Jan '20 - Week 4 Low Carb Bootcamp - One month in!

[StuntNun]

Well done for sticking with us for four weeks! You are fat-adapted now and getting the full health benefits of this way of eating. Add your weight to the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness and let's see how everyone has done. Don't forget that it's typical for weight loss to pause at some point in weeks 3-5 but so long as you are following the rules you are still losing fat!

I know a few of you have been missing meals, whether by accident or design, so I'd like to start talking about intermittent fasting this week if anyone is interested? It's completely optional so don't feel that you should fast if you don't want to. I still think it's worth finding out more about intermittent fasting, how it works, when and why you might want to introduce it, and what it feels like to fast... spoiler alert it doesn't involve feeling hungry!

[El2El]

2lbs down after a gain last week. I'm weighing every morning and weight has plateued for a few days. Hard to stay motivated when that happens BUT I found some photos to compare and the difference in my face is so drastic! I'm really pleased and will look at the photos to remind myself how far I've come. Getting much better at drinking all the water since I started using a water bottle (but my toddler also likes drinking from it so I need to keep it out of her reach!) Well done everyone!

[AthelstaneTheUnready]

Stayed the same here (for a couple of weeks now) BUT have lost 3.5" this last week, so clearly am getting smaller - which is, after all, the point of it all.

Have been busy this last week so meals have slipped a bit - in that, I'm eating most of the ingredients/veg, just not all at the same time on the same plate. Will try to be more organised this week.

[venusandmars]

nux oh please keep going. I can promise you one thing, if you revert to carbs, sugars etc you WILL see the pounds going back on. And that would be such a waste of your efforts over the last 3 weeks. I believe that this is a really healthy way of eating - some protein, lots of green vegetables etc. Over the course of bootcamp you will learn (and put into practice) lots of good ways of eating: not needing to snack, finding easy options for when you're out, watching out for portion size, drinking lots of water, finding out that your tastebuds have changed and maybe don't even like sugar anymore, perhaps learning about intermittent fasting...

If you stick to the rules you WILL lose weight. It might not be as fast as the first couple of weeks but it will be sustainable, and the weight that you lose will be fat, especially from round your belly. KOKO

[CheddarGorgeous]

I'm back to my week 2 weight after gaining in week 3.

I'm pretty happy with that. My during-the-week eating is good but my weekend eating and especially water intake has been much more hit and miss. I'm re-programming my eating one step at a time so for now I'm happy I can ignore all the carbs at work and at home. Next I need to crack low carb socialising

[Rayna37]

126.2lbs so good and bad:

On the negative side, still 1lb more than at the end of week one, still 6lbs to target and just the wrong side of 9 stone.

On the (much more important) bright side, that's still 3lbs off overall, half a lb this week despite an appalling cheat on Saturday, and most significantly my lowest weight this week (Thursday again) was 123.8lb so half a lb less than my lowest the week before.

This is around the point where I wonder why I bother signing up for bootcamp as I'm honestly incapable of sticking to the rules fully so close to target. However I like the chat, I always pick up at least one or two new tips/tricks/recipes each time that become part of my life and for that I think it is worth it. I am still much stricter when bootcamping than I am in maintenance (I'm a moderator not an abstainer and relatively carb tolerant, but I can still get a bit carried away) and so overall, a few bootcamps a year do me good.

Would like to learn more about IF; cannot imagine doing it on a work day but yet easily can go until lunch without eating on a weekend (though will have had a tea/coffee with milk so not 100%) so need to think about that a bit more! DH does it quite a lot.

[GuyMartinsSideburns]

Morning. Could someone add my weight please - 139. Thanks very much!

Under 10 stone for the first time in ages so I was really pleased to see that this morning! Have a great day all

[BIWI]

If you've dropped breakfast (or dinner), because you're no longer hungry - then welcome to intermittent fasting!

I know @StuntNun knows a huge amount more about IF than do I, but everything I've read indicates that it's not only good for weight loss but also it's good for your health as well. Fasting gives your body a chance to heal itself - in a state called 'autophagy'.

Dr Michael Moseley incorporates fasting into his latest plan, the Fast 800, and there are different levels of fasting - 12:12 would be the easiest one, I think. Essentially this means that you stop eating in the evening - say around 8pm - and then don't eat anything from then for another 12 hours, so nothing till 8am. 16:8 is the same principle, but you don't eat anything (or drink anything other than water or black tea/coffee) till 12 noon.

[absopugginglutely]

Hi all,
The parents of the children I teach clubbed together to buy afternoon tea for me and my colleagues at Christmas and yesterday was the earliest we could go. It was all carbs but I had planned a day off the wagon so I’m terrified to weigh myself this morning even though it wasn’t that big. I had a headache and felt really nauseous afterwards because I’ve been doing this WOE pretty strictly for four whole months now.

