Is anybody interested in a January Low Carb Bootcamp?

[BIWI]

The last one was pretty quiet, so I'm trying to gauge how many would be interested in a January one - probably starting around the middle of the month.

And thank you, @prettybird 🥰

Ok, so:

Salmon, veg, new potatoes: leek and courgette gratin. If that appeals I can post a "recipe" (that I've made up, hence the "")
Spaghetti bolognese - courgetti (get a spiraliser) or Aldi do a soy bean low carb alternative (not in the first two weeks!)
Curry and rice - cauliflower rice, or sautéed spinach in chilli oil is delicious
Sausage, veg and mash - celeriac mash. Waitrose sell bags of frozen diced celeriac that cooks in minutes, and then I mash it up with butter and salt and pepper.
Chicken nuggets, veg and jacket potato (dds favourite!) - tbh I'd eat something else on those nights. Omelettes are quick and easy and can be packed with veg. Or a fish fillet and veg is simple and low hassle to make.
Pizza made on wraps - you can make a Fathead dough or a cauliflower base.
Roast chicken, veg and roast potatoes - extra veg, though to be honest I do occasionally have a roastie or two.
Prawn stirfry with noodles - Bare Naked Noodles.
Enchiladas - lettuce leaf wraps.

I've just had a planned, two week break over Christmas in which I stopped low-carbing, and ate anything I wanted. I've gained six pounds, and have been really keen to get back low-carb! It's honestly been a revelation for me - I get to eat delicious food, not starve myself, and still lose weight? Yes please!

@Borris

Can I ask whether one weekend in the middle with carbs makes it pointless doing the whole thing or can I get away with that?

Yes, I'm sorry. You're either low carb or you're not. If you're eating high carb food, then your body will be producing a lot of insulin to deal with the extra glucose, so your blood sugars will be 'out of whack'.

This is what I need

Remember my first (and only) low carb,I was climbing the walls for the first week. I ate lots of biscuits then.

Now I’m more savoury person but turned into a dog&pig cross- can’t stop eating and after I stuffed my face I just wang to lie down 🙁

@Borris

Also is it bad for children? I imagine primary school age dd would eat still have carbs at breakfast and school lunch but we like to eat the same meal for dinner

I usually just cook an extra vegetable so DH and I have extra veggies and the kids still get veggies and a carb. The only problem is it means more washing up! I think DH and I going low carb has benefited the kids though because we stopped having dessert every day and they eat more of their main course instead. They still eat carby snacks but their sugar intake has definitely reduced.

@Borris If you have a special event coming up I would still go for it and join bootcamp anyway. Firstly you will learn what and how to eat with this approach; secondly you will get lots of ideas about how to reduce carbs and lots of support; thirdly you will be going into that weekend / event from a better base, and you will be able to get straight back on bootcamp when it is over.

However, what you should know and expect is that when you return to eating lots of carbs the excess glucose will be stored as glycogen. Each gram of glycogen is bound to 3 or 4 g of water. So you will most likely see a weight increase and may well feel bloated. If you have a couple of days of excess carbs it will probably take another 4 or 5 days (on strict bootcamp) to return to fat-burning, so you are effectively losing a week out of the 8 week programme. You might also find that eating lots of carbs re-ignites your desire for them, so you will need to be ready to be strict and determined once it is over, and in particular make sure you don;t have access to left-over cake / crisps / wine etc.

My advice for the actual weekend / carby period is to enjoy it. No point in feeling guilty. But maybe question why it has to be so carby, and find out what you can influence. e.g. a night away in a hotel with a big breakfast: avoid the fruit juice / prunes / cereals go for the full cooked breakfast - eggs, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, tomato. Ditch the hash browns / toast / potato scone.

If it's a pizza night, can you change that to a curry night (or similar)? Eat something like scrambled eggs about 2 hours before you go so you are not ravenous and more likely to eat mindfully. Drink lots of water, especially before you have any alcohol so you are drinking alcohol for the enjoyment, not to quench your thirst.

Avoid snacks. You don't need them.

If you're served a plateful of food eat more of the protein and helthy veg, leave as much of the carbier items as you can - e.g. eat the fish and leave the batter; eat the chicken, broccoli and carrot but leave the bread stuffing, the yorkshire pudding, the sweetcorn. Eat small amounts of what you really want (roast potato is my downfall) but notice whether you're really enjoying it, and stop after a small amount. You might find that eating a third of the chips is actually enough.

Avoid as much pudding as you can.

Also to add to your food list, I make 'pizza' on big portobello mushrooms, with all my favourtie toppings. After all (imo) it's the toppings that are the best bit, not the dough underneath.

Today we've had bacon, mushrooms and fried egg for brunch, and tonight I'm making a that green curry with cauliflower rice. It's funny that my local Tesco has empty shelves where the local produce might be - turnips, sprouts etc, but has no problem sourcing lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, thai basil etc...

Thank you all for the excellent advice. I'm thinking that I will use the next 2 weeks before the event to practise the recipes (thanks @GreeboIsMySpiritAnimal for all the swaps) and figure out a menu plan. I'm a menu planner anyway but I think I will do all meals of every day.

It sounds like celeriac mash could be a lifesaver as dd loves mashed potato so a lot of our food will work with me having celeriac and her having potatoes.

With stir fries I normally buy a sauce but I'm guessing that's quite sugary. Any recipes to make my own?

