Helloooo! StuntNun here filling in for the lovely and dedicated BIWI who is off on her hols. So how are you all getting on? I'm sure lots of us are seeing the scales go in the right direction fingers tightly crossed for a pound off myself this week but please don't worry if the scales aren't budging, it's pretty common for there to be a weight loss 'pause' as your body adapts to a low carb diet. Please post your progress and say whether you're continuing on Bootcamp or Bootcamp Light. And if anyone has any questions please ask as it's great to get into the science behind low carbing so we have some ammunition against accusations of being on a fad diet.
As always, the rules are on the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness and you can track your weight on the cunningly named Weight Tracker.
By way of inspiration I've put together some info on how we got into this mess in the first place...
Why do we gain weight?
Before I started low carbing I wondered about squirrels. Yep, squirrels. I've never seen a fat squirrel, have you? But squirrels, as I'm sure you know, hoard up huge quantities of nuts and seeds and store them in little caches all over the place. So why don't they eat them all? I assume squirrels like nuts and seeds and yet they manage to resist the urge to stuff their admittedly cute little faces until their food is all gone. Humans on the other hand... humans are rubbish. We eat too much, we know we eat too much, we feel bad because we eat too much, and yet we keep doing it. So why are we so rubbish compared to squirrels? The paleo/primal nutters like me community will tell you that it's because we're eating a diet that is too different from the diet we evolved to eat and that the biggest problem of all is too much carbohydrate.
When you eat a carbohydrate-rich meal, your body releases the hormone insulin to signal the muscles and liver to store carbohydrate. On a conventional diet, however, our muscles and liver are constantly kept at full capacity. Since these glycogen stores are permanently full, any glucose that can't immediately be used by the body is stored as fat. Another action of insulin is to shut down the release of fat from our fat cells so our own fat stores become inaccessible. Then when we get hungry again we eat yet more carbohydrate and the process starts again, more and more glucose is stored as fat and the weight piles on. Worse still, the constant bombardment of our muscles and liver with insulin when their glycogen stores are already full causes them to become less sensitive to the effect of insulin, or insulin resistant. The pancreas responds by releasing more and more insulin and our blood sugar levels start to drop too low as the body frantically clears glucose into its fat stores. Eventually we find we are hungry all the time, starving only two hours after we last ate. And because our blood sugar levels are low, what do we crave? Yet more carbs. So we end up trapped in a viscous cycle of carb addiction, hunger and weight gain while our ever more ample fat stores are unusable.
Hopefully this has described the process by which the weight creeps on. In next week's thread I'll put together some info on how a low carb diet reverses this process, allowing us to use up our fat stores and achieve the weight we want to be at the same time as improving our health and our energy levels and reducing our risk of diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.
Good luck all for the coming week. Onwards and downwards!
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Low-carb bootcamp
Week 4 - Low Carb Bootcamp - Keep on keeping on
StuntNun · 26/05/2014 05:14
Morning everyone!
I'm lying in bed and using the quiet half hour before everyone gets up for a sneaky bit of MN. Totally knackered after DD's party yesterday, which went well despite the lack of crisps! DM managed to proclaim the roast pork as delicious despite her original nose wrinkle at the mention of it last week she cremates everything and doesn't know how to add flavour so I think she was judging it on her own standards initially [bad daughter for saying that]
Little Miss how did the egg foo yung go?
Spamm I get back on track by being super strict and having something fatty to snack on for when I get hungry. (at least your off piste moment tasted good!)
I actually think that's the worst thing about off piste moments - the three days of hunger and carb cravings that follow them 
These days if I know i'm going to be really stuck I take babybels and pepperamis or mini frittata muffins in my bag and just decline the things that are unsuitable. Since the start of this bootcamp I have been known to ring up hosts, apologise and say I'm bringing my own food because I'm a fussy bugger! It helps that my acne has really cleared up with this WOE so I say I'm doing it for my skin and it's been such an amazing improvement that I don't want to risk it reverting to it's previous state.
Trash blimey, that was one graphic stick description! Have you thought about writing horror novels? 
Thumb almond butter is bloody gorgeous, isn't it? Sadly, I think my almond butter no-quite-so fat bombs have really held me back this week.
Have a lovely Sunday everyone. We have a new to us bike trailer for the DCs and hopefully we're going to test it out today - very excited.
Morning everyone - Just caught up with the thread and looking forward to tomorrow to see how we're doing.
peony Well done with the loss, as pisses is taken how about 'RiverRunsThroughIt'. What will you do now?
trashy is it wrong I find that kind of kinky and now want to be punished?