Anyway just found a fondue kit in Waitrose and am wondering if anyone could give me some good suggestions for what to dip in it?

Also I picked up some low carb bread I’ll try to attach a photo. It claims to be 3.8g per slice so I’ll keep it in the freezer.

Do we think this bread is acceptable on this WOE (I’m 2lbs off goal weight last week when I checked!)

[moleeye]

I wasn't going to post as then I'll have to admit how badly I fell off the wagon this weekend. I'm so annoyed at myself and I'm feeling pretty ropey and windy

In fact one could argue I set fire to said wagon and threw it off a cliff to ensue the damage was complete.

I won't go into detail on what I ate on my binge fest, however I'm back on it today and am already 3L down.

So I'm up 2lb. Self sabotaging at its finest.

Only 7 weeks until I'm back at work so need to keep focused!

[sheepysheep]

Urgh I’m still hovering around 151lb but it’s TOTM so I’m hoping for a better result next week. A week in America didn’t do me any favours - all the right food thanks to self catering and dinner meetings in decent restaurants but overindulgence never the less. Unfortunately there were night flights at both ends of the trip = bloated, tired feeling. When I got home the hens had gone into overdrive (I’m not sure why with the shite weather we are having up north!) so I’ve done a lot of baking (not for me!) and will be eating mostly eggs and butter until Wednesday when I’m off to Scotland with work.

I often IF when I’m working from home by missing breakfast but I don’t like doing it when I’m working away as I worry about being stuck somewhere and getting HANGRY / making poor food choices. Also it’s nice to start the day with a cooked breakfast when you’re in a hotel and someone else is cooking / clearing it up :-)

Please don’t be despondent if you’re not losing ... trust the process and keep on keeping on. And I bet even if the scales are the same then your measurements aren’t.

It’s just under four weeks til I get married so I’m going to try very hard this week not to over eat. I tried my dress on yesterday and though I’ve not lost much more than 2lb since I bought it (off the peg as we only decided to get married a few weeks ago) it fitted better so it’s definitely working :-D

[MrsBertBibby]

Oooh well done sheepy!

[BrassicaBabe]

Morning Losers! Some great losses there. I'm another one wanting to get under 10 stone. 10.4.6 was my lowest on Saturday so half a lb off. (No shift at all for me on the tape measure either. Guessing those kind of benefits are only for first time BCers 🤔)

I happily IF 16:8. Normally without a problem
Although clock watching today 🤣 I normally eat in the 12-8 window.

I'm having a moment of eating from the freezer. I've found some cod fillets. Does anyone have a recipe recommendation?

[Rshard]

Those that IF, do you do it every day? Or can it be done well, intermittently?? I have two very early starts and I don’t think I’d last until lunch time on those days.

[StuntNun]

I have a poorly DS at home today so I'm juggling work with nursing him better and not much time to keep up with the thread I'm afraid.

Nux I promise it will work. KOKO! And Cherries you KOKO too - you know this works and the scales are just being tricksy buggers.

I hope you're on the mend now Rodez. When you're sick you need to put your health first. Most people who have had a vomiting bug want something plain like toast or crackers when they're first ready to eat again and IMO that's fine, especially if you haven't eaten for a day or two.

Notwatching how doesn't your 'D'H know that the chicken skin is the best bit? Food of the gods

Back in the wagon Moleeye it happens to all of us. The weight will come off as quickly as it went on once you're back on track.

We'll get round to the IF chat ASAP Rshard but 16:8 works best if you do it at least three days a week.

[TheClitterati]

another gain - 3lb this week.
So I had huge loss (which I am now gaslighting myself about) and have been gaining ever since. I'm now just 3lb of starting weight - at this rate I'll be back there in a week.

NB - I went to a party on Saturday and had 4 drinks of wine and a small piece of choc/raspberry pav with cream. It was delicious. In week 3 I had about 50 gms max of almonds. Apart from this I have been following BC rules 100%, with the only exception being water as I had a few days of lower water intake - I'm addressing that today. I find this WOE extremely easy to follow - but it is making me gain weight! So strange.

I have been an overeater in the past, but have got a good handle on that the last few years so I think my portion sizes are OK.

WOE aside, its hard to believe that I can stop eating all sugar & refined carbs, all fruit, all alcohol, for 4 weeks (I stopped eating refined carbs/alcohol etc 6th Jan) and not lose weight. I must be eating too much fat. Or possibly the dairy?

I'm still going though - will stay on BC light and pick up the water intake.

