Week 3 - Pre-Christmas Low Carb Bootcamp

[BIWI]

Well, doesn't time fly?!

We've already completed the two, hardest weeks of Bootcamp.

So now, things get a bit different.

During the next 3 weeks, you'll be doing strict Bootcamp during the week, but at weekends, you can relax into Bootcamp Light. This means that you can introduce some fruit - in the form of berries - and some nuts/seeds, albeit occasionally and in moderation, and some alcohol - again, in moderation - and restricted to clear spirits with zero calorie mixers, and/or dry wines

As ever, here is the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness

I sense that you're all coping really well, although it's also evident that there a lot of practical and (particularly) emotional challenges that are rearing their heads.

Stand tall and stay tough!

This WOE is not a very forgiving one, so it's important that you stick to the rules as much as you possibly, possibly can. I know that real life gets in the way sometimes, but the more you can resist all those obstacles and challenges, the better.

Here's to another successful week!

HOWEVER

I do need to warn you, if you're new to low carbing/Bootcamp, that weeks 3 & 4 are very, very challenging. Your body is in the process of transitioning from burning carbs to burning fat; you have lost a lot of water weight, emptied your glycogen stores and have started burning fat. The next two weeks you need to see as consolidation weeks - you may not see much movement on the scales while this is happening.

DON'T PANIC!

You know that it works, because you've lost the weight in the first fortnight - so just KOKO (keep on keeping on), and all will be fine.

This is, though, the reason why - on this Bootcamp - we're aiming to stay strictly Bootcamp during the week. To give us the best chance of losing as we can.

Very good luck to all of us

This week's recipe is a fish one - seeing as how we've had a meat one and a veggie one!

Baked Marinated Salmon

One salmon steak per person

Marinade:

1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2 large cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
2 tbsps sesame oil
2 tbsps light soy sauce
juice of a lemon or lime
black pepper
sprinkling of dried oregano
sprinkling of dried chilli flakes (optional)

Mix together.

Put salmon pieces into a (non-metal) dish, pour marinade ingredients over them
Leave to marinade for at least 30 minutes
Wrap pieces in foil and bake in a hot oven for 15 minutes

This is lovely served with stir-fried veg - so typically I'd do finely shredded cabbage, baby sweetcorn, mangetout, pak choi. I sometimes also serve it with Bare Naked Noodles

God, that dietician advice is so wrong. Especially for a pre-diabetic where grain based carbs are likely to cause insulin spikes. My mum asked her consultant about low carb and was told that it’s fine to get the weight off but that more balance was better longer term. She had done a few weeks of low carb but it did spike her bad cholesterol so she has scaled back now, although I told her that if she is eating carbs, she really does have to watch the fat as fat and carbs as a combo isn’t good.

I have lost another 2 lb this week (I weighed yesterday). Lightest that I have been for 8 years I think. I am doing bootcamp light from now on because I have been doing low carb for a while and my body is used to it and I am finding the normal bootcamp a bit restrictive.

Oh dear, @pinknsparkly! You have been given 'advice' that is very out of date.

I'll go on to answer all your questions shortly, but in advance of that - you have to make a decision here. Are you going to follow the advice of the dietician, or stay on Bootcamp? Because they're diametrically opposed! I understand the pressure from seeing someone who is (supposedly) medically qualified, but you do need to understand that what you're being told does not reflect the latest or most current science.

I (and others her) can give you lots of advice, but the best thing for you is to do your own research. Have a look at the resources on the spreadsheet. Go and read The Diet Doctor

Two really good books that are also easy to read:

Escape the Diet Trap, by Dr John Briffa
Why We Eat (Too Much), by Dr Andrew Jenkinson

A couple of weightier tomes, which are definitely worth a read:

The Diet Delusion, by Gary Taubes
The Big Fat Surprise, by Nina Teicholz

These will help you make your decision about which way you want to 'jump'.

@doginabox Exactly! Veg is sugar.

