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Low-carb bootcamp

Join discussions about low-carb bootcamp plans, meals and progress. Consider speaking to a medical professional before starting any diet.

New Year, New Start Boot Camp: Week 1, Now we get down to it in earnest

999 replies

prettybird · 08/01/2018 08:37

Stepping in to BIWI's big shoes and with a loan of her Big Stick, I take a big gulp and lead the first Boot Camp of 2018. ShockGrin

Here is a link to the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness If your name is not on it, because either it got lost in one of the many copy and pastes, or because you "signed up" after 0732 on Friday, which was when SayrraT produced the spreadsheet, you can add your name add the bottom and at some point it will be re-ordered alphabetically. NB: there is no obligation to add or your name or to weigh-in weekly - this is for those that find the weekly weigh-ins useful for motivation or accountability Wink

These are the Rules for Boot Camp. They are also on one of the tabs of the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness (SoF).

You need to follow The Rules for the first two weeks of Boot Camp. This gives your body a chance to "fat adapt" and for you to learn to eat because you are hungry, not because you crave carbs/sugar. As you get used to this Way of Eating (WoE), you will be amazed to find how often you are not hungry. You will find your fat stores give you sufficient energy.

For newbies, it is important to eat 3 meals a day - even if it is just a nominal breakfast/bulletprooof coffee (coffee blended with butter). Otherwise, you may find that hunger - or habit - will lead you to fall face first back into carby twatdom and then you need to start that process of fat-adaption all over again. Some of us who have now been low carbing for a while have found that we can follow 16:8 fasting or even the occasional 24 hour fast - but this is not something to be done in the early weeks. Don't try to restrict your fat because you think you are having too many calories, as they are important for the process of encouraging your body to change the way it uses its fuel.

So, here are the Rules. After 2 weeks I (or whoever takes over the next stint of the BIWI Replacement Programme ) the rules will be posted for Boot Camp Lite. Many of us who are still actively trying to lose weight tend to follow "full" Boot Camp during the week (maybe with extra berries and nuts) and then allow a small amount of alcohol at the weekend).

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. For the rest of the day, if you’re eating enough food and you are in ketosis then you shouldn’t be hungry between meals. But if you are hungry, eat something. (Hard boiled eggs make a great snack).
After the first two weeks of Bootcamp we will relax this, but these two weeks are critical in terms of helping you switch easily to a low carb way of eating - and if you start to feel hungry, it makes things much harder! Eating this way will ensure that your blood sugar levels are kept stable, which will mean that you are much less likely to experience hunger.
A typical high carbohydrate diet can mean that snacking is a routine part of your day. Once your blood sugar levels are stable, by eating low carb, you should find that you no longer want to snack. But the rule of thumb here is ‘if you are hungry, eat!’. (Just make sure you are only choosing low carb snacks, of course!)"

2. Avoid processed foods.
Focus on pure, natural protein as the basis for your meals - meat/fish/eggs. Things like sausages, ham, bacon, pre-prepared burgers etc should be avoided as much as possible. You can have them, but just not every day. Avoid foods marketed as low carb, eg. Atkins Daybreak bars.

3. 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. Fat does not provoke an insulin spike, unlike carbs which do (a lot) and protein (a little). Fry in butter, add butter to vegetables, eat salad with a home-made vinaigrette dressing (not made with balsamic vinegar though, as this is too sweet), add mayonnaise where you can (just check the carb count on your mayo first). Eat fattier cuts of meat – e.g. pork belly, roast chicken with the skin on and/or eat the fat off your lamb chops. Absolutely no low fat/light foods of any kind!

4. Make sure you are eating vegetables and salads with your food.
This is where your carbs should come from, and this is non-negotiable. But choose only those vegetables that are on the allowed list. Make sure that you focus on eating those vegetables that are 3g carb per 100g or less, and this will ensure that your carb counts are kept low. You don’t have to weigh/count carbs – this is one of the great joys of this WOE (way of eating), but if you’re new to low carbing it can be helpful to weigh your portions of veg in the early days, just so that you know how many carbs are in the sort of portions that you like to eat.

