Week 5 - Low Carb Bootcamp chat - and we reach the half way point!

[BIWI]

Good morning

So the last thread reached 1000 posts. I don't think that's ever happened on any other Bootcamp! It's a really good sign that everyone is engaged in the process, even if it's not always been from a positive place. If things aren't working for you, please keep reading and posting - even if you just lurk, hopefully the support and advice here will be helpful for you.

But it's a glorious day again, and the sun is shining brightly already and the birds are singing their hearts out. I hope that this translates into positivity and optimism for all of us this week - even if you've been struggling!

Here's the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness

We're past the dreaded weeks 4 and 5 now, so hopefully things will start to get going in the right direction, and you should see the weight move downwards - assuming, of course, that you aren't cheating or allowing carb creep.

Good luck everyone

Hello all,

Haven't given up, just been away at a work thing over weekend so couldn't weigh in yesterday and had no time to check into the thread.
Stuck to plan as much as possible but had a few circumstances beyond my control so I have eaten small amounts of carbs and probably had more alcohol that is advisable.
Weirdly I didn't really want to cheat, this surprised me a bit.
I've been back on strict LCHF today and will weigh tomorrow morning to see the damage!
Off to catch up now on everyone's week 5 antics!

Evening!

Loving all the 7 min app action going on

So I've gone from the ridiculous to the sublime - wanted to gorge on everything in sight yesterday whereas today I am really struggling to eat.

Left quite a bit of my tuna mayo salad and have just left half of my courgetti carbonara - which I love. Putting in a tub and will finish it for my lunch tomorrow.

@GoodBadOrIndifferent

You might find some of the information here helpful

... although I'm guessing that the suggestion that you do some exercise might not go down well right now

... And although this is paleo, and American, you might find some interesting stuff here

Need motivation !

I did Whole 30 a couple of years ago - I agree that it is too restrictive in the long term (and I did cheat a couple of times) but it did help with me getting my head round low carbing and introduced me to courgettti, caluliflower rice etc. I also learnt to drink tea and coffee without sugar or sweeteners, it really readjusted my taste buds.

Thank you for the support veryflummoxed. 1lb off this morning, phew.

Today's intake:
No breakfast (16:8)
Lunch - out with work. Requested a menu adaptation and had heritage carrot, watercress, almond, blood orange and feta salad, with extra green leaves.
Dinner - spinach and cheese omelette with coleslaw and lots of butter.
Snack: FF Total with double cream and some strawberries from the garden
85% chocolate - 4.2g carb

A LOT of water. I have had an undue number of work lunches due to visiting colleagues. As a veggie I am usually facing risotto and tortellini as options, but am requesting salads and avoiding dessert and bread. The visits are pretty much done with now so I can get back to packed lunches!

I think a tofu stir fry is in order for one of my meals tomorrow - got to cut the dairy!

That's a fantastic article BIWI

Had a really good food day today. V pleased.

Oh and I have been doing some body weight exercises like plank, triceps dips, reverse crunches, round the world sumos, calf raises, and yoga stretching. Easy to do ten mins when we crash in the evening for an episode of something. And if I'm exercising, I'm not snacking .

Well done on a great food day dust. More tomorrow!

Thanks for that dust an interesting read.

That looks good Jim. Do you make the kebabs yourself?

Oldbooks that's one of the best NSVs I've seen on here

Am continuing to fast 16 8 do no breakfast.

Lunch today three egg cream cheese omelette on dressed leaves.

Dinner. Bolognaise sauce on leaves with olive oil and avacado.

Picture below (sorry I'd eaten dinner before I remembered to photograph it.

Oh, all my water plus iced black coffee. All the talk of iced coffees and creams, coconut and almond milk sounded so good I wanted to try some but I'm fasting mornings and rarely have coffee in the afternoon hence having it black. It was a first and lovely. Also had iced mint teas. (Ice teabag tapwatet)

Forgot the pic

Sorry if I'm harping on, or making it all about me, but.....

Would people mind checking out my responses above and further questions about my meals today? I just want to see where I'm going wrong or what I'm doing right.

My dinner tonight to add was homemade beefburgers, Swede fries, mixed veg (courgette, csbbage, broccoli and a little carrot) cooked in copious amounts of butter with added beef fat from the burger pan. It dripped fat. Portion views?

@YoLoZammo

Chipolatas have 3.9% fat or 2.3g for two as grilled. I ovened them but that's not much different from grilling. A lot of fat came out that I couldn't put back in.

That's not bad in terms of carbs, although you can get sausages that are much lower than that. And why are you grilling them?! As you've said, you've lost all the fat that they might have had.

Coleslaw not home made. 4.5% carb, 17% fat.

But how many actual grams of carbs did you have?

Water 3l so far today. Another litre to go at least this eve. It's hot. SS says 3.5 for my weight iirc.

That's really good

I know peas are quite sweet, so I had only a few and they were small ones. I also had 4 little baby plum tomatoes in the salad for lunch. I did wrong here didn't I?

Well, the tomatoes aren't that bad - no idea about carbs in pea pods

No dressing on salad, I thought the coleslaw was creamy enough. And I didn't want it sloshing about on my journey to work.