It is extremely disappointing that even the Diabetes UK website has so much focus on fruit. One of their 10 guidlines for nutrition is to Eat more Fruit and Veg. However, the extract copied at the end of this post shows that all the focus is on fruit (no exciting ideas about buying tinned ratatoille, frozen cauliflower rice, frozen celeraic cubes, a jar of artichokes....). In addition there is hardly any fibre in tinned fruit since it is all peeled. Their advice about eating fruit as a snack as well as at mealtimes, and eating it throughout the day only results in our bodies being in a permanent insulin spike.

Plus the advice seriously incorrect about fruit sugar. To the body, sugar is sugar is sugar. Our cells cannot differentiate whether it comes from a mars bar, a mango, organic manuka honey, or the tears of a golden rabbit! disclaimer: there is no eveidence that the tears of said rabbit actually contain sugar

However remember that rhubarb is a vegetable (the dietician may not realise this), tomato is a fruit and pumpkin is a fruit (and a berry).

Here's the bit from the diabetes UK website:

Eat more fruit and veg
We know eating fruit and veg is good for you. It’s always a good thing aim to eat more at meal times and have them as snacks if you’re hungry. This can help you get the vitamins, minerals and fibre your body needs every day to help keep you healthy.
You might be wondering about fruit and if you should avoid it because it’s sugary? The answer is no. Whole fruit is good for everyone and if you have diabetes, it’s no different. Fruits do contain sugar, but it’s natural sugar. This is different to the added sugar (also known as free sugars) that are in things like chocolate, biscuits and cakes.
Products like fruit juices also count as added sugar, so go for whole fruit instead. This can be fresh, frozen, dried or tinned (in juice, not in syrup). And it’s best to eat it throughout the day instead of one bigger portion in one go.

@MerylSqueak for eating away from home food I take cudites (cucumber, celery, cauliflower florets, radish, maybe the odd carrot stick) and dips such as peanut butter, St Agur blue cheese creme, avocado and mayonnaise dip... I alos take mini-meatballs (sometimes with the above dips), of a slice of meatloaf.

@MerylSqueak what about fat bombs? They are really quick to eat, have lot of fat per mouth full and delicious. I make them for long days out cycling. There are loads of recipes if you google. All mine are coconut oil based and typically include nut butter / chopped nuts / cocoa powder / cocoa nibs but you can also make citrussy ones using mascarpone, coconut oil and lime or lemon juice. A lot of the recipes call for stevia but I never bother with that as everything tastes sweet enough when you eat so little sugar (as others have noted).

I have just received a taster pack of nut butters in sachets - they are from a company called Outdoor Provisions and are single serve nut butters in small pouches. I really enjoyed the one I tried (think it was peanut and raspberry). They are about 5g carbs per sachet so you wouldn't want to eat too many but they are really portable and fine at ambient so seem a useful thing to chuck in a pocket for an emergency

shop.outdoorprovisions.co.uk/collections/nut-butters

OK @pinknsparkly, here are my answers to your questions. Other posters may want to make their own contributions!

I need to eat more fruit (vegetables alone don't have enough nutrients and I need the ones from fruit too)

Which nutrients does she mean, specifically? I would argue that you can get just as much positive nutrition from vegetables and salad as you would from fruit – and, of course, without the sugar. That said, it’s only the first two weeks when you can’t eat any fruit on Bootcamp, and after Bootcamp you can increase the amount of fruit you eat, if you want, as you gradually increase your carbohydrate intake.

I eat too much red meat, and it will increase my risk of cancer (should replace with fish, chicken and beans/pulses)

This is based on studies that have lumped processed meat in with red meat, and the findings are still the subject of much controversy. Have a read of this article:

from The Guardian

To reduce the amount of fat in my diet (milk should be skimmed, no double cream, butter should be replaced with low fat margarine etc)

Did she say why she was telling you this? Did she suggest that fat links with heart disease? Because that has been proven not to be the case – worse, the assertion that it is, is based on flawed science from back in the 50s and 60s. (Gary Taubes, The Diet Delusion, explains this very well)

A low carb diet is a high fat diet. There is no issue with eating fat – it doesn’t make you fat - and you certainly should be eating low fat margarine, as that is an ultra-processed food!

