Week 9 - Low Carb Bootcamp - only 2 weeks to go ...

[BIWI]

Morning all.

[[Here's the Spreadsheet as always
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18CKhdQ3FlGz_8H53AA2Pqm4xmvGLHO6vBrkNWCkSO48/edit#gid=788946144 ]]

I hope everyone had a good week, and that any Mother's Day treats haven't messed things up too much

So we enter our final two weeks. Still time to shift a couple of those pesky pounds - especially if you keep focused and stay strict. And a reminder, channelling my inner Shag, WATER, WATER, WATER!

I attended a webinar about running faster after fifty last year, run by the guy who coaches for the Comrades marathon and the South African distance runners (but he initially developed this programme for his dad was a famous Comrades Marathon winner over many years). The key takeaway was not to run fast, in fact to run really relaxedly/slowly, for most of your training runs, not run every day (max 4 times a week) as your body needs more time to recover and every 3km to walk very briskly for 90 seconds (he even tells his elite runners to do this). I took this advice with alacrity - and guess what, my one pace run a week started improving again (it had been stagnating/getting slower).

He's called Coach Parry - it's worth looking him up on Facebook as he does free webinars every so often.

The Spanakopita was edible, though next time I think I'll try the ham and cheese breakfast pockets version. DH refused to try it, which is very unusual so it must have looked bad!

To redeem my low carb cooking I just made Low Carb peanut butter cookies with DD. Basically 3 ingredients. I really wanted to try out the Erythritol that arrived the other day.
sugarfreelondoner.com/low-carb-peanut-butter-cookies-recipe-flourless/
Not as crunchy as I'd hoped, but nice and the DCs all liked them. DD wasn't convinced when I suggested them!
I've eaten 3 (I made 24 not 20 and they're quite small) and don't feel like rushing back to the kitchen and eating the rest, which I do when I bake carby stuff. So that's a win.

Need to decide what to do for dinner now. I have pork chops or chicken thighs and many many vegetables.

I quite enjoyed the coffee cake but sadly it hasn't agreed with me . Guessing it must be the sweetener as all the other ingredients are things I eat regularly

Good afternoon all!

Just making some Aubergine Lasagne for Dinner, have had a handful of peanuts all day, just haven't been hungry.

Hope you're all having a good weekend

Hi all. Reading about carb cycling with interest as I wonder whether a very occasional modest carb incident does help dislodge me from plateaus.

My eating has gone haywire since Wednesday. I’ve been working in the office and DH has been out in the evenings. Sticking it down for accountability but with no expectation of a readership! Vegetables have been way too low.

Thursday: too much coffee, some with milk, some soy milk, plus gorgeous cafe lunch of smoked salmon, poached eggs, labneh with dill, and some vague greenery. Didn’t fancy dinner.

Friday: nowhere near enough water. Lunch was a takeaway salad of ham, hard-boiled egg, coleslaw, lettuce, tomato and cucumber. Eaten in two attempts through the day as I was so busy, also it was enormous.
Dinner was three pork belly strips drizzled with liquid smoke, paprika and katsu sauce (tiny amount as it’s sugary). Cooked and eaten at 10pm! (Liquid smoke from American Fizz website by the way, who have now decided they won’t deliver to Jersey, grrr). Also glass of red wine.

So after that, plus my boozy meal out, I am finishing the week the lightest I’ve been all boot camp.

Food today:
Lunch: BLT club sandwich with three slices SLB bread, three rashers of lovely fatty bacon, lettuce and tomato.
Dinner will be really nice - friends are supposed to be coming but one is suffering the after effects of the vaccine so not sure they will, but planned is oysters in buerre blanc and pickled cucumber, then crab, carrot and scallop in hollandaise, grilled skate wing with brown butter and cockles with fried Savoy cabbage and sprouting broccoli, and then dark chocolate ‘soup’. All scaleable down for just us if necessary.

Wow, Daily! Your menu sounds beautiful. No need to scale down; I'm on my way. It's just a short swim, right?

@ouchmyfeet I have had similar GI issues after eating some sweeteners. Which one did you use?

I find the best for baking is Truvia, which is a blend of erythritol and stevia. It's quite pricey, £5 for a small tub, but it is regularly on offer and you only need to use a third of the amount of sugar you would use.

This is our dinner tonight:

DH's birthday and this is what he wanted, given that we can't go out for dinner. DS1 (who is back home with us) doesn't like fish, so the steak one is for him. Irritatingly, they only do boxes for 2, so I had to buy one box just for him. But thankfully DS2 came round this afternoon to drop off present/card for DH, so he's gone home with a steak, the mackerel pate, bread and a bag of salad!

Carb city, I'm afraid, not afraid at all so there will have to be some very good behaviour from me over the next few days!

Wow fabulous dinners tonight,I'm not jealous at all.
We are having pork belly and tons of veg which is lush.

Looks fab, @BIWI. I am really very jealous of all the amazing delivery options in the UK.

Everyone's dinners look and sound amazing!

Enjoy biwi there's no one to get the stick out for you - looks sideways at shag

Mine wasn't ZiggZagg I made cottage pie and the meat part was too runny so it kind of fell apart when I served it up. Tasted good though. Usually I use mashed swede for the topping but today I used celeriac. Tbh they're both good but I think I prefer swede. Only one of my four DCs ate theirs (lovingly made with mashed potato) but nobody was openly rebellious about it; the other three picked at theirs and then left the table as soon as gracefully possible the ungrateful little sods!

