Week 5 - Pre-Christmas Low Carb Bootcamp - we reach the half way point!

[BiWitched]

Eeek! I'm not stepping on the scales this morning, so will not be confessing all on the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness

Family wedding this weekend, and no control over food means I really don't want to see what number is on the scales!

Anyway, don't forget there's also the Weight Tracker

Here's to a successful week for all of us. Hopefully those who have seen things slow down/stop will see the scales begin to move again from now on.

Chester I do have other health issues to don't let my experience panic you.

Six I use mine for muffin in a minute. Cheesey ones.

Just be aware that some people have reported that flax seed has impeded weight loss ...

Weighed today, on my own scales as opposed to the pt scales so maybe slightly out but 10st 2lb.

My goal for today was 10 so I'm pretty happy. Dress fitting went better than I could have imagined with more than six inches having to be taken off the dress. My waist looked tiny!

Thanks so much everyone. I could not have got to where I am now without the bootcamps!
Thank you all round

Biwi how are you doing? You seem quite and busy. You ok?

Biwi how are you doing? You seem quite and busy. You ok?

Biwi how are you doing? You seem quite and busy. You ok?

Offs Sorry only meant to ask once. seems i broke my computer

Chester, I don't want to daunt you. Perhaps it's a different perspective: I see what happened to me as positive. I would not say that I had a lengthy stall. I did manage to dip under 12st, but found that had to actively Bootcamp in order to stay there. By then I had been dieting for nearly a year, and I wanted a break. So I allowed more carbs in and reduced my fat intake a bit. I maintained my weight between about 11st12 and 12st4 for several months until the summer holidays, when I face planted into chocolate

It was not a stall. It was maintenance. I maintained my new weight for nearly as long as I had been dieting. This time around I hope I'll maintain it for even longer! Getting below 12st and maintaining that would be a bonus.

I wonder, is it OK to post a graph tracking my weightloss? It's not a boast, it's just that it might help people to see the normality of up and down, plateauing, and how less frequent weighing can help. And what 1-2lb a week can add up to!

Thanks for the flax/linseed ideas!

Six

All weight loss graphs welcome! I like seeing them almost as much as weight loss photos

I had a drinking fail yesterday as I was running around after demanding visitors. So no run for me today and my sole aim for the day is to drink and drink and drink.

An ode to bootcamp

Before I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Whoosh Fairy will creep,
Into my bedroom as I slumber,
I've lifted weights, I've been to Zumba.

I've struggled with carb flu,
That made me sneeze,
I've given up chocolate,
And, most of all, cheese.

I've chomped my way through bags of kale,
Searching for the Holy Grail,
Courgetti spaghetti, dolphin pose,
Celeriac chips, up to my nose.

BIWI's big stick keeps us in line,
Without it I'd definitely be on the wine,
Bags of advice from those on the thread,
Just what you need when you're losing your head.

All I want in life's to be skinny,
This diet's turned me into a moaning Minnie,
Low carb for life, that's what we say,
But please just take these stones away!

Brilliant Chester

Ingenious chester!

At a family party last night,managed to limit myself to a glass of wine and some ham and salad.

Loads of positive comments though, which helped motivate me to stay away from the rest of the buffet!

Feeling positive about today, gonna have scrambled eggs for lunch and steak for tea with mushrooms and salad.

May even give that berry crumble a bash!

Chester! Brilliant

Bitchy - I'm fine thanks, but yes, a tad busy. Not having a great time with my own weight, after a disastrous wedding weekend (disastrous only from the point of view of carbiness though!)

ready - that's fantastic. 6 inches is amazing! Have you got any pics?

Six - please show us your graph - things like that are really useful because they show people the longer term perspective. It's very easy when you're in the 'here and now' of the diet to get disheartened, and to forget that the longer term trend is downwards.

And as for me, I've just booked myself a very expensive 5 days away in the sunshine, from the end of November, so from today I have exactly 3 weeks to go! Bootcamping with a vengeance from here on!

Morning all - love the poem Chester thats made me smile.

Just updated the spreadsheet with my magic numbers

So last night I went our for dinner - first time since we started Bootcamp. Was with a friend who is also dieting but not LC so we had looked at the menu s before.
Anyway it was amazing - I had smoked mackerel first and then a rabbit main course - but the best thing was it was all pretty much low carb - the main came with no potato but some artichokes which I avoided as they taste very carby. We had a tiny bit of desert too but it was berries.
This will be my new favourite restaurant!
There were I am sure more carbs than ideal and some wine but it was vey easy to feel like I was staying on track - I hope it won't affect progress, its my birthday next week so I need to be ready to cope with these challenges.
I feel like some restaurants have realised this is the kind of food lots of people want which is great news.