Must eat carbs (by which she meant pasta, potato, rice etc, not vegetables) with my dinner at an absolute minimum, and ideally with all meals

Why did she say this? There’s no need for you to eat these foods – you will get plenty of carbohydrate from vegetables and salad, as well as more nutritional benefits.

No more than 100g cheese per week (and should be low fat)

I’m assuming this is because she thinks fat is bad. Definitely don’t get low fat cheese! We do recommend that people don’t simply binge on cheese, on Bootcamp, for two reasons – first, some people find that dairy products cause their weight loss to stall. Second, you can eat an awful lot of extra calories this way. And although we don’t count calories on Bootcamp, you still need to be mindful of what you’re putting in your mouth.

Carbs should be brown/wholemeal rather than white

Makes no difference - they're still carbs!

sugar free fizzy drinks are recommended as they're low calorie....

They’re also full of artificial sweeteners, which we’re aiming to avoid – and we’re not trying to go low calorie either. The Dr Andrew Jenkinson book will explain specifically why trying to follow a low calorie diet is detrimental, in the longer term, rather than helpful

should use low fat margarine rather than butter

Absolutely not! Margarine, never mind low fat margarine, is ultra processed and is as far away from being a natural food as you can get.

I have implemented some of these changes:
switched to skimmed milk (I don't use milk much to be honest, and it seemed like a sensible thing to do given how much milk and cereal my husband consumes)

No! Low carbing is about high fat. If you’re drinking milk (which you should be keeping to a minimum, as it is quite carby), then it should be whole milk.

swapped to brown bread (again, I don't eat this but my husband was willing to switch)

From a carbohydrate point of view, it makes no difference if you’re eating white or brown bread – you shouldn’t be eating it!

reduced red meat consumption and replaced with chicken and fish (haven't added in beans and pulses as I figured they're too carby?)

Really no need to do this – although more chicken/fish would be fine, and perfect low carb food. Beans and pulses are out, though, for the 8 weeks of Bootcamp, as they’re too carby

didn't order any double cream in the shop last week, and limited myself to one pot this week

Although you may find you need to limit dairy, if dairy doesn’t have a negative impact on your weight loss, then there’s no need to worry about it. And double cream makes some perfectly luscious low carb meals!

tried to order a light spreadable butter online (butter mixed with water and vegetable oil) but it was out of stock and substituted with normal butter

Please carry on using normal butter!

attempted to eat less cheese, mostly by having fish or meat with my lunch salads rather than feta which is what I was mostly doing

Again, issues with dairy to one side, and being careful about much you’re eating each day, there’s no need to stop eating cheese at your meals. Dr Atkins recommends you stick to 3-4 oz cheese a day (75-100g), which is still a pretty decent portion.

I hope this helps - but as I said earlier it is, of course, entirely up to you which course of action you feel most comfortable following.

[quote venusandmars]@doginabox Exactly! Veg is sugar.

It is extremely disappointing that even the Diabetes UK website has so much focus on fruit. One of their 10 guidlines for nutrition is to Eat more Fruit and Veg. However, the extract copied at the end of this post shows that all the focus is on fruit (no exciting ideas about buying tinned ratatoille, frozen cauliflower rice, frozen celeraic cubes, a jar of artichokes....). In addition there is hardly any fibre in tinned fruit since it is all peeled. Their advice about eating fruit as a snack as well as at mealtimes, and eating it throughout the day only results in our bodies being in a permanent insulin spike.

Plus the advice seriously incorrect about fruit sugar. To the body, sugar is sugar is sugar. Our cells cannot differentiate whether it comes from a mars bar, a mango, organic manuka honey, or the tears of a golden rabbit! disclaimer: there is no eveidence that the tears of said rabbit actually contain sugar

However remember that rhubarb is a vegetable (the dietician may not realise this), tomato is a fruit and pumpkin is a fruit (and a berry).

