Happy Christmas Bootcampers!

[BIWI]

Morning all.

We've completed our ten weeks - and I can see from the Spreadsheet just how well it's gone!

But just because the ten weeks are up, doesn't mean we have to stop. So here's a bright, shiny new chat thread for us to keep chatting and supporting each other.

@Takingontheflab thank you that's a very kind offer but I'm really not planning on being a 16 for very long!!

Ah yes. Good point 🤣 sorry. I've got 3 long dresses with tags on I'll never wear and I can't bring myself to charity shop, no ones going anywhere so noones buying and I need the space. At this point I'm just like please! Someone wear them 🤣
Maybe I'll just wear it around the house tomorrow

Oh please do!! Get some slap on and live like a princess

Takingontheflab In a previous bootcamp I had an evening dress that I could (at last) do up. Was trying it on at 8am when the postman arrived.

Woke up ridiculously early and weighed at 9 stone 12 - which is 2.5lbs up on pre-Christmas. I feel a bit grumpy because my diet has been back to LC for a week so I had hoped I would have lost any Christmas weight. That being said I had loads of salt yesterday so I’m hoping next week will be more of a success.

Also, for most of last year I would have been delighted with 9 stone 12 so trying to see the bright side.

Hi all I have signed up for the next bootcamp. Have been Low Carb since August and lost 28lbs. But have put on 6lbs since Christmas as I have been eating all the sweet Christmas treats and feel uncomfortable and sluggish for it. Have followed the last boot camp thread and found it very useful and have signed up for this Bootcamp as I need to get back on to LCHF WOE as I feel so much better on it. Not really much weight to lose so much as just being comfortably in control of sugar/carb cravings. Starting today and expecting first few days to be tough.

I am back on 16:8 and low carb as of Saturday night, so got on the scales for the first time since 22nd December this morning. 6lbs up. Ouch. But it will come off again - hoping that a couple of them are water retention from the bread.

I had lost a stone gradually over the last 8 months. I ate carbs at almost every meal between Christmas and New Year. Weighed this morning and I have put 6 pounds on. What I was eating didn’t taste as good as I imagined it would so it won’t be too hard to give up again. I am starting today. The carbs really seem to have disrupted my sleep.

Morning all, I’m so pleased that we have this thread, a bit of life where we have control has got to be a very good thing 😀. We took down our Christmas decorations yesterday and the fridge is looking a bit empty (compared to Christmas) , it feels like the right time for bootcamp.

I’m up a couple of lbs from where we finished and have been having a mental tug of war with food choices since Boxing Day, so I’m definitely looking forward to getting back into a routine. I’m also looking forward to a dog walk with one of my best friends (whilst we still can ☹️).

I have got a rather large leg of lamb that I took out of the freezer and defrosted that we were going to have yesterday and didn’t , so I need to do some meal planning and probably cooking and freezing round that later. There are only 3 of us at home and it feels extremely extravagant for a Monday 😀.

Any bootcamp friendly recipe ideas very welcome. I suppose easiest is to roast it and then put aside enough for a couple of meals and freeze the rest. But also thinking about making a huge pot of lamb curry.

Today
B Greek yogurt
L soup , probably ham and veg
D Lamb ....... flgv

2 coffees, water and lots of herbal type teas

Hi everyone,
Great to read people checking in on a Monday morning. Feels like I'm getting ready for the real thing next week already.

My aim was to stay the same over the festive period. And that's what I did.

I found it hard at times. I found that when I opened up to being able to have more carbs, I was wanting to eat more and more of them. But, I didn't want to spend all January getting back down to where I was before then. So, as I was starting to go over the top I managed to reign myself in and went back to "Bootcamp Light".

It's been an interesting experiment. And I'm thinking about what all this is going to imply for my future maintenance.

So, today I'm 9 stone 13. And I'm going back on the strict bootcamp as of today. My aim is to be at my goal weight when spring arrives.

All the best to everyone else.

Morning, all, Monday WI and after 2days of BC light to ease in , 2lbs of Christmas gain gone, Yay! (And 2 days of no wine )..
Am starting proper BC today ..

Does haloumi go off? I've just made curry for dinner - my variation of mutter paneer using haloumi instead of paneer. But something smells not quite right. It was within date (July 2021) but it smelt a bit sour and 'cheesy' which I don't think haloumi usually does. And now I can't tell whether it's my imagination. I've tried a spoonful, so I might find out in a couple of hours whether it's going to cause digestive havoc... Otherwise I'll have to wait for dh to come home and try it.

I suspect that a takeaway Indian is on the cards this evening.

That’s amazing, WitchWand - well done! I’ve just done some low carb meal prep of lamb bolognese with courgette and olives, cauliflower soup and an experimental new sausage soup.

I’ll post the recipe below in case anyone is interested - made up so apologies for any mistakes

Ingredients:
Cauliflower
Onions
800g sausages
Double cream
Parmesan
800g tinned tomatoes
1kg of baby plum or cherry tomatoes
Garlic
Red wine stock pots
Red chilli flakes
Rosemary (or whatever herbs you like)

Process:

1. Chuck the fresh tomatoes into the oven to roast - along with some garlic if you want
2. Make a cauliflower soup by sautéing onions and garlic for about 5 minutes, then adding some (I used 600g) roughly chopped cauliflower, a bay leaf and some thyme. Immediately add water until the cauliflower is mostly covered. Simmer until cauliflower can easily be mushed apart with a spoon then blend.