Today I will mostly eating eggs and chicken with the last of the asparagus after I've been to the farmers market
Intending to staying on bootcamp another week
Welcome Sybsie if you've LCd before then the weight may come off a bit more slowly than it did the first time. But you already know what you're doing and will have a repertoire of LC food already which I think is the trickiest part of changing to a LC diet, the whole but what do I eat question. My advice would be to stay as strict as possible, perhaps stay on Bootcamp for a bit longer before switching to Bootcamp Light. One problem for experienced LCers is carb creep where a few berries, a bit of cream, a handful of nuts, a square of chocolate - all allowed on Bootcamp Light - sneak in on a daily basis and your cumulative carb count gets too high for easy weight loss never done this myself no of course not! 
Seven pounds by the end of term seems to be a realistic goal for you, good luck!
I've fallen off the wagon yesterday at a friends party.
Only have myself to blame. Home made rests were nice but not as nice as I expected them to be....
Not worth it and now I must have broken my ketosis...
I have question to those following 16:8. Are you doing it for health reasons and every single day?
I've not been on this thread for so long that its not in "Threads I'm on" 
I've been reading though.
trash at one point I thought it would be nice to meet up with you, now I am scared!!
Just back from the bestest ever conference. It was in Sweden and as LMD informed me Sweden have gone back on the low-fat advice which meant that all my meals were LC so as well as it being a fab conference I came back 4lbs lighter which never ever ever happens!
One question I have (I think others do too) is why does LCing make hangovers worse? I don't drink very often but while away this week I did. One night I had four pear ciders (4.5%) and it took me until 7pm the following night to feel better, I never used to get hangovers like that pre-LC.
I think that others on this thread have also said the same? I've also felt "hungover" after a carby twat day, I'm thinking of just not drinking again, its not worth it to feel shit for a whole day.
Stunt do you know the answer? You seem like the person who knows a lot about this WOE, I am off to google so will come back if I find the answer.
It was only one scoooooooone, Trash
I actually had weird stomach pains all night and I'm heavier this morning
Back to lots of water and strapping myself to the wagon with some rope.
Ohwhatfuckery - I hear you!
Keeping on, keeping on.
Got a do to go to next weekend, been looking for a frock, nice to be able to choose a smaller size.
Happy Sunday everyone
Wow this weekend has been a bit of a cheat-fest all over 
. I have to admit that I was too tired to be bothered to cook last night so gave myself a rare cheat meal too and had a Chinese takeaway, nothing too bad just salt and pepper prawns and chicken satay with green peppers, no rice, but then I caved and ate a little packet of mini eggs which tasted like a vile wax and sugar combination and all that has contributed to a 3lb gain on the scales this morning . Don't know why I bothered, it's really not worth it and now I'm just annoyed with myself as I had finally broken through the barrier to the next stone and now I'm back to where I was two weeks ago [hit's self in head with BIWI's large, rusty nailed stick]. I just treat these moments as experiments to see how my carb tolerance is (shit obviously) and whether the cravings are actually justified or just in my head, same answer every time so I think I've learnt my lesson and will stay away from the junk for good.
Sarya - I definitely think this woe makes hangovers worse, I didn't even feel drunk last night, but feel wretched today - really bad.
I know the only two circumstances that an otherwise healthy adult can get genuine hypoglycaemia are with insulin treated diabetes or alcohol consumption so maybe that has something to do with it?
Also, usually after a night out I would have had something carby to eat before bed, and something carby when I woke up! And actually something carby before I went out. Dp looked at my plateful of roasted veg with mozzarella last night and said, "is that all you're eating?!"
I have also found my capacity/tolerance for alcohol has reduced, which is why I'm surprised/disappointed as a drunk a fraction of what I would normally drink last night, yet have a far worse hangover! 
Feeling a bit better now though, just about kept the eggs down and I think they helped, the fizzy vitamin/paracetamol combo seems to have hit the spot as well. Now soaking in the bath drinking sparkling mineral water while dd watches frozen! Think I might make myself a cup of coffee in a bit, but will have to have milk and I have no cream and really couldn't stomach bpc right now! Boak!
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Woke up still feeling full of food after eating too much yesterday, even though I did stick to the rules.
So, no breakfast this morning; lots of water and 2 coffees with cream.
DH and I also got back to Couch 2 5k, which we started a couple of weeks ago, but have been a bit intermittent due to going away. Went this morning and my knees really felt it, but we are booking in weds and fri evening to make sure we do the full 3 runs and finally we will move onto week 2.
I do feel better for it even though it is tough. It's hard hauling my lardy self around a running track.
I've just seen some holiday photos of me taken last weekend. I am well and truly motivated now .
Sayra I have a lower alcohol tolerance as well. The only explanation I've come across is that the liver is busy with gluconeogenesis and so can't process alcohol as effectively which frankly I think is bollocks as your liver should have the capacity to do more than one thing at once. I wondered whether eating carbs or having glycogen stores could have a buffering effect. There is also the factor that if you have lost a lot of weight then your alcohol tolerance will be lower.
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