Week 3 - decision-making time!

[AthelstaneTheUnready]

Welcome to week 3!

As BIWI's away, she asked if I would start the week 3 thread. I've stolen her words from a previous week 3, as it's such a good explanation of bootcamp v. bootcamp light.

I have been rubbish last week but I am going to have another good go.

1.25 lb off this week. I am staying on full-strength bootcamp .

I don’t usually shop in Sainsbury’s but we went there yesterday to catch the end of the clothes sale and we got a pork loin saltimbocca which we had with buttered cabbage last night, it was delicious!

Mexican scrambled eggs for breakfast, chicken tikka kebabs and salad for dinner tonight. Not sure about lunch yet.

I wanted a cheap pair of white linen trousers for my holiday. Last pair were a 22 and I was pleased that when I wore them last summer, after 6 weeks b/c, they were no longer too tight to get on, and were relatively comfortable again.

Eyed them up in Next today against what I thought they looked like, decided they looked quite small so took a 16 into the changing room. Too big, so popped my head out and asked the assistant for a 14, too big, popped out again, asked for a 12 -she looked me up and down and said ‘I think I will bring you a 10 as well’. Which fitted perfectly. Clearly I still don’t have a clue what I actually look like, but otherwise ! From a 24 to a 10! And actually don’t care if those trousers are big made/subject to vanity sizing etc etc. The differential between last May and now is still the same.

Wow @ilovecherries ...you must have been so thrilled! Really amazing weight loss in just a year 😮💕

cherries you are such an inspiration! I watched Davina’s ‘This time next year’ in April and have set myself a goal for mine and DP’s anniversary next April to be back to what I weighed when we met, which will be 3.5 stone down on what I was then. I’m 1.5 stone down now (started a couple of weeks before BC doing the dreaded low fat!) and stories like yours make me even more determined to reach (and maybe even smash!) my goal. Thank you.

That’s awesome cherries

So I'm back! I've tried to keep up with the thread, but haven't really done a good job - and I'm straight back into work now.

Will try and catch up a bit more this evening.

@RuffleBelly - sorry, I meant to post this yesterday.

I checked the spreadsheet and see that you lost half a stone in the first week - that's a lot! So to say this WOE isn't for you seems a bit unreasonable!

Welcome back BIWI! Hope you had a good time.
Wow Cherries that's amazing! Well done, must feel fabulous!

Has anyone got a good recipe for low-carb pancakes? On the spreadsheet it says there's a pancake recipe in the threads but I can't find one? I've tried a few recipes so far and they're always crap in comparison. I can't get coconut flour to work at all!

Wow brilliant Cherries that must have felt amazing!!

Here's a recipe for almond flour pancakes

lowcarbyum.com/fluffy-almond-meal-pancakes/

Thanks Destinysdaughter they sound good! Have bookmarked for later :)

There's a documentary on BBC Iplayer atm obesity: the postmortem. It isn't advisable if you don't like a bit of gore but it's horrifying and fascinating. It's certainly reinforcing the need to stay on this diet with the sheer amount of fat you can see on this woman! It looks at the issues surrounding obesity and their affect on the body.

stuntnun said when you're near your goal weight you often need to increase fat intake to compensate for decreased body fat. But it does seem to be true that you need a good fat intake to optimise burning body fat. The idea is to convince your body that we're in a time of plenty and there's no need to hang on to body fat.

!!!!! Wait! I think I have had a fundamental misunderstanding. So I'm about 10lbs away from mid-healthy BMI and I've been on the World's Longest Stall for weeks. I got the bit about watching calories and portion sizes once you were near goal, but I've been cutting proportionally across the board. So one egg instead of my usual two, halving the butter portion, even (sob) rationing the buttered sprouts. But this makes it sound like I should actually have been increasing the proportion of fat, so it played a bigger part, rather than cutting calories and portions across the board?

Sounds like it cherries . Otherwise your body might believe you when you tell it food is suddenly rationed, and ease up on its expenditure to compensate.

Last bootcamp I was tantrumming about a two month stall, and Stunt told me to up the fat in general (since I was also unconsciously not eating enough calories). Lost about 3lbs the next week.

I am having the mother of all temptation afternoons. My body is insisting it needs heaps of every type of food known to man, preferably the sweeter ones, since it is dying for food. I asked it if it wanted an egg instead, and it said no. So I think it's just being devious, but by god it's hard resisting today.

I’m really interested in that perspective cherries, as I’m about 7lbs from where I want to be. What did you eat athle to increase your fat intake?

Rshard, basically I doubled the amount of butter I put on everything. And had two thick-cream coffees a day, instead of one. Over the course of the day that took my calories back up to where they should be, and increased the proportion of fat I was eating.

Have just realised that's not very helpful, so in absolute terms - I get through between a pack, and a pack and a half, of Isigny unpasteurised each week. Mostly on my green veg, or with eggs. but also eaten in lumps straight off the slab

This is interesting Athelsyane I am definitely not eating enough fat by this measure..

If it's helpful then - and bear in mind I do eat very repetitively as I'm not fond of cooking or too many flavours on one plate - my average weekly intake of food is:

1 - 1.5 packs butter
3 heads broccoli
3 leeks
1 pack mushrooms
3 avocados
1 pack spinach
12 eggs
2 packs smoked salmon bits
1 roll goats cheese
1/2 pack baby plum tomatoes
1 pack brisket
1 shoulder of lamb / or a free-range chicken
1 tub of extra thick double cream

The reason I'm not yet Elle McPherson is that I find it very hard to lay off the wine. Which taken with the foods above, is a recipe for gain not loss. But when I do stay off the wine, the weight just dissolves.

I do branch out now and again, as with the cottage pie, but that's a once every couple of months thing.

Seafour kefir is undoubtedly beneficial for gut health. If you want to buy it ready-made then I've heard Chuckling Goat is a good brand and it's only 2.5% carbs. If you make your own (apparently it's quite easy) then you can leave it to culture for longer to break down more of the lactose. As you're having repeated courses of antibiotics then the more fermented foods you can add into your diet the better. I've been buying these fermented gherkins from Ocado which are lowish carb at 1.8% - this is a lot lower than most pickled gherkins. They are preserved in brine rather than vinegar so they have a slightly different taste - salty rather than vinegar-y but they're pleasant enough. I have one big one or two small ones a day followed by some unpasteurised hard cheese to protect my tooth enamel against the acidity and for some extra gut bacteria from the cheese. If you don't like gherkins then there are other fermented vegetables such as kimchi or sauerkraut. I also make my own yogurt from this starter culture so that I can culture it for longer (I like it sour!) but any live yogurt will be helpful. Bone broth is another gut-supporting food and it's very easy to make. Make sure you avoid grains, gluten, beans, vegetable oils and sugar like the plague. It will also be useful to add a probiotic in to replace bacteria being lost due to the antibiotics - make sure it has multiple strains of bacteria and consider an enteric coated / delayed release product.

Aromatic I make the I Breathe I'm Hungry pancakes but leave out the sweetener. They're lovely with a bit of butter on but they don't taste like pancakes - more like an omelette.

Cherries one egg doesn't sound like enough for anyone, I sometimes have three boiled eggs if I'm feeling particularly hungry... mashed with plenty of butter. Protein is the satiating macro; contrary to popular belief, fat and carbs are both equivalently satiating. So I would keep your protein intake the same and moderately increase your fat intake. Sometimes it only needs the equivalent of one extra tablespoon of olive oil per day to kick start weight loss when you're close to your ideal weight. You may also need to look into a carb refeed to reset leptin. Here are a couple of articles on carb refeeds from Paleo Hacks and Mark's Daily Apple.