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!

Sorry if this is a stupid question but does tea count as water. I have black or herb no milk.

Thanks @AthelstaneTheUnready. You're a star 🌟

@SittingontheSidelines I count my black tea/coffee as water.

Thanks@tootstastic

@PushkarKali yes lemon juice in small quantities is fine

@tokenman2 - are you really a man?! Just being nosey!

@TheWaiting - milk really isn't OK in those kinds of quantities. It obviously depends on the size of your cup, but 250ml of semi-skimmed milk (to give you an example) would be 12.1g carbs! And you should be aiming to get the majority of your carbs from veg and salad. Sorry.

To answer your tech question, I don't think you need a Google account, but I don't really know - I don't access the spreadsheet from my phone. Perhaps someone else can advise on this one?

for you @MeltedEggMum!

@MightyWings - how many carbs in that bread though? See my comment above about your carbs coming from veg and salad!

Good going @BrassicaBabe - I'm really impressed! I haven't managed to go for a run for a while now, and the longer I put it off, the more I know it's going to hurt ...

@HypatiaCade did you rinse the noodles before you used them? One tip I read on an American site was to also drop them in boiling water for a couple of minutes before you use them, so that might help. Also, an observation - your meals today look quite low fat (although I appreciate that you haven't said how you're cooking things). But remember this is a high fat way of eating as well as low carb.

@SittingontheSidelines yes you can count tea without milk as water, but remember it does contain caffeine - pure water is always better!

Hopefully that's answered all the questions so far - and it sounds like day one is going reasonably well (childcare issues and SATS to one side!)

So dinner wasn't 100% I didn't have time to hang around in the canteen & ask for nutrition values and everything except the chicken curry was battered. So I had chicken curry with a generous helping of broccoli. I'm fairly sure they'd have used flour to thicken the sauce.
I've learnt my lesson today though and I will bring dinner with me when I'm on late in future!

Forgot to add, I struggle to drink lots of water but have around 500ml left to drink so think I've done really well there!
Quick question which may have been answered already but are there rules on weighing

Posted early sorry
So basically is it ok to weigh every day? Or should I just weigh the morning we put it on the spreadsheet?

Hello, so I weighed in at 14st 3.5

I've put so much weight on recently. 3.5 years ago I dieted for a holiday from 15st 8 to 10st 7 over 9 months using SlimmingWorld and exercise. So I know I can do it, just need the motivation.

Really want to get to 12st 7 by August for our holiday, partly because I can't fit into anything I had last year.

Today had been a great start. I am a serial snacked at work, but today I had 3 eggs and some mushrooms & spinach for breakfast at 8, lunch at 1 was a massive salad with lots of left over roast pork, lettuce, cucumber, 1/2 avocado, 2 eggs and mayo.

I took some cheese and celery in to work for snack and didn't need it. Just drank lots of water instead. I normally come home starving but I'm feeling ok today which is nice.

My hardest bit will be giving up my options Hot chocolate before bed 😥 any suggestions with how to cope with that as it's my treat when I watch Netflix

@Heartyhooker on the plus side dd's school do Sats breakfast so they get dropped early then have breakfast cooked by the deputy head and a couple of TAs! It's a good distraction. Still want it over for her so they can talk about anything other than tests!

@biwi reading online some forums advise limiting protein. Is that the same on this Bootcamp? I don’t want to have to track anything as I can get obsessive and discouraged

@BIWI, thanks for answering my question.
Is 2 cups of tea such a large quantity of milk? 250ml??? I was thinking it was more like 20ml. I’ve obviously been in denial!

@RocketPockets There are no rules on weighing - it's entirely up to you! You don't have to weigh at all, but could use measurements (hips, waist, upper arms, bust and thighs), or how well your clothes fit, to monitor your progress. Find an item or two of clothing which is just a bit too tight/small, and try them on every Monday morning. This is, actually, a much more tangible way to monitor how much weight you're losing! Sometimes the scales don't show any change, whereas your body is still burning fat.

If you are going to weigh, do it first thing in the morning, naked and after you've been to the loo.

If you're going to weigh daily you need to be prepare for the fact that our weight naturally fluctuates on a daily basis, so it can sometimes go up for no apparent reason! So weekly weighing might be better.

If you do weigh daily, you have three different options:

1. You record your weight each Monday morning, and put that on the spreadsheet
2. You record your average weight for the week
3. You take your lowest weight of the week as the one you put on the spreadsheet

You also don't need to enter your actual weight - you can index it if you prefer. This means that your starting weight is entered as 100, and you take one away for each pound that you lose.

@3brightstars3 you could always try it with almond milk? Plenish would work out at 1g carb for 250ml. Add to that a couple of teaspoons of Dr Oetker fine dark cocoa powder and that should be OK. It's 8.9g carbs for 100g, so a couple of teaspoons shouldn't add that much.

However please remember that we're trying to break the hold that sweet things have over us - this is why chocolate isn't allowed until after the first two weeks of Bootcamp, so I would avoid this until then!

@TheWaiting - sorry I misinterpreted your post when you said Firstly, I know milk is carby but is 2 cups a day ok?. I thought you were asking about cups of milk not cups of tea! In which case, you should be fine but just make sure it's only a little milk

3brightstars3 have you tried some of the twinings flavoured green teas? They do a cherry bakewell one which is nice and a salted caramel one. They don’t have carbs or artificial sweeteners in (although they do taste quite sweet so might not be great at retraining your palate).

I think you can get chocolate tea, but not sure if they have actual chocolate in them. Might be enough to break your hot chocolate habit.

That’s fine, don’t worry. Probably my grammar! Thanks for clearing it up. I hate milky tea so only ever put a little in but I’ll be extra careful, thanks.

@anewdispensation

This is a medium protein plan, not a high protein one. The reason people advise against high protein is because of a phenomenon known as gluconeogenesis, where the body makes glucose from protein. And as we're trying to avoid glucose this is clearly not a good thing!

It's also sometimes suggested that too much protein is bad for your kidneys, but this is really only the case for people who don't have healthy kidneys to start with.

Ahhh thanks @Biwi. I was just getting confused with some people tracking macros and weighing protein. I guess as long as it’s in moderation and I’m really strict with carbs should be fine.

The whole point of Bootcamp is that you don't have to weigh or track any of your food! But despite that, people still do ...

It's like trying to herd cats sometimes

Evening all, I've weighed in at quite possibly my heaviest weight ever. The only way is down. My first goal is to get to a healthy BMI.

Today's food has been scrambled egg and creamy coffee for breakfast, tuna mayo salad for lunch and chicken tikka salad for dinner. Still glugging water which is a challenge.

Thank you BIWI you’re putting in so much time and effort for us all!
😇

Checking in! Adding myself to spreadsheet later. Thank you to all those who have shared their positive stories - very encouraging!

B - poached egg and bacon
L - pate on gem lettuce leaves plus bit of feta and olives
D - tofu Korma, roasted aubergines with cauli rice (I know tofu isn't great but came as part of a recipe box that I forgot to cancel)

Big thanks to BIWI and the spreadsheet person 💐

I've also realised I'm probably not having enough fat. I cook my eggs & bacon in olive oil & use 15% mince. I also tend to cut fat off meat but will stop doing this.
Should I be cooking in butter as opposed to olive oil or adding butter to veg etc?

Yes, thank you BIWI for sorting us all.