5. 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. There are a lot of carbs in milk, so if you are having several cups of tea/coffee per day, you will quickly rack up your daily carb count (e.g. 1 medium latte contains more than 12g carbs!) You may eat cheese but again, don't overdo it. Full fat yoghurt is the best way to include dairy in your diet - but beware, it does contain carbs. Total Full Fat is the best

6. 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 Weight----Litres
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
High levels of ketones in the blood stream can lead to a reduction in ketone production, therefore being well hydrated could aid in keeping the levels low and ketone production ongoing. Consuming enough water can have many other positive side effects: aids your kidneys with the processing of protein, reduces the retention of water, helps with preventing constipation, and reduces the levels of ketones released by your breath, which in-turn will reduce breath odour. However, drinking a lot of water can mean that you also need to keep an eye on your electrolyte balance. You need to make sure that you are consuming sufficient sodium and potassium. On a low carb diet we can eat more salt, so make sure that you are cooking with salt and adding salt to food, if you like it. Good, low carb, sources of potassium are spinach (raw), avocado, mushrooms, courgettes and asparagus, as well as salmon and yoghurt."

7. 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, especially in the first two weeks of Bootcamp, when we are encouraging the body to stop using carbs for its source of fuel and turn to fat-burning instead. If you really can't do this - at least try and restrict it to the weekend. Vodka with soda is the best thing to drink. Or Champagne, red wine or dry white wine.

8. No fruit.
Really. Seriously. Honestly. None at all. Zilch. Nada. After Bootcamp you will be able to introduce certain fruits, but at this stage fruit is simply too carby. We are also trying to break the addiction to sweet things, so cutting fruit out is part of this process. If you are getting all your carbs from vegetables and salad, you will be getting all the nutrients and fibre that you need.

9. No nuts/seeds (unless you are veggie: check the SoF for veggie rules)

10. No sugar or artificial sweeteners.
Sugar is an obvious ‘no no’, but artificial sweeteners are also an issue. One of the aims of this way of eating is to eat pure and natural foods, so including sweeteners is not recommended. Some people find that artificial sweeteners can impede their weight loss, and there is some suggestion that your body can respond to sweeteners as if they were sugar, by releasing more insulin - and therefore laying down fat. Given that the aim of Bootcamp is to help us lose our sweet tooth and addiction to sweet things, then it is a good idea to avoid sweeteners altogether in this first two weeks.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
29
OldBooks · 11/01/2018 20:40

Witch I tend to eat when stressed. I now try to stress eat something low carb that still feels 'naughty' enough, iyswim? Usually drinking double cream from the pot, but hey, if it works...

TheSeasonOfTheWitch · 11/01/2018 20:45

Fabulous! I'm going to remember to eat fatty things rather than carbs!
I didn't actually eat much I don't think, feel terrible now though, headache and v v tired. Hopefully it will stop me doing that again.

TimbuktuTimbuktu · 11/01/2018 21:08

I have to be really disciplined to get the water in. I try to drink 600ml water bottle on the way to work. Have a 2l bottle of fizzy water to drink all day while I'm there and then have another 600ml bottle on the way home. Plus a cup of tea and a cup of boullion and that gets me to 3.5 which is what I'm supposed to aim for.

ilovecherries · 11/01/2018 21:10

Haven't eaten much today as had a stressful in it's anticipation and execution event at noon.

Breakfast- we'll call it fasting but actually just too anxious to eat
Lunch - as above
Dinner - emotionally wrecked. Cold poached salmon from M&S with pre-made salad. Just took out sachet of dressing and chucked in oil.

StuntNun · 11/01/2018 21:11

Timbuktu the blood sugar diet is a rip off of Roy Taylor's Newcastle diet that is proven to reverse diabetes. It's based on the observation that diabetes can spontaneously reverse in people who have gastric bypass surgery. The Newcastle diet mimics the effect of having a gastric bypass by cutting calories to 800 per day for eight weeks. Prof Taylor's rule of thumb was that losing 15kg was enough to make a dramatic improvement in health. Of course after the 8 weeks is up its important to transition on to a low carb diet in order to maintain the diabetes reversal. The original Fixing Dad program (also based on Prof Taylor's research) is another similar approach.

I'm glad to hear my explanation was well received, it's tricky to explain the underlying science well without oversimplification. If anyone has any questions or would like to delve deeper into any aspects then please do ask. The scary thing is that these metabolic pathways are well known, it's nothing that any researcher can't find out. The problem is they're so wedded to their fat is bad dogma that they can't consider any alternative.

C4rollinandventing · 11/01/2018 21:24

Evening all, I've had a day of hospital appointments, collecting grandwonderfuls and dogging dog walking. I have stuck to the rules, I'm missing my daily creamy coffeeSad it was what I used to break my fourteen hour fast.

Thanks for all the geeky stuff stunt, I could so easily fall in love with your brain.

