Week 4 - Pre-Christmas Low Carb Bootcamp - time to focus

[BIWI]

The Spreadsheet of Fabulousness

Morning all. Sorry for the late start - had a bit of a bad night so slept longer than usual.

I hope that the scales were kind to you this morning, but please remember week 4 is notorious (along with week 3) in that you are very likely to have seen no loss, or even a small gain

If this has happened to you, DON'T PANIC!

This is your body adjusting to a new WOE, and from now on you should be burning fat. So don't change what you've been doing and things will get moving again; you should expect to see 1-3lbs losses each week (depending on how much you have to lose)

However, it's also important to be scrupulously honest with yourself. If you have had no loss, or seen a gain, go back over what you have been eating and drinking. Have you been following the rules? Have you been keeping your fat levels high? Have you been drinking all the water?

Good luck to us all for the following week as we go into lockdown once again. I know it's not going to be easy, and the lure of carbs (and all the alcohol) will be even more ever-present. Post here if you're needing support to stay away from them and together we can help each other. Remember, you're not alone!

@Anotherducker

And how do you look 37 when you’re 60?

Agree she looks amazing doesn’t she!

Have made two apples crumbles today, one for dh and one for our neighbour who lives alone and found lockdown 1 tough. She’s a lovely lady.

@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously

Biwi, serious question (not just being a pita because I want to eat chocolate) because I am struggling here a bit, but what is actually wrong with those foods from a wanting to lose weight perspective? I get that there's no nutrition in the low carb chocolate, so I have knocked that on the head (the last time I ate it, it didn't taste as good, so I think I don't need it as much as I'd believed) and I know the bread isn't a proper meal but everything was low carb. I wasn't eating half a jar of nut butter or cream cheese either. Is this just the expected 3/4 week stall or am I doing something particularly damaging?

All of the stuff you've been eating, with the exception of chocolate, is low carb - but it's not Bootcamp!

Bootcamp is about good nutrition as well as weight loss, hence me banging on about getting most of your carbs from vegetables/salad/some fruit.

That said, we are in the infamous week 4, so this will also be having its own impact.

I deserve the stick. I’ll say no more.

@itsmeagainagain

does anyone know of a low carb or the lowest carb 'cream of...' soup? Theres a recipe that I want to do which I can use fresh cream for and is preferable but a cream of mushroom or cream of chicken soup would be a great cupboard back up...any thoughts?

New Covent Garden wild mushroom is pretty good, at 7.4g carbs for half the carton. It's fresh though, rather than something that would keep for very long.

Tinned soups are IME difficult - so often they use potato as an ingredient and/or thickener, or they have sugar added to them. But I'll see if I can find anything for you.

Baxters French Onion soup 15.2g carbs for the whole tin

Baxters Cream of Mushroom soup 18.4g carbs for the whole tin

Baxters Beef Consomée only 4.8g carbs for the whole tin, although I suspect this wouldn't be especially filling as it's essentially just drinking stock! But at that low level of carbs you could have something alongside it.

Baxters Lobster Bisque 16.8g carbs for the whole tin

Hopefully that's some help?

Sorry to hear some are having a tough week. Sending you positive cosmic vibes.

Can anyone kindly point me in the direction of the caeser salad dressing recipe that was posted recently. I can't find it, not even using the advanced search facility... probably not spelling it correctly!

Kids have been shocking today and house is a wreck, I was going to do fish pie but haven’t made it to the shops for the cream.

Looks like it’s a takeaway. H wants Chinese but I’ve never had one when BCing. What’s the least worst option?

Apologies for the slight derailing but seeing as lots of folk are feeling a bit glum and there’s a lot of Nigella love on the thread (I cannot believe she’s 60, amazing!!) then this might raise a few smiles.... the first time I saw it I was crying laughing and I’m usually very reserved / introverted / quiet....

m.youtube.com/watch?v=RtS2Ikk7A9I

MrsKoala black bean sauce is generally lowish carb. Look for something like ribs with no sauce for a starter. Chicken wings are often battered.

