Week 4 - Low Carb Bootcamp - how much chatting?!

[BIWI]

So much chatting, I've had to start a new thread.

here's the Spreadsheet of Absolute Fabulousness

Remember, this week (like week 3) is notorious for seeing little or no weight gain, so please don't panic if the scales aren't moving for you - always assuming, of course, that you have been following the rules 100%!

Also, the Very Amazing @StuntNun has started a thread about fasting. Fasting isn't a regular part of Bootcamp, but it's a tool that you can use in your weight loss 'journey' (sorry for the cliché!)

have a look here, and think about if it's something you might want to incorporate into Bootcamp

I hope very much that things are going well for you, and that you're into the swing of things low carb by now; but as ever, post any questions/issue here and let's see if we can help.

Yesterday it was the middle childs birthday so they had party snacks and cake. I had coleslaw and pork pie without the pastry.

Today lunch was plum tomatoes fried bacon, chorizo and eggs cooked in the tomatoes juice.
Tea is butter chicken with cauliflower and green beans.

@MarmaladeTeepee

Am I losing the plot??? There used to be a fish/seafood recipe thread didn't there??? I'm sure there was but now I can't see it! I'm going to do fish pie with a souffle topping (cream, eggs and cheese) and was just looking for white sauce options, can anyone help?

There is - it will have just lost its sticky. I think there's a limit to the number of stickies on each page, so try going to page 2 of the Bootcamp topic and see if it's stickied there.

If not, it will just have dropped down the list of posts.

Ouchmyfeet that looks like a reasonable amount of fat in your meal. I would have had an oil and vinegar dressing so my version would have had even more fat. I think the only way to overeat fat is if you're drinking it (bulletproof coffee or creamy coffee) or eating it on it's own (slices of butter). Even then my concern would be more about displacing nutrients from food rather than the risk of weight gain. If you're eating fat as part of meals then it's much harder to overdo it, especially as too much fat tends to make you feel nauseous. You should be getting at least 60% of your calories from fat, even more if you're near your ideal weight - that's about 110 ml of olive oil a day!

@Onelittlepiglet thank you!

Thanks Ninkanink and StuntNun. Good to know.

Random recipe alert:

Sauerkraut
1 white cabbage
1 large onion
250ml white wine vinegar
1 tea spoon of Cumin seeds
Lard, to fry it off
150g of smoked bacon lardons

Grate the cabbage finely and place in a pot together with the vinegar, cumin & salt to taste. Cover half-way with water (not too much water, better to add more later) and simmer gently for 6 (!) hours. Leave in fridge overnight.
Next day, fry the bacon in the lard (yes, this is a German recipe), add finely sliced onion & fry until translucent. Add your sour cabbage mixture and let simmer for another hour or so.
The purist would add grated potato but you really don't need it.
Good with pork.

@MadamBuxton welcome. I know you said you're doing 'not-quite-bootcamp' but I'd advise you to have a good understanding of the rules in any case. If you don't have much to lose then you might find you have to cut back on the milk and the gin for a while it your weight loss stalls. It is delight to eat this way, and to enjoy the richness of butter and coconut oils and avocado and bacon... (I could go on!)

With regards to between bootcamps, some people stay on bc lite, others just carry on as they were doing. You won't undo all the work with one bowl of porridge, but you might with a bowl of porridge every day, and some roast potatoes, and some fried rice. Your body would store the excess as glycogen (with its associated water) and your weight would increase and you might feel bloated.

Essentially it is the combination of carbs and fat that are so difficult. Between bootcamps I might have one day when I eat a portion of higher carb food (chickpeas, or beans, or lentils) but I would usually eat less fat that day. Towards the end of bootcamp lots of people will be sharing their strategies. In the meantime you've got 7 weeks to get to grips with the rules (all of them), get used to drinking lots of water, and work out what your body tolerates / responds to - we're all different.

@ouchmyfeet as others have said, difficult to eat too much fat. Whilst I love butter and oils, and fatty meats / oily fish and have been known to slurp cream from the pot there comes a time when I just feel that I've had enough.

That is different to the lethal combo of carbs and fat which I feel I could eat for ever. For me it is crisps - the salty, crunchy, oily taste and feel; for others it the combination of sugar and fats (cakes, milk chocolate, biscuits etc). Or a burger, fries, and coke.

