2020 Pre-Christmas Low Carb Bootcamp. The first week!

[BIWI]

Welcome all.

Well what a strange year this has been! If you're anything like me, food, meals and eating have been all over the place. And that's before we think about the booze.

I found lockdown an odd mix of feeling like I was on holiday but it was also the end of the world. So what was the point of worrying about my diet?

I am lucky, relatively, in that we don't have small children to worry about educating. We also have a nice house and garden, and as me and DH have recently retired, don't have to worry about work. So we were very much advantaged over many people.

But still, the diet/drinking was all to pot. And with the inevitable result.

So we're now in the run up to Christmas - traditionally a time when diets go out of the window, and we start to indulge ourselves. Who knows what's going to happen this year though?!

So with that in mind, it's a good time to try and be focused and aim to have a bit of discipline! This Bootcamp, as with most others, will last for 10 weeks, which will take us right up to Christmas week.

(I truly hope that we'll all be able to spend Christmas with our loved ones, but who knows?)

With grateful thanks to @AthelstaneTheUnready, here is the Spreadsheet of Exceptional Fabulousness .

You should find that you're on the spreadsheet. A couple of things:

• if you don't want to record your weight every week, that's absolutely fine. Just don't do it!
• if you're not on it, just add your name to the bottom - don't try and re-alphabatize it - we'll sort it out later

The spreadsheet isn't just a place to record your weight though - have a good look at it, and the tabs - there's loads of information on there, including a veg carb counter and lots of stuff about low carbing in general. You'll also find Bootcamp rules there.

Mmm cheese.
And I might have to start a Pataks paste fan club. Love those little pots.

Had indulgent cooked breakfast of egg, mushrooms, bacon, tomatoes cooked in butter and oil with scrape of marmite on side of plate as seasoning. By the way, if you're looking for an umami hit, Sainsbury's own brand marmite with blue lid is better than the real thing!

Im so reassured that from the evidence below and StuntNun reply, i can stop feeling bad about not being able to do fast 800.

On the back of what others have said about how many people BC has reached .... often beyond the threads.... I can safely say that boot camp has revolutionised my life.

I’m not a prolific poster but I like to lurk. I’m a geeky, introverted scientist so I’m not that chatty! I started my first BC in Jan 2016, lost more than 4st and have mostly kept it off. I travel a lot for work and it’s the best WOE for me.

Since 2015 and losing the weight I’ve got into sport: I’ve run several marathons, many century rides, done a coast to coast triathlon for charity, completed the London classics and now commute to work on my bike (even when WFH, I have a 10k loop). I am fitter, healthier, happier and more confident and capable than I’ve ever been and the root of it all was finding low carb / boot camp and being encouraged to ditch everything I thought I knew (my academic background is nutrition!!! I haven’t worked in the industry for >15 years as I ended up doing something different, and whilst I’m sure things have changed now when I was learning it was all “low fat, lots of carbs”).

Boot camp and finding this WOE has been the best thing ever for me. It came at a pivotal point in life (late 30s, finished having kids) when I could have either ended up steadily gaining every year and being an unhealthy blimp or turned things around and become healthy, well, look great (so I’m told, I still don’t look in the mirror!!) and have the confidence and optimism that goes with having all that.

Truly, it has 100% changed me - and my relationships, career etc - for the better so huge thanks to BIWI and stuntnun (who I’ve always been a bit scared of as I went to a convent school!) and all the lovely posters who I feel like I “know” and who have helped along the way, many of whom have had similar experiences to me.

Five years ago I weighed 100kg and was miserable, unfit and slowly turning old before my time. I never thought any of this was possible then so if this is your first boot camp keep on keeping on and trust the process!!!

So inspiring, sheepysheep thank you for putting that in writing.

@sheepysheep that is amazing, and it’s so encouraging to read. I might print it off and stick it to my fridge when I’m craving pizza! I also want to be healthy again, and I truly think LCBC is the way to achieve that.

@Benvolio I'm not a fan of super low calorie diets at all. In the famous Minnesota Starvation Experiment the volunteers were restricted to 1560 calories a day and the study noted psychological issues such as food hoarding and obsession with food. Yet now society promotes 1000 / 800 / 500 calorie diets and expect people to be able to handle that both physically and psychologically?! The 800 calorie Fast diet was originally designed to rapidly reverse diabetes in the obese and yet now its being used by anybody that wants to lose weight. In my opinion these diets should only be used by people who need to lose weight quickly because their life is in danger, for example having to be below a certain weight to be able to have a lifesaving operation, or in people with diabetes that are experience serious complications. For everyone else it's far better to follow a more normal level of calorie restriction of reducing by up to 500 calories per day, or using a low carb or keto approach, or intermittent fasting. The absolute best way to lose weight, keep it off and improve your health is to combine low carb and intermittent fasting with eating real foods and avoiding anything processed. I mean it makes sense really. I know the paleo diet isn't popular any more but the idea of eating foods we evolved to eat seems obvious. In terms of very low calorie diets, intermittent fasting isn't equivalent to the constant calorie reduction approach. If you go on fasting groups here or on Facebook you'll see that refeeding after a fast emphasises good nutritious food and making sure that you eat enough when you aren't fasting.

