Week 3 - Pre-summer Low Carb Bootcamp - the choice is yours!

[BIWI]

Morning all. Sorry for the later than usual thread, but I'm away at the moment/1

Anyway, here's the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness

As we've now completed the first two, more strict, weeks of Bootcamp you have a choice. You can move on to Bootcamp Light, (rules are on the spreadsheet tabs), which essentially means you can add in a few nuts/seeds, and some fruit (berries, and strictly in moderation), and you can have alcohol occasionally.

However, if you haven't really done Bootcamp strictly enough, or you cheated, or just because you think it's going well, you can stay on Bootcamp. (If you do, though, please make sure your carbs are mainly coming from vegetables and salad, to make sure that you're getting a good balance of nutrition)

Alternatively, you can do Bootcamp during the week but Bootcamp Light at the weekend. The choice is yours.

However, there is one thing I have to warn you about. Weeks 3 and 4 are notorious for little or no weight loss. If this happens to you, please don't panic! Just keep on keeping on and things will start to move again.

After initial big losses in the first couple of weeks, you can't feasibly expect to see that continue, and you should that weight loss settles down at around 1-3lbs a week, depending on how much you have to lose.

Good luck all!

Yum!

BIWI, I'm now at that stage!! I'm simply not hungry most of the time. It's a wonderful feeling. Please hang in there, those who are starting now... I've been mostly LCing for 3 months now, so it does take time but is doable and worth it.

I'm also happy to say that after falling off the wagon on Thursday night at a meal out with friend on holiday, I am now completely back on track and even surprisingly lost weight during my holiday overall . Which is amazing. I think it's because of the lack of hunger thing, and also following the LC diet throughout my 4 days on holiday apart from one meal. I don't recommend though breaking the diet, as it can really backfire, but in my case it was ok thank goodness.

BIWI I also discovered that when I tried some dessert at the restaurant on Thursday, I found it far too sweet & simply couldn't eat that much.

Hello all.
I'm enjoying reading your posts.
I have some wine last night but had planned for it. I haven't been hungry at all today. Had a cup of tea this morning and a left over spare rib from last night. I didn't bother with lunch but have had beef burgers, spare ribs, hallumi with 3 tiny cherry tomatoes and a big dollop of mayo.
Going to a party tonight and determined to stay on track.
Have a nice afternoon/evening

*had

Just catching up in the thread - loving the pictures, both of food and tattoos.
On the subject of portion size, I think lchf really helps with that as you do get fuller with smaller quantities (as long as you have lots of lovely fat).
I have done loads of "diet" over the years. WW made me miserable and DH said I was a nightmare to live with, I lost weight with SW, but put it all back on as soon as I stopped. My main problem with SW is that it doesn't teach you anything about portion control. I did the Paul McKenna think yourself thin and although I didn't do it for long, I learnt two very important lessons from that that I still use now. The first, is to concentrate on eating and don't eat whilst doing something else. I don't necessarily do this for breakfast and lunch, but DH and I now always have dinner at the kitchen table, previously we had got into the bad habit of eating in front of the tv when we weren't eating with the DC. The second, is to think about how hungry you are on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is stuffed and 10 is ravenous. You should aim to eat at 7-8 i.e. Don't leave it until you are a 10 and only eat until you are a 3-4, so don't stuff yourself silly. Several months of doing this does help and I am a lot more in tune with my body than I was beforehand. I am an emotional eater, so my problem is when I know all the signals and think "fuck it" and eat until I feel sick because I'm so full. This is where lchf is helping me, as my emotional eating is better (but not gone completely) when I don't have carb cravings. It does mean that I have to be careful because if I do have a carb heavy day, I can easily crash and burn.
I made up for my dire McD salad with garlic chicken wrapped in bacon, with buttered asparagus last night. It was lovely. I'm not a fan of McD burgers, would pre lc have had a spicy veggie wrap, and all the chicken was in breadcrumbs, so didn't have much choice.
Today's food is:
B - 3x creamy coffee (will cut down when back at work on Monday)
L - chicken in Mayo with salad and vinaigrette
D - getting my beef burger tonight, but decent farm shop ones, with mayo and salad.
I made more hm mayonnaise today, I'm now wondering why I've never done it before as its so easy!
Sorry, long post happy if everyone thinks it tl;dr, it's sometimes helpful to get my musings out there.

Please try not to worry too much about portion size. Eat when you're hungry and relearn your body's satiety signals. We are all different ages, shapes and sizes with different diet and medical histories so we will need different calories. I personally eat three big meals and snack through the day yet I have a BMI of 21.5. When I say big meals I'm talking about four eggs and two slices of bacon AND strawberries with Greek yoghurt for breakfast. I typically eat over 2,000 calories every day. There is also the metabolic advantage of this WOE which estimates that you can overeat by 300 calories per day. Stick to the rules and you should lose weight easily. If weight loss stops for several weeks then is the time to start tweaking things to kickstart weight loss again.

On that topic I have to point out that weight loss is not a linear process. You will not lose weight every week no matter how closely you follow the rules. If you follow the rules then you will lose fat every week but that will be reflected poorly by the scales. If you want to get an accurate view of your weight loss then you should weigh monthly rather than weekly. Weighing weekly I expect your weight to stay the same sometimes or even go up even if you follow the rules to the letter. Any cheats mean all bets are off, you may lose weight or you may not. If you weigh daily then you will see a lot of natural and normal fluctuation in your weight. I personally weigh about a kilogram more before I go to bed than when I get up so it isn't surprising that my daily weigh ins vary so much too.

