Week 3 - the parting of the way! - Low Carb Bootcamp

[BIWI]

Morning all

Here's the Spreadsheet

Hope you've seen a good result, making for a very satisfying first two weeks.

Now. Those two weeks were probably quite tough, so if you want to, you can now move on to Bootcamp Light - the rules are on the tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheet.

Essentially this means you can start to skip breakfast (or another meal) if you want to - if you're finding that you're not hungry. (Please don't skip meals for any other reason)

You can also introduce some fruit - mainly berries - in moderation, and also nuts and seeks - again, in moderation - and alcohol - IN MODERATION!

But. It's very often the case that in weeks 3 and 4 your weight loss will slow right down. Sometimes you may see a slight gain, even though you know you've been following Bootcamp to the letter. So you may not want to relax things quite yet.

Entirely up to you.

Remember, though, if you choose to stay on Bootcamp, please remember to make sure you're getting your carbs in the most part from vegetables and fruit - you need that for proper nutrition.

If you like you can do a hybrid - Bootcamp during the week and Bootcamp Light at the weekend.

But whatever you choose - good luck and I hope you have a good week.

Morning all!

Yesterday's meals were

B: scrambled eggs in butter w/ cheese and avocado
L: 4 devilled eggs
D: steak w/ blue cheese sauce and cheesey leeks
S: celery

Not enough veg i think, I bought broccoli but I couldn't be bothered to cook leeks, steaks, sausages (for DD), 2 cheese sauces and broccoli at the same time.

It was the first time I'd made steak, I never used to eat it before this WOE. I'm definitely a convert it was delicious!

Thank you for the thoughts. He seems totally fine this morning apart from occcassionally saying he's a "bit sore" bless him.

In terms of berries I'm sure blackberries are one of the lowest in carbs per 100g?

Defrosted a load of smoked cod for a creamy fish bake that we obviously ended up not cooking last night. Need to cook it today so thinking putting it in a parmesan-y. spinach-y frittata eaten cold this evening might be nice. Unless anyone has any epic smoked white fish recipes that will be good cold!

Thanks for the soup ideas. I've never tried a cheesy soup before. I'll definitely give that a try soon.
Cherries- the random ends of veg in your fridge sound identical to the ones in mine. Think I'll do something similar but maybe without ginger and with a bit of cream.
Oooh or I could do I Thai style coconut milk soup. Is that allowed?

I weighed this morning and I'm 1/4lb into the 12s. I really want to be into the 12s next weigh in!

Oh leni bless him, brave little man. Hope you're ok too - how frightening. You could possibly poach the fish in a little milk? Although the frittata sounds delicious.

Asd - same here, well, 1lbs - hope it sticks until next Monday!

I have a random question about macros, which I still don't have the answer too. Since I'm now scrutinising food labels, I've noticed that they don't add up. So say, 100g of yoghurt would have the following per 100g, e.g. 10g fat, 5g carbs, 8g protein. What are the other 77g made out of? Fiber? Water? Just idle speculation!

Interesting to read about others' decisions about BC/BC light. I've decided I will do BC light but not drink alcohol. My tolerance is really low as ive been pregnant for most of the year and still getting up at night with the baby and it's just not worth it for now. Black chocolate and berries here I come though! I had almost half a bar last night of 90% Lindt which is far too much but only 7carbs in total so not too awful but I need to limit myself there. I was surprised to see honeydew melon is so relatively low in carbs as I've always found it very sweet. As usual failing on the water front. I remember a precious poster made herself drink a glass of water in the loo every time she went in to the bathroom so may have to try that.

Precious = previous but surely precious too

I'm finding two things are helping with drinking enough water. One is to have sparkling spring water with a slice of lime (or lemon) in. It seems much more like a drink you can look forward to than a glass of plain water!

The other is when I'm feeling a bit chilly and don't want cold water, a hot water with a tiny squeeze of lemon juice, or a hot water with a tiny bit of marmite (about 1/8th teaspoon) makes a nice warming drink.

Mimosa - that was me and I quite liked being precious

Actually, it's two glasses of water to create the virtuous circle (Three of you've been out/not able to go to the loo and the vicious circle has started and you need to catch up). Obviously it depends on the size of the glass

mimosa I think water is probably a good guess

I missed the weigh in yesterday. I'm a pound down today. A bit disappointed given my efforts, but I went over my food diary and I definitely did a whole lot more exercise in week 1 and ate more fish rather than meat. So that's my plan from now.

