Week 3 - Low Carb Bootcamp - Where We Have a Decision to Make!

[BIWI]

Morning all.

Here's the link to the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness

So we've finished Bootcamp! Well done all or at least to all those who are still with us

Now you have a decision to make. You can move on to Bootcamp Light, if you wish, which is more relaxed (to a degree). The rules are on the tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheet - sorry, I don't have time to copy/paste this morning as I have to get off to work about 10 minutes ago.

But essentially it means that you can introduce nuts and berries - in moderation. You no longer have to have three meals a day. If you're not hungry, then it's fine to skip a meal - as long as you don't then dive into a pile of carbs when you get hungry! And you can have alcohol - again, in moderation.

If you're happy with the stricter Bootcamp then by all means stay on that, but please, please, please make sure that your carbs are coming from vegetables and salad. It's important that you get nutrition from these.

Or you can, if you like, do Bootcamp at the week and Bootcamp Light at the weekend.

However

There is also something else you need to prepare for, and that is the dreaded weeks 3 and 4 slowdown!

It's something that lots of people experience. The weight loss suddenly stops, for no apparent reason. If this happens, don't worry and don't panic that you're doing anything wrong (assuming that you're not, of course ), just keep on keeping on, and it will get going again - albeit at a slower rate.

From here on, you should be expecting to see a loss of 1-2lbs a week.

Good luck everyone!

sass I just wanted to say, thank you for the cottage pie recipe you posted yesterday - I've just made it for later in the week and it's divine.

Dont worry def not giving up - even if i dont loose weight for the next month, scales dont matter anyway - would have just been nice not to have seen an increase.

I love this woe, i never last more than 5 mins on any other diet, diabetes was starting to look like a possibility so this woe -ing is perfect. I love the food -i was low fat all the way and i had been missing out on so much!

And the best bit - to be loosing weight whilst not feeling absolutely starving al the damn time.

While my body thaws out from the freezing temperature out there, I'll just check in with my food intake for today:

B: scrambled egg and bacon
S: coffee
L: cheese omelette with salad

DSS is cooking tonight. So have no control over the meal, but he did ask what I could and couldn't eat.

Not relevant but it is I guess; but today I bought a lovely brand new dress from a charity shop. It fitted like a glove. Am sure it's down to losing nearly half a stone in last two weeks. Also got a cashmere mix coat that fitted me perfectly (being a 4' 11 shortie) for a tenner!

tart you're welcome. If your household is anything like mine, there will be 2nd and 3 rd helpings. Dd2 (age 4) "loves it the most"

Food for today.

B- bacon and eggs in coconut oil
L- leftover shepherds pie
D- salmon with a dessert spoon of red pesto on top. Feta salad.
S- teeny tiny corner of 85% choc

I am 2.5 pounds down which makes a total of 6.5 so near as damnit half a stone. Very pleased. Really enjoyed my berries in ff yogurt this am

L salmon and veg
D thai chicken soup
S pork scratchings

So today was the working lunch, glad I didn't say I was gluten intolerant as they provided a few hot dishes instead of sandwiches, so would have called my bluff anyway.

Not perfect but did OK, lots of salad (picked the fruit out, one cherry tomato), creamy dressing (think it was yogurt based) and chicken curry (just chicken and sauce, no onions or anything else). The other dish was veg curry which looked like carb city: peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, chick peas. And of course no rice and no biscuits after, having a mint tea.

B was turkey bacon, buttery scrambled eggs, half avo mashed with mayo and a cuppa

D will be oxtail stew that I did in the slow cooker over the weekend and some sort of green veg with butter on

1 possibly 2 off but claiming just 1. Could someone add 226 to the spreadsheet for me please.

best done for you

B: ff total dbl cream n peanut b
S: home made pork scratchings
L: scrambled eggs, buttered green beans cooked chicken n mayo
S: square 90%
D: butchers steak burger, cauliflower cheese, buttered spinach
W: 2.5 ltr

Ps thanks sayra for adding my weight to the sheet!

D - beef, roast swede, broccoli cheese, dollop of hm mayo
S - few berries, one piece 85% choc

Darn,
missed out on being a fatty this week by 1/2lb. lost 2lb DW said perhaps I shouldn't have scoff lunch for today yesterday. But the bowl of veggies and Pork goulash tasted soooo good..

On this stage what is the daily number of Carbs I need to aim to stay under 25 50 100? so I can tell myself stop not allowed.

This is a picture of lunch on a full size plate. Dinner is bigger I just don't get the full message, worst thing ever on a diet for me is being told something is unlimited, it's not true.

I've cut my coffee to 2 cups and drinking green tea, put 2 litres in a thermos and then is ready and hot to drink anytime.

Grah

nowitsenough

Breakfast: 4 rashers fried back bacon, 2 fried eggs

Perfect!

Snack: 3 tsp pate and 5 parmesan crisps and a slice of brie

Did you really need this snack after a pretty substantial breakfast? It's a lot, and a lot of dairy

Lunch: spinach leaves, cucumber and spring onion with caesar dressing (has 4g carbs per 100g, so not too much, but high in fat) and feta cheese and a very little sprinkling of grated parmesan.

By contrast, this isn't really that much food! Although I'm hoping you weren't actually hungry But again, quite a bit of dairy

Snack: 2 x pork and leek sausages left over from yesterday

This is a pretty substantial snack too

Dinner: will be left over cold roast pork shoulder joint with leeks braised in butter and the rest of the cabbage fried in bacon fat

Perfect!

I'm wondering why you are snacking so much - you're not really having three meals a day, it's more like you're having 5 meals, which isn't so good for you. You'd be better off trying to eat proper meals and avoid the snacks if you can.

