Week 1 - January Low Carb Bootcamp: and we're off!

[BIWI]

Evening everyone. I hope you're all ready, prepared and raring to go!

Here is the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness:

for you to enter your starting weight

Have a good look at the tabs at the bottom, as there you will find the rules, the list of allowed veg and lots of other really useful information.

I've also started the questions thread , so if you have anything you need to ask, that's the best place to ask it. The chat threads move really quickly in the first weeks, so this thread is the best place to ask your questions.

And this time around, I thought it might be useful to have a thread to post about good/interesting low carb products that you come across:

Here

Good luck!

Been for my Indian meal.

Had seabass tikka starter.
Chicken tikka & cauliflower fried in spices for main course.
Had coffee & cream to finish.

Was delicious.

Dh didn't get poppadoms upon my orders! Even though it was his birthday dinner!

If I have to eat Indian food I tend to choose Chicken shashlick. It's basically a plate full of meat.

Quite a hard going day here. I ate loads
B 2 eggs and butter, coffee with cream
S asparagus and softboiled eggs
My first bpc
L stir fry pork and greens
S ham wrapped around cream cheese and cucumber
D roast chicken and salad, couple of slugs if double cream with cinnamon on top. Surprisingly yum!

I was out most of the day, so did not do brilliantly

B- three hardboiled eggs
S - decaf soya latte
L - had packed stuff to take, which was cucumber, spinach leaves, a couple of slices of chicken, cheese
D - then day went off plan and I did not manage to eat until half past eight, it was tuna, cucumber, hard boiled eggs and olives with mayo

For some reason, the indigestion monster is now with me too, lots of pain, going to get a fennel tea and curl up in bed. Fairly sure I have managed enough water.

Had a home made curry- yummy. No rice, no chapattis, no chana or potatoes-just loads of meat and salad.

Refused dessert, alcohol, chocolates and the mountain of cake DSD bought round for tomorrow's cake sale. . Am feeling good again after my faux pas earlier in the day...

So dinner was a success, no deviations from the path, loads of water and light tonics with fresh lime slices and lemon slices only the men had the G and T as geir bodies could handle it
Still a good LC dinner party, plus a winning poker night
See you for Sunday shenanigans people!! Night night

Thanks for the encouragement, Cymru - and Bitchy, I shall examine the resources list! Went out with a friend tonight and thought Turkish would be good (was planning on lamb chops and oily salad), but we hadn't booked so had to go to fancy pub. Amazing tuna ceviche with avocado to start, then halibut and mussels in saffron cream sauce with leeks and Jerusalem artichoke purée. I thought I did so well. I now think Jerusalem artichokes may in fact be THE DEVIL'S OWN ARTICHOKE and about 40% carb! But can only find on US sites which talk about inulin and fibre. Does anyone know? Can anyone help? I feel a bloody fool. And didn't even have nice cocktail with my friend but had sparkling water. Damn you, Jerusalem artichoke of doom.

I can't remember the exact thing but you need to subtract something (fibre?) from the american no#s? Actually not sure but there is definitely discrepancy between english carb counts and american and it is to do with fibre values.

Hellooooo, sorry Im very late joining. Want to lose a stone to start with. I don't overeat, eat mindfully and maintain but just cant seem to lose anymore. Will go back and read the thread now. Thanks.

I'm afraid that Jerusalem Artichokes are very carby at around 15g carbs per 100g.

I can't eat them anyway, as they give me terrible, painful and very, very smelly wind But hopefully if they were made into a puree the actual amount that you would have had would have been small, and the rest of your meal was very low carb indeed, so you should be fine. As long as the wind doesn't get you!

If it's an American site you need to take the fibre off the carb count

Fartichokes as we call them in our house.

Glad to see that everyone seems to be surviving Saturday night!

My meal was lovely, and (mostly) pretty good in terms of carbs.

Pre-starter was home-made sourdough bread, with olives, and marinated artichokes. I gave the bread a swerve - which was really difficult as it looked and smelt divine!

Starter was a ramekin full of smoked mackerel, cucumber, capers and chopped gherkins, with horseradish cream. And main was a huge Portabello mushroom stuffed with mixed mushrooms, walnuts, home-made ricotta and topped with Gruyere. Served with kale.

