Week 8 - Low Carb Bootcamp - lucky number for some!

[BIWI]

Xin nian kuai le!

Happy Chinese New Year. We're in week 8, and 8 is considered a lucky number in Chinese, so hopefully this week will be a good one for us all

Here's the spreadsheet

A very cold week is ahead of us, so hope you all stay warm and safe

I might have a listen on the bus to work billie

Thanks for the cat update athlestane, glad he’s more up than down

Nice sv’s rayna - how are these graphs produced? An app?

velocitykate good luck with the running and fat adaptation. DH hasn't touched a gel for a few years and has done a good few halfs and marathons in that time, ok club level but far from elite! He always runs fasted, sometimes even if it's cross country starting in the afternoon! I've never touched a gel, but also never raced further than 10k, so not so helpful.

Our running buggy arrives today so I should be able to do a bit more

Rshard I've been recording my weight most days in the GarminConnect App since I first got a running watch in May 2013. Really interesting to have so much data, the last 12 months is good as I was decreasing in Jan and Feb last year after a carby Oct/Nov/Dec (the traditional festive period ) but started pregnancy gain in March where the current 12 months start. The app gives a week, 4 weeks and 12 month graphs though I imagine you could extract all the data on the website and do anything with it.

Yay!! I’ve lost 3lb. At last a loss on the scales. I’m now 10st 7lb. Off to put up the bunting.

I have a garmin rayna! I just got it for my birthday and clearly need to explore its features more. Can I go back and enter weight? From when I started this woe do you think?

Rayna a lot of us use the Weight Diary app too.

Sorry, that should have been to Rshard

Thanks thewayof

Morning all.

Convo with husband this morning.

Standing in pjs, shorts and vest, coffee cup in hand, chatting. He interrupts me.

Him, Blunt. You look really skinny.
Me, I still can't do up many of my size tens.
Him. Are you sure. You do really look quite skinny.
Me. Yes, I'm friggen sure.
Him, right ok, but you do look quite thin. I'm just saying.

I think it's perspective. When he always saw me in those clothes and when they no longer fit, it was clear I'd put on a lot of weight. However when used to seeing me in largef stuff, and shrinking down, his perspective is different. I look "skinny" only in comparison to how I did look, If you met me you genuinely wouldn't think I looked skinny. Just kinda average.

But, yay, clearly weight loss becoming visible...

Entered today's weight as yesterday was 2lb higher. Still 1lb up on last week. I'm sure painkillers make me gain weight (and pain makes me make bad food choices).
Like Alma I feel I need to be more strict and accountable... Carbs are sneaking in.

I've been up and down around the same weight (top of my healthy BMI) since October/November. I really think my body has decided this is my new set weight.

According to the wrist thing I am small framed, but I actually just have huge hands and long fingers! I'm 5'10" with reasonably broad hips and definitely not small framed! I am aiming for a size 10-12, currently a 14.

littlebillie, thanks for that link. I missed it yesterday, although I do often listen to The Food Programme. Interesting to hear what Tim Noakes said, and how hard it has been for him, as the received wisdom of "low fat, high carb" is so ingrained as "healthy eating".

Also interesting that he is another person who has reversed his diabetes by adopting a low carb diet.

Oh hells bells, I've fallen off the wagon rather spectacularly after being as good as gold for weeks on end. I was at a fancy work dinner and negotiated the starters and the mains but then ate the very, very large sugary desert. It was one of those where you move to sit next to other people and I sat down at a plate and just.. ate it. I think it was the fact that I'd had several glasses of wine. I don't find stopping drinking a struggle at all so felt rather a cheat on dry feb, but when I do drink, I definitely make poorer food choices. Aargh aaargh aaaargh. I'm so bloody close to getting into the 60s too.

Mimosa, it doesn't matter though. Just climb back on the horse. It only matters if you keep on doing it. A one off slip and a night off is fine. Don't beat yourself up.💐

Athel: v pleased that cat is improving.
KOKO here.
Today’s plan:
B creamy coffee
L smallish portion of leftover low carb shep pie (so nice!) then small portion of ff Greek yoghurt with 5 hazelnuts and 6 berries.
D salmon stir fry

May end up having a square of 85% chocolate too, as I have been doing most days.
Key news this week is that I have started exercising. I finally have some motivation, although we will see how long it lasts!

Blunt: I agree people only compare you with what your old normal had become. I am a chunky person in people’s heads so I have similar sometimes.
Mimosa: one slip won’t ruin weeks of hard work. Just get back on the wagon and KOKO :)

Mimosa - don't worry, you're not the only one who failed last night. My excuse is, having managed to throw off one cold last week I've come down with another, and feeling really miserable with it. Had a pear and some strawberries yesterday evening, then, before going to bed I attacked the chocolate. I didn't have that much but some is worse than none. Oh well, today is a new day!

billie, I listened to that on catch up. Was interesting how Tim Noakes was sort of hounded out of medicine. I bought Real Meal Revolution about 4 months before I started BC in May, and I remember thinking it was too good to be true - but I think it p,shed on my mind till I saw BC and thought I'd give it a go.