Here's the bit from the diabetes UK website:

Eat more fruit and veg
We know eating fruit and veg is good for you. It’s always a good thing aim to eat more at meal times and have them as snacks if you’re hungry. This can help you get the vitamins, minerals and fibre your body needs every day to help keep you healthy.
You might be wondering about fruit and if you should avoid it because it’s sugary? The answer is no. Whole fruit is good for everyone and if you have diabetes, it’s no different. Fruits do contain sugar, but it’s natural sugar. This is different to the added sugar (also known as free sugars) that are in things like chocolate, biscuits and cakes.
Products like fruit juices also count as added sugar, so go for whole fruit instead. This can be fresh, frozen, dried or tinned (in juice, not in syrup). And it’s best to eat it throughout the day instead of one bigger portion in one go.[/quote]
That advice is the same that I was given when I had gestational diabetes (25 years ago).

It was completely unhelpful and possibly dangerous.

I tested blood sugars often throughout the day and discovered that the wise advice to 'eat the whole orange instead of the juice' gave me a blood sugar spike.

The same was true of 'eat whole grains' and 'change your between meal snacks to fruit pieces'.

I really struggled to keep the numbers steady -even when following the regime to the letter. (I was terrified of what high blood sugar might do to my baby and very motivated to do everything right.)

I've been musing more on the fruit thing...

We take a very sour vegetable (rhubarb) and turn it into a fruit pudding by adding sugar, crumble and vanilla custard! Essentially adding sugar, fat, carbs. It doesn't make it 'healthy'. But that is also what happens to so many naturally sweet fruit - we add ice cream to bananas, we turn apples into pie. Again, that lethal combo of flour, fat, sugar.

I went on a foraging course once and we concluded that you could eat almost any (not poisonous) green thing if you deep fried it and added salt and sugar - think the 'seaweed' that you get in Chinese restaurants - some sliced green leaf, deep fried with crushed salt and sugar peanuts!

I think perhaps that Diabetes UK advice is differentiating between natural fruit (and calling it healthy sugar) and sugar in processed format which usually comes wrapped in flour (processed carbs) and fat (in the form of processed oils). I can understand the difference, but the raw impact of sugar in our bodies is the same. And if one ate a meal of pasta, tuna, sweetcorn, followed by an apple - the effect is the same.

I also noticed that the fruit with vitamin A (carotene) included mango and guava - not fruit that grow locally in my corner of Scotland! However, carrots are plentiful (if slightly carby), but they're not a fruit, so somehow don't get included.

We live in a weird world, that seems to be sponsired by Del Monte !!!

I've had a v disrupted two weeks so am going to stick to strict everyday except Saturday...

L smoked salmon and scrambled egg
D sauteed ham and courgette with herbs, then creme fraiche sw konjac noodles

water, coffee, water, fizzy water...

Oh and another Yes to the taste bud change. I have/had an incredibly sweet tooth and at my worst was definitely addicted to sugar. Despite not buying much stuff with sugar in, some evenings esp pre menstrually would see me raiding cupboards looking for Anything sweet. That's improved a Lot with this woe. When i do "treat" myself to say cake in a cafe, I don't enjoy it anywhere near as much, and my cravings when I'm on bootcamp are minimal. When I'm off it I have to watch them though...

Hello! Can I join please? I'm a bit late to the party but trying to lose some pregnancy/ivf weight (gained 10lb just on the ivf...) Started today. I tried the ultra coming-out-of-lockdown bootcamp in spring 2020 (had to stop as it turned out to be disastrous for fertility treatment) so was planning to kickstart this with watching calories and IF as well as low carb.

Waited until my 6-week check to ask GP (who is very pro-low-carb) if it would affect milk production (she says no). Then didn't start for another couple of weeks because it was about to be half term .

Checking in

You're very welcome @Learningtofeminist!

