Week 2 - Jan 22 Low Carb Bootcamp Thread

[BIWI]

As I'm doing more and more often, I'm starting the next week's thread on a Sunday evening.

This is because, since I've retired, I am no longer controlled by the tyranny of my alarm clock, and so will often sleep too late on a Monday morning for all the keen Bootcampers!

I love the first post of week 2, because for all those who are new and/or are sceptics about low carbing, this is the point at which they may realise just how effective a low carb WOE can be.

Anyway, here is the spreadsheet, and I really look forward to seeing everyone's progress

for us all

Ha ha ha

No I love bootcamp honest! but am feeling a bit low

I'm a bit slow to catch up with this thread! Well done on all the amazing weight losses! I'm not sure why but I woke up feeling really bloated on Monday and had stayed the same. I'm hoping it was something random and that I'll get a better loss this week. I think I'm around 1/2 stone or so from where I'd like to be so I suppose that might be the reason for a tail off.

Love the meal plan and shopping list, that's so useful.

Today I've had:
B - black coffee (long term IFer)
L - olives, cauliflower cheese soup (made with one cauliflower, a leek, a bit of onion, packet of cooking chorizo, chicken stock cube, fried the chorizo and onion off in olive oil, added the rest of the ingredients plus water to cover and simmered for 30 mins then blended with cheddar cheese).
D - will be bolognese sauce with buttered cabbage and broccoli.

STILL not very good with the water but I'm about to go and get a big glass now!

I'm also struggling a little with being in the office more, sometimes without much notice so I haven't always got time to make a lunch. I've been going to a supermarket and buying mixed salad and cooked chicken/olives/eggs etc but it's quite expensive and wondering if anyone has any easy LC bought lunches? I know I should just get more organised to take something in. I can easily get to a waitrose, coop and sainsbury's.

DarkCorner re lunch in the office, as a starting point I'd buy a jar of olives in brine (much cheaper than from deli counter) along with some packs of pork scratchings and leave them in your office drawer as a fallback snack.

@DarkCorner - not allowed until Bootcamp Light but you can also get snack sized (25/30g) packs of mixed nuts that I keep in the car in case of emergency munchies! When shopping on the day of eating, rather than a prepared meal, I tend to get a selection from the following options: a rioe and ready to eat avocado, a ball of mozzarella, a snack pot of fresh coconut, a tin of sardines, a pack of snacking cheese (such as cheese strings or laughing cow triangles). It'll be rather lacking in veggies (pre bootcamp I would add a pack of cherry tomatoes but that's a bit carby for bootcamp I think?) but will full you up and not leave you hungry! Makes for a slightly random lunch and you'll definitely get some raised eyebrows from colleagues though

That was supposed to say a ripe and ready to eat avocado!

@DarkCorner could you start a habit of making your lunch the night before (regardless if you're going to office) and then if you find yourself going in you just take it with you? It wouldn't need to be properly assembled, just the bits you'll use the next day - handful of leaves, couple tomatoes, a boiled egg or two, or a lump of cheese or a bit of fish whatever.

My go-to LC bought lunch is normally either an avacado (if they have ripe ones) or a pot of guacamole with some cooked ham or chicken to scoop it with. Sometimes I'll have smoked mackerel fillets, they're inexpensive but very good.

What about tinned fish? You could keep some tinned sardines or similar in a desk drawer, though I'm trying to think what you'd have them with that's also a non-perishable thing.

@DarkCorner - the bloating will be because you're not having enough water. If your body thinks it's not going to have enough, then it will hold on to what it has . There is a reason why we need to drink lots of water, especially on this WoE

If it helps to motivate you, I like to visualise it as peeing away the fat

So, water water water

@DollyDingleberry and @pinknsparkly I'm also off with my youngest today. We usually go to our local farm park, double bonus today - the sun shone and I didn't give into my hot chocolate craving

I'm still catching up. Brb

@Baystard I've just taken delivery of a box of mixed flavour porky puffs. It's huge. I tried the maple - I agree a bit sweet

I've bought quite a few things to assist my ascent back to lchf (SLC rolls, porky puffs, cacao nibs, yoghurt, almond milk). I'm almost finding that having options is making me want to eat. You can't win can you

B: 2sl low carb bread DH bought reduced, not tried it before, am impressed
L: chopped cucumber & tomato, knob boursin, realised too late I don't want to eat cheeseburger pie cold. Supplemented with 3 cocktail sausages
S: porky puffs
D: not sure but I'm excited to be escaping the house alone to the opticians later

My weight seems static since the weekend. Must try harder

@NoraEphronsNeck - thanks, that's a great idea as fall back office bits. I hadn't thought of pork scratchings!

@pinknsparkly thank you, love the mozarella idea! And the other suggestions for bootcamp lite . I used to keep nuts at work but haven't recently. My boss always gives me strange looks over my lunch even when it's quite normal so I'm used to that .

@Baystard - thanks, I hadn't thought of a pot of guacomole if avocados are not ripe (for some reason the ready to eat ones never seem to be!). Hummus was one of my go tos pre LC but obviously a no go now! And chicken/ham to scoop is great. But yes, making lunch the night before and planning better wherever I'm going to have it would be a good idea, I can always add more/more interesting extras if I happen to be at home.

@prettybird - ah, I'm sure you're right on the water/bloat issue! I'm on it today , thank you for the nudge!!

For bought lunches, M&S do a lovely Greek salad. They used to do a boiled egg salad with a little pot of bacon bits which I must have eaten almost every day for a year at one time. Not sure if they still do it.

@CrystalTits

Last night I had a MASSIVE, and I do mean massive, plate of broccoli and asparagus in butter plus salad leaves with loads of mayo, celeriac dauphinoise and a cooked chicken breast. I can't believe I can get away with eating such massive portions. Should I be reining in the portion size a bit?

