Week 6 - Summer Low Carb Bootcamp - we're racing on!

[BIWI]

Morning campers!

Here's the spreadsheet

Some good losses reported already this morning!

Four weeks left, so we could still see a good half stone disappear if we're vigilant.

The hot weather looks like it's disappearing this week, so hopefully anyone still struggling with water retention should find some relief.

But good luck to us all

C4, 7 lb in six weeks is a reasonable rate of weight loss. Many people lose 1-2 lb per week on average at most and there will always be weeks where the scales don't budge. I know you've lost more weight on LC in the past but remember that your body is healing at the moment as well as trying to burn fat. Over the last few days you have posted about being in a lot of pain. You likely have chronic inflammation which can also affect rate of weight loss.

Looking back through your food log for the past few days I suggest the following:

Stop having cream in your coffee.
Avoid low carb "fake" versions of foods such as flaxseed crackers, Atkins bars, etc.
Make sure you're eating enough. Eating too little can limit weight loss and your painkillers might affect your appetite.
Use butter or oil to get enough fat rather than relying on cream or cheese for their fat content.

Jiminny I hope you managed to stave off the carb fest - I know the urge can get so overwhelming at times but I echo C4 and others. Go occupy yourself with something else, you have come so far and any pleasure or relief you get from the comfort eating will be all too temporary and you will be so upset and cross with yourself. Chin up

C4 looking great, you are doing fantastic!

So today I was 1.2lb down on yesterday, so hopefully repairing the carby twat damage from the weekend. Have been totally on it today.

B: creamy coffee
L: bolognaise sauce with cauli rice and mozzarella
S: creamy coffee
D: Parmesan chicken and a shed load of mushrooms, broccoli and asparagus all cooked in butter (photo of veg attached - it looked a lot!).

Also did 7 min app this morning and the usual 3 litres of water.

Onwards and downwards.

FinallyHere congratulations on sticking to BC during your holiday and amazing loss! It's very motivating to read your feedback as I'm going on hols in 11 days (counting the sleeps ) and I hope I can make myself proud and stick to it. We are going home to visit my family for 2 weeks, which normally means constant cooking and overeating. Everything revolves around food in my parents home
My parents know about my WOE and I hope they will respect it.

JiminnyCricket And what's wrong with Just screaming???

in a pillow or out in a field - breath in deeply and then exhale in the loudest scream you can do. repeat until calm.

Get out your Xmas photo's look yourself square in the eye and go - Yep nailed it so far hiiiiippppy yaaah eh. Wedding day is 9.5 months away and on course for exceeding targets.

being a manager how do you motivate your team firing yourself isn't going to work You 've put loads of pressure on yourself and need to cut 1 thing out. Cut out the IF --visit Dad, Gym, Yoga and dog walks.

OldBooks I'll join you in no chocolate!

C4 I think I'm a little bit in love with you

Thanks everyone

I'm binge free, had some peanut butter but that's ok. I think I'm just teary and a bit rubbish. DP is at work which makes it worse because I'm on my own and that's never good.

Bassets are helping... apparently

Gah! Just wrote my post and lost it!

Jiminny lots of good advice I won't add more except be kind to yourself, you have a lot going on

C4 the cast pics speak for themselves! Well done!

Today:
B - coconut flour pancakes (this recipe https://lowcarbyum.com/gluten-free-coconut-flour-pancakes/ I've frozen them and they toast well) with butter
L - snackettes with Boursin and butter, peperami, 2 babybel
D - cottage pie with swede mash.
S - a few strawberries and cream, 85% choc despite telling myself I wouldn't have any

And no alcohol! Instead I had some diet cloudy lemonade as a treat.

Shastabeast I'm far more comfortable in the brace than out of it, my spine was corrected through two different angles and in three different places, I also had no lumbar curve which is what had caused the deformities. So in one operation I had it broken, grafted and extensively corrected with some very special metalwork that came from America. Luckily the vertigo has stopped now - for the first six weeks my poor brain couldn't work out where my centre of balance was and every time I sat up I vomited everywhere. My muscles are still adjusting to my new shape and that's what causes a lot of my pain at the moment and the brace definitely helps with that.

Unmumsnetty hugs Jim

I'm raging today, basically have been left to starve at work. I work in an office call handling, but do a different thing to everyone else there. There's normally 2 of us on, doing the thing that I do but the other person called in sick. Therefore I can't leave the phone to take a meal break & it's very busy tonight.

There's a lady who does a different thing who I always go out of my way to take home when we're on lates together as I don't want her wandering the streets at midnight. She never offers petrol money by the way. So I asked her if she wouldn't mind going to the shop for me on her break and she said no as she wanted to have a fag. She went out for 20 mins and smoked 2 fags. She could easily have had a fag on the way to the shop & one on the way back. No one else could go, as the one other lady had already had her break and the other person was about to go home.

Couldn't order in as wasn't going to make minimum spend, so I've had a lone pepperami for dinner and I'm starving. Best part was, she asked for a lift about half an hour ago. No chance, sez I.

So today looks like:

B - microwave scrambled eggs & ham
L - lamb keema curry & cauliflower
D - pepperami

I am probably going to inhale some cheese when I finish and get home.

Jiminny
Awww , your babies giving you some love. Just what you needed.

hippa
Your colleague sounds mean! No more free rides for her....
I'm lucky at our work, we always offer to pick stuff up from shops if one of us is going out during lunchbreak. I normally bring food from home so I have more time to eat and better control over what goes into my food.

AF just dropped in, sort of on time but without much warning ( that's good), I'm feeling a bit tired, I'm sure tomorrow will be worse. Had little bit of dark chocolate as a treat.
Food today:
B: egg salad, 1/2 protein bun, radish, tomatoe. Green tea
L: cauliflower and egg scramble, salami+aubergine parmigiana
D: soup ( celery, carrot , broccoli, spinach), yesterday's coleslaw, egg salad.
S: dark chocolate. Yesterday's tough yet with nectarine.

