Week 8 - Low Carb Bootcamp - only two more weeks ... **Thread title edited by MNHQ**

[BIWI]

Morning all. Sorry for lateness of the thread.

Here's the spreadsheet

As the title says, only two more weeks left! But that still means there's time to shed a couple more pesky pounds.

Hope you all have a good week

Thanks @BIWI ! Marking my place on the new thread. I am starting a new job this week and will need some lunchtime strategies. My old place has lots of free LC snacks and LC bread you could make lunch from (the team PA did a big Ocado order every week) and we had an egg cooked thingy that you could microwave eggs in, but the new place has none of that and I'm not sure about food storage facilities. I'm near all the big chain lunch places (Pret, Eat, Leon, etc. ) so if anyone had suggestions of nice LC lunches, please do let me know. Thanks!

Thanks BIWI!

My other half has just accepted that he doesnt get it, but it has seen it work for me so is fine with it. I do all the cooking and shopping anyway so it works for us both. People who know my cooking always ask him 'since you have been with cerealkiller, how are you not fat!' :)

We both went for a medical check up a year or so ago and all his health markers were excellent (better then mine!) and he blamed me! :)

Do you have a microwave?

Pret do a couple of good, LC salads - the Italian chicken and the crayfish and avocado are good. There's also a soup, 'No Cream Cream of Chicken' which is made from celeriac to give it the creamy texture, which is lovely.

Leon is occasionally good - their breakfast pots are worth checking out. They used to make a poached egg and ham hock one with a truffled Gruyere sauce, but sadly that wasn't on the menu last time I went . They do pots of grilled chicken with nothing else, which is helpful (if not a little dull on their own!)

Otherwise, when I was working in the office, I used to either take leftovers from the night before, and heat them through in the microwave, or I'd buy salad stuff from Sainsbury (we had one about 100 yards away, which was very convenient!).

4lb off in first week which I'm pleased with. My body has never shifted weight quickly so I'm ok with 4 👍

I was at an all day thing on Saturday and took a salad of leaves, olive oil, avocado, ham and some mayo and it travelled well and survived fine without a fridge

I’ve maintained this week, but I’ve definitely noticed a carb creep so I only have myself to blame! Will try to be better this week. I want to lose 3 more lb by the end of boot camp.

@winkledag

Im completely sympathise with not being able to 'get into' low carbing sometimes, usually by this point i have dropped out a couple of times at least. Something that has worked for me this time is make the food as convenient as possible. so always have ff yoghurt in the house for breakfast, make big batches of soup for lunch so you always have something ready. I usually have a whole chicken or half a crispy duck in the fridge for dinner and i can just bung in the oven.

When i get tempted to stray i will often do a lc convenience food 'binge'. I go to the shops and tell myself i can eat 'anything as long as its low carb' so sometimes a pot of egg mayo sandwhich filling, a whole cooked chicken, kabanos, etc etc. giving myself that freedom is good to stop feeling deprived.

I have been feeling quite 'hollow' recently. its not quite the same as hunger as i used to have it, it isnt hormonal cravings, its a physical emptiness, very strange.

I've stayed the same. A bit disappointing because I was lower midweek. Maybe it was all the cheese yesterday evening. And it has been a very sociable week with 2 wonderful meals out, and an accidental veer off-plan into a big bowl of crisps on Friday. So overall STS is not bad really.

@BIWI am I wrong in thinking we've actually got 3 weeks still to go? This is the start of week 8, so we've got week 8, 9 and 10 left, and we finish on 25th March (although I'm away from home so will be finishing on 23rd March). I felt strangely disappointed to think we only had 2 weeks left. I will miss the accountability I feel to fill in the spreadsheet.

Food today:
B - Avocado
L - Chicken liver pate and salad
D - curries (mutter paneer, and prawn and coconut) with spinach but without popadoms - one of the few things I miss.

Oh and forgot to post my weight!

2lb off this week! finally getting some weight off. i have had to be very very strict with myself and also do a bit of fasting at the same time but its working now. feel very much in the zone.

that's 11lb off since i started.

Any ideas for what i should eat out tomorrow at a thai restaurant? im pretty good with other takeaway food but not so familiar with thai.

menu
www.mai-thai-restaurant.co.uk/eatin.php

Im thinking satay chicken and something off either the BBQ or stir fried menu that doesn't have rice or noodles. Im not a fan of very hot food which limits things somewhat, ive had my face blown off before with thai food that was supposedly 'mild'.