Anyway that was a bit long ! Have a good day everyone - I am looking forward to another low carb weekend.

Morning everyone, today will be a test for me as we have people coming over for a Halloween part tonight and I was up until 1.30am last night baking cupcakes and pumpkin pie for it so there will lots of temptations today. I'm making sure I have enough alternatives though (I also made a smaller low carb pumpkin pie for me so I can have some pudding without going off track) and as I will be wearing this www.allfancydress.com/images/products/zoom/Harley-Quinn-Costume.jpg I will be motivated to avoid any carby bloat inducing food

OK, here goes.

(This is nerve-wracking, because I've never shown these pics to anyone before. Feels very private, don't know why.)

I look at these pics and they encourage me. They remind me of what I have achieved, how impossible it seemed at first, yet I succeeded - and therefore can and will do it again.

The orange line is my current target. I set myself smallish interim targets, sometimes weight, sometimes BMI, sometimes dress size.

First graph shows the effect of sustained BCing. With the occasional mindful lapse. Not cheat, lapse. Being a guest where someone has baked a treat for me, say. The hiccups in the graph were caused each time, not by these lapses, but by my buying nuts. For me nuts=crack cocaine. I cannot stop at a few. So it's best I don't buy them.

May 2013 I plateaued. But my body shape was changing - I had to buy so many clothes! So I stepped away from the scales. An when I next weighed myself, I had lost weight. That's roughly when I moved into 3/4-weekly weighings

I was aware that summer hols might scupper me, and I did not want to get myself thinking negatively, so I stayed away from the scales. That way I would not see little, unimportant fluctuations, and give them too much importance.

I'll split the posts.

This graph shows me maintaining for several months on Bootcamp Lighter-than-Light, which I think is the way forward for me for the rest of my life.

I wobbled up and down, sometimes had more carby meals, sometimes very LC weeks, never felt I had to do a full BC. Enjoyed lots of foods, but never face-planted or felt that I was depriving or rewarding myself. Actually, tell a lie, I did have some severe emotional eating times, but stuck to LCHF foods. I did not feel good about my disordered eating at that time (or ever have, really), and felt that I was scuppering my efforts. But the graph shows the truth: I wasn't scuppering my efforts. I stayed a very comfortable size 14, which had been my goal all along.

I kept and eye on the numbers, but did not weigh myself frequently to avoid connecting a gain with a cream-binge.

TBH, when I weighed myself at the start of BC I was deeply shocked at how much I'd put back on, and at how much of my hard work I'd undone. And I know, from the fit of my clothes, that it all went on in 6w of holiday-stress-carby-binging.

But, see, the effects of BC are plotted on the same graph, turning the scary plot into an encouraging plot.

Here's my graphs. I wish I could give a longer term view, but I can only show a couple of months at a time. I've been maintaining / plateauing for a couple of months but this week I've cut back on nuts and the scales seem to have shifted again.

Even though I've stayed fairly constant since Aug I've dropped from sz 12 to 10/12.

Awesome how you can change size downwards without apparently losing weight?

The scales are not God!

I even managed to squidge into a pair of size 8 jeans week before last! Whilst being 4 pounds heavier than my lowest weight when I was a size 12!

I'm gonna have to get the tape measure out. I weigh the same as when i started (though i didnt weigh at the very start) but i def feel thinner...? delusional

Btw, on an ipad and the spreadsheet isnt liking it, so if someone could add me, that'd be fab? I think in pounds im 215? (15st 5) just put beyond as i'll be namechanging back soon. No worries, it can wait til im on the pc if noone else can do it :)

So nice to see those graphs, well done everyone!

I have no idea if this will help anyone else, but the things I find help me get the scales moving again are;

• definitely drinking enough water
• cutting down on tea/coffee
• eating as early as possible in the evening (about 6, but deffo before 7)
• going to bed early and getting a really good nights sleep

I think the last two mean I don't snack in the evening and have a long period of not eating. For me a lack of sleep always slows me down too.

I haven't been brilliant this week, but did manage to eat a goats cheese salad for lunch yesterday at paultons park, rather than the usual carb and sugar fest that is theme park food so that was a bonus! I also managed to get into my size 16 jeans, and more importantly wore them out in public!

beyond definitely get the tape measure out. I find that within days of being lc again my tummy bloat goes and my clothes fit better even though no weight has gone. It is a nice feeling!