Food today:
B - a delightful long walk in the snow and sunshine (and a bit of blizzard)
L - creamy coffee, avocado, salad, radishes, mushrooms, cheese and ham 'sandwich' (buttered slices of cheese with ham and cucumber filling), celery with St Agur blue cream cheese dip, olive oil, mayonaise.
D - shakshuka (of sorts) - with leeks, kale, tomato, smoked paprika, corriander stalks, baked with eggs and topped with crumbled feta.

I've added a recipe to the Fish/seafood thread to bump it up.

@prettybird that sounds amazing! Thanks for the seafood bump too, I was genuinely beginning to doubt my own sanity earlier. As the pupils who have the misfortune of having Teams with me can testify, technology is not my strong point and I am permanently befuddled at the moment

@venusandmars your lunch sounds lovely. I’m jealous. It sounds very refreshing and like you had a good mix of flavours.

My breakfast today was my Chinese steamed egg (two with chicken stock, two with milk)
Lunch - spicy sausage soup
Dinner - I think just roasted vegetables: tomato, fennel, aubergine, courgette, shallot. I fancy something plain.

Three creamy coffees - cutting down dairy is not going to plan.

I've emailed MNHQ and hopefully the fish/seafood recipe thread should have some new sellotape being appended soon!

B: avocado and fried egg (been waiting 6days for those avocados to ripen)
L: Leek and celeriac soup, ham and egg mayo with leaves on the side.
D: Steak with broccoli and griddled aubergine. Made a sauce with some cream and stock, fried mushrooms and shallots.

Fasted again apart from one creamy coffee as I was not hungry this morning and left before lunchtime so popped into Waitrose before vaccine clinic for something to have mid afternoon and when I got home. Huge shop, never been in that one before. So many yummy things, wish I could afford to do my food shop there!
Grabbed a bag of posh pork scratchings, which I had around 3:30pm when we had a break, alongside a square of 85% cocoa Lindt as everyone was eating cake.

Dinner: Coleslaw (Waitrose yellow sticker, but was less than 4g carbs per 100g), cajun cooked chicken (Waitrose), streaky bacon, salad leaves, oily dressing (EVOO, red wine vinegar, wholegrain mustard, mayo), goats cheese and Parmesan.
Gorgeous!

Had another creamy coffee and square of chocolate for pudding.
Will plan some actual cooked meals tomorrow as I have celeriacs, courgettes and aubergines that need using. Need to check the freezer as it's full but possibly mostly bread rather than actual meal food.

Speaking of seafood recipes, I have some frozen tuna steaks that have been sitting in the freezer for about a year because I really don't particularly like fish! I will eat tinned tuna and frozen battered white fish, but not often. How can I make the tuna steaks less fishy? I'm thinking I need a nice fatty sauce!

Evening all, just enjoying a chilled, kill me now family night with my beautiful children!

I fasted all day, work, work, work!

D was mixed chicken and lamb kebab with salad and chilli sauce, some sort of almond flour/ butter and cream dish (wasn't nice )

Food shop tomorrow, Aldi this time as I need to stock up on some bulk items and ti s amd stuff. My local one doesnt always have a verg good selection of green veggies so will take what I can get tomorrow. But they always have the fattier meats 😁 there is always pork belly, no one buys the 20% mince or the chicken thighs 😁 looking forward to next weeks meals already.

Gosh sorry for all the spelling errors! Fat fingers tonight, atleast it made sense though i think 😂

@RagzReturnsRebooted I’d do something akin to teriyaki (but without the sugary element). Then a lovely stir fry or some broccoli to go with it. Or you could cook it up, flake it into pieces and have it in an omelette with lots of spring onion/garlic/chilli/etc.

Today’s eating has been a little bit haphazard and I really do need pay more attention and plan better for the rest of the week. I’ve not had any water at all yet today and only a few cups of coffee & tea so that will need to be remedied tomorrow!

• 2 Creamy coffees in the morning, then a bag of pork scratchings as a late lunch because I was busy in the morning and then had to make a dash to the post office, then the avocado that I was going to have with my dinner was one of those irritating supermarket specimens that takes ages to ripen and then is rotten rather than ripe so I had a tablespoon of DH’s red kidney beans (cooked down with onion, garlic, cumin, red chilli & coriander) with some cheese to get a bit more nutrition into my dinner. Dinner was delicious - leftover chicken done fajita-style with shallots and red pepper, plus a lovely salad with chicory, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, what little avocado I could salvage (about a teaspoon’s worth ), spring onion, garlic, lime and coriander.