My DH follows this Woe I’d say 80:20. I’ve never made him do so but he has lost loads of weight, fasts often and anyway he loves meat and veg
He seems to have a less damaged metabolism than me as he can eat the odd doughnut and then not eat another sweet food for say a week. It’s like he’s not bothered.

Popping in to say hello and mark my place on the new thread
Thank you @BIWI for the new thread.
I don't post much but find the following very helpful and I know I will miss Bootcamp a lot when it's finished in 2 weeks!
Very pleased with the progress(-3lbs) this week.I am finally below 170 lbs which is the lightest I've been in 4 years 😊

3lbs for me! Yay!

Thanks for the new thread- hope we all have a good week!

I will be weighing in tonight but feel pessimistic. Period started yesterday so I am currently mimicking a bloated whale.

@venusandmars, yes you're right - sorry . Three weeks left. That extra week will make all the difference

@Iamnotacerealkiller

That menu sounds lovely! For starters, I'd go for either chicken satay or fishcakes.

For the main, two of the salads sound good - Yum Nua (beef) or Yum Talay (if you like seafood), or from the barbecued dishes, weeping tiger is a favourite for me - it doesn't seem to have sugar in it (well not at our Thai restaurant) like a lot of the other dishes. Avoid any which come in a sauce as they are often very sweet.

I usually have some stir fried veg with my main, but all the ones here seem to be in some kind of sauce, which obviously isn't great.

Thanks for the new thread @BIWI

Not weighed in yet as I did the early morning swim run for dd and my bowels hadn’t woken up by the time is left the house!

I can second the chicken pots from Leon, they also do a relatively low carb salad but the name escapes me at the moment.

Well done to all the losers and those of us who are koko

Well fuck me. I had an amusing little post and hit something on the phone and lost it. Made a metaphor about carb creep and shoplifting. You all would have enjoyed it, I’m sure.

Still no alcohol though.

*Hope the scales are kind to everyone this week.

2.2lbs off for me, taking me to just over 3 1/2 stones off with 50lbs total loss since October (13.8lbs this BC). 81lbs left to lose. *

Sorry bold fail

Morning! Thanks for shiny new thread @BIWI. 3lb loss this week for a total of 18lbs - I am thrilled! My target for this bootcamp is 10% weight loss and I just have 3 more lbs to go to reach that, so it's feeling achievable.

Feeling terrible today as I drank too much wine last night. Since I've cut back, I'm now much less tolerant and can't drink what I used to! This is a good thing overall for health obviously, but I need my brain to catch up!

According to the spreadsheet I've lost 13.5lbs. It's weird, I don't feel like I've lost almost a stone, but I think I was in a massive denial about my size. I couldn't bring myself to take measurements but I know that I now have cheekbones and I think I'm losing weight round my middle and losing the hated back fat. I think I'm also suffering from a bit of, "I've been dieting for a whole 20 minutes, why aren't I skinny yet?" mentality! Ie I want it NOW!

However, by the end of Bootcamp I will have cleared over a stone. That is not to be sniffed at. Then I will keep it slowly ticking over them there will be another Bootcamp, and another stone, and repeat, and by the end of the year, my BMI will be normal. And you know what. It feels within my grasp. Especially when everyone else keeps sharing their successes as well!

Idle but important thought. I wonder how many lives BIWI has changed through bootcamp? I'm certainly happier on my mat leave this time round, and I think low carb has played no small part in that. So thank you. It's truly a lovely thing you do for no personal gain.

@Notlostjustexploring I'm like you thinking I'll somehow be a healthy BMI by the end of the year. Won't that be amazing?!

I've been thinking a lot about my attitude towards food lately, and for a long time I've felt like I was teetering on the edge of an eating disorder. But now I think it's carb addiction - the lack of carbs in my regular diet (specifically sweet tastes) has changed my brain somehow (so sciencey I know). I don't want to binge anymore, even if I'm extra hungry. I can still easily over-eat, but I reach satiety a lot faster than I used to.

So this is it for me. I can't change back to what I was eating before, because it won't work; I'll fall right back into the sugary pit of despair.

Having said that, we have some family birthdays looming, so what do people do about birthday cake?

(not that I necessarily crave cake, but it's weird not to eat anything for my DC's celebrations)

tootstastic hi five for an impending normal BMI!! It can and will be done!!!

KiteMarked I generally try to avoid the cake, and I'm usually pretty successful. Except the other week at my niece's birthday when I was handed a slice of cake and I couldn't work out how to gratefully refuse.
What do people do when people physically place food right in your hands?