - they don't just report on other people's stuff.

Thanks for your reply Eva. I've been doing the über boot camp for the most part. I have a tangerine addiction and I know that I can't manage one a day!
I think I'm going to reprint out the rules and list and stick them on the fridge, and make sure I'm following all the rules properly. I'll up my drinking too.
Can't cut out more coffee, I cut down to just 2 a day, and substituted the others with green tea. And I drink normal sized mugs of coffee, not huge ones!

Thanks for the advice

Taubes's Diet Delusion is meticulously researched and referenced. It reads as if he started the project out of interest but was quite surprised at the information he unearthed. The book is quite a tough read but it tells the story of how we found ourselves in a situation where saturated fat and cholesterol are demonised, low fat diets are touted a the solution to the obesity epidemic, exercise is the way to loose weight, all these beliefs became facts without there being any real evidence or research behind them. Saturated fat appeared to correlate with heart disease in Keys's study and there was a vocal group of scientists who sincerely believed they had found the solution to rising rates of heart disease and that it would be too damaging to wait ten years for the research to confirm the link so that national recommendations were made on the basis of an association between saturated fat and heart disease rather than on the basis of concrete research. I read a very technical review where Keys's raw data was reanalysed using modern statistical approaches and the association disappears. But we have been told that saturated fat is linked with heart disease for decades and it's very hard to overcome that cultural conditioning.

I'm not so keen on Briffa, although Escape the Diet Trap is an excellent book for explaining the primal diet. Briffa had a tendency to dismiss data on the basis that association does not prove causation, unless that data agrees with his own theories. His blog posts always seem quite hurried to me as well, as if he isn't putting the time into them.

Mark's Daily Apple is a really excellent blog and caters for the paleo and primal diets. He includes more esoteric approaches such as getting natural light, the importance of sleep and recommendations for exercise as well as diet info.