May '19 Low Carb Bootcamp - week 1

[BIWI]

So here we are!

Lots of us signed up this time, so inevitably the thread will move very quickly. Please, though, take the time to read the whole thread!. Although this is a place where you can post your daily menus, or your thoughts and questions, please don't just do this, but read what other people have posted too.

A bit thank you to the very lovely @AthelstaneTheUnready who has set up the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness.

The Spreadsheet

If your name isn't on there, don't panic! Just add yourself to the bottom of the list. Don't worry about trying to alphabetise it - that will be sorted out for you. (And if you're on the spreadsheet but don't want to be, don't worry - if you don't post on it your name will be taken off)

Here's a brief recap of the rules:

1. Eat three proper meals a day
2. Avoid processed foods
3. Eat plenty of fat
4. Make sure you are eating plenty of vegetables and salad
5. Be careful about dairy (apart from butter which is unlimited)
6. You must drink a minimum of 2 litres of water a day
7. No alcohol
8. No fruit
9. No nuts/seeds

10.No sugar or artificial sweeteners

The full rules are here . They're supposed to be stickied at the top of the Low Carb Bootcamp topic (along with the recipe threads), but for some reason they're stickied at the top of page 2!

Remember that after the first two weeks we can relax some of this, and move on to Bootcamp Light, which means that you can add some fruit (berries mainly), alcohol (in moderation) and nuts and seeds (again, in moderation), but the point of the strict initial phase is to help push your body into burning fat for fuel rather than carbohydrate.

And remember - if you cheat, you will only be delaying this process from happening!

Good luck to everyone. Any questions or problems, just shout!

Cheers BIWI!

Thanks BIWI.

Checking in

Here I am again :). Thanks BIWI.

Good morning!
I was starting to panic a little when I couldn’t see the week 1 thread. ( this is my 6th BC and I usually forget it’s day 1. Not today, roaring to go )
Thank you BIWI and good luck to all.

Starting weight 189 ( already shed nearly 4lbs from starting on Wednesday last week.)
Sliced edam and coleslaw already in the office fridge for easy lunch, and I am going to have to get some food in this evening, but I should imagine eggs will feature.

Thought it would be useful to remind you of foods we can't eat, as well as the rules:

Foods we don’t eat at all on Bootcamp:

Pasta/noodles/rice/cous cous (not even brown or wholewheat)
Bread (including wraps, pitta, bagels, crumpets, muffins, poppadums, naan bread – and anything covered in breadcrumbs or using breadcrumbs, e.g. stuffing)
Pastry
Sugar (which also means no honey, agave syrup, maple syrup)
Sweets and biscuits/crackers
Flour (including cornflour), so beware anything with a sauce that’s been thickened
Balsamic vinegar (all other vinegars are fine)
Potatoes (and also sweet potatoes and sweet corn)
Crisps/tortillas/salty snacks (of any kind or variety!)

Food that we do eat:

Any meat, poultry, fish and seafood (avoiding processed products as much as possible)
Eggs (no need to worry about eating too many of these)
Vegetables and salad - this is where your carbs should be mainly coming from
Cheese, cream and ull fat yoghurt (natural only – nothing with fruit or sweetened) - don't go mad with these though!
Olive oil, coconut oil, lard

Thanks! I've just been rereading everything ...
Breakfast: Asparagus and a fried egg.
Lunch or dinner: left over steamed veg and lamb
3rd meal - haven't decided how I'm organising my day properly yet, I'll be out from 4:30 to after 9 (practice, evensong then rehearsal with my other choir ...). I have some chicken stock in the fridge I should make into something tasty!

Morning everyone, Mimosa reporting for duty! I've just weighed in at 80kg and I'm not happy about it was was 73kg at the end of the last BC. It's become a bit of an unhealthy pattern so my goal is to get back down to the low 70s and keep it off. I know I can lose it. Gaaargh. Anyway, I'm glad to be back and thanks to everyone running the bootcamp.

Here's a link to another thread I started, yesterday which might be useful, showcasing useful low carb products we come across them.

If there's something you've find really tasty or especially useful when you're low carbing, feel free to post a photo of it here, but please also take a photo (or write down) the nutritional info as well.

Useful low carb products

Good morning. Checking in.
Thank you BIWI and AthelstaneGood luck everyone. It works if we stick to the rules.

Thanks @BIWI! Reporting in to bootcamp.

The 'allowed' list of vegetables and salad

On the spreadsheet you'll see a list of carb counts for vegetables (and a handy counter, so if you are weighing your veg you can use it to work out how many carbs you're consuming).

Your aim is to focus on those vegetables and salad items that are around 4g carbs per 100g and under.

That's not to say you can't have carbier veg, but just make sure you don't have as much of those/as often.

We don't count carbs (or calories) on Bootcamp, but if you've never low carbed before it's a good idea in the beginning to weigh some stuff, so you can get a good, visual idea of how much of your veg constitutes 100g.

You'll also see that the veg list is very helpfully colour-coded, like traffic lights, to give you a good idea of what's best to eat and what you should avoid.

The formatting won't work here, but here's the list anyway, to give you an advance warning!