I take it, from your post, that the IVF was successful?!

Fascinating discussion about fruits & vegetables & and NHS guidelines. Some very good linked resources and also personal experiences to give us thought.

Generally I believe the NHS (monolith that it is), is amazing. What a luxury we have in Britain.

But, like The Titanic, it is slow to turn. I know many who work for the NHS who disagree with the official guidance. We need to understand this and research and come to our own decisions.

In the meantime, I don’t think anyone would disagree with the advice to drink...

WATER WATER WATER

We are fortunate to have it—literally—on tap. Drink up, Bootcampers.

Interesting to catch up with all the posts.
I’m beginning to think different people have different woe that suit them. low carb is suiting me well. I feel much better and no longer crave bread/ potatoes etc (much!). Can even turn down the Halloween sweets.

It does need planning though. Failed to plan properly for our weekend trip so it wasn’t ideal food wise.

The family sabotage resonates. It feels difficult to always turn down the sweets/ wine etc. and makes it about ‘mums on a diet’ rather than mum is eating what she wants thanks. Hopefully they will get that in time.

Still had a loss this week so happy with that. Will try and keep strict for another week and see how I go. Good luck all.

ayooplass there’s the famous “If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail” saying.

I’m not certain about that, but planning is good on this, or any other, diet designed for weight miss.

As for the “mum’s on a die” I as always clear: Mum isn’t at a health weight—you are—and I am working toward fitness and a healthier weight.

Evening all, well done everyone on the losses. Interesting stuff about the nutritional advice, especially about fruit.

I had a weird experience weighing in this morning. Was up mega early working on a report, weighed myself at 5am and sadly found that I had put on a pound since starting last week ☹️ Felt sad, but marathon not a sprint and all that. Went off and had a litre of water, then weighed myself again before my shower and I was down 7lbs!! I know water is magic, but can it lose me half a stone in a couple of hours?!? No idea what to record on the spreadsheet now. Any ideas??

We have a bit of sabotage in our house too - I think DH feels bad when he’s munching and he thinks I’m sitting there craving treats. The fact is I’m not. But he buys massive bags of nuts (hence my new user name 😬) and 90% Lindt when he shops so I can have a treat. I have a switch not a dial so I can’t stop chomping … that’s how I got big in the first place! He can just eat two biscuits / one pack of crisps etc and doesn’t get why I can’t do that. He also spends 12-16 hours a day walking / running around and lifting heavy stuff as he’s a farmer. I spend my days either piloting a desk or a car as my work is pretty sedentary…

The really good thing about this WOE is that it fits in with the rest of the family - generally we all eat the same thing only I swerve the carbs and eat veg instead. They eat the carbs…. And the veg!!

I share the frustration with the poor advice being dished out by the NHS. there are some diabetic clinics who do now advocate lchf. I think the problem is that if people get the message to eat the fat but carry on eating chips and pies too then it’s a disaster which is why the NHS can’t risk being too vocal about it.

I agree totally that different people have different woe that suit them. One of the many great things about LCHF is that it makes you scrutinise labels and foods, and pretty much everything we eat is proper food. Cooking stuff from scratch using single ingredients seems to be the most healthy thing anyone can do regardless of whether they choose to eat low carb / high carb / vegan / omni / whatever in my opinion.

@pinknsparkly that dietician gave you horrible, horrible advice. It's ridiculous nonsense that we all "know" is right because it's been repeated so many times that it's assumed to be true even though there is no real evidence out there. Like "eat less, move more" which has been proven wrong time and time again. The history of the low fat diet fad is that after the Second World War, rates of heart disease began to rise. Looking at the data in hindsight, a compelling case can be made that the reason heart attacks increased was because people were living long enough to have a heart attack rather than dying earlier from a, now medically preventable, different cause. For example, before 1950, tuberculosis alone killed around 0.5% of the population of Western Europe every year! Also, smoking wasn't publicly known to be linked with heart attacks at the time so smoking wasn't even considered as a cause of increased heart disease.

