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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
prettybird · 08/01/2018 18:26

Welcome bendyruler Smile

You really should weigh yourself sooner rather than later so that you can celebrate the initial whoosh! Wink

OP posts:
bendyruler · 08/01/2018 18:27

Does anyone know where we put our starting weight on the spreadsheet of fabulousness? Can't find the right box thanks

bendyruler · 08/01/2018 18:28

Hi [prettybird] Grin off to do it now

JumpingintoLCHF · 08/01/2018 18:34

Prettybird is right. I didn't weigh myself until I'd been going some time so don't really know how much I have lost. Learn from my mistake!

ilovecherries · 08/01/2018 18:35

Dinner was spiced mince with sautéed cabbage, mushroom, shallot and spinach. It's become my go-to meal on the nights when in the past I'd have boiled some pasta and stirred a jar of sauce into it. On the table within 25 mins of opening the fridge doorGrin.

Gammeldragz · 08/01/2018 18:35

bendy should hr obvious as it will be the column we have all added to, should sat starting weight or similar along the top.

Dinner was garlic and herb chicken (Lidl BBQ range) fried in oil with cabbage and sprouts (fried in butter) served with celeriac chips (deep fried) and mayo.
1L of water and about 1l of black coffee so far.

ilovecherries · 08/01/2018 18:39

I've added you at the end PragmaticWench. You can go ahead and add your weigh. Sayra will re-alphabetise it later :)

ilovecherries · 08/01/2018 18:41

Oh, just noticed you'd posted your weight here. Have added that as well, wench

bendyruler · 08/01/2018 18:42

Just nipped upstairs and I'm 230lbs most I've ever been Blush thanks gammeldragz will have another look

bendyruler · 08/01/2018 18:43

gammeldragz was it you that had bacon and cabbage? That sounds nice did you cook the cabbage first?

Twoo · 08/01/2018 18:44

Ended up eating

B Coffee & Cream. 2 Hard Boiled Eggs.

L Egg Mayo with added grated cheese.

D Salmon steak with carb free Cauliflower Cheese. Looked a bit green but was delicious. (Whizzed up cooked broccoli in the sauce).

I have full fat plain yoghurt in the fridge if I get hungry 😋

Gammeldragz · 08/01/2018 18:47

bendy just shredded the cabbage and stir fried it in oil. I like it to still have a bit of bite, it's lovely and much nicer than boiled.

FallenMadonnawiththeBadBoobies · 08/01/2018 18:49

Starting at 190.7, which I think is about 10lbs down from my last attempt at Bootcamp - which lasted about two or three weeks. I started last Monday and have lost 5lbs already, so I'm not expecting a whoosh.

I would like to lose a stone but I have two problems. I'm going off to India for 10 days on 19th January, and I have no idea how I can maintain the diet on that. Secondly, Ive just been told that I need to give up diary or health reasons. What the heck!! Giving up wine and chocolate is not enough? I have to give up cream, Greek yogurt, butter and cheese too? I'm gutted, but can see that it's the right thing to do. Does anyone use a cream substitute?

I probably won't post a lot as I find it difficult to keep up with the fast moving threads.

Good luck everyone

bendyruler · 08/01/2018 18:49

Aghh worked it out the c column was missing and I had to swipe the spreadsheet to get it to appear

bendyruler · 08/01/2018 18:52

Thanks [grammeldragz] Smile I'm going to try that I bought white cabbage and lardons today yes I like a bit of crunch too

headoutofthesand · 08/01/2018 18:57

I'm going to lose weight just from walking to the loo several million times a day!

11st exactly when I weighed in this morning. I would really like to get down to 10st 4 so that I am a normal BMI.

B - 2 x boiled eggs
L - tuna steak and cabbage cooked in butter with a couple of dollops of yogurt to follow
S - salad. Not sure whether to have avocado & blue cheese or salmon. Any views?
Snacks - sprouts fried in butter; a tea spoon of smoked mackerel pate

Drinks - I'm on my second pint of water having also had two mugs of hot water & lemon and drunk a jug of water too. I need to find out how much water my jug holds.

Scabbersley · 08/01/2018 18:58

I was so full after lunch that I ate one slice of pork belly and couldn't manage anything else.

mrsglowglow · 08/01/2018 19:03

Day 1 so far

B - Coffee with cream
L - Chicken Caesar salad
D - Courgetti Bolognese with parmesan

Have also had 1 black coffee
and 1.5 litres of water

weighed in 145 and would like to be at least 1 stone lighter.

I like seeing what everyone's having for their meals as it gives me some good ideas. I'm going to stock up on some babybels as I think these may be my ideal quick breakfast and also for snacks.

blackteaplease · 08/01/2018 19:04

Its nice to see the thread so busy. I have had a good food day today, although a bit cheese heavy.
breakfast- yogurt
lunch-leftover chicken stew with an avocado
snacks-cheese and celery in the morning and more cheese and a yard boiled egg after work
not sure about dinner yet, some sort of stir fry probably.

blackteaplease · 08/01/2018 19:08

I forgot my weight! Starting today at 138, 2.5lbs up from last bootcamp but still a stone lighter than before I signed up to the last thread. I'm aiming for 9 stone 7 but may try to go a few lbs over tobgive me some wriggle room if I can manage 1lb per week weight loss.

Twoo · 08/01/2018 19:13

Mrsglowglow can you share your recipe=method for your corg spag bol please?

Rshard · 08/01/2018 19:13

So great to see such positivity! Today I’ve eaten

B - total yoghurt
L- tuna salad mayo
D - cheese omelette salmon

All my water

PennyMise · 08/01/2018 19:19

Right, a good day so far

B: 2 eggs and 1/2 avocado
L: chicken broccoli salad with mayo
D: roast chicken and veg with chorizo and 1/2 avocado

Needed a snack of celery/cucumber/babybel and had all my water. I think I need to ensure I'm eating enough (including fat) at each meal so there's no need to snack.

HattietheManatee · 08/01/2018 19:21

Hey, starting weight is 9 st 13 lb - eight pound lighter than I was on Boxing Day due to LCHF diet. Shocked and delighted in equal measure. I’ve been using India knights idiot proof diet which allows nuts, is low on veg and high on processed meat so still a bit of changes to make for boot camp. Looking forward to it.

Star2018 · 08/01/2018 19:24

I’ve had a really good day so far. I have a mince pie in front of me, staring at me.

This is my thought process:

  • it’s a shame to bin it
  • it’ll taste really nice
  • I always, always have something sweet after a meal
  • after a day of no carbs, a small mince pie can’t really hurt
  • it’s crazy to cut out whole food groups

vs

  • I need to look shit hot at this wedding in August and I have something like three stone to lose

ARRRRRGGGGHHH