Leaving Lockdown Low Carb Bootcamp - week 9

[BIWI]

Morning all! Nice, bright and early today because I woke up at stupid o'clock

As ever, here's the spreadsheet

Just two weeks left!

Hopefully we're all in the swing of things, but if you've found things slowing or slipping a little, why not go back to strict Bootcamp for these last two weeks?

It's very easy to let the carbs slip back into the daily menu, so a focused effort on keeping them at bay might be a good plan.

Thanks to everyone who talked me through the fasting bit. I'm going to do some more reading but love the idea that something is better than nothing rather than not fasting at all in order to be perfect. I'm going to have to work my way up to that!

DH has bought the fancy sausages from the butcher as a treat so going to enjoy them shortly. KOKO all.

Just checking in. . .

1lb off for me so that's 22 lbs/ 1 st 8lb off.

Got caught out yesterday and ordered a pea and mint soup and an avocado side salad (they were out of any fish or meat i like and everything else on menu was super carby) peas obviously not great but doing my best under busy and rushed circumstances.

Another long day ahead for work then tomorrow off, phew!

I'm enjoying 'Keto Kitchen' by Monya Kilian Palmer.

The recipes are UK ones (so no odd fibre- carbs counting) and mostly ok with our WOE.

(I usually just adapt recipies from my ordinary books but there are some good ideas in this new one - and some keto favourites.)

With holidays I think a lot is down to the individual. Some people view food and/or alcohol as an integral part of their enjoyment while others are happy to stick to low carb/low alcohol as far as possible. As Shag points out, sometimes the food environment doesn't lend itself to low carb and you can only make the "least worst" choice rather than the best choice. But overall I think everyone has to pursue their own course. That might be:

(a) Eat and drink whatever I want and deal with the consequences afterwards, maybe by doing a fast or an egg fast or strict Bootcamp.
(b) Allow myself e.g. one dessert every day or two alcoholic drinks a day but otherwise stay on plan.
(c) Attempt to stick to low carb as far as possible.

I personally aim for weight maintenance on holiday as that works best for me. So I'll generally stick to low carb but I might have a dessert every so often or a drink or two.

On holiday I plan for (c) moving swiftly to (b) ending up at (a)! 🤣😩. Definitely a few days of egg fast in return is a start.

Hello everyone, been really busy with lots of end of term picnics and pirate treasure hunts etc. Haven’t caught up on the thread properly.

WRT hols I think it depends where you go. For me part of the holiday is gastronomic tourism, so I like to eat local food that I wouldn’t have at home, but some lends itself better to LC than others. We went to Lanzarote and I put on 9lb in 9 days which was mainly due to paella, mojos potatoes and honey rum. But then we went to Corfu and I only put on 2lb in 12 days and that was due to Greek salads, grilled fish, and retsina.

Speaking of holidays I just did a very nice Greek/Turkish lunch as my parents came over. I did it mainly ‘Based on’ Rick Stein recipes from his Venice to Istanbul or Mediterranean escapes books - 1st one lamb shoulder steaks (which I bought 650g frozen for a fiver from Iceland) and potatoes (replaced with celeriac) in lemon and garlic in the slow cooker. 2nd dish Kisir but replaced bulgar wheat with blitzed cauliflower roasted in harissa and cumin. 3rd dish a Venetian prawn recipe fried in olive oil, chilli and garlic and with parsley. 4th Cacik. And 5th a feta saganaki, a big green herb salad and followed with a huge platter of local Kent cherries and strawberries and blackberries from my garden. Eaten in the sunshine with the sun on my back and a couple of glasses of cold white. I felt like I was on holiday. Best meal I’ve had in ages.

Food is often part of a holiday for me too and I like to try local dishes. This year we have a week self-catering in the U.K. which will make things much easier!

Ive just had prawns and Salmon fried in olive oil garlic, paprika and chilli , over a lovely crunchy lettuce, celery and cucumber salad, lime squeezed over ..
Delicious ..
Eaten early because Im doing 16:8 and so hungry early and with no DH here atm .. I can ! ( I would have loved a white wine with it , but no ice water and lime wedge )

All this talk of holiday eating, I love French or Spanish supermarket and markets but like sulis, we’ll be just having a few days in the UK this year so…

Your lunch sounds amazing mrskoala

@BrassicaBabe

On holiday I plan for (c) moving swiftly to (b) ending up at (a)! 🤣😩. Definitely a few days of egg fast in return is a start.

I don’t mean to be unkind, but

That describes so many.

Holidays. Psychology. Why??!!

@MrsKoala

Hello everyone, been really busy with lots of end of term picnics and pirate treasure hunts etc. Haven’t caught up on the thread properly.

WRT hols I think it depends where you go. For me part of the holiday is gastronomic tourism, so I like to eat local food that I wouldn’t have at home, but some lends itself better to LC than others. We went to Lanzarote and I put on 9lb in 9 days which was mainly due to paella, mojos potatoes and honey rum. But then we went to Corfu and I only put on 2lb in 12 days and that was due to Greek salads, grilled fish, and retsina.

I’m desperate to go to Greece. Santorini is an obvious choice (basically blue & white, like Sydney, though Crete and other areas are tempting.

Don’t know enough about Lanzarote to understand their menu. I’m reasonably well-travelled so it’s very interesting to hear about places I’ve never visited, and the food there in.