Haha, the advert at the top of the page is for Weight Watchers - join today! Err, no, I don't think so...

Hi all!

Remember that if you make a hot drink with a stock cube or bouillon powder you will be replacing salts and electrolytes that you need for this woe and it also makes a satisfying and comforting hot drink -thought that might be useful for those who need to drink more. It's also great for any of the newbies starting as it helps with the old carb flu.

A tip on special hot drinks, the sort one might miss from an evening ritual but that are very carby due to being milk based or high in sugar or sweeteners, your tastes will have changed quite markedly after a month or so on this woe. It's worth trying something you would not have countenanced before such as almond milk for the base ingredient of the drink. Or maybe you could experiment your way to a low carb version of whatever you do like. Mocha is quite easy to make low carb friendly by tweaking although you obviously wouldn't want to drink that to help you settle for bed.

A tip on treats and snacks for bootcamp lite: I think it's really important to continue the mindful eating aspect of it. So for example where I used to sit and eat biscuit after biscuit, or eat my chocolate so quickly that I hardly noticed I'd had any, we should all be taking the time to properly savour our food and it's the same with any treats we have. This approach means you get the full enjoyment out of it and it means you're likely to need less of it.

Yesterday at work I had some dark chocolate. It's not as high cocoa as it could be, because I prefer to like what I eat (it's the Moser Roth Peruvian chocolate from Aldi, I think it's 62% or something). It's conveniently packaged in small bars each of which is just under 10g, so I could easily eat a whole bar every time I want chocolate and still make room for it within my carb allowance, but I don't. Yesterday I had a cup of tea and I broke off a piece of chocolate, maybe about a third of a bar, so about 3-4 g of carbs, and I had a small piece of that chocolate every couple of minutes while I drank my tea, really tasted it by letting each piece dissolve and properly enjoying the taste sensation, and I got a great deal of enjoyment out of it. I didn't need to eat the whole bar to get a proper treat. It's the same principle for whatever thing you're going to have that you shouldn't have much of. If you're going to have wine, firstly make sure you can have one glass and not go on to have another and another. But also, have a bit less. Fill your glass two thirds what you would have had before. And then sip it carefully, slowly, taking time to treat yourself in mind and body while you have it rather than just gulping it. This really works well for me, and it means I don't need to have a lot of something in order to feel I've treated myself. It also applies to any hot, comforting drinks you might like that are relatively high in carbs. Get yourself a smaller cup, a pretty cup that you will enjoy using that isn't a huge mug. Then fill it a little less than you could. That way you can mindfully have the thing you like, but you're naturally limited in how much you can have.

I'm also not sure that everyone realises that there is loads of useful and important information on the spreadsheet, and also that there is a bootcamp recipe thread, thought I'd mention in case some people didn't realise.

Excellent post holger

Weighed in a day late with a 2lb loss, very happy with that. I did have berries with my yoghurt this morning and enjoyed them but I’ve decided to just do bc lite at the weekend.

Hope everyone has a good day!

Thanks you holger

I had hot almond milk with a splash of cream and a teaspoon of pure cocoa a couple of days ago and it was really nice! Having the same tonight with a chai tea bag in.

B: coffee

Going to try and buy a celeriac today

Re hot drinks I have found that using full fat milk in my tea automatically makes me leave most of it because it tastes so rich and greasy compared to with skimmed milk. I still have about half a mug but that's enough.

Going to try and buy a celeriac today

Scabbersley, I went through a phase of buying celeriac anytime i saw it for sale. Have had to stop my self from keeping more than two at a time in the 'fridge. Hope you find some OK today.

I hope nobody minds me posting the link to my cheatsheet again. It's supposed to condense the rules of Bootcamp into two sheets of A4 that you can stick in the fridge. First page is the general rules, second page is a quick reference for vegetables and fruit, dividing them into those < 3g / 100g (unlimited), those

Only a pound off this week. A bit disappointed as I was hoping to hit a milestone of losing the first stone since I started this woe back at the start of September, but then again it's still a loss and considering the last week I was roaming around living from a suitcase and eating at bars/cafes/restaurants I am glad I didn't gain anything!

On the fridge would be more use than in it!

grumpy I can't open it

Oh no, thought that was fixed last time. I can. What computer / OS / browser are you using? Can anyone else open it?

