Week 6 - Low Carb Bootcamp - Let's do this thing!

[BIWI]

Morning!

Here's the SoF for you to confess all

So we move into the second half.

By now, those of you who have been here from the beginning should be hitting your stride, and be more comfortable about what to do, what works/doesn't work etc.

Let's really focus and concentrate on doing it properly.

Good luck!

BIWI, I'm sorry to hear about your loss.

Some of those recipes look interesting BIWI

The scales are still creeping down for me, gallons of water and no booze seems to be doing the trick. Who knew that following the rules would actually work?!

In and out of meetings all day so have come prepared with breakfast and lunch. Not sorted anything for tea though, so need to have a think about that and possibly stop at the shop on the way home.

B: scrambled eggs, butter, little bit of cream
L: left over chicken casserole, cheese
D: TBC

Not sure my run did me much good yesterday as cold feels dreadful today. I will battle on regardless though.

Does anyone use chia seeds? I follow the Ditch the Carbs blog recommended by BIWI and there's some recipes with chia today. They look quite useful as thickeners for smoothies. Sorry if you've all been raving about chia and I've not noticed- brain overload here sometimes !

Get well soon Chester - no one should underestimate how rotten the common cold can be! Are you sure you should soldier on with the exercise though? Look after yourself.

GOD my thighs hurt today. So does the base of my spine (bruisey).
Bloody exercise!

B - not sure I had any
L - tinned red salmon (in brine), 1 HB egg, grated cucumber and cheese and chopped iceberg.
D - a piece of hot smoked salmon with some Thai beef and egg and veg (prob not ideal but I didn't eat any of the noodles!)

Too much wine, not enough water. Gah. But no chocolate so hurrah for that at least.
Also, 2lb down since yesterday.

thanks for recipe link BIWI I must be making progress as didn't immediately look at the desserts! Careful with some of them, they have molasses and honey so not really low carb or sugar free. Might try the tuna casserole, tuna pasta bake used to be one of my regular standby meals.

well I am poorly sick, just a cold/sinus/throat thing but v tired too as DD woke me up about midnight and I couldn't get back to sleep so sorry for the folks who are out at work but I am in bed right now with a second cup of tea and some ACV in water, going to have a read and hopefully some sleep

thumb my glutes and abs are making themselves known today. Ouch. Solidarity fist bump.

Thanks wand, I do some hand weights (7.5kg each) for my upper body and to make my squats harder work. I typically do 10 mins with them of an evening and morning before my Pilates and I've noticed a big difference in my upper back pain and wrists (I have bilateral de'quervains) since I started. Much less loss of hand function and better strength in my grip. I try to walk 10k steps but not been getting out very much with the crappy weather so really want the bike to work for me as I can get on with it while wee one plays or is in bed.

Genuinely think the low carb helps with my pain levels / ability to exercise too, if I eat crap I can feel my sacroiliacs and wrists ache with inflammation.

Just posting my food for some kind of holding myself to account!! really hoping to get a whoosh moment at some point, feel like I've been following the rules - mostly BC with a square of 85% choc here and there and maybe one glass of white wine per week... Worried my portion sizes are too big.

Yesterday
B - 2 hb eggs, butter, chorizo slices, babybel
L - BPC, babybel, chorizo slices
D - courgetti carbonara - ham, eggs, cream, Parmesan, garlic, shallot
S - olives with feta, 85% choc (25g bar), coffee & 10ml cream, 250ml white wine

Today
B - BPC, tea with soya milk
L - avocado, dressing, smoked mackerel
D - LC fish pie - sauce made with cream cheese and cream, then either cauli, celeriac or swede mash on top - can't decide!

Looking at it now it's low on veg and high in processed foods especially meat and fish and a reliance on BPC and babybel
Must do better!

I'm hoping you lot can help me. I need to cut back on food shopping quite a lot thanks to someone overspending (not me!) can you help me figure out how to continue this woe before I give up and end up living on pasta for the next 3 months?