All good so far. Then I went to the loo - and when I came back, dessert had been placed in front of my place. So I felt obliged to eat that. Amaretto custard with Italian meringue/isles flottante type thing. It was gorgeous, and a reasonably small portion, but still pretty sweet.

We were all served with a glass of kir royale when we arrived, but apart from that I drank water all evening.

So on balance, better than I was expecting - but also a beautiful meal that I didn't have to cook!

Thanks for clarifying that BIWI as i like boring samey food I don't tend to wander too much from bootcamp and thus don't need to look stuff up but perhaps I should be a little more adventurous and actually use this information.

Meant to say, glad you had a good evening Biwi

Sorry stupid tired and on concussion watch so check ds every hour. It is going to be another long night and my brain has given up proper function.

Oh no! What happened to ds?!

ready the cream cheese pancakes are lovely, and v good cold too spread with butter, bit like flatter scotch pancakes.

Not sure how lc ideal they are but apart from the dairy angle I figure 2g carbs for 3 pancakes which is plenty for a serving.

4 eggs
4oz cream cheese
Vanilla if you wish but to be honest could not taste it, would prefer lemon peel but avoiding for now

Whack in the blender for about 30 seconds

Drop about a third of a cup at a time onto a buttered griddle, keeping them warm in the oven until the rest are done.

Enough for our family of 4 to have 3 each with 3 left over.

He tripped on some paper that he'd left on his floor (laminate) slipped and tried to put his head through the corner of the door. No blood so it is just precautionary but I promised I would check on him concussion watch stylee as he was terrified he wouldn't wake up in the morning. So far he has fallen out of bed, stumbled to the bathroom and had his animals tucked in several times. He seems fine and i suspect he will be no worse for wear tomo. But better to be safe than sorry

Oh Bitchy, sorry to hear about your son, hope you both got through the night with some snatches of sleep. BIWI, I escaped the wind but have had stomach ache all night - I blame the artichokes! Yes was v small amount, "smears" really, so will wipe slate clean and start again. Your dinner sounds lovely! I am already thinking of BootCamp lite puddings I can make - mostly involving ground almonds and melted butter bases, f-f Philly and vanilla bean paste middles, and heaped berry toppings. But all in good time... Coffee with cream calls me! Have a good Sunday everyone.

Morning all!

Hope concussion watch was ok. We let DS(5) stay up late and he still woke at 6.30 urgh

Today's plan:

B: salmon and scrambled egg
L: ribs and salad
D: steak, broccoli, courgettes
E: body conditioning class

Really disappointed, have slowly gained 4 lbs this week :( I know you can stall in week 3, but didn't realise you could gain so much!

I'm EXACTLY the same! Gained 4-5lbs and feel totally disheartened asive been so good

*as have

I was being hosted a yesterday evening, dinner was a plate piled with mashed potato and a beef casserole. Took a little of the potato and avoided the alcohol and desserts. Being taken out for Sunday lunch today so that will be another test.

Morning all!

I'm planning lc sausages and swede mash for tea tonight - do I do the swede like I would potato ignoring the fact that that usually comes from the freezer - adding plenty of butter and cream?

Apophenia - yes, you can cook them just like potatoes but they take a bit longer to get as well cooked in my experience - so instead of a 20 minute boil, they can take 25mins. Cut them smaller then they go quicker. :)

Today went reasonably well - early trip to the cinema knocked breakfast on the head though, but at least I didn't have any Maltesers, unlike the rest of my family!
Lunch was 2 egg omelette with courgette, mushroom and cheese fried in butter, and garlic salt to season.
Dinner was homemade flour-free turkey meatballs - 500g turkey mince, one small onion very finely diced, finely chopped coriander, about an ounce of finely grated pecorino, 1/4 of a small Boursin and 1 egg, all mixed together with a hefty dash of sage, large pinch of salt and some basil (I don't like too much black pepper and DS1 REALLY doesn't like it, so we tend to use basil instead of pepper) - then I fried the meatballs in olive oil and butter before adding aubergine, a bit of carrot and green beans and some finely chopped mushrooms, and then some stock to create a bit of a sauce to it. Served with boiled swede (for me)
No dessert of any kind though.

My carb "allowance" is going on the carrots and green beans today, so no cherries.

Glad the meals out went well, and sorry to hear about your DS, Bitchy but glad he seems to be ok now.