If it’s any help to anyone this is the Boot camp rules done as 10 bullet points that I’ve printed out and put on my fridge door - sorry I can’t link to it
BC RULES
For the first two weeks

1. Eat three proper meals a day.

"You must eat breakfast. It doesn’t have to be a lot, and it doesn’t have to be absolutely first thing, but you must have something.

1. Avoid processed foods.

Focus on pure, natural protein as the basis for your meals - meat/fish/eggs.

1. Eat lots of fat.

Eating fat will not make you fat. Honestly! But it will keep your appetite satisfied, and it sustains your body’s energy requirements perfectly.

1. Make sure you are eating vegetables and salads with your food.

This is where your carbs should come from, and this is non-negotiable.

1. Be careful about dairy (apart from butter, which is unlimited).

Dairy can impede weight loss for some people. If you are still drinking tea/coffee with milk or cream, try to restrict yourself to max 2 cups per day.

1. You must drink a minimum of 2 litres of water per day.

"The more weight you have to lose, the more water you should drink. This is from www.low-carbdiet.co.uk/. Water is essential to weight loss for those who eat low-carb. The minimum consumed in a day should be: Your WeightLitres --_140lbs-2.5 160lbs-3.0 180lbs-3.0 200lbs-3.5 220lbs-3.5 240lbs-4.0 260lbs-4.5 280lbs-4.5 300lbs-5.0 320lbs-5.5 340lbs-5.5 360lbs-6.0 380lbs-6.5 400lbs-6.5_ no idea why I’ve got strike through here

1. No alcohol.

Alcohol is the easiest source of fuel for the body to burn, so it will always use this first before it starts to burn any fat - which is why you need to restrict it,

1. No fruit.

Really. Seriously. Honestly..

1. No nuts/seeds/oats.

10. No sugar or artificial sweeteners. Sugar is an obvious ‘no no’, but artificial sweeteners are also an issue.

I’ve got the BC lite one too which I’ll post too

I'm trying to open it on my phone. I'll try the laptop later grumpy

Here’s the BC lite rules that I have on my fridge door too. I tend to do a hybrid of both - keeping more to the”hard” and lite occasionally.

Bootcamp light rules: after the first two weeks

1. Eat when you're hungry - if you're not hungry, don't eat
If you're not hungry, then don't force yourself to eat.
But don't let yourself get so hungry that you make inappropriate choices. Always make sure you have plenty of low-carb food to hand.

2. Avoid processed food
Focus on pure, natural protein as the basis for your meals - meat, fish, eggs. You can include processed meats such as bacon or (low-carb) sausages, smoked salmon, smoked mackerel and gammon, but don't have these at every meal, or every day.

3. Eat lots of fat
Eating fat helps to keep you feeling fuller for longer. Fry in butter, add butter to vegetables, add mayonnaise where you can (but check its carb count first). Eat fattier cuts of meat.

4. Get the bulk of your carbohydrates from vegetables and salad
But choose only vegetables on the 'allowed' list. Be aware that some of the veg on the allowed list can be surprisingly high in carbs once you make up a portion..

5. Eat some dairy
Aim to include plenty of butter in your diet. Fry with it and add it to your vegetables. If you know that dairy doesn't impede your weight loss you can eat cheese, but don't overdo it.

6. Drink a minimum of 2 litres of water a day
Make sure you get plenty of sodium, magnesium and potassium.
There is less need to worry about restricting salt if you're eating a low-carb diet. Good sources of potassium are salmon and avocado, and spinach is a good source of magnesium. You could also consider supplements if you have an issue with your electrolyte balance.

7. You can drink alcohol
But restrict this to once or twice a week maximum. Vodka with soda is the best choice, followed by Champagne, red wine or dry white wine. Absolutely no beer/lager, cider, liqueurs, cocktails or full-sugar mixers.

8. You can eat some fruit
Strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and rhubarb are all fine, but once a day at the very most, and keep an eye on portion sizes.

9.You can eat some nuts and seeds
Nuts/seeds can make a good snack, but it is incredibly easy to overdo them

10. Avoid artificial sweeteners
The aim of Bootcamp is to help reduce the stranglehold sugar has on you.

grumpy yes I can open it (I'm on a chromebook).

Lenl glad your DS is feeling better today, wishing him a speedy recovery.

@GeneandFred Fathead pizza is delicious but make sure that you use block mozzarella and not the stuff that comes in water - a few people get tripped up with that and end up with a sludgy mess! At a pinch you can use the pre-grated bags of mozzarella but they usually have added potato starch or similar to stop it sticking together so make sure you allow for that in your carb count. Enjoy!