How many are you feeding Aunty Maggie? What kind of budget? Do you have Aldi or lidl close? I'm sure we can help.

Are the others all BC or do they have added carbs?

2 adults and a toddler for as little as we can. I tend to make normal meals like stew and just have more meat and none of the carbs...

Current weekly shop is about £50 in aldi that's for meat for each day, salmon, prawns, cheese, milk, fruit for ds, loads of veg etc and not many extras.

I tend to have eggs and maybe bacon for breakfast, salad with protein and avocado for lunch and then a meat based meal for dinner. DH similar except him and DS have cereal/toast for breakfast and carbs at meal times.

I looked at Jack Monroe but her meals are too carby!

Maggie things like mashed swede or celeriac roasted for 20 mins with cheese on top are easy and cheap.

Maggie as you shop at Aldi anyway, I'm sure you already do this anyway, but I really make use of their super 6 veg. Last week was swede so we had it with everything, mashed, chipped, oven roast, fried. This week it's broccoli for 29p, so I will make a huge pan of soup for lunches and no doubt have it with many main meals too - again boiled with butter, roasted in olive oil.

well I spent my bedrest re-reading Briffa's Escape The Diet Trap, think I shall do this at least annually to remind myself about some of the science. It also made me even more determined to get DCs off grains and sugar.

B - half a cup of hm grain free granola, sliced strawberry, greek yog, cream
L - soup using hm chick stock, garlic, shallot, courgette, ginger and eggs to make egg drop type soup with splash of soy sauce - sq dark choc
D - will be fathead pasties from the freezer and green beans with butter and I expect another sq dark choc

auntiemaggie sorry to hear that, not sure how much I can help. Could you make some mayo to add to your salad to fill you up more if you already have the ingredients? Are you adding butter to each meal as that is an inexpensive way to fill up? Are you drinking your water, also next to nothing. Perhaps a non-meat meal like aubergine and or courgette bake with tomato sauce and cheese, think BIWI has posted a recipe on the thread for this. There's plenty of meals to make from mince which tends to be cheaper: hm burgers, meatballs, ragu, sheppers pie, mince curry also on the recipe thread and then use leftovers for next days brek or lunch to stretch hth

Thanks ladies.

chester how do you chip roast and fry swede? I'll def get loads of brocolli then cos I'll freeze it too as loads of room in freezer.

I'm going to try to get meat around the £2 mark (chicken thighs, mince, pork steaks) and make it stretch if I can and the website says they have gammon steaks for 79p and pork mince for £1.29... anyone used that?

Toddler is well catered for - I batch cook meals for him for when he eats earlier or different meals to us so he has a freezer full of risotto/pasta bakes/bolognese/ratatouille/veg curry/etc...

We've got loads of spices etc (I cleaned our cupboard last weekend and found stuff that went out of date in 2008!)

DP will eat what he's told as he's mainly to blame for this situation...

Maggie I haven't had ALDIs pork mince but ideas to use it are: mix with beef mince when making a ragu makes it nice and rich, make scotch eggs for breakfast or lunch, pork burgers perhaps with shallot and a bit of apple?, they make nice gyoza type meatballs if you have soy sauce, and perhaps a bit of sesame and/or ginger to flavour with and shallot or spring onion - nice cold with a hm coleslaw/salad/lettuce wraps and v filling.

Maggie

Swede chips - chop into chip shapes, and either use deep fryer if you have one, or parboil for five mins, coat in olive oil, salt adn pepper, cook at 200c for 25-30mins.

Roast swede - kind of as above but chop into cubes/chunks, parboil, coat in oil (nice if you can add a garlic clove, rosemary and black pepper) and bung in oven

Fried swede - fry cubes til golden brown or add an egg to left over mash and fry in round patty type things for a bit of a rosti type affair (not as sturdy though).

I love swede, very versatile.