@Ninkanink ah those avocadoes! I had half an avocado today that was just perfect, and the other half left for tomorrow. I was so happy when I opened it. In the main I try to eat fresh and local (local veg box, things in season etc). I only eat asparagus when it is British asparagus season. But I do love an avocado...

I think that an important aspect of this woe is to plan, plan, plan. Have low carb 'snacks' available, make your low-carb lunch the day before if you've got to go to work, look at the recipe ideas for inspiration, make a rough meal plan. Sometimes not feeling hungry can work against me if I'm not organised. I can miss breakfast, get too busy over lunch-time, and then suddenly feel hungry and not have anything suitable available, mid afternoon.

Strict boot camp rules are 3 meals per day. I try to stick to this, and deliberately miss one if I'm doing intermittent fasting. So at least I'm still having 2 proper meals with a whole assortment of veg throughout the day.

If I was planning an avocado for breakfast, I might miss breakfast, but still have the avocado at lunchtime, alongside the rest of my lunch.

Thanks BIWI for your advice about my meals. Yes, I am veggie and am finding it hard to adjust to eating low carb protein as I've always eaten a lot of beans, pulses, nuts, seeds and grains and have been trying not to go crazy with cheese. I've just ordered the Rose Elliot book for some ideas which I'm sure will inspire me.
Also, thank you for pointing out that I need more water. I thought my herbal tea counted, oops! I prefer something warm when it's so cold so will try warm water tomorrow.

Today was a creamy coffee for breakfast, a lunch of mashed avocado (my ready to eat one took about 3 years to ripen) mushrooms and a fried egg, and dinner was 2 veggie sausages, mushrooms, tenderstem broccoli and another fried egg, with a Greek yoghurt for afterwards.

Not particularly exciting but was a quick meal after nursery pick up day!

I made that mascarpone and cream mousse thing mentioned earlier with some cocoa powder, was really tasty. Very rich. Next time I might whizz up some peanut butter with it! Only an occasional treat though, I don't miss sweet stuff and I don't want to get in the habit of it.

@venusandmars yes, I usually plan quite carefully and I have plenty of time for planning/shopping/cooking (I’m fortunate enough to be at home for the time being so I don’t need to worry about work and other demands on my time) but we are doing some DIY in our old house and every job is much more involved and painstaking than it really should be, and before you know it you’ve lost five or six hours!

It should be back to normal from tomorrow, though - had a very productive day today, plus we got our veg delivery so I’ve got more to work with!

Being organised is so hard!

Only one meal today - worked solidly through the day and didn’t think about lunch.

Dinner was sea bream fried in butter, with cauliflower mash and purple sprouting broccoli. Followed by a Hotel
Chocolat brazil nut in chocolate and a baton of 85% chocolate. I can recommend them as a portion - from what I can work out from the bigger portion size a single baton is 1.7g carbs roughly.

Tricky day. Veg box not delivered due to snow and worse no milk (DC are milk fiends) I had to take DH to hospital for a planned op, what I hadn't planned for is the aforementioned snow, so it was a bit more stressful than planned, plus a road closure I wasn't expecting - sounds pathetic but when haven't driven for months it was more traumatic than i needed! Op went well and he's OK, but it's his dominant hand and it's completely immobilised so I'm facing up to doing all the jobs that are 'his' alongside my own WFH this week. Thank god it's only 3 days until half term! Main problem BC wise is that I didn't drink enough water.
L - chilli taco salad bowl without the tacos
D - beef stew made with shallots and carrots plus cauli mashed with lots of French butter

Ninkanink

No, you really can’t have too much fat. Not unless you’re actually drinking vats of it, eating way, way more than you probably could without feeling a bit sick

I think I did last night! Had bbq glazed pork belly bites with sliced corgette fried in lots if garlic butter. But I got carried away and poured the pork belly fat in the dish over the courgettes. Woke up early hours and was sick (TMI sorry!) Pork was cremated by accident so couldnt be that?

Realised I hadnt logged my food.

Monday:
B. Black coffee
L. Cheese and onion omelette with sliced corgette fried in butter
D. Bbq glazed pork bites with courgette fried in garlic butter

Tuesday:
B. Black coffee.
L. Tuna mixed with mayo and chopped onion
D. Steak with tomatoe, mushrooms and crazy amount of FLGV buttered with low carb pepper sauce.