Ragz, I'm the same. My wrists are actually slender and my fingers are long - but even when I was 8stone at 20 you could see I had a substantial frame - and at that weight (I'd been very ill, not with an eating related condition, something else), there was no fat covering it, but I had big feet, broad hips and shoulders, big long bones etc.

Bluntness, my mum is starting to fret at me that I don't need to lose any more, but I'm not even quite into a healthy BMI yet, and I clearly have fat round my middle that I could do with getting rid of. I just look so much smaller than I did 65 pounds ago that she's not used to it. And as I only see her every six weeks (live at other end of country), she probably sees me looking significantly different each time.

Your convo with your dh made me smile bluntness

Clamber back on mimosa, today’s a new day

Occurred to me earlier that I’ve not seen scabbersley around?

My two cents on artificial sweeteners is that they should be kept to a minimum. I do use them myself, I sometimes have a diet Coke as an alternative to an alcoholic drink, but the emerging evidence on artificial sweeteners is worrying. As BIWI has mentioned before, they desensitise the brain's response to sugar resulting in you needing more sweetness (whether from sugar or from sweeteners) to get the same 'hit'. Numerous studies show that people drinking a diet drink with their meal consume more calories than people drinking a sugar-sweetened drink with their meal. They also disrupt the gut bacteria in ways which lead to insulin resistance and to absorbing more calories from your food. Remember that in the current food environment where calories in-calories out is king, artificial sweeteners are approved of solely because they are calorie-free. There aren't any studies showing that artificial sweeteners can be used as part of a weight loss regime. Think about all the companies that manufacture artificial sweeteners. Those studies have been done - they just didn't show any benefits to using them. As I said, I use artificial sweeteners myself so I'm not saying to avoid them completely. But I think they should be regarded in the same way as we regard sugar on this way of eating.

I don't touch artificial sweeteners. Partly because of their unpredictable but usually unpleasant affect on my gut, partly because I wanted to move completely away from cakes/puddings/sweets etc. It's easier for me to just not do it.

There's a lot of horrible fat-shaming going on in this thread in AIBU if anyone feels like chipping in. Everyone's going on about how the poor woman shouldn't have gained weight or doesn't have any willpower or won't help herself. It's quite shocking to see just how intolerant Mumsnetters are of someone being overweight.

I'm the same regarding artificial sweeteners. I don't like the taste, and generally I don't feel the need to eat sweet food. And to me, they come under the category of "processed food", which I'm trying to avoid.

I'd rather eat a very occasional sweet item containing actual sugar(which so far, I have only done at Christmas and probably won't again until next Christmas!) than go down the route of eating artificially sweetened things regularly, but I realise that's a personal choice.

I seem to have missed a thread.....still bootcamping away, just haven't been posting.

After a couple of stalled weeks the scales are moving down, and another 2lb lost, so I've now lost half a stone, hooray. I feel so much better already; waistbands are no longer digging in, and my bra is looser (still some podge to shift, though).

I have had two small cheats over the last few weeks - a chocolate fondant on my birthday (sorry not sorry) and a not-very-low-carb pub meal last weekend. But I think as long as they are "one-offs" you can get away with it, AS LONG AS the one-offs don't become two-offs and three-offs (which is so easy to fall into).

I'm another one who really doesn't like the taste or the idea of artificial sweeteners, and would rather forego cakey things entirely. I just stick with yogurt creamy things, topped with berries and a little sprinkle of cocoa nibs, or cocoa flaxseed. I made some satay sauce the other day with Splenda (it had a load of lime juice in, so needed a sweetener) and it was ghastly. Weirdly, the family troughed it down without complaint.

Someone mentioned upthread about how to decide your target weight - surely you just know what's right for you? I'm 10 stone 3, and still a bit tubby. I went down to 9 stone last time I low-carbed, and that was way too low - it might have been fine when I was a pert 17yo, but made me look very gaunt. So my target is around 9 stone 10. I've no idea where that is on the BMI charts, but it feels right for me now. That will be a stone lost in total.

Am feeling strangely relaxed about sticking to the rules, it’s like I don’t have to make any decisions which is lovely

Lunch was some stew and salad. Bit wierd

Am about to go to a colleague’s leaving tea and might eat a strawberry

Yesterday, I was ravenously hungry but that was probably because I hadn't drunk very much during the day.

Today, I've made sure I'm taking in as much tea as I can and the only thing I've eaten all day is an avocado. Once I finish work for the day, I shall go out hunting and gathering for something to cook for supper.