Is there a magic number for carbs that are ok. Eg I noticed that pesto (which I love and I think I would enjoy as much with roasted veg as I do with pasta) is 6.5G/100g Is this ok?

And do you not calorie count at all? Thinking of yummy baked Camembert (if I can think of something else other than bread to dunk).

Dunk your Camembert with raw cauliflower or broccoli florets. Two birds with one stone: veg and yummy cheese

I believe celeriac mash is even nicer/more mashed potato like if whizzed up with some soft cooked sliced leeks.

Pesto is not suitable for the first couple of weeks of Boot Camp as it includes pine nuts. The carb count for commercial pesto probably varies as some of them also use cashew nuts (which are very carby) as a bulker. After the first two weeks, small amounts used as a flavour enhancer would probably be ok (but as I say, check different brands). We don't count carbs so use your common sense and work out how much you're likely to use.

Re stir fries, I tend to generously slosh use Kikkoman soy sauce as a "sauce" (and dh tends to add extra Worcestershire sauce to his portion), as well as plenty of grated garlic and/or ginger and a wee bit of water or chicken stock. I'll then use Naked noodles, which are legitimately low carb, rather than "ordinary" noodles.

And no, we don't count calories at all - nor carbs , because they're automatically low enough if you're following the Rules

I like dunking big chucks of meat into baked cheese. Strips of steak, ham hock pieces, that sort of thing.

Another delicious thing is to cut "soldiers" of halloumi, wrap them in prosciutto, then fry them in butter and dip them in soft boiled eggs. 😋

(You could do the same thing with asparagus spears to get a veg in there.)

Did anyone read the article on the Diet Whisperers in this week's Times? Wry in-depth article about low carbing, which I nodded along to throughout. DH found it really interesting was surprised when I told him that's exactly what we do on bootcamp.

Wry? Really

Do you have a link, @NigellaAwesome? Sounds interesting

@Borris no - we don't weigh, measure or count anything. We certainly don't count calories. That's the whole point of Bootcamp, actually - to make it as easy as possible to follow. It also means, of course, that you can enjoy your Camembert - just without any bread!

That said, you do need to be wary about carb counts in packaged/pre-prepared foods. Pesto, for example, varies enormously. Sainsbury's own green pesto is 8.4g carbs per 100g, whereas Belazu is only 1.4g

Generally speaking, if you're checking labels, avoid anything that's more than 5g carbs per 100g. But you also need to consider how much of something you'd be eating - so for example, if you were just going by the 'carbs per 100g' then you'd never eat English mustard which is 13g carbs per 100g. I defy you - or anyone else - to eat 100g English mustard!

When it comes to stir-fries, you're right that most of them seem to have a lot of sugar in them. Best advice here, as @prettybird says, is to make your own. Have a read of the recipe threads, stickied at the top of the Low Carb Bootcamp topic - I think (from memory) there are some stir-fry recipes on there.

Big thumbs up for meal planning! It's key to success on this WOE - making sure you know what you're going to cook/eat each day.

I've never used a recipe for a stir-fry - for me they're a way of stretching a piece of left over cooked meat (eg a steak we didn't finish) or a single chicken breast to make it enough for two of us and chucking in a load of vegetables, whatever I have to hand (although I do particularly like baby sweet corn in my stir fries).

They don't look very pretty but they're tasty

Same here @prettybird!

Key ingredients apart from the meat/veg:

• coconut oil (for the frying)
• garlic
• ginger
• (usually) chillies or chilli flakes
• sometimes curry powder instead of chilli
• soy sauce (Kikkoman for preference)
• lime or lemon juice
• fresh coriander, if I have any
• sesame oil for 'dressing' the stir-fry when it's served

respect your hunger hormones The Times

This is the article. Hopefully is isn't behind a paywall. Quite a long read, but very interesting. Excellent for explaining the science behind bootcamp.

Thank you for the link @NigellaAwesome. Such interesting reading.
Thanks for this thread @BIWI. I have been reading all the helpful chat but haven’t joined in so far! I have done a boot camp before (different username), and generally follow this woe, but the latter part of last year felt very stressful and I found the carb intake creeping up and up, especially over Christmas! I don’t like how this makes me feel, so started strict boot camping again on 2nd January. I already feel so much better, weighed myself this morning and have lost 3lbs. I probably won’t go on the spreadsheet for the new one but would love to stick around for the new thread if that’s ok? Thank you for all the recipes people have posted and helpful advice.

@NigellaAwesome

respect your hunger hormones The Times

This is the article. Hopefully is isn't behind a paywall. Quite a long read, but very interesting. Excellent for explaining the science behind bootcamp.

It's a paywall for me. Any share tokens anyone?

Oh and moussaka topping? Any tips?

@MrsTerryPratchett there's a great recipe for moussaka on the recipe threads. It's an Idiot Proof Diet recipe.

Basically, lamb mince fried with onion, tomato purée and cinnamon (possibly oregano?), sliced (fried) aubergine on top of that, and then a 'custard' made from eggs, cream and Feta cheese. It's lovely.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/6f6382fe-6a30-11ec-b36e-12a90a7c0b99?shareToken=e1c768f96c02d39c5f72fa9ee127f26c

Thanks BIWI and @oviraptor21

Yes please. I am desperate to get back on track