I made some pork bolognese with shirataki noodles for tomorrow. Plenty of mushrooms and celery and also carrot managed to sneak in.

I usually bring food in, I have eggs in the fridge in the office, but obviously can't leave the phone to go & scramble them.

hippadoppaloppagorillapig look at this as a perfect opportunity to experiment with some intermittent fasting.

I'm on holiday
I've done brilliantly with the whole lchf way of eating.
it s Day 3 and I have caved 'a bit'
I have,just scoffed a trio of deserts.
creme brulee
lemon and white chocolate moose,
dark chocolate tart with double cream.

I would like to say it was too sweet and tasted disgusting, but I won't lie
It Was Bloody Lovely.
oh well, back on it tomorrow. I won't use this as an excuse to throw in the towel.
Holidays are difficult. it's a fine line. on the one hand you don't want to spoil things. on the other hand you're conscious that you want to enjoy your holiday and not have to restrict and deny yourself tasty treats.

on a more positive note, I weighed myself on Monday and I'm 2 pounds down.
hopefully my holiday slip ups will put on the 2 pounds I have lost.
I can live with that.

Thank you stunt - my excuse for the fake foods and crackers is just that sometimes it's just not possible for me to make something to eat but I will take on board what you said. I only started drinking creamy coffee last week when DH was away and kind of got a taste for it. I don't eat a lot because I just don't get hungry and according to the arse of a dietitian I saw last year it only takes 600 calories to run a body like mine - that message really stung and I did go on a calorie restricted diet which is when I got into the habit of only eating one meal a day and it sort of stuck I guess. I did lose a lot of weight but it was bloody hard work and fucking miserable, lots of meals out where I had a starter as a main course, no starter and no cheese and biscuits

Jiminny people will talk because that's the second time you've said that but I'm glad the puppy love seems to be working.

I haven't been posting but I've been looking from time to time.
The threads get very long very quickly and it's hard to keep up when
you just look in the evenings. Amazingly, I've lost 6lb in the first week. I guess a lot of that is water and glycogen stores from my muscles. And an emptyish gut. But I'm happy with that. I just have to keep going. I'm not good at carrying on. I start and give up easily. Hopefully not this time. But I feel quite empty inside!

Jim as pp have said, be kind to yourself. Maybe try a wee mindfulness podcast?

C4, the difference in those casts is huge! That's an amazing achievement

Grah, that's exactly what I intend to do. I'm so looking forward to being a couple instead of mum and dad. I realise that sounds terrible but we spend so little time together, especially with Dh working offshore. I've decided I'm going to try to stick to plan food wise but I'll not be too hard on myself if I have a bucketload of nice cold beer.

Food today has been pretty shit to be honest.
Work was mental. 16 hyper 3-5 year olds having their end of term party day will do that I suppose.

B - coffee w cream
L - couple of strawberries, cheese, ham and mayo roll ups, more cheese, couple of cheery tomatoes, 2 wee sausages - until I read the packet (can you tell I was picking at the party food? although I resisted all the biscuits and cake)
D - salad with mayo and olive oil, fried halloumi

A good 2.5/3l water

Hello Ana999 is that a good empty feeling?
Like your not carrying around a bag of swelling donuts inside.

C4 I don't think it can possibly be true that it only takes 600 calories to run your body. In fact I am convinced that is bollocks. Just basic biological processes like digesting and respiration will use more than that. That is purely dangerous advice.

Hi Grah. No it's a feeling of not having much food inside. Carbs give you a different feeling I think. Make you feel fuller maybe? I suppose I'm also eating smaller quantities.

ana you shouldn't be hungry, if you are hungry then eat something!

600 calories C4? I've seen a few dietitians over the years and found them generally incompetent but that's ridiculous. Your basal metabolic rate will be around double that. It's definitely worth having low carb snacks around for when you can't make something to eat but I would go for olive pouches, peperamis, nuts, nut butter tubes, pork scratchings or similar. The ingredients in Atkins bars are pretty nasty, some of the 9bars are lowish carb and would be a better alternative. The reason I suggest cutting out the cream in coffee is because it can play havoc with your insulin levels with a knock on effect on your blood glucose levels and hunger, especially since you are taking morphine which can perturb insulin levels.

Ana. What you say is very interesting because that advice was given to me in the run up to my spinal surgery, my anaesthetist was very keen for me to lose weight (so was I). I saw a dietitian and was told that as I hardly move, I need very few calories, but looking back, calorie restriction may have been the thing that triggered the demise of my respiratory system, nobody has been able to explain why after nine years my body suddenly began to fail to oxygenate me adequately. As I said before I felt really crap, tired, headaches, lethargic but unable to sleep for more that 30 minutes at a time and needing to use a volume recruitment bag three hourly day and night just to stay conscious. I was told by the dietitian that LC was to blame for my gall bladder problems and as I'd had mine removed it would be dangerous to follow a LC diet - she was obviously wrong, very fucking wrong.

Thanks sounds incredibly low to me too C4. You can calculate your own BMR Livestrong link here and I'm sure there are other sources too.

NSV here - after a hellish lack of sleep due to kids and stress, I was up at 2:45am yesterday. I didn't fast because as I'm sure you all know, pretty much everyone feels ravenous at about 4am, but I stayed properly on track and turned down the scones offered by a well-meaning colleague in our 3.5 hour meeting.

Other NSV - I am off the end of my belt! Now all the holes are too big. Not really a victory though as I love this belt and it was expensive, but it's a bit flappy now.