Jan '20 - Week 2 Low Carb Bootcamp - How did you do?

[StuntNun]

We've already seen some fab results, especially from those who started early. We do expect a big variation in the first weigh in. Some of you will have lost several pounds, some a more modest loss. Others won't have lost anything yet either because some healing is needed before weight loss begins in earnest, or because they didn't quite manage to stick to the rules during the first week.

So please check in with us to reflect on how your first week has gone. Try not to compare yourself to others because weight loss is a very individual thing. If you have any concerns about your progress then please do ask. We have had thousands of people through Bootcamp so make use of that collective experience.

Add your weight to the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness or tag the rather wonderful ShagMeRiggins with your weigh-in if you can't access the spreadsheet yourself. If you're only just starting then please tag the very lovely AthelstaneTheUnready to be added to the spreadsheet. And to anybody that suspected they couldn't lose weight while eating lots of lovely food, and without feeling hungry... I hope you enjoyed being proved wrong!

Ended up quite off plan last night and paying the price on the scales.
Yesterday I just had a coffee before parkrun then my usual late breakfast/early lunch: two lovely chorizo style sausages, two fried eggs and sautéed mushrooms.
Went out in the evening to meet friends we rarely see, kept to two glasses of red but ended up eating Thai (which I think was better than the pizza I would usually have there) but I ate more rice than I would have liked. Couldn't spot any low carb sides. I'd had my hopes on some curry goat with veg but the place I think does it wasn't open.

Running again this morning but have haggis in for a belated burns night so not great food again tonight.

Looking forward to BC light (and have had the occasional handful of nuts and one square of chocolate in the last week) mainly for occasional wine and so I can take low carb "porridge" to work after early swims and have nuts as a mid morning snack. Wouldn't care if I never ate fruit again.

BOOTCAMP LIGHT RULE CHANGES

1. Eat when you are hungry.
Be guided by your appetite. You won’t need as many snacks as at the start of Bootcamp and you may find yourself skipping or delaying meal times. Make sure you don’t let yourself get too hungry or you may end up eating something carby. Aim to eat two to four times a day depending on what works best for you.

2. Avoid processed foods.

3. Eat lots 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 per day.

7. Alcohol is allowed occasionally.
Wine and champagne are low carb and can be made into a spritzer with soda water or sparkling water. Clear spirits and soda water are carb-free. For tonic water, decide which is the lesser of two evils: the artificial sweeteners in slimline, or the sugar in light tonics such as Fever Tree. Remember that alcohol calories are always burned first so alcohol stops fat burning. It’s also empty calories so alcohol will slow down your weight loss. My advice is to set yourself a limit, e.g. only x units per week, or only on x nights per week.

8. Up to one portion of fruit per day.
Strawberries, raspberries and blackberries are lowest carb and a portion is 50-100g. If there is any fruit you’re particularly missing then look it up on Diet Doctor because it might be okay for an occasional treat.

9. Nuts and seeds in small quantities.
Nuts are easy to overeat and a typical bag is 600 calories! I suggest weighing out 1-2 ounces at first so that you can learn how much a portion is - it’s probably much smaller than you think. Avoid cashews and pistachios which are high carb. Pecans and Brazil nuts are lowest carb, followed by macadamia, walnuts, hazelnuts, peanuts and almonds. Pumpkin seeds, pine nuts, chia seeds and sunflower seeds are also allowed in small quantities.

10. No sugar and limit artificial sweeteners.
If you would like to experiment with low carb baking there are lots of recipes out there to try. Some people respond to artificial sweeteners as if they were sugar so you’ll need to be guided by how you feel as they may make you more hungry or cause cravings.

Oops I forgot to mention chocolate! You can have a small amount of dark chocolate on Bootcamp Light; I suggest no more than 20g per day.

Thanks for posting that @StuntNun

Before you all leap out and start gnawing on chocolate and handfuls of nuts and drinking pints of gin, please also remember that weeks 3 and 4 - sometimes even 5 - are notoriously bad weeks for weight loss for a lot of people. You may find that your weight loss stops altogether or that you even gain weight, even if you're being really strict.

So bear this in mind before you rush off to Bootcamp Light!

@StuntNun can explain the science behind this far better than I've ever managed, but it's worth saying that I see this phenomenon being widely reported by people doing the Fast800 diet as well, so it's not just restricted to Bootcamp.

The weeks 3-5 stall is hormone-driven BIWI so you would expect it to happen on any form of weight loss that depletes glycogen reserves such as low carb, keto, intermittent fasting and on extreme calorie restriction diets such as Fast800 or Cambridge.

👍

Oops I forgot to mention chocolate!

I can't recommend enough the Montezuma 100% dark chocolate (with or without orange bits) - it has a much better 'mouthfeel' than any other 100% (or 90% upwards) that I've tried, some of which have been truly disgusting (cough, Lindt, cough).

It's 8g carbs per 100g - comes in bars of 100g - and is very difficult to eat more than 2 or 3 squares because it's extremely satisfying. Probably because it's 54g of fat per 100 .

Am cheerleading for it because I need them to stay in business so I can keep eating it.

Ive been doining really well on BC and dont have any carb cravings. Luckily ive never been a fan of bread, pots, pasta and only got into them in later years and my weight recketed once i started to eat them. I really think im just not suited to them in my diet. This WOE is a revelation!

I did have chinese yesterday, beef in blackbean, prawn chop suey. I darnt weigh in this morning and will pray to the diet gods before tomorrows weigh in.

Lots of water, and a food shop to stock up on food for the rest of the week.
I have two meals out and drinks on Friday. So next week will be interesting!

Good almond scone recipe (except stupid American cups)

2 cups almond flour
1 tsp baking powder
Salt
2 eggs
1/3 cup melted butter.