Green/'go'
Mushrooms 0.4
Watercress 0.4
Spinach0.8
Celery0.9
Broccoli1.1
Asparagus1.4
Kale1.4
Cavalo Nero1.4
Samphire1.5
Cucumber1.5
Spinach1.6
Lettuce 1.7
Fennel1.8
Courgettes1.8
Lettuce1.9
Avocado flesh1.9
Cauliflower1.9
Radish1.9
Turnip (white inside) 2
Pumpkin2.2
Celeriac2.3
Runner beans2.3
Swede (orange inside)2.3
Bean sprouts2.5
Green pepper2.6
Spring Greens2.6
Baby sweetcorn2.7
Aubergine2.8
Leeks2.9
Okra3

Amber/'OK'
Green beans3.1
Cabbage3.1
Tomato3.1
Mangetout3.3
Shallots3.3
Brussels sprouts3.5
Kalettes3.9

Red/in moderation/avoid'
French beans4.7
Peas (sugar snap)4.8
Yellow pepper5.3
Carrots6
Orange/red pepper6.4
Ginger (peeled)7.2
Butternut squash7.5
Onions7.9
Peas (garden)9
Parsnips12.5
Baby Potato16.1
Potato19.6
Sweetcorn (on the cob)19.6
Beetroot20
Sweetcorn (tinned)20.1
Sweet Potato21.3

The carb counts are carbs per 100g, by the way

The reason we don't count carbs or calories on Bootcamp is simply because this makes life much easier!

One of the questions I'm often asked is how many carbs we should aim to consume per day. But this isn't an easy one, because everyone has different levels of carbs that they can tolerate. If you follow the rules you should lose weight. But some people are able to eat a higher level of carbs per day than others - and the only way you'll work this out is through trial and error.

If you were following the Atkins diet, then the initial induction phase is only 20g carbs per day. After this phase, you increase your carbs by 5g per day till weight loss stops or you start to regain weight.

If you can be bothered to count your carbs every day at this level, then go ahead and be my guest! But life's too short for me (and I suspect many others )

Dr. John Briffa (who wrote Escape the Diet Trap, which is a really good book about low carbing) suggests that a low carb diet should be no more than 100g per day, and each meal should be around 30g carbs. I think this is probably quite high for most people to lose weight, but probably works well to maintain.

But overall, the thing to remember, is that on a low carb diet we're rearranging the proportions of the food we eat. Conventional advice is that our diets should be high carb/medium protein/low fat. Whereas on low carb it will be high fat/medium protein/low carb.

Remember that we're not cutting out a whole food group - which is an argument often used against low carbing! We're simply cutting it down, but also making sure that our carbs are coming from good nutrition, from vegetables and salad.

Morning! Checking in. Back later. Thanks BIWI and Athelstane

Oops I completely forgot Bootcamp was starting so I haven't weighed in. Today's menu will be: two boiled eggs mashed with butter for breakfast; Sainsbury's lamb burgers with salad with homemade vinaigrette for lunch; low carb sausages with mashed celeriac and courgette fried in butter for dinner. I also have a little pack of olives and a mini Cathedral Cheddar stick for an emergency snack which I hopefully won't need.

Morning
Made myself get on the scales and im ready for the low carb bootcamp.

Bit of a hectic morning so i'll properly check in later. At one of my heaviest weights humph....looking forward to shifting it

Ah yes - snacking!

Because of the way we've been advised to eat over the last 30 or so years - i.e. high carbohydrate and low fat - people have become used to the need for snacking.

Because of the high level of carbs people tend to eat at breakfast or lunch, this leads to blood sugar levels crashing at around 11am and 3pm, which makes us feel hungry.

This is then often compounded by people snacking on other high carb foods, like biscuits or fruit. (And of course, we all think we're eating healthily if we snack on fruit).

It's become so ingrained now that people who start Bootcamp for the first time often ask what they should be buying for their snacks - in other words, they're planned in as much as the three meals a day.

However, when you're low carbing (and when you've become fat-adapted, i.e. you're burning fat for fuel rather than carbs, which should happen in the first couple of weeks), you'll even out these fluctuations in your blood sugar levels so you really won't be hungry between meals!

In addition, because we're eating high fat/protein, these foods are pretty satiating, so you'll feel fuller for longer.

In the first few days of Bootcamp, while you're getting used to it, you may still feel hungry and need to snack, so good foods to have to hand are just as @StuntNun suggests - cheese and olives.

Found my weights from last year's low carving. I started at 14s 10, and ended at 12s 6.

This time, started last week on 13s 10, so really hoping I can get below 12s this time.

Thanks BIWI. I am by far the heaviest on the SoF by far

Morning all, I’m going for the starting with 100 and deducting the pounds from that figure rather than putting my weight in, hope that’s ok and also that I’ve done it right as I’m on my phone!

Just had coffee and cream for breakfast, planning mozzarella salad for lunch and roasting a chicken for dinner. Cannot wait, been ages since I’ve had that.

Have a good day everyone

Hello, I'm in Canada time so will update later but good luck to everyone for the first day!

Weighed in. Didn’t manage my BBC ( Between Boot Camp ) target of staying in the 10s , weighed in at 11st 2

But , I did very much enjoy 2 weeks in the Caribbean, with not only 3 course dinners , but 3 course breakfasts as well !

Back to reality now 👍

Morning all! Can’t update the spreadsheet on my phone but have weighed in and will fill it in properly later.

Plan for today:
B: smoked salmon, avocado, poached egg
L: cheese, ham, olives, salad
D: sausages (nice 100% meat ones) with some sort of veg - poss roasted broccoli

I’ve had one cup of tea this morning and really trying to cut down on tea and drink more water.

@Bloodybigbabybelly don't worry about that - we're all on the same journey, to spout a cliché!

And I'm sure you'll find that you need to change your username soon

Morning! Reporting for duty! Good luck to everyone! Thank you, BIWI.