Thanks Stuntnun, that's really helpful.

Great post, StuntNun - thanks

Thankyou for all the information being given.

I really need it right now as the new scales that had weighed me heavier than my old scales broke so swapped for some more expensive ones, which weigh me heavier still.

I'm going to measure with a tape tomorrow and see if I can keep my spirits up.

I've been keeping the rules. I haven't even introduced any fruit or nuts. I've had a couple of glasses of wine one night and that's it. All the water, lots of fat, low carb veg, the works.

Thanks Stuntnun, another great post.
I've come back to say strawberries and clotted cream. Mmmmmm. That is all.

Just wanted to say I love the threads and support on this thread. Have snacked quite a bit and calorie count slightly scary, but still at 18g carbs so pleased. Off to make sausages and cauli mash.

On a more positive not I can recommend this spiraliser. Very neat and does a good job. I don't think it will last forever as there is no way to sharpen the blade.

Oxo good grips

Great post StuntNun, puts it all in perspective.

Well I weighed all my veg today, and it was quite the eye opener! However, I have reassured myself that I am not eating too many carbs in veg, keeping just below the 20g carbs in total today quite easily. Will continue to weigh until I get a better understanding of what 100g of something looks like.

Onwards and downwards...

Thank you for the sense check messages guys. Good to read and good to remember. I think it;s the overexcitement that finally good food = losing weight and the shock that this could be a life solution that feels and tastes LOVELY!! Then when it isn't linear (and of course life isn't linear really) then the panic sets in. Early days.

Can I just check if anyone knows - is it ok to put my weight in for Monday as today's weight? I've just found out I need to go offshore to the Caspian Sea, Internet will be patchy, but I don't want to risk being deleted from the spreadsheet... Is this ok in this circumstance? I need to leave first thing tomorrow. Thanks

Thats fine!

pippi of course, not everyone weighs on a Monday anyway, have a good trip

Good day here despite being at a national trust place at lunchtime, took some leftover cooked bacon and spread on some butter from the cafe, two licks of DCs ice creams were my mini cheats and they were enough, no hankering for a whole one but yes must try making some for summer

Really post helpful to me too StuntNun. Especially at this point of boot camp.

B: BPC
L: mozzarella with Tomatoe and lettuce
D: salmon fried in butter and broccoli

Oops, that should read:

• really helpful post to me

Thanks for that useful post, stuntnun.

Ended up in wagamama at lunch- had a lovely steak and shiitake salad. Dinner was a tapas style affair followed by Greek yoghurt.

Thanks stuntnun really helpful.

Today has been;

B - Greek yoghurt and creamy coffee

L - tuna, boiled egg, lettuce, broccoli salad

D - roasted cod with an aubergine and pepper stew. Olives to start and a g&t. Might have a few strawberries and cream

S - way too many chunks of cheddar cheese

Really useful discussion guys, thanks. I've survived a day in Skegness (not exactly low carb friendly) and a trip to a fish and chip restaurant!

B: scrambled eggs with cream and Wensleydale, smoked salmon, coffee with cream
L: broccoli, cauliflower, and cheddar soup (so relieved to find this in a cafe full of paninis and milkshakes)
D: grilled lemon sole with added butter/garlic mayo, salad, gherkin
S: Babybel, almonds

Walked a long way today so still a bit peckish - might treat myself to berries (first fruit of BC!) and cream...

Dinner! Pan fried salmon steaks in coconut oil and butter. In the meantime, chopped up fresh chilli and mixed that with squished garlic, king prawns, parsley, squeezed fresh lime, salt. Once the salmon was almost cooked, threw in a handful of cherry tomatoes. At the end, add the prawn mix to the pan with list of double cream and heat through. Served in courgetti. Delicious!

Had a lovely (if I say so myself) dinner this evening. Pork fillet, with stir-fried veg in a peanutty/chilli sauce, with Bare Naked noodles:

• trim pork fillet of gristly bits and slice into thin slices, about the thickness of two, pound coins; put these into a bowl, and then add the juice of a lime, a generous dash of good quality soy sauce, two garlic cloves, finely chopped, a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, finely chopped and a shake of dried oregano and Chinese 5 spice powder. Add a good dollop of sesame oil, and then leave to marinate for around half an hour

While the pork is marinating, prepare the veg:

• slice 4-6 shallots and in a large frying pan sauce them with a sliced red chilli, a couple of cloves of garlic (crushed or finely chopped), a sliced red pepper, a pack of asparagus, chopped.
• after about 5 minutes of sautéing, when everything is softening, add about a tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter, a little water (to thin it down) and a sloosh of soy sauce, and the juice of half a lemon or lime
• chop half a pack of fresh coriander and add this to the veg

Heat the noodles in a pan as per the pack instructions, and then mix with the veg.

Then cook the pork:

Get a wok really hot, add a good splash of oil and then when that's really hot, add the pork (trying not to add the marinade at this point). Leave it to sit in the wok for around 40 seconds, then stir/turn - you don't want to overcook it as it will become tough really quickly. The aim is to cook it briefly on both sides, so that it's still a little bit pink (this is fine for pork fillet).

Just before serving, add the remaining marinade and stir it through. Then serve on top of the noodles.

Today has been a bit poor for me, but I have had bad news about a family member and I just can't face cooking/eating.

Breakfast was BLT, with the lettuce as wraps. Then had a smokie for lunch and haven't been able to face anything since then. So little veg and little food overall. Will try to be better tomorrow.