I've got this cooking
www.wholesomeyum.com/keto-low-carb-curry-recipe/
Mine looks nothing like the photo, I'm guessing my coconut milk was too liquid, but there wasn't any water to pour off, I had to remove all the can with a fork so assumed it would be fine. Been trying to reduce it for over an hour!
Rice and naans for the carbers, roasted broccoli for me. I do have frozen Cauliflower rice but I'm not particularly keen on it. I suppose I could fry some and see if that improves it?

My birthday 10 year old DS had to make his chosen 3 course meal for the family for this weekend's homework so I've just had tomato soup and creamy salmon pasta (no pasta for me, fried cabbage, courgette and mushrooms instead). He wasn't bothered that I declined the milkshake that he made for dessert. I am an excellent sous chef, very good at managing my manager!

I quite often eat different food to the family, usually just replacing an element of their meal with extra veg for me. Had a bit of a realisation when eating this evening that I wasn't actually jealous of their pasta at all. I'd actively choose the bowl of vegetables if given the choice! Not saying I don't get food envy (every slice of toast or hot cross bun tempts me, as does every sweet thing they eat) but it was really good to remember that I'm not depriving myself at all, my food is delicious 

I am a bit jealous of BIWI's tea though! Enjoy it

So bloody bored this weekend. I'm almost wishing it away so that I can go back to work on Monday for something to do.

@Hopeislost it was erythritol, a powdered icing sugar variety as that's all I had. I might just give the sweeteners a miss for now, I'm doing okay without them, just took a fancy this morning. What I really wanted was a proper piece of real coffee cake with gorgeous sugary buttercream. I think perhaps I just shouldn't bother trying to fake it with the baking.

Too much sweetener definitely upsets my stomach. Its definitely a thing!!

Very jealous of your tea @BIWI!

It was trusty pork chops and FLGV with added butter here tonight.
Got caught up with cleaning so no breakfast, peri peri chicken salad for lunch.
Only 2 litres of water, must do better tomorrow with that.
Hope the weather is decent tomorrow, did a fair old trek today and wouldnt mind the same tomorrow

I am now a runner 👍if someone would like to give me a medal I’d be most grateful
Did 5 k ( on a treadmill ) in 33 mins 12 seconds today , about a minute quicker than the first time
Started C25K early January and thought I was mad and being ridiculous
Need to run it again once before we’re out of lockdown to complete the challenge
@GreeboIsMySpiritAnimal 💐
I remember my mum coming into my bedroom with the scales and making me weigh myself in front of her . I swore I would never do this to my children
My son is tall and big framed , DD is delicate and would happily live on biscuits , grapes and chocolate, and has made her own decision this week to give up chocolate and sweet things
She’s now having headaches and withdrawal symptoms , we’re being supportive ( handing paracetamol and water )
It’s frightening how addictive it is

Hoping to be back to pre Christmas weight on Monday

Hope you enjoy the birthday dinner @BIWI

@Doilooklikeatourist congratulations!

Had a lovely meal tonight: my dad was over so that dh and he could watch back to back rugby, with dinner in the hour "free" before the France-Wales game.

We had roast pork. Couldn't find the special super duper crackling way that someone had mentioned on an earlier thread, so I just followed the recipe on the Lidl packaging, with the addition of two kettles of boiling water poured over the scored fat which I then dried off and rubbed fennel and salt over it. It made lovely crackling! I served it with buttery leeks and garlicky green beans (and roast potatoes for dh and dad).

We then had these low carb chocolate lava cakes for dessert: https://sugarfreelondoner.com/5-ingredient-low-carb-chocolate-lava-cake/ I'd recommend cooking for longer than she says, and/or at a higher temperature, as even though I did an extra 3 minutes, they were still too very liquid. Very tasty though I made a triple quantity by mistake (should just have done double), so I still have 3 puddings left to bake.

Forgot to mention today's earrings: a(nother) pair of Rennie Macintosh gold earrings that dh gave me for Christmas (I think) over 20 years ago.

Ooh they look good @prettybird! Did you use almond flour or ground almonds? I have blanched almonds I bought to grind myself in the blender as Aldi didn't have ground ones.

The curry I made was really good, even if the sauce was too runny. I wouldn't follow their recipe quantities though, 1lb of chicken thighs for 6 servings is just nowhere near enough. I tripled the meat, doubled the sauce and it made 7/8 portions.

I used "proper" almond flour: I now remember that these were the one of the things I'd used the extra fine flour for (the other thing was my experiments with low carb sourdough bread).

I got almond flour in Holland & Barrett if anyone is trying to get hold of some. Funnily enough, ground almonds work much better for the cheese muffins. I made some with almond flour and they were a bit flat and pathetic. I've started adding salt, pepper, smoked paprika and chives to the recipe and an extra smidge of cheese and they're even better than the basic recipe. Also from cold they're lovely sliced in half and grilled to warm them up and brown them a little.

DM gave me a box of Keto Caveman granola via doorstep delivery yesterday.
Had a look and a 40g portion is only 3g carbs. Weighed it out and its a nice yoghurt topper amount. Was a nice crunch!
Not sure what to have for tea tonight, usually do a roast on a sunday but dont have a joint in. Whatever we have, I have my sprouts to go with

Do you all have any plans for another lockdown weekend?

I wish I did @ListenLinda. I honestly don't think I've ever been as bored as I am this weekend. Not sure why it's getting to me so much now when I've basically been fine with it for the last year!

Amusing myself with a bit of batch cooking this morning so I'm ready for the last week of bootcamp 💪💪💪