[quote sheepysheep]Apologies for the slight derailing but seeing as lots of folk are feeling a bit glum and there’s a lot of Nigella love on the thread (I cannot believe she’s 60, amazing!!) then this might raise a few smiles.... the first time I saw it I was crying laughing and I’m usually very reserved / introverted / quiet....

m.youtube.com/watch?v=RtS2Ikk7A9I[/quote]

MrsKoala I’m a fan of chicken lettuce wraps. Usually on the starter menu. And the Hot&Sour soup.

Cheers Stunt. I’m not a black bean fan unfortunately. They do chicken and cashew nuts in yellow bean sauce? Or maybe beef in ginger and spring onion? They also do bbq dry spare ribs and salt and pepper spare ribs to start - I was veering towards the salt and pepper one.

I usually have hot and sour soup - but I expect that has a thickener in it? Although I expect it all has.

Not sure about thickener. All I can say is when we do have Chinese takeaway it doesn’t seem to derail my weight loss in any way when I eat those items. Nor any bloating, which is the first thing that happens if I so much as eat half a piece of bread.

20bloodypumpkins is it this for the Caesar dressing recipe?

www.dinneralovestory.com/small-victories/

On my usual Saturday schedule of lunch out, so chicken and bacon salad, then shoogled sprouts with chorizo and cheese for supper.

DH has bought custard doughnuts, the bastard.

As for the Baxter’s Beef Consommé I sometimes throw in any bits of veg and ham that are prepped and make sense.

Say, mushrooms or strips of a leftover steak of shredded chicken, maybe courgette peels.

Sounds a bit weird but give it more nutrition and a very easy to “make” soup with a tin of something and those pesky leftovers.

@sheepysheep 😂👏🏻 Amazing and so rude!

My attempt at a relatively low carb sourdough seeded loaf. By my calculations, the whole loaf has 30g carbs in it - plus 2 eggs, a tbsp olive oil, lots of seeds, caraway seeds, physillum husk, vital wheat gluten and a small amount of my standard starter.

I reckon I can get twelve slices from that, albeit not very tall ones.

Bugger! Bugger Bugger!

I've been feeling very virtuous this week drinking sea buckthorn tea. Sea buckthorn is allegedly one of those magical ingredients which lowers blood pressure, has omega 7, lowers cholesterol, is chock full of vitamin c, make your skin soft and your hair shine, aids weight loss, helps you do quadratic equations and transforms you into an olympic level gymnast disclaimer, not all of the above may be true

And it grows rampant where I live, so it's free..

I've been making tea - just adding boiling water, no sugar, no sugar substitutes, no honey - and enjoying the bitter flavour and the sanctimonious glow.

Now I read that it has 22g carb per cup of berries [crying face] Please, please someone come and tell me it isn't so...

Here's the culprit...

However, the crab apple gin is looking good.

And prettybird's bread looks amazing!

The bread looks amazing @prettybird !

Food today
B - creamy coffee
L - leftover chicken casserole
D - sausages with broccoli and cauliflower , sauerkraut and buttered spinach

Been to Lidl and bought a tonne of Savoy cabbage ( one of the specials ) and deli stuff so with the broccoli and spinach I already have in the fridge I should be alright for one more week.

It’s a true credit to this boot camp that I can now eat dark unsweetened chocolate and not miss the sugar at all , I would’ve never thought I’ll shake off the sugar cravings in the very beginning but I’ve really turned a corner and would hesitate to go back to sweet stuff now! My OH confesses he thought I had no chance - most days I ate vanilla slices for lunch and lost track of the amount of sweetened coffee I used to drink. Am enjoying a more mindful way of eating and although slow , the weight loss is a lovely bonus.

I present , homemade clotted cream ‘bounty’ truffles, for the food porn chronicles

I’ve only had two .... promise !

@20bloodypumpkins did you eat the actual berries too ? If you just infused it and drank the liquid it might not be too bad ?

Ah pretty your bread looks lush!