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!

Well done for staying strong @Mimosa1

I too am feeling proud that I managed to stick to BC today after dealing with a poorly baby all night, and a nightmare toddler today! I would usually fill my face with biscuits on a day like this but I've had a pepperami, a babybel and a chamomile tea and feel full (and slightly less frazzled).

Need to find something easy for tea as DH is away with work so I'm on double bed time. I think I have cauli rice, anyone know if it's good stir fried? I could make a kind of egg fried rice dish?

Yes, cauli rice works in a stir-fry. Nice with prawns too.

Uuuuuurgh, sorry I’ve been AWOL, I’m in the middle of a hellish week at work and about to embark on 2 days living out of hotels on convenience food I can swipe at train stations

Planning to take chorizo crisps, pork scratchings, cheese portions in my bag to keep me fed, any other ideas of stuff I can have on me to keep my on track??

@Teapotdespot I have the same problem every now and again. If you can find a M&S they generally have low carb options in their salads. I usually end up just buying deli meats, cheeses and olives. Take time to eat a proper breakfast at the hotel or in a cafe where you can have lovely eggs, bacon, mushroom, tomatoes etc.

Does anyone have any suggestions for what I could have from a takeaway? I won't be home til after 8 (dh will beat me home by about 5 mins). At that point neither of us normally feels like cooking, and we usually have either takeaway or beige freezer food. Obviously beige freezer food is out, so takeaway is winning if I know what I can eat. We have available Indian, Chinese or Domino's (I don't think anyone is going to suggest something from Domino's, but it is available). Slightly further away are a chip shop (very unlikely to have anything even remotely low carb!) Or McDonald's. What would anyone suggest? Next week I'll have time to cook on Monday so will cook double and eat the same thing on Tuesday, but that didn't happen this week.

@MsAwesomeDragon out of the options you have, i would go for Indian and have chicken tikka which has no sauce or they sometimes do a mixed grill type starter and ask for lots of salad with it.

Personally if we have a takeaway, we go to the kebab house and I have a halloumi chicken kebab without the bread and with loads of salad and mayo

Google all the M&S locations before you go, and have a recce of their food too. Then you know you can go in and pick up a snack pot of prawns with dipping mayonnaise sauce, a Greek salad, mini sausages, some cracking sticks and don't get tempted by other delights

Agree with cheddar about finding somewhere that does a great cooked breakfast. Plan, plan, plan

I'm away at the moment. Had All Bar One skinny dirty burger for lunch (comes with crispy pancetta and gruyere, with the bun swapped for avocado and the fries swapped for salad). Tonight it's a seafood restaurant, so I think Sea bass with oyster emulsion, curly kale and the potatoes swapped for a side of broccoli and hazelnuts.

^^ that was for teapot

@CheddarGorgeous good tip on M&S, thanks for that!

Had lunch with a colleague today who ate AN ENTIRE WEDGE of Brie for lunch, turns out he’s eating keto

It showed me that there really is a world of difference between keto and boot camp, what he’s eating sounds really restrictive. The only veggies he’s eating are spinach or kale and only 1 portion per day, and the rest is meat, cheese or fat. He’s having bullet proof coffee (coffee with cream and coconut oil) for breakfast every day, lunch is cheese or a chicken (yes, a whole roast chicken ) and dinners are his 1 portion of veg, meat and ‘creamy drink’ which appears to be cream, hot water and sweetener. He’s a bit of a control freak when it comes to diet anyway (was vegan in jan last year) so I think he just enjoys the restriction of it and the challenge. He’s only doing it for January but wanted to know what I was eating because he wants to continue eating low carb but more ‘normally’.

Is anyone else getting loads of ads for ‘keto’ and ‘low carb’ diet plans? I’ve just clicked on one which was a picture of avocado on toast turns out it’s actually pretty high carb compared to BC. I think my question is, is there a cut off where low carb isn’t considered low carb anymore? Or is it all a bit of a Wild West on what can claim to be LC/ Keto? This diet seemed to only restrict white carbs (bread, pasta, white potato) but still allowed brown bread and sweet potato?

@MsAwesomeDragon I can't recommend a takeaway but this is my 8 min meal:
Put an inch of water in a pot on high;
Chop head of brocolli;
throw into water for 4 mins;
drain broc, put into large bowl and put lid of pot onto it (so it stays warm and steams a bit while you prepare sauce):
put cream to suit into pot & throw in your fav strong blue cheese (they all work) & lots of black pepper.
Heat, & pour over brocolli.

It is sumblimely delicious.

Grilled mushrooms and/or courgettes are a nice addition if you have the time.

I used to eat this before I did bootcamp and feel a bit bad about the cream & cheese. Now I celebrate it fully.

Teapot seeing as you started early you could take some nuts for emergencies. Otherwise olives in individual sachet packs, Peperamis, pork scratchings, jerky (make sure it's sugar free), tinned sardines are all low carb snacks that don't need to be refrigerated.

MsAwesome if you do get Dominoes the red hot wings are pretty low carb, I think you might be able to get a side salad too. For Indian takeaway I get tikka because it doesn't have a sauce, and cauliflower, aubergine or okra bhaji. Chinese can be more difficult but some do ribs without sauce for a starter. Anything in black bean sauce will be lower carb than most dishes. McDonalds will do any burger without the bun (you can customise them yourself if you order through the screen) and will add bacon and/or cheese to some burgers. I get two cheeseburgers without the bun and a side salad when I go to McDonalds.

That does sound good! Unfortunately, the only ingredient for that I have in the house is the broccoli. Dh would hate it as well, so not for tonight but I'll keep it in mind for next time I'm stuck.