I've had an evening of extra ventilation due to very low SATs, for those of you who don't know me I have two spinal cord injuries, a paralysed diaphragm and only one limb that is fully functional. I'm kept alive by home ventilation and have ended up in hospital on every bootcamp I've done. Despite all of that I have committed to do the GNR 2019 by walking using crutches and leg splints because wheelchairs are for pussys

Food today:

B poached egg
L cold meat, half an avocado, some olives and mayo
D chicken, bacon, mushrooms fried in butter with salad.

Can someone critique my food please

Off to Cardiff tomorrow to have a late Christmas with DD and her fiancé, we will be causing havoc with our wheelchairs all weekend. We are taking the puppy to introduce her to DD's giant house rabbit.

ilovecherries · 11/01/2018 21:30

Stunt, your explanation is great. I'd also love to really understand the science of the water intake. I had a terrible time in May with palpitations and actually ended up in A&E about three weeks in because my heart rate just wouldn't come down. When my admission bloods were done, the doctor asked if I'd been drinking excessively or taking non-prescribed diuretics as weight loss aids as I had hyponatraemia. I had a potassium infusion and he said I MUST only drink to thirst and that total intake should include ALL fluids and to remember that 'wet' food also contained fluid. He said that a bit of low salt and potassium rich foods would not be enough to compensate for the amount I was drinking. Anyway, he scared the bee-geesus out of me, and I did cut the fluid right back - I probably drink two litres a day, and it includes everything watery - beverages/soups etc. It's the only area where I've been non-compliant. Not asking you to give me medical advise, I will just carry on doing what I'm told. But high water intake seems to be the holy grail of keto diets, and yet I can't find any primary research to support it. I'd really like to understand why it's important.

ilovecherries · 11/01/2018 21:33

Even if I can't do it!

TimbuktuTimbuktu · 11/01/2018 21:35

Stunt those explanations are super helpful. Thank you!

BadlyParkedRangeRover · 11/01/2018 21:49

ilove that must have been terrifying! Glad you're ok!
I have to admit not getting/ being concerned about that myself. If insulin drops then you retain less sodium at the kidneys, and then over hydrate? Seems like a recipe for electrolyte problems?
Is the reasoning simply to dilute blood ketones and supress any negative feedback?

Gammeldragz · 11/01/2018 22:04

c4 sounds like a productive day. Only critique of food would be more greens?
ilove cardiologist tend to frown upon huge water intake, I think we all process water slightly differently (variations in kidney and cardiac function) so probably no one size fits all. Hope your bad day gets better Flowers

I've had an upset stomach again today... Oh well, at least it may push the weight down! Not sure if it's LC related or not.

prettybird · 11/01/2018 22:10

Did anyone see "Trust me, I'm a Doctor" last night? (I watched some of it tonight on Catch-up, after watch Tom Kerridge's programme which was very disappointing and definitely not a programme ilovecherries should watch Sad) They did an experiment on 100 people over 4 weeks, comparing the effects on cholesterol of butter, olive oil and coconut oil. They were surprised to find that although butter raised the "bad" cholesterol, the coconut oil reduced it - slightly - but by more than the olive oil. The butter increased the "good" cholesterol (iirc - need to watch it again) - but the coconut oil had a significant effect on increasing the good cholesterol, much more than the olive oil. They had to admit that they still didn't really understand saturated fats - the hypothesis at the moment was the ? acid (on the app so daren't come out of the draft to check) was interacting in some way with the saturated fats.

I'm not good enough on the science (I leave it to StuntNun who does it so brilliantly Star - as evidenced by her earlier post on the science behind calorie intake): I just know the "how" to do HFLC; not all the "why" it works. But iirc, even butter is not as bad as is made out, as its cholesterol raising impact is arguably a function of its interaction with carbs/sugar.

OP posts:
weebarra · 11/01/2018 22:15

Celeriac chips!

prettybird · 11/01/2018 22:31

C4 - enjoy your day out in Cardiff. I'm sure you and your dd will indeed cause havoc in your wheelchairs Grin

If I were to be hypercritical of your menu, I'd say there weren't enough veg - unless it was a really large salad. Did the chicken have skin on? If not, need some more fat too.

TheSeasonOfTheWitch - when I remember, I buy a tub of clotted cream to eat spoonfuls from as an alternative stress reliever treat. (BTW - it lasts much longer than its Use By date WinkBlush)

Lots of good success stories today - whether they are NSVs, SVs, staying focused and/or resisting temptation - or simply remaining positive about Boot Camp even after a lapse and planning on getting back on the wagon.