@sheepysheep I'm not a real nun you know, I'm a stunt nun! I stand in for nuns in movies when they need to leap out of a moving car or fall off a bridge or jump a motorbike through a fiery hoop or something.

Hi all, I've not checked in for a few days as had surgery on Weds and was in until Friday. Feeling pretty rough still and eating is difficult. I only managed a few bites of scrambled eggs on Thursday, and some salmon and sugar free jelly yesterday but starting to get my appetite back. I did have a slice of low carb toast with marmite this morning as I felt like it would help my throat, but should be able to get back to BC now and enjoy the nutritious low carb soft foods I've prepared to help me recover. Nice to read how everyone is getting on- plenty of time to keep up with the thread whilst on bed rest!

I'm jealous of all these delicious sounding meaty meals (veggie for 10 years or so now). Yum. I miss lamb.

Tonight is fajita night - turkey and wraps for other half and toddler, no wrap and avocado and halloumi for me.

Breakfast was eggs and mushrooms... I have no inspiration for lunch.

sheepysheep that is awesome! I have done half marathons and a triathlon, but never while on LCHF. It’s great to hear that it’s possible - you’re an inspiration!

@sheepysheep that’s so inspirational! I really hope this helps me stay away from the sugar and stop over-eating.

ION I have about fifteen egg yolks left over. Any ideas anyone?

22 years?! Pah. 30 here!

More than you'd get for murder

I had a load of egg yolks left over from making a low carb meringue roulade last year (as well as a "standard" pavlova) last year for a friend's garden party.

I made low carbonara (with thinly sliced courgette) using just egg yolks, some home made mayonnaise, rich scrambled eggs (3 eggs plus one extra egg yolk) and froze the rest (to make those dishes again at a later date).

Oh I actually didn’t realise you could freeze egg yolks. I should have been realised.

I found this recipe though! www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/broccoli-caesar-salad?intcid=inline_amp

Beat the egg yolks up (to break their skins) with a wee bit of salt and then freeze in as many ice cube holders as you had egg yolks. That way you can take out as many yolks as you need in future.

I need a severe beating with @BIWI 's stick My friend came over and I had lots of vodka and diet cokes and ate virtually no food all day except some chicken. I now feel rubbish and have broken the bootcamp rules. Bad Titsywoo.

Bad Titsywoo indeed! Take your hangover as just punishment.

Could someone please link to the Pataks paste you all use? I had a look at them in Sainsbury’s the other day but couldn’t find one that wasn’t pretty high carb

I found the holy grail! My local pub made me a keto brunch, in heaven atm.

@sheepysheep what an inspiring post. Congratulations to you, it’s lovely to hear how you’re so happy now

@fizzfridays, ouch! Hope you have a speedy recovery and feel better soon.

Question for @BIWI, I’m drinking the zero hydration tablets and they have sucrose in them. Is that just a necessary evil that can’t be avoided.

I just checked the label of the Pataks paste i used last night (korma) and it is a bit high, at 14g per 100g, and I used the whole 290g jar, but this was for 1.2 kg of chicken which feeds my family for several meals. I will compare the different jars next time and go for a lower carb one if there is one! I never use the ones called 'sauce' in the bigger jars, just the concentrated paste.

I’m just looking too tikka masala is 7.8g per 100g. Or 5.5g per pot, so shared by 4 sounds OK??

Sheepysheep - well done! (And I quite understand that convent school can leave you cautious around nuns ... even penguins are a bit scarey :).

Another Saturday, another holiday cottage changeover, which meant I had to make biscuits this morning. Fortunately DH was in bowl-scraping mood, so no leftover mix to be tempted with.

Saturday is usually lunch out for us if we finish the cottage cleaning in time and they had my favourite crispy beef strips on the specials menu - sadly off limits now because they're done in batter and have a very sweet Asian sauce with them, so it was a warm chicken and bacon salad for me (no croutons). Supper's going to be prettybird's shoogly sprouts, which sound gorgeous, with a few thin slices of chorizo thrown in with them and then some cheese melted over the top.

We often can't use curry paste because 'it may contain traces of peanut' and some of the crowd here react badly to that pulse.

However, making your own curry paste is easy:

Just mush-up (technical term) your favourite curry spices (toasted and ground or just from a jar) , mustard seeds, cloves of garlic, a few shallots, root ginger (only a little as it is a root and so a bit carby). A little tomato paste,grated lime zest and some smoked paprika can be interesting too.

Tech-help on 'mushing up:
You can use a chopper - a small processor - or just a knife and some attitude.

[quote Anotherducker]@sheepysheep what an inspiring post. Congratulations to you, it’s lovely to hear how you’re so happy now

@fizzfridays, ouch! Hope you have a speedy recovery and feel better soon.

Question for @BIWI, I’m drinking the zero hydration tablets and they have sucrose in them. Is that just a necessary evil that can’t be avoided.[/quote]
Zero contain sucralose which is different from sucrose, which is sugar. Sucralose is an artificial sweetener. Yes it's not ideal, but in the great scheme of things, it's more important that you get these key electrolytes in the early days.