Mix together and bake for 15 mins.

It hits that bread spot if you need it. Ground almonds are ok but a bit gritty. Never yet found almond flour!

Sorry, shape into blobs before baking! It's very filling, I generally make half the recipe at a time.

@MrsBertBibby - you can buy finely ground almond flour at Holland & Barrett. I have some, but can't vouch for it as I haven't tried it yet.

I'm considering trying to make some gnochhi with it (using celeriac rather than potato, obviously!) but not quite sure if that will work.

Food today...

BF: Creamy coffee and piece of cheese
L: Omelette and buttered cavelo Nero
D: Often not hungry, but have some cold meats

Usual drinks and water!

Thanks BIWI

Morning
Last night I fried some shredded cabbage and that instead of noodles/rice with my Thai green curry, it worked really well and I think I almost preferred it, definitely did not feel short changed.
Have started to drink a cup of boiled water first thing, that is also working well.
For those who are desperate for something to go on top of yogurt etc, have you tried Linwoods , flaxseed, sunflower and pumpkin seeds , I have a teaspoon on my yogurt and have used it to replace nuts, per 100g it is 45.7g fat and 3.8g carbs, it is on the useful low carb products list. It is great, But you would not want to eat loads of it so may be less dangerous than something like granola and also no prep required.
B Total Greek yogurt, Tsp cream, Tsp Linwoods, Tsp frozen crumbed raspberries
L scrambled eggs and avocado (did not manage it yesterday)
D roast chicken, Flgv

3 litres water

Good luck to any one weighing in tomorrow

MrsBertBibby - I've bought some proper milled Amazon flour from Amazon. Haven't used it yet though, as it's quite expensive and for most purposes, ground almonds are ok.

Been away for a few days in Skye (and no, we didn't see the Cuillins ) and managed to stick on track (given I'm in Week 3 so Boot Camp Light). Did have two Gin and (Fevertree light) tonics on Friday night and a small glass of wine on Thursday night (and another one last night after we'd got home as dh opened a nice bottle) but apart from that stayed on this WoE.

Was properly prepared for the car journey with Babybels, Pepperami, bags of Golden Pork Crunch (which is lovely) and pork crackling and bottles of water. So while dh and SIL munched on the big bag of old-fashioned sweeties that she'd bought to share with "re-discovered" SIL, I had my HFLC appropriate snacks during the 5 hour drive.

Plus cos we were staying in a hotel, I was able to have a nice big cooked breakfast (and gave dh the tottie scone).

I also made a batch of tablet to take up to "new" SIL and didn't have a single piece (I'd even done the soft ball stage test by eye/feel and throughout the resulting soft ball of pure sugar ).

My was rewarded this morning with 11st 6.25lb - down a 1lb from last Monday (although just down 0.25lb from last Sunday ).

Burns Supper tonight so I'll have a small amount of carbs in the haggis (the barley) and in the cranachan (rolled oats - but I'll caramelise them with Inulin rather than sugar) and a few small glasses of good wine

Starter is going to be seared scallops on a small slice of Stornoway black pudding and creamed celeriac with crispy streaky bacon and some rocket.

I'll be having my haggis with a giant portion of buttery mashed neeps and not bothering with the mashed potato.

That reminds me, I need to get the raspberries (home grown) out of the freezer for the cranachan.

I bought some jeans a size smaller at the start of bootcamp - I could just about do them up though had a massive muffin top, now they fit well!!!

That's brilliant glittercandle

Well done glitter. Talk us through these jeans....

Just discovered my new favourite brunch. Left-over haggis, mixed with left-over mashed neeps, shaped into a sort of burger. Accompanied with left-over roasted cauliflower. All fried alongside fried egg. Yummy, yummy, yummy.

D - Spinach soup, then, cauliflower cheese bites and salad.

Awesome @glittercandle well done.

I'm not drinking enough water at weekends. I'm out and about or pottering around all the time and it's harder to keep sipping away than when I'm at my desk at work. On the plus side I'm less sedentary and less prone to boredom/stress eating pangs.

Today:

B - sautéed mushrooms with cream and garlic
L - leftover bolognese
D - chicken, bacon and mushroom casserole with FLGV
DH likes a pudding on Sundays so he's made meringues which bizarrely I don't like so am not tempted by. It's not his cooking, I've been reliably told they're amazing by meringue connoisseurs

I'm not expecting a happy scales tomorrow given my Friday transgressions but I have a good week coming up in terms of meals, work, exercise etc. so am focusing on the following Monday instead.

Thanks for the Bootcamp light rules @StuntNun. Looking forward to a few berries this week and have been eating nuts already as a veggie. I am in the habit of eating a few almonds out of boredom so must try and nip this in the bud this week and have a glass of water instead. Will probably save chocolate for weekends as I’m not really missing it (amazingly!) but it is my weakness and if I know it’s in the cupboard......
Love the sound of the almond scones @MrsBertBibby Any idea what a cup equates to?

Here's an online converter. It depends on the ingredient, because you're going from a volume to a weight. Honestly, I have no idea how Americans go about measuring cups of butter, for instance. I never remember to ask.

I grew up with cup measures as we lived there for some years, so mum brought back a load of US cookbooks (and her cup measures) but man they irritate the crap out of me, even so.

www.thecalculatorsite.com/cooking/cups-grams.php

D'oh

Thanks for that! Will give them a try.

Finally worked out how to edit the SoF from my iPad - two taps on the cell do the trick (another d’oh! moment which may assist others who were struggling to update it from phones/iPads)

NSV - an odd one, but insomnia has kicked in and I ended up binge-watching Jamie's veg programme. Usually that would result in mainlining buttered sourdough toast but it didn't happen - I just didn't get the "pang" to start eating anything.