Week 8 - Leaving Lockdown Low Carb Bootcamp

[BIWI]

Our last 2 weeks!

Here's the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness

Only two weeks to go!

I'm feeling that a lot of us are struggling. But it's all about how to integrate what we're learning about low carbing and how that fits with day to day eating/meals.

Above all, though, who could possibly say that the meals we're eating could not be the mainstay of family meals?!

Let's see this last fortnight as a challenge: what's your most enjoyable/family-friendly meal, that they would never realise was a 'diet' meal?!!!

Had a Low carb classic of soft boiled eggs with asparagus soldiers today for the first time, after a good 17+ hr fast. Lovely.

Nice rib eye tonight with shallots, garlic, celeriac chips (excess ones I'd previously made and frozen) and tender stem broccoli pan fried in chilli oil. 2 x 175ml glasses of Primitivo hence awake at this ungodly hour.

Nice recipe nowlook I've made a note of that.

V impressed with the NSV of midriff baring!!

Aubergine and courgette bake

serves 3-4

2 aubergines
2 courgettes
1 pack smoked lardons
1 tin chopped tomatoes
2 large echalion shallots (or 1 small onion)
3-4 cloves garlic
1 green chilli (optional)
1 ball mozzarella
75-100g mature cheddar (or as much as you like!)
olive oil, salt & pepper, dried oregano

1. Slice the aubergine into rounds, about 5mm thick. Lay them flat in a roasting tin (you may need two tins to fit them all in). Drizzle generously with olive oil, season, and then bake in a hot oven for around 30-40 minutes, turning them over half way through. You want them to be nicely soft and turning a gentle brown.

1. While they're cooking, chop the shallots, chilli and garlic and sauté over a medium heat till soft; cut the courgettes lengthways into quarters, then chop these quarters into pieces about 5mm thick, and add to the onions and garlic. Turn the heat up and fry till the courgettes are starting to brown and the lardons have gone crispy

1. Add the tomatoes to the onions and courgettes, and season with salt, black pepper and dried oregano. Turn the heat down and simmer until the tomatoes have reduced down a little - probably for around 10-15 minutes.

1. Tip the tomato mixture into an oven dish (a lasagne-type dish would work best, but any casserole dish would do), and add the cooked aubergines. Stir them together, gently - the aubergines will be very soft and you don't want to break them up too much.

1. Chop the mozzarella into small dice and grate the cheddar. Sprinkle the cheddar over the top of the mix and then dot the mozzarella over the top of this. Then bake in the oven till the cheeses have melted and the cheddar is starting to brown.

Made this last night and it was lovely. Served with a big green salad.

Gorgeous garden @prettybird, such a lovely space.

I think this may be an iris (on it's way out) in the sightly wild bit at the back of our garden? Apparently a horticulturalist owned the house in the 80s and planted lots of stuff. It was then largely neglected before we bought it 9 years ago and have been trying to revive it.

I'm getting very positive weight wise, within a kilo of what my original aim was and can definitely feel (and see) the difference in my clothes. Everything fits much better. Can I ask about maintenance? How big a range do you tend to go for - would 2kg (4.5lbs) sound about right? And do people do a mix of low carb and more relaxed eating, or have some days on and some days off?
I don't think I'm really missing things like pasta and chips, but would like to reintroduce fruit, pulses and the odd slice of fresh bread.

@Stokey

I'd be a bit more generous with your weight range - up to 7lbs I think. Because you can easily re-fill your glycogen stores with that amount.

The best way to maintain is to start to add carbs back into your day very gradually. Rather than have a whole day of carbier meals, restrict it to one meal. And start with things like carbier veg and pulses, with some fruit, rather than going straight for the bread/pasta/rice.

Beware, though, the carb cravings that you might set off!

Be hyper-vigilant about weighing yourself, so that you don't let the weight creep up too much, but also so that you learn how much carbohydrate you can tolerate before the weight goes too high.

Importantly, though, (and I know this sounds like a contradiction!) do relax about it. You've reached your goal, you know what to do if the weight goes up, so allow yourself to enjoy eating foods that you have either missed or restricted over the last few weeks.

Stokey I eat pretty much the same at maintenance except I don't worry too much about thickeners in sauces and gravies, or e.g. the meat content of sausages and burgers. My DH is more carb tolerant than me and will have the occasional burger or bacon butty or beer without ill effect.

There are three main ways to achieve maintenance:

1. Increase your consumption of higher carbs but healthy fruits and vegetables such as carrots, potatoes, apples, oranges.
2. Have a high carb food, meal or day once a week, fortnight or month.
3. Reintroduce one high carb food that you really miss such as a slice of bread every day.

Whichever you choose, and you can swap between them, then weigh yourself periodically and if your weight is above your target range then go back to Bootcamp or Bootcamp Light until it's back where you want it to be. As with any method of weight loss, the weight can pile back on alarmingly fast without you really realising it so you have to stay alert.

Thanks so much for the advice @BIWI & @StuntNun. I am quite small built so didn't have that much to lose, just under a stone, so a 7lb leeway is not much less than what I have lost, although probably realistic.