1. Sauté some more onion (or shallots) and garlic then take 2/3 (a somewhat arbitrary amount based on the fact I still wanted a serving of the cauliflower soup to eat myself) of the cauliflower soup and add it to the pan along with the tinned tomatoes (NOT the fresh ones - unless you want to blend them too, as you are about to...) and blend the lot until it’s smooth and creamy. Add the Parmesan + rind (I used 100g), red chilli flakes, red wine stock pot and any herbs you fancy. Don’t do salt and pepper at this point as the sausages will be seasoned. Set aside.

1. Smoosh the sausages out of their skins and in a separate pan fry the sausage meat until somewhat brown in places.

1. Add the sausage meat and the (hopefully by now) nicely roasted fresh tomatoes to your smooth soup base and simmer the whole thing for about 30 minutes. You might want to deglaze the sausage pan with some water or something and add that too.

1. Add 100ml of double cream to taste and then some water if you want (I added about 250ml to mine). Now you can add some salt and pepper if you like but I found the mix of sausage and Parmesan salty enough!

You should now have quite a rich, Parmesany, decadent sausage soup (pictured). My total recipe came to 2.4kg which I split into 8 portions which have 10g of carbs in each. You could probably reduce that if you used shallot instead of onion or possibly put something else in instead of the fresh tomatoes.

The idea was inspired by a slow cooked spicy sausage pasta a friend once made me - and I’m usually not a fan of tomato soups - so a bit of my brain thinks it still tastes like pasta sauce but in a good way (I think).

Lyrata that sounds DELICIOUS!

I've gone dizzy now I'm drinking the right amount again. Making myself some sprouts roasted in butter for lunch which I'm going to liberally cover with cheese and sprinkle some salt on, hopefully that'll sort me out.

I'm having a kale and broccoli warm salad with halloumi and bacon now (YUM) and I've got salmon and more kale for dinner later.

Need to do another food shop and restock the house too. Missing garlicky buttered sprouts too so gonna make some of that with cauli cheese at some point this week too 🤩🤩

Weight loss seems so much harder these days, is it generally assumed that the body adjusts and doesn't respond as quickly 3stone in? Or do I need to be more restrictive now? probably not gonna happen🤣

I really would like another 2 stone off.

Lyrata What a lovely and unexpected thing to read ! Thankyou for writing that. It means a lot to me. 
That recipe looks delicious! Thanks for that too !

VeryLittleOwl That sounds a bit scary to me. I hope you're ok. Are you saying that you think your dizziness is to do with the amount of water you've had ? Or could it be that you're poorly?

I hope someone comes along who's knowledgeable than me about this WOE to help you.

WitchWand I'm fine now, thank you :) I often find when I'm restarting this WOE after carbing out that I lose a lot of water quite quickly and that messes up my electrolyte balance, which isn't helped by this naturally being a low-sodium diet. A hefty shake of salt on my sprouts has put me right :)

@VeryLittleOwl

WitchWand I'm fine now, thank you :) I often find when I'm restarting this WOE after carbing out that I lose a lot of water quite quickly and that messes up my electrolyte balance, which isn't helped by this naturally being a low-sodium diet. A hefty shake of salt on my sprouts has put me right :)

Oh ! That's really interesting VeryLittleOwl. I'm glad you're feeling better now.

Yes i had this too verylittleowl had 3 days of fuzziness and headaches and general eurghness despite chugging fluids and adding salt to everything! I recognise it now and push through

Hi everyone,
I’ve been loitering on boot camp posts for a while but just couldn’t start again properly, now feels right though. Ten years ago I lost 100lbs LC and kept it off for five years. I now have to pretty much do it again, though I have had three extra pregnancies in this time so I’m not beating myself up too much. I am an overeater, carbs and that just doesn’t mix. Looking forward to the camp starting and the camaraderie of us all supporting each other. We can do this!

YUM! Sainsburys Lightly smoked salmon fillets (just saying)

I had mine with steamed broccoli, fried courgette and pesto.. (he had rice with his as well )

I have Cheeseburger Pie for supper DH, despite claiming he doesn't really like it and getting himself some chilli out of the freezer instead, has already nicked two spoonfuls.

@VeryLittleOwl wow.. is there a recipe that I've missed on the boards for that?!

Please can someone let me know if my day has been ok today.. still feels like I'm eating luxuriously and it's not sitting right yet.

Brew - dash of milk
B - scrambled eggs with dash of cream
L salmon cooked in butter with lettuce and courgettes with olive oil
D steak with asparagus fried in butter
Coffee with a dash of cream

2 x 2 tbs Greek yoghurt (I have to take tablets at random times and they must be with food)

All the bastard water in the world.

This still feels wrong (yet lovely) to me!

@ChristMyArse yes it looks good to me, although depending on your portion sizes maybe you could include more vegetables for an extra gold star.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me since Christmas - my appetite has been ravenous. That cheeseburger pie is making me hungry again and I don’t even like burgers.

@Lyrata thank you muchly. Dinner was a bit pants veg wise but I've eaten so much of salad and veg over the last couple of days I couldn't fit anymore in. I think this is going to be my weak spot so will keep at it.

Ps I'm not surprised - that pie looks immense!