@CrystalTits at this stage of Bootcamp, you eat till you're full/have had enough. This isn't a WOE that's about deprivation.

However

Although we don't count calories or carbs, at some point calories do come into play, so it's wise not to get carried away with your portion sizes.

Was it really massive? Or just a portion you wouldn't expect to be eating 'on a diet'?

Can anyone link me to recipe shoogled sprouts ? Can't find it!

There's no recipe @missfliss simply microwave sprouts with butter and halfway through the cooking time swirl/shake the sprouts round to coat them in the butter - this is the shoogling step!

@YesIcan3 when you lose weight (on any diet, not just low carb) the fat cells release stored oestrone which is a form of oestrogen. It's probably this that's causing the spots and it will resolve over time as the ovaries will start producing less oestradiol to compensate for the released oestrone. This issue can also disrupt menstrual cycles such as causing breakthrough bleeding on hormonal contraception, causing mid-cycle spotting, and even a return of periods post-menopause.

@AllTheBlackCoffee are you definitely eating enough? Or is your period due that might be causing a temporary extra hunger. There's no need to be hungry on this way of eating; if you're hungry then eat. Also I saw that you mentioned thyroid issues; are you hyperthyroid or hypothyroid?

@CoffeeChocolateWine

Hope everyone is well today. So I started well this morning with some scramble eggs, roasted mushroom, tomatoes and some avocado. I do worry a little about my increase in egg consumption after being told forever that they are high in cholesterol…

Lunch wasn’t quite so successful because my DH tried to do a nice thing by making me soup for lunch…but it was spicy roasted parsnip soup. He doesn’t know the ins and outs of boot camp rules so thought this would be perfect! I didn’t have the heart to throw his nice gesture back in his face so had a very small bowl. It was lovely but tarnished slightly by the knowledge it was against the rules!

Oh well. Onwards we go…!

Why are you worried about your cholesterol; are your levels already high? The cholesterol found in eggs doesn't raise your blood cholesterol although if you have familial hypercholesteraemia you might choose to limit your daily intake of cholesterol-rich foods. The most important information about eggs is that, while they're relatively high in cholesterol, they also contain nutrients that are beneficial for heart health. I don't think they can be compared with other cholesterol-rich foods such as processed foods/baked goods. Here's a good article on eggs: www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-many-eggs-should-you-eat

@DarkCorner I'm just back from Morrisons where I spotted little mini packets of pate for 50p, if you like pate they'd be an ideal thing to keep in the fridge to take to the office. They were proper sealed packets and the ones I saw had nearly 3 weeks shelf life. Bought one to quality control on your behalf

Have also joined the celeriac- team, gratin here I come.

Less successful are cocoa nibs, as I don't like red wine and, as a PP said, they taste alot like red wine (I should have listened!).

This was my low carb shepherds pie, made from 180g of leftover roast lamb, minced and then cooked with a shedload of blitzed veg (a carrot, three shallots, 3/4 of a large leek, a cube of frozen chopped spinach and a can of tomatoes) plus some Worcestershire sauce and then topped with left over mashed neeps, left over creamed celeriac, blitzed microwaved cauliflower, an egg, some cream and Parmesan, all blitzed together and then some crumbled bacon stirred through it.

Yummy.

There's enough of the tasty mince base left over to make a spag Bol (I'll have it with cooked strips of white cabbage)

Roasted celeriac wedges with chorizo for dinner along with some leftover chicken tikka and Greek yog. This is the only way I really like celeriac and it would have been delicious had Alexa not ignored my instructions to set a timer. Charred celeriac is a acquired taste I think. The edible bits were nice.
I had an extra dish of Greek yoghurt to make up for it.

I can attest to the post meno bleeding that Stuntnun mentions. It’s happened to me a couple of times when I’ve gone LC. Important to stress that any post meno bleeding needs to be checked out though.

B Greek Yoghurt, cinnamon, cream (I'm trying to dial down the amount that I'm sloshing in )
L Salad with deli sliced roast beef and a little cheese, two chicken sausages
D Steak, large mushroom, baby aubergines and sprouts baked with harissa and feta

Bootcamp is going well as DH is on board and cooking half the meals. Especially impressed with his celeriac slicing. As someone else mentioned in last thread celeriac is back in Lidl after an absence.

Thinking of picking up Vension Meaballs to make something for dinner tomorrow. We have tons of vegetables in the fridge so need to figure out how to cook with vegetables that is not a spaghetti and meatball type dish. (I don't really like tomato sauce).

Evening all,

I did a cookathon last night until 11pm, so I had lots to choose from in the fridge.

B: Coffee
L: Homemade tuna & pepper mayo, little gem, tomatoes & spoon of guacamole
D: Stuffed peppers (delicious!)

Working on fluids. I had planned to go for a walk every morning but I haven't done any exercise at all. I am trying to finish up a project for Tuesday, and I am doing lots of displacement activities and telling myself I am too busy for a walk. Yet I still have time for MN and the paper.

I am seeing a lot of white cabbage talk on here, can anyone recommend a basic way of cooking it? I've got one staring beadily at me in the fridge.

I stayed at my mum's today and had greek yogurt for breakfast, garlicky greens and hot smoked salmon for lunch and my friend is making me monkfish wrapped in prosciutto with lemon garlic butter and a FTGV! I'm loving this style of eating.

I'm struggling to drink the last half litre of my 3.5L in the past few days but i did buy some electrolyte drops to add to my water bottle and I feel like it's helped some of ny weird heart palpitations. Also completed the tax return! Woohoo

Not a great day good wise for me - I enjoy this woe but it does take time and planning, sigh...

Sorry to hear you're ill @missfliss - hope you have an easy time of it.