If anyone is interested, here is 3 days eating from last week - its pretty typical of what I am eating each day:

Sunday
Creamy coffee
Brunch - head of broccoli with cream/blue cheese/spring onion sauce
Dinner - roast chicken, broccoli, coleslaw (homemade - red & green cabbage, carrott (little) spring onion, with some Hellmans mayo)
Snack - celery & peanut butter (tablespoon)
3 litres of water

Monday
Creamy coffee
brunch - 2 egg Omelette cooked in butter, mushrooms, rocket, knob of goat cheese.
Dinner - cold roast chicken, coleslaw (homemade - red & green cabbage, carrott (little) spring onion, with some Hellmans mayo) & salad (lettuce, toms, cucumber).
Snack - about 50gms of almonds
Taramasalata (5gms carb) with celery
all the water

Tuesday
Creamy coffee
B - mushroom fried in olive oil & 2 eggs in butter
L - cold roast chicken salad (lettuce, rocket, 4 cherry toms, fennell), knob of goat cheese, Hellmans mayo
D - corgetti in olive oil with bolognaise sauce (homemade with 20% fat mince, tom paste, tinned tom, leets, shallots, celery, 2 carrots, bit of stock - I made 4 portions).
3.5 litres of water (I should be having 4.5 ltrs)

[CheddarGorgeous]

I'm interested in IF but I probably do 12:12 most days anyway just because of when I eat meals. What could I do differently to make it work for me?

Today:

B - 2 scrambled eggs with some cheddar cheese
L - chicken salad
D - roast pork with FLGV

I've had about 1.5 litres of water already.

Well done the losers, KOKO the stallers. There's No Going Back

[ShagMeRiggins]

Harvey and Pink I’ve added your weights.

I’m 4lbs down over these three weeks, which is fine by me. I’ve been doing BC Lite all along (sshhh) so it’s steady and expected.

[Nux]

Thanks for all the positive messages all! No breakfast, broccoli and Stilton soup and salad for lunch - going to make bunless burgers and veg for supper. Trying to make sure I keep up my water intake, I think it slips at weekends - I will KOKO!

[prettybird]

Down 1.75lb to 11st 5.5lb That's 10lb since I started I started a week early though so this is Week 5 for me.

Might have got an even better result if I hadn't shared a really good bottle of red wine last night with dh to go with our steaks

We were celebrating the end of a successful weekend though: 2 nice meals out with ds up in Aberdeen (already described the first one; the second one was at a great find, an Indian where I had one of the 6 chicken pakora, so a wee bit of gram flour, and lamb tikka served with fried onions and a separate sauce which I didn't have much of plus a green salad and I forewent the very nice looking peshwari nan); and (the purpose of our trip) ds' rugby team won and he got Man of the Match , with the Twitter feed describing it young [ds] with a flawless kicking display (he scored 17 of the 24 points- 1 try typical opportunistic scrum half try , 2 penalties and 3 conversions). It was the first time we'd watched him in a competitive senior game - and he looked confident (proud mum alert ).

Struggled a bit with the water yesterday travelling back - but I did my best to make up for it once we got home. I'm also trying to up my FLGV today

[Rayna37]

@BrassicaBabe I like cod wrapped in parma ham or streaky bacon, covered in creme fraiche and with green pesto dotted on and a sprinkling of pine nuts. Serve with FLGV. Or more simply, roasted in the oven with a tray of roasted veg i.e. green beans, courgette, maybe red onions and yellow/orange peppers.

I have noticed though reasonably tolerant to dairy, to keep losing I do need to keep my meals simpler i.e. meat/fish with buttery FLGV, and limit the epic cauliflower cheeses and celeriac dauphinoise etc. Common sense really.

[truelove]

0.4lb off. Very slowly coming off but only 5lbs to get to target so to be expected I guess. My weight had been 2lbs up most of the week but I’ve started doing Fast 5 (eating in a 5 hour window from 5-10pm) to kickstart the weight loss. I had milk in tea and coffee the first couple of days but then read Delay Don’t Deny yesterday and did clean fasts (water and black coffee/tea only) yesterday and today and finding it easier.

[ShagMeRiggins]

GuyMartin your weight has been added.

[bibliomania]

Stayed the same. I will confess that moving to boot carb light made me think I could experiment with healthy carbs, so I have eaten oat groats and a bean soup over the weekend. I've always understood them to have health benefits, and it's hard to let go of that idea. Eating vegetables loaded with olive oil and/or butter isn't a problem, but I'm a bit tired of meat/eggs/cheese.

I realize that this isn't in the spirit or letter of this WOE and I don't want to miss out on the benefits of being fat-adapted, so I'll rein back on my carb experiments once I've done a proper shop this evening.

[BrassicaBabe]

Thanks Rayna. I have streaky bacon in the fridge so that's a goer.

I'm the same too. If I eat cauli cheese or celariac dauphinois then that's a gain on the table. Such a shame!

[Doilooklikeatourist]

I’m putting myself as stayed the same , I wasn’t home to weigh this morning , we had a lovely ( if blustery ) couple of days by the sea
KOKO ..