You can so tell we have been all locked up for too long. This talk of holidays and great food...I really wish I didn’t love pasta as much as I do.

Your afternoon entertaining menu MrsK sounded absolutely delicious!

Greek islands are my favourite places in the world (my kids and I all have Greek names for no reason other than we love it there so much). Each usually has its own local specialties but then they have many common dishes and flavours. Cyprus is probably the most different. @ShagMeRiggins have you ever been to anywhere in Greece? One of my favourite islands is a smaller island called Thassos which is lovely for walkng and you can get to Istanbul easily if you want to travel on somewhere (but they have a very nice traditional baked pasta dish called pasitsio which is very good there, and the best spanakopita I’ve tasted, so not so good for LC). I love Crete because of Knossos and the legend of the Minotaur. Corfu is very verdant and lush. Rhodes has lots of historical sites especially round Rhodes town. Santorini is seriously gorgeous and expensive as is the harbour area at Skiathos.

My dream when the kids have buggered off is to go island hoping for a few months round the islands. But for now I just eat the food and watch travel/history programmes. We sometimes go for hols but as we have small dc it tends to be family AI hotels etc. Not exactly the long boozy lunches round a fishing harbour of my youth.

Ooh @MrsKoala that all sounds fabulous! Definite lockdown dreaming going on here. We may have a short week in France depending on a certain major motor racing event. In September.

Tonight is salmon baked with butter and some spices, with egg fried cauli rice and a pak choi.

Tomorrow I have online German class until late, so easy tea (as in, I have made it today!) of minced beef stroganoff with grated courgette. Cant wait for its creaminess!!

I am in a bizarre stage of losing cm but not weight, I really want to heft myself down to a healthy weight!

Oh I’m so sad we’re not getting our two weeks of luxury in Kos this summer. We actually should have been there now but DP couldn’t take so long off and as it was a very expensive holiday we didn’t want to risk it not being as enjoyable due to corona.

However we’ve just booked 5 nights in Palma for 3 weeks time. Does anyone else get huge pleasure trawling the internet and TripAdvisor for all the best restaurants to eat at while on holiday?? I must have spent about 6 hours reading reviews and looking at photos of tapas today and I’ve managed to book 2 restaurants

On the low carb front I’ve now lost 3lbs since last Monday when I decided to get tough. Also got DP to take photos of me last night in my holiday bikini to look at when I need some motivation to keep going and to track progress

Ooo interesting conversation.

Its a big birthday for me in about 18mo.

Where could DH fly from (gatwick, Manchester or Bristol) in less than 4 hours for a week childless that would be absolutely amazing? I.e really luxurious, some little activities but mainly just lazing around eating and drinking with gorgeous views?

Morning all, have any of you had any tummy problems with this WOE? For the past week I have been having cramps/wind/loose stools (but grateful I am now going daily again!). Could be stress at work I suppose. I am eating exactly as I have been since starting bootcamp - lots of fresh salads, greek yoghurt, cheese, eggs, meat, gin wine . I know I should probably cut the alcohol but have having some all through this with no bad tummy. Grateful for ideas/telling off.

Sparkles I have some days. I think its when I eat lots more fat (and surprisingly, given that they are supposed to act the opposite) more eggs...

I have the opposite problem Sparkles. Think it’s because I’ve been eating quite a lot of eggs recently.

All this holiday talk is making me feel dreamy. I've just booked long haul over Christmas to a beachy destination and can not wait. I'm hoping that by then, things will easier travel wise. We've had to cancel trips in Feb, rebooked for Easter, rebooked for August and now finally fingers crossed for December! It's been Covid related except for Feb and I'm cannot wait to go! Now just need the beach body! (Joke - all
Bodies are beach bodies already of course).

DH said to me yesterday that we should keep LCarbing at least until the end of the year, which really surprised me. He's now thinking woe rather than diet, so we've agreed to stick to this in the medium term, not just until hitting a certain weight. I think it will be good for me as I'm good at LOOSING weight and dreadful at KEEPING IT OFF so recognising this is for the long haul is a good thing, even beyond next year.

Happily, the scale is now telling me I'm ever so slightly closer to the top end of overweight than the low end of obese. Onwards!

8Track do you mind my asking the company you’re using for online language class?

Lots of places that tick those boxes taking, but 18 months would be December/January so it you want warmth - you mentioned lazing around, you might need to go a bit further than 4 hours? Canaries are lovely that time of year. There are some very smart hotels around and various trips to do.

Still a bit nervous of booking any trips but very envious of those that have!

@Mimosa1 I too can't go back to how I used to eat; this isn't just a diet for me. It's changed my relationship with food and probably saved me from developing diabetes in later life.

The maintenance point is key I think. Like many of us I imagine, I have lost lots of weight previously on unsustainable diets that have left me hungry and led to binges. This time feels different.

@Rshard

Lots of places that tick those boxes taking, but 18 months would be December/January so it you want warmth - you mentioned lazing around, you might need to go a bit further than 4 hours? Canaries are lovely that time of year. There are some very smart hotels around and various trips to do.

Still a bit nervous of booking any trips but very envious of those that have!

Oh yes, totally managed to forget I'm a winter baby 😂

The problem with long haul is that I don't want to take the kids so I'd only want to be gone monday-friday or so... because mum guilt.... so I'm loathed to fly further for time spent travelling etc

But you're right, we'll probably have to go long haul to get any decent weather won't we!