There is some interesting work being done to look at the effect of eating 'little and often' compared with 3 meals a day. Here's an extract from a blog written by Dr John Briffa:

"On one occasion, the men were fed a diet (15 per cent protein, 30 per cent fat, 55 per cent carbohydrate) for 36 hours, with the food split into three meals a day. On another occasion the same food was eaten, but this time it was split into 14 portions each day. This second approach is certainly extreme and does not generally reflect what frequent eaters do in practice. However, sometimes in experiments it can make sense to use very different approaches (in this case 14 ‘meals’ versus 3) to maximise the chances of detecting some difference.

One of the things that the researchers measured was the ‘oxidation’ (metabolism) of fat and carbohydrate. They hypothesised that eating 3 meals a day might shift metabolism from sugar towards fat for the reasons discussed above. In this study, though, they did not see such a shift.

However, other differences were seen between the diets. Notably, the amount of sugar that appeared in the bloodstream was lower when the individuals were eating the 3-meal-a-day regime. This suggests that the lower meal frequency enjoyed better blood sugar control overall (a good thing), and something that the authors suggest may contribute to improved weight control over time.

But there’s more: the reduced eating frequency was also found to lead to improvements in the resting metabolic rate compared to the more frequent eating. This, in theory, may also assist weight control efforts in the longer term.

The other notable difference was that when eating 3 times a day (compared to eating 14 times a day), individuals were less hungry and felt more sated. The authors comment that:

The [different] responses between smaller and larger eating occasions may simply be due to the inability of the body to detect the size of a smaller eating occasion as an adequate physiological load, reducing or eliminating the eating related responses typically observed when larger eating occasions occur.

Or to put it another way, the small ‘meals’ were not big enough to properly satisfy the appetite."

From Dr John Briffa's blog

Food for today

B - avocado, olive oil, salt
L - leftover turkey roulade, salad leaves, hm coleslaw
D - smoked haddock gratin from week 2 thread, broccoli

The gratin was delicious, but that's it for dairy now after weigh in this morning. I made it because it was on the meal plan, but I don't think dairy works for me unfortunately.

BIWI, ok, yes the snacks were quite substantial. I ate the pate and parmesan crisps whilst preparing the salad and waiting for the sausages, which originally I was going to put in the salad, but then decided I fancied feta instead, so had the sausage an hour after lunch.

I don't know if I'm eating because I'm hungry or out of habit or boredom

I will keep an eye on it tomorrow and try to eat 3 meals without snacks and also cut down on dairy.

Thanks Lex. Love your name.

Oh titting hell. 3.5 lb on. Some of it will be twattery-related from Sunday's slip, but I've been put on steroids to get my asthma under control so suspect this too...

BIWI, that is very interesting. I have wondered if drinking tea or coffee with cream or almost (etc) milk throughout the day can have a bad effect on metabolic rate, ie raising insulin levels. I tend to drink about 6 cups throughout the day, hmm.

Hi all, well done to the losers and the sts, and positive vibes for the koko!!
Today worked from home, that's where the trouble starts!! But focused today,

Breakfast was two hb eggs with butter and black pepper,
Lunch was a beef burger with advocado half sliced, slice of cheese and blob of sour cream wrapped in iceberg lettuce leaves
Dinner, one pork chop, helping of lovely creamy cheesy cauliflower cheese, slurp!
About 2 litres of water, 3 black coffee , no sugar, yuck! But getting used to it!
Oh I had a snack of two cubes of Gouda with cumin seeds.
Walked about 1/2 hour with two dogs on the lead, quite entertaining for anyone watching, they were both away with the fairies today, so it was like weaving more than walking!
See you all tomorrow

No weight lost, jeans getting closer, definitely look and feel slimmer. (As well as better in myself)

Breakfast; two low carb sausages and BPC
Dinner; broccoli and cauli cheese with a steak
Tea; as above... It was lovely and its so cold and I've got a cold coming i wanted something more comforting IySWIM?
Water done, usual sipping as I spend the evening doing stuff.

The kids were bought a sweet treat today, and I won't lie, it was very tempting, but I stayed strong. Hurrah!

Food for today:

B. Total greek yoghurt and double cream. Fruit tea

L. Scrambled eggs, more double cream, mushrooms, kale, and bacon. Done in butter.

D. Mince beef stirfry, kale, baby sweetcorn, flower sprouts.

One cup of normal tea and 3 pints of water today.
Any comments BIWI?

Evening all. Just logging meals for today. Sorry to post and run...
B: scrambled egg and spinach
L: avocado, chorizo and a poached egg
D: Cottage pie without the mash and some green beans.

Water: Getting towards 2L now I think.

I've drunk 5L again today, as well as a liquorice and a green tea, and a cup of coffee with breakfast.

Is there such thing as too much water on this woe? I just tend to sip it all day and it goes down a lot over the whole day, i'm not glugging it in one go.

Adding salt to food, eating lots of avocado (and i know there was something else mentioned too, but cant remember what) and take multivits too, so shouldnt be caused by anything being low??

Hello, finally arrived on the new thread! After my slightly alarming lurch at the end of last week, I have decided to take a step back from all-out ness (I am not known for my ability to cease from extremes...) and cut carbs gradually. So I thought today I would not have sugar. Bizarrely, this has resulted in a much better day than any in the last couple of weeks I wish I understood my brain!
I won't weigh though, I think that wasn't helping.
Today I had:
B a few nuts and raspberries, coffee with cream
L aubergine stew with yoghurt
D cauliflower, bacon and cheese chowder. It looked disgusting but blimey it was delicious!