Teapot I don't really understand why people do keto if they don't need it for medical reasons. It's great for restricting carbs but why limit protein if you don't need to? Also bulletproof coffees are good for increasing your fat intake but they're very low nutrient density. Compare that to our FLGV and being able to enjoy our food without worrying about being in ketosis or watching our macros.

Thanks @StuntNun. That gives me some options for whatever the rest of the family fancy. I'll report back with what we had.

I didn't do well yesterday as I was so busy I didn't really eat a full meal, just snacks. All low carb but nothing that counts as a meal. I did drink 4 litres of water though. I didn't drink as much water today but did have yogurt for breakfast and green soup for lunch, so doing better on eating a proper meal.

Hello everyone

Food for today (BC light)

• eggs and bacon
• pulled beef pho without noodles
• tuna, mayo and a tiny bit of corn on LC bread

Lots of (milky) tea to keep me going but needed it after last night. Sorry to hear a pp is also going through it (sorry can't go through to check who as I'm on my phone!)

I've treated myself to 2 new flavoured roibos teas 1) rhubarb and custard and 2) chocolate and mint. I don't normally like roibos but they smelled great in the fancy tea shop, so I shall report back. Added bonus is that they are decaf so will count towards our fluid intake. Onwards...

Evening all just checking in
B: FF yoghurt with sugar free vanilla essence and went wild with 5 blueberries (but they were sour, waaah)
L: chicken and salami cuc rocket salad with mayo
D: 2 sausages, with butter fried mushrooms and courgettes. Had plenty of herbal tea and earl grey with a little almond milk but not enough water yet. On it now (and prob up all night )

Right, after a tiring day battling my toddler I have had:

B scrambled eggs and spinach in butter
L cucumber and yoghurt mint dip small chunk of cheese
S pepperami babybel
D cauli rice with bacon mushrooms asparagus topped with fried egg

Only around 2L water today but also 2 peppermint teas and 2 tea with milk.

Happy birthday sayyra and also harvey for yesterday.

I spotted this on Waitrose’s Instagram page, I’ve not looked at the recipe so it might need some tweaks but thought it might appeal to us celeriac fiends!

I’ll try and post the recipe

Hi all, I'm on week 3 and it has been quite a bit of struggle. The scale shows a tiny bit of change but I'm not too worried about it. More the fact that I have been hungry quite a bit and feel I've been overeating too. Must admit that I have been eating bread made out of flax seed which is what keto group on fb recommends. Lots of chicken/salmon veg/cheese/egg/avocado/steak/double cream . Have also been eating ham/salami/chorizo. Just feel that compare to when I used to do SW I didn't feel this hungry. Just completely fixated on wanting to eat bread! I did low carb when I had gestational diabetes (diet controlled) during pregnancy and while i was still eating bread/wrap I was still losing weight and was not hungry so bit sure what the problem is now. Still early days? Any advice??

Bit of a snacking g session this evening, but tomorrow I am off work so am going to make a) cauliflower cheese with the broccoli in the cheese sauce, and b) celeriac boulangere. That should keep me going for a few evenings, might even freeze some.

The OH will probably nick some celeriac, though. The swine.

Here’s the recipe, the pesto has pine nuts in. Not sure how carby they are but might be ok for next week onwards?

www.waitrose.com/content/waitrose/en/home/recipes/recipe_directory/c/celeriac-steaks-withwinterpesto.html

I think this may be a stupid question but here goes.
My appetite has pretty much disappeared, so Im making myself eat.
B couple of chunks of cheese and ham, creamy coffee
L prawn and avacado salad, tomatoes and pork scratchings
D just a bit of cheese and a creamy coffee

Can you eat too little? Should i aim for more.

B: 3 eggs scrambled with Greek yogurt, mushrooms (from frozen, not great) spinach tomato
L: bacon.
D: chicken in tomato sauce with leaves.
Snack: spoon of peanut butter with yogurt.

Bit meh.

My takeaway crisis was averted. Dh has arrived home earlier than expected and he's made a Bolognese!! So he's having pasta with it while I'm having broccoli with mine. I can have loads of lovely cheese on the top as well, which is definitely the best bit imo.

Next question. Are there any low carb soups I can just buy for lunch on days where I haven't had time to prep anything beforehand? I can obviously look at labels but how low do they need to be for it to be ok? In an ideal world I'd be making everything from scratch, but I don't live in an ideal world and have days where it's enough of a stretch to find time to eat, let alone prepare ahead of time.

Metooplease I find faux versions of carby food made with flax seed, almond flour or coconut flour really don't agree with me at all. They're also high calorie and often not particularly low carb so they're likely to stall weight loss because of the calories and trigger hunger as a result of the increase in carb intake. I'm on a few Fb low carb/keto groups and they tend to full of Americans eating absolute rubbish because they're trying to recreate fundamentally carby foods as low carb versions rather than just eating real food which is what we promote on Bootcamp. If you're that fixated on bread then it might be worth actively avoiding it for a while. Once you've broken that addictive cycle then you could explore your options.

Lion one purpose of the rule for eating three meals a day is to stop people getting too hungry and making poor food choices. If you're happy that you can stick to low carb food then it's fine to eat according to your appetite.

MsAwesome Waitrose and Sainsburys both sell a lush Yorkshire Provender cauliflower cheese soup with kale that's 3.4g carbs per 100g. It's £2.60 for a two-portion pot. Otherwise check labels and opt for below 5g carbohydrate per 100g. Good old Heinz Cream of Chicken soup is 4.9g but I find it a bit too low on fat so I add a huge chunk of butter before reheating it. The fresh soups are likely to be lower carb than the tinned ones.