There were two main hypotheses for the apparent sudden increase in the prevalence of heart attacks. Dr John Yudkin blamed sugar and his 1972 book Pure, White and Deadly still makes compelling reading nearly 50 years later. The competing Diet-Heart hypothesis of Dr Ancel Keys used cherry-picked data from his whole data set to "prove" that fat caused heart disease. (If you look at the entirety of his data then the "proof" disappears.) This was the hypothesis that won out and, because there was viewed to be a public health crisis, no-one actually did any research before recommending people reduce their intake of fat, and specifically saturated fat. It's unclear exactly why Keys thought saturated fat was bad and unsaturated fats were okay but it seems to be because saturated fats (butter, lard) are solid at room temperature and therefore would clog arteries, whereas unsaturated fats (vegetable oils) are liquid at room temperature so won't clog your arteries. Obviously all these fats are liquid at body temperature but never mind that!

Interestingly, Keys' hypothesis didn't include the idea that dietary cholesterol was bad for you. He believed that it was dietary saturated fat that caused blood cholesterol levels to rise which then caused heart disease. He saw nothing wrong with eating three or four eggs a day. The recommendation to reduce dietary cholesterol were added in the late 60s by the American Heart Association (AHA) and removed again from the 2015 Dietary Guidelines due to a complete lack of evidence to support the role of dietary cholesterol in the development of heart disease.

However, in Keys' and the AHA's defence, they never recommended that people should reduce their fat intake and also massively increase their sugar intake. That came about because of pressure from suppliers of high fructose corn syrup and manufacturers using (cheap) sugars to bulk out foods and make them more palatable. The low fat-high sugar diet was born and has been promoted worldwide ever since... while the population continues to get fatter and suffer from more "diseases of civilisation" such as diabetes and heart disease even though they are obeying the guidelines to reduce their saturated fat intake.

The advice to eat five-a-day is even more fake as it came from an advertising campaign to try and increase sales in this area. There is some research showing the benefits of antioxidant consumption but it is not clear whether antioxidants are good for you or whether they actually damage your body and cause it to respond by improving health by the principle of hormesis. This is where a low dose of an environmental agent stimulates a beneficial response. For example as the plants and animals living around Chernobyl that are now highly resistant to the effect of ionising radiation.

So, on to the bad advice...

- I need to eat more fruit (vegetables alone don't have enough nutrients and I need the ones from fruit too)
This is plainly ridiculous. Google search for the micronutrients in kale and compare it to the micronutrients in an apple. Vegetables have a wider range of nutrients in higher quantities than fruit. Even the humble lettuce, often viewed as merely "crunchy water" is rich in vitamin K2 which is a notoriously difficult vitamin to get enough of. Fruits are completely unnecessary in our diet. They are also unhealthy in sufficient quantity as we have not evolved a mechanism to deal with large amounts of fructose in our diet so it gets stored as fat in the liver and can eventually lead to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease if you eat large amounts of fruit for years on end.

Vegetables, particularly dark leafy greens, have a plethora of vital micronutrients however where they fall down are the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. Even when vegetables contain these vitamins they are not in a highly bioavailable form so the body doesn't absorb them well. The exception is vitamin D in mushrooms which is highly bioavailable. Then again, mushrooms aren't a vegetable!

And so I hear you cry, where oh where, StuntNun, can I get bioavailable fat-soluble vitamins? The answer, of course, is meat, especially red meat which also contains iron and other great stuff such as selenium, zinc and vitamin B12...

- I eat too much red meat, and it will increase my risk of cancer (should replace with fish, chicken and beans/pulses)
Fish is great. By all means eat plenty of fish. But don't cut down on the red meat and all those lovely fat-soluble vitamins. As BIWI said, the studies into meat and cancer group processed and unprocessed meat together. So a free-range organic steak is considered the same as a hamburger from the chippy van or as a hot dog that came out of a can. Also these studies are based on lifelong diet so they'll ask a 50-year-old how he ate thirty years ago and expect him to remember accurately. There is a real lack of gold standard randomised control trials (RCTs) in dietary research; they're all based on epidemiological studies that show tiny increases in cancer risk based on unreliable patient diet questionnaires.