No, no, no, no! There won't have been enough fat in the coleslaw - you need to add an oily dressing to your salads as well^

Mayo was about dessertspoonful. A dollop in technical terms.

OK - but you should have had a dressing probably as well!

Only a sprinkle of cheese because everyone is saying cut the dairy this week. Was probably enough to fill a dessertspoon grated. It's 28% fat, 0 carbs. and very tasty

You only need to cut dairy if you know you have a problem with it. As it adds both fat and taste, then you could/probably should have had more than this

My weight has dropped back to where it was on 3 June, so I've lost the little gain I made this week. I've yoyoed since then by a kilo up and down. I've been sticking to the rules pretty well, but somewhere slightly more carby than strict bc but less carby than bclite. No major food fuck-ups. I'd thought it was a portion problem, but might be the dairy?

Why not try just following Bootcamp rules?! Not enough fat will be a key one! And don't forget, we've just come through weeks 3 and 4, which are notorious for limited/no weight loss - it could just be this

Re your portion size, it's difficult to say - but those burgers do look quite small, and the veg portions aren't massive. Did you make them with high fat mince?

2 hours of derby training done. I have drunk 7999 litres of water and sweated out about 9 stone.

I have blisters but bloody hell its such fun.

My life is just about to become a zillion times more difficult because DH is packing his suitcase and asking my opinion on which ties to take. My PA is on holiday and I'm petrified of being on my own, my DS and DIL are here but both work long hours so will check on me first thing and again when they get in but I'm flying solo until Sunday.
Tomorrow I have to go to the hospital to have a new cast made which means standing wrapped in hot plastic for 20 minutes, it will probably leave me in so much pain that I will come home and go straight to bed tomorrow afternoon. I'm worried that I won't be able to get myself any food on Thursday as I will no doubt be in agony.

I would definitely have wanted to eat more green veg/salad with that Yolo.

Thanks BIWI

OK, chipolatas were ovened, purely for convenience because I had something else in the oven and I just chucked them in on Sunday night to eat them cold during the week for breakfast. Point taken, I will try and fry them in future.

Coleslaw - I have absolutely no idea how many carbs were in the portion I served, but it was about two spoons I think. I have no idea how to count them unless I weigh food, and that's a step too far towards food obsession. Been there and done that on diets in the past. Plus it's a faff. That's why I like this WOE. No counting calories or anything else .

Yay re the water .

Lesson learned re the dressing on salad. I will take some oily concoction in a little separate pot from now on. The mayo was on the egg and sausage. Dressing would have been weird on that!

Right, I note your advice re the cheese. I will add liberally until it becomes obvious that it is stalling my weight loss. For now, I'll just koko as I am and see if in a couple of weeks the scales move, then it's not the dairy! Thanks for the reassurance.

Mince was 20% fat. Yes the burgers shrunk loads when I cooked them and were like big meatballs by the end! I put the fat that came out onto the veg. I couldn't eat more veg, I was stuffed!

So, I'm going to work on upping the fat generally in my meals. This may have been too low because of some unconscious reticence on my part (which came out in the debate earlier today). I'll ignore any slight lingering reservations and really try and eat more fat. Thanks for waving the stick of lard at me

This is my first bc and I'm a total lchf virgin before this, so I'm still getting used to driving on what feels like the wrong side of the road.

Oh and about just following the rules, I thought I was! So it's helpful to hear when I'm not so I can correct it. I decided I didn't want to be as free and liberal with stuff on bclite like fruit, choc, wine, flax bread etc as I didn't trust myself. So I've more or less stuck to the original bc rules, except had a couple of strawberries or tomatoes occasionally, and a little dark choc (made some truffles), and nut butter. I feel it's a slippery slope for me, and I don't want to challenge my self control too much in case it caves. So I've kept it limited. I've felt that I've eaten too much in volume this past week, hence suggesting portion feedback to get some outside perspective.

C4 can you plan ahead for your meals and precook them or at least plan easy throw together stuff? Or get rellies to do some batch cooking for you? You could make a meal plan and ensure that you don't go without or eat the wrong things out of desperation.

Yolo the fridge is well stocked and I have a garden full of salad, it's just the simple act of getting to the kitchen, getting a plate out, opening the fridge etc. Every thing I do will hurt and make my pain worse. DS is a chef, leaves at 9:00am and gets home around 11:30, DIL is 28 weeks pregnant and a student nurse on placement and doing HCA shifts in between. They will feed animals, wash dishes, unload dishwasher and help sort out splints and meds at night.
I'm just so incapacitated at the moment that it's quite scary and lonely to be alone, I have a personal alarm and paramedics on rapid response if anything awful happens.
Time for some big girl pants.

Oh C4 I really feel for you. I am sure your Namaste Bitches will be on hand if you need company during the day.

Can you get your DS to plate up your lunch and dinner so you only have to take it out of the fridge? And microwave if it's hot food. That will save you the energy and thought process of compiling it each day. Just give him instructions each morning (or night before)

I think I misread your post. It's the act of getting to the fridge that's the effort. Can you get a mini drinks fridge for another room? Quite cheap and use Amazon Prime next day delivery. You can fit a fair bit in them. Then just use it as an overflow fridge for handy drinks when DH is not on a trip.

C4 that does sound scary. I wish we could help. You don't live in West Sussex do you?