One of the few bits of value I got our of Tom Kerridge's programme was confirmation of the value of group support - whether in RL or virtual but we knew that already Wink The other thing was an idea for courgette fritters (using egg and cream cheese/mascarpone, not making a low calorie one as he did). See, I said I'd watch it for HFLC inspiration Grin

OP posts:
MumOfAPickle · 11/01/2018 23:21

On track again today
B: frittata
L: broccoli & Stilton soup + some leftover kale
D: steak fried in butter with a large salad
Snacks: smoked salmon with cucumber, olives & feta

Thanks for all the sciency stuff - very interesting. They were talking about the coconut oil thing on r2 this morning, I've not tried it yet but have to give it a go - does it make everything taste of coconut?

prettybird · 11/01/2018 23:31

Mumofapickle - re coconut oil, it depends on the oil you get. The KTC oil (available in Asian shops and the ethnic aisle of large supermarkets) is flavourless. Extra Virgin Coconut oils (even available in Lidl and Aldi Grin) do taste of coconut to a greater or lesser extent, depending on the brand (the Lidl one tastes faintly of coconut - enough to notice).

OP posts:
C4rollinandventing · 11/01/2018 23:37

Thanks prettybird & gammeldag it was a huge saladGrinand a ton of mayo to compensate for the lack of chicken skin.

In Cardiff until Monday so we will have a whole weekend of havoc, poor Lola has learnt to climb the stairs yesterday and keeps crying outside the bedroom door, DH has gone all Alfa male and keep taking her downstairs but it was him that broke the no dog on the bed rule the first day we had her.

BIWI · 11/01/2018 23:46

From Bootcamp rules:

High levels of ketones in the blood stream can lead to a reduction in ketone production, therefore being well hydrated could aid in keeping the levels low and ketone production ongoing. Consuming enough water can have many other positive side effects: aids your kidneys with the processing of protein, reduces the retention of water, helps with preventing constipation, and reduces the levels of ketones released by your breath, which in-turn will reduce breath odour. However, drinking a lot of water can mean that you also need to keep an eye on your electrolyte balance. You need to make sure that you are consuming sufficient sodium and potassium. On a low carb diet we can eat more salt, so make sure that you are cooking with salt and adding salt to food, if you like it. Good, low carb, sources of potassium are spinach (raw), avocado, mushrooms, courgettes and asparagus, as well as salmon and yoghurt.

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT YOUR ELECTROLYTE BALANCE IS KEY!

You MUST make sure you’re getting enough sodium. So cook with salt and add it to your food. Low sodium levels is one of the causes of carb flu, and it’s akso likely that if you’re still thirsty despite drinking lots of water, that you need more sodium.

If you can’t get your electrolytes through food, the other thing to consider is a supplement - try Zero tabs, made by the sports nutrition company High5. You can buy them online, or from places like Evans cycles.

Rshard · 12/01/2018 07:08

Morning campers (said in a sing song Welsh accent) hi de hi

So I ordered some kale on my online shop which came last night. 500g, it’s a bloody huge bag! What can I do with it? Inspiration please!

SayrraT · 12/01/2018 07:16

I love kale, I fry it with butter and garlic salt, roast in the oven, make kale crisps.

Weighed this morning and I'm down 4lbs Grin only 48lbs to go to get to my first goal.

Wh0KnowsWhereTheT1meG0es · 12/01/2018 07:19

I think electrolyte balance might be why I keep feeling thirsty (I get itchy gums) even with all the water. I'm eating lots of mushrooms and spinach so potassium probably ok but sodium might be a problem. I have never added salt while cooking, apart from tomato sauces, it never occurs to me and I don't like the taste. Also DH has high BP so I shouldn't anyway. However I am craving crisps so I probably need to do something, I think last BC my high consumption of pork scratchings helped but I am sick of them now. Might have to look into supplements.

SayrraT · 12/01/2018 07:34

wh0 I sometimes drink some stock if I feel like that.

Wh0KnowsWhereTheT1meG0es · 12/01/2018 07:38

A few sips or a whole cup? I really don't like salty stuff. I bought som cuppa soups last year and ended up binning them because of the saltiness.

SayrraT · 12/01/2018 07:39

I have a whole mug! Grin

headoutofthesand · 12/01/2018 07:41

What do you do with coconut oil? I bought a jar of it a year ago but haven't opened it as I can't work out what to do with it.
Slightly nervous this morning. 90 min commute & then a three hour meeting. I ate an awful lot of green veg last night...