- To reduce the amount of fat in my diet (milk should be skimmed, no double cream, butter should be replaced with low fat margarine etc)
This is based on the unproven Diet-Heart hypothesis and not on the proven fact that we have cut our fat intake at a population level and yet obesity and diabetes rates are still soaring.

- Must eat carbs (by which she meant pasta, potato, rice etc, not vegetables) with my dinner at an absolute minimum, and ideally with all meals
This is based on the fact that we need a certain amount of carbohydrate each day however there is absolutely no requirement to obtain it from diet. Carbohydrate, specifically glucose, is so essential to the body's functioning that we can make it from almost anything including the backbone of fats and even from the lactic acid that builds up in muscles during strenous exercise. There is also a viewpoint that we need carbohydrates for energy but this is only true if you are eating carbohydrates in quantity. When you go low carb and switch to a fat-based metabolism you will experience a steady energy level, e.g. no mid-afternoon slump requiring sugar and caffeine to perk you up again. Unless your body fat percentage is below 5% but I doubt any of us in this group are even below 20% body fat so we have plenty to keep our energy levels up!

- No more than 100g cheese per week (and should be low fat)
Just another attempt to cut fat.

- Carbs should be brown/wholemeal rather than white
There actually isn't much difference between the two and there is some evidence that wholegrains might even be less healthy because they contain more anti-nutrients that restrict nutrient absorption in the gut.

- sugar free fizzy drinks are recommended as they're low calorie....
These are downright bad for you. We recommend drinking lots of water on this way of eating. And avoiding artificial sweeteners that can increase your hunger levels, disrupt your gut biome, and maintain the desire for sweet-tasting foods.

- should use low fat margarine rather than butter
Low fat margarine, and vegetable oils in general are also bad for you. Because they're unsaturated they're more likely to oxidise when heated and cause inflammation. Whereas saturated fats are stable when heated. Vegetable oils are also highly processed. Even Time magazine says that vegetable oils aren't actually that healthy.

At the end of the day I would confidently state that following any of these recommendations from the dietitian will be bad for your health. However, standard disclaimer, I am not a medical professional and if you're going to go against medical advice then I strongly recommend you read up on it yourself. I can suggest some books that might be useful:

Nina Teicholz's Big Fat Surprise

Gary Taubes's Case for Keto

Jason Fung's Obesity Code

Gary Taubes's Case Against Sugar

Also, the Diet Doctor website and Zoe Harcombe's blog have a plethora of information across different areas of diet.

If anyone has any questions on all this then please do ask.

@Nutsaremynemesis I am the same. I can’t just eat one or two of anything, I keep going back until they are all gone. So glad I can swerve them on this WOE. It’s taken DH a long time to put on weight (the bugger managed to get to a healthy weight) eating whatever he felt like. He’s only gone and lost nearly a stone in 6 weeks since starting doing night shifts

And I was floating around with the same 4lbs on and off.

That’s true @ShagMeRiggins- although I think I had the famous 5 p’s (prior planning prevents pisspoor performance) in my mind!
It’s like any change I guess, planning needed until it’s second nature.

I definitely agree about it fitting in well with family life @Nutsaremynemesis. And it’s getting easier to prepare carby sides without wanting them. And you are right it’s a much simpler way of eating - fewer additives and junk.

@BIWI @Rayna37 @Nutsaremynemesis @venusandmars thanks for those suggestions. I have bought some coconut oil with my shopping today.

Thank you for the very informative discussion.

Thank you @StuntNun - you answered all those questions so much better than I did!

Hi all, I'm starting today and wondered if it would be possible to be added to the spread sheet of fabulous? I finally got my scales working and weighed in at 140.8lbs. I'm ready to get back on to the low carb WOE after a difficult year.