I'm hoping I've broken the snack habit which was my downfall, and am really happy with salady lunches and low carb dinners on the whole. I think I like the idea of method 1, introducing apples and maybe some lentils and beans.
But I think I'll stay strict for a few more weeks to make sure I've really lost it. It's a good point about vigilant weighing!

Lovely garden @prettybird. Ours is tiny and I’m a rubbish gardener but I love plants. I need someone to do the work for me. Not DH as he has an obsession with cutting things back and I like the slightly wild overgrown look. We do need to have some landscaping done as there is a broad concrete path and an old greenhouse base that needs taking up - it’s currently my ‘wild’ section or weed patch as DH calls it.

Got a stomach upset this morning, not sure if it is due to the 1/2 bar of Lindt 90% chocolate I ate last night. Can’t face food yet.

@stokes I'm the same wanting to stay below a 5lb gain.
Have stopped snacking and drinking tea only herbal tea Green and Ginger have an odd square of dark chocolate.
The only thing I'm really missing is fruit and going to introduce it back slowly.
Thanks for the tops @BIWI and @StuntNun
Had a meal out on Friday and had sma6bit of desert but I don't want to never have a desert, it was always my favourite part of meal. I had a nice steak and veg for main.
If I can stay of Potatoes cereal Rice Pasta and snacks that's my aim going forward.

I like that iris, Stokey. Its ghost-pale colours and the fact that it is happy in a darker part of the garden give it a slightly spooky vibe -- like a flower that might have watched Red Riding Hood pass by, after she left the path behind and headed into peril. It must be lovely to have a garden full of interesting bits and bobsplanted by a horticulturalist.

like a flower that might have watched Red Riding Hood pass by, after she left the path behind and headed into peril

Today I am mostly trying to find a doctor in the Pollensa area who will carry out a mobile PCR test (MIL is in a wheelchair) if we're able to travel there in July (on our much rescheduled holiday for the whole family paid for by MIL).

Any luck nowlook?

No @cheeseisthebest. But I'm getting closer. Currently corresponding in German with a Spanish doctor in Palma. It will get sorted...I just wonder how on earth the general population is meant to find all this stuff? (I got a number given to me by a German friend like they were passing on the name of a dealer)

Rest-assured, I'll let you all know if I find the holy grail!

Hi all hope your weekends are being lovely!

We lost much of Saturday afternoon to a cry for help from an absent (forces) beekeepers other half, as his bees had swarmed and were not rendering the neighbours happy (dogs stung, toddlers stuck indoors.)

So we managed our first ever swarm collection! Bees boxed up and delivered to another beekeeper, as the girlfriend was very much not wanting them back.

Feeling very smug. Especially about avoiding getting landed with another colony, as our own bees are more than enough just now. This morning, we thought we had 2 laying queens, turns out it's 4. Eek.

Anyway, lots more planting out and potting up, and a but of a bump down in weight, so hop that is reflected in the morning.

BIWI do you suppose that dish you posted would work without lardons? It looks yum and I am BORED of all my food.

@MrsBertBibby that's seriously cool well done! Parents had to call out a bee keeper last week fir a swarm in their compost bin. My grandad used to keep bees.

Introducing proper IF does seem to have bumped me over my plateau - I was at my lowest this morning and feeling great so not ready to interrupt / risk that with maintenance just yet. Although I did pinch 2 crisps at the rugby match we watched today - but my glycogen should have been on the floor after a massive completely fasted run.

L: 1/2 a fathead pizza with salad and strawberries and cream (at Mums)
D: tuna Nicolas salad then a bit of Greek yoghurt with the dregs of frozen raspberries

Correction: an entire 500g pot of Greek yoghurt!!! Absent mindedly kept shovelling it in whilst reading MN

@MrsBertBibby

Anyway, lots more planting out and potting up, and a but of a bump down in weight, so hop that is reflected in the morning.

BIWI do you suppose that dish you posted would work without lardons? It looks yum and I am BORED of all my food.

Yes, I'm sure it would work without them - although the bacon does add a bit of extra savouriness.

Wow Mrs Bert Bibby, I'm seriously impressed with the swarm collection, and with your own beekeeping. How frustrating it must be for you that honey is not bootcamp friendly.

I had a swarm in my compost bin a few years ago. Normally I'm fine with bees making their home on our property but I got a bit fed up about the compost bin. I may have just a little bit wrapped myself up in an anorak and made repeated garden-fork-and-hosepipe-bearing forays to persuade them to relocate. Not kind, I know.

I'm having a bad food day today. Snacky and lazy disorganised, which I know is often the prelude to overeating. I am more vulnerable to this at the end of the weeken as I get stressed about the reurn to work.

Love the Red Riding Hood image @Random789. May have to get the DDs to recreate it! And what a great story @MrsBertBibby, although I would struggle to resist fresh honey and honeycomb.

Hello, I'm back on dry land! Survived unexpected and unforecasted force 7 winds and survived the food and eating challenge (will post my ramblings on that in a bit). I think that over the last 2 weeks of family holiday and then sailing

Returned from my sailing trip and catching up with everything on the thread..

Week 9 chat thread here