Week 3 - Jan 22 Low Carb Bootcamp - Bootcamp Light or not?

[BIWI]

So now you have several choices:

• move on to Bootcamp Light for the next 6 weeks, which means allowing nuts/seeds, fruit and alcohol all in moderation!

• a hybrid, where you do Bootcamp during the week, but relax and follow Bootcamp Light at the weekend

• stay on Bootcamp, if it's suiting you

Bear in mind that weeks 3 and 4 (and sometimes 5) are infamous for seeing little or no weight loss - indeed sometimes you may see a gain.

Whatever you decide, here's the spreadsheet for you to declare all!

I hope very much that you will see good results from the last two weeks (or the last 3 or 4 weeks, depending on when you started!)

And now this week's challenge!

Like me I'm betting you all have several cookbooks that you rarely use. Go and find one that you haven't used for ages and choose a recipe that is or could be low carb and post it here.

You may have to change some of the ingredients, but that's fine! Let's all look for something that inspires us to cook something new/different.

Here's to a successful week 3

Recipe book trawling - tonight is Chinese New Year’s Eve so we will have a BC-appropriate feast with a few dishes from Fuchsia Dunlop’s books.

We like spicy, so these are quite punchy flavours and not like a standard Chinese takeaway.

Spicy fried green beans (vegan with optional pork!) food52.com/recipes/20767-fuchsia-dunlop-s-sichuanese-dry-fried-green-beans/amp

Home style tofu (vegan, but again, option to add streaky bacon!) omnivorescookbook.com/home-style-tofu/

Looking forward to hearing others’ recipes!

@ChiefDogsbody I 'rice' cabbage. It is delicious fried in butter with shallots.

Some great losses reported - well done. And keep going with it.

My recipe offering is from Jamie's 5 ingredients: Sorta salmon nicoise. It has salmon, green beens, boiled egg, black olives, greek yogurt. Easy and delicious.

Lunch will be avocado and salad.

Ah yes!

新年快乐！

One of my 'go tos' if we have Chinese is lettuce wraps. I've sometimes made this at home too, and it's easy and low carb too.

Basically you finely chop and fry together chicken (or pork), shallots, garlic, ginger, water chestnuts, baby sweetcorn and green beans with soy sauce and sesame oil. Chilli if you like.

Then 'unwrap' an iceberg lettuce, and use a leaf like a pancake. In a Chinese restaurant you'd also be given hoisin sauce with these, but that's quite carby, so I generally just add a bit more soy sauce.

Morning. I'm 2lb down this morning and 5lb down overall. I have another 4lb to lose to get to my target. I do find it difficult to cut fruit out of my diet. I generally only have one piece of fruit a day but I have missed that one piece so I will reintroduce that and then try and stick the bootcamp rules the rest of the time. So for breakfast I had a small spoonful of stewed cherries with Greek yoghurt. I will have Greek salad for lunch (Greek theme going on??) and chilli with cauliflower rice for dinner.

Be careful there @CoffeeChocolateWine - cherries are pretty high in carbs, at over 11g carbs per 100g. Really the only fruit that's OK even on Bootcamp Light is berries.

I lost half a pound this week. I lost excessively last week though (7 lbs but instead of my usual 5lbs in week 1), so I think it's just balancing out. Onwards and downwards.

@BIWI, oops, thanks for the heads-up! I was hoping cherries fell under berries. Will re-read the fruit carb counter! It was only a small spoonful, honest!

You should be fine then! But yes, definitely check out the carb counts for fruit, so you know what to avoid.

Top tip: don't go anywhere near bananas

I’m 1.2 lbs UP .

I have about a stone to lose to be my dream weight. I’ve just started hrt. My mum struggled hugely with her weight in her 40s (was okay weight but really had to fight to keep it that way, all those 80s diets and aerobics) and now is tiny, my older sister is not fighting quite as hard as I am and is now struggling with her weight.

My BMI is fine, it’s just im quite tall and I used to be much slimmer and have all these lovely clothes some of which I am still really hanging on to to see if I ever lose the baby weight! (Baby is er, almost 9). Been low carbing since April with a few weeks fail at both Christmas and new year.

I think I just have to be grateful I’m not piling it on I think!

Did have some alcohol on Friday for the first time since nye. Did have a few frozen cherries. Am coeliac so no bad products there, drink black tea and coffee. Don’t drink enough water as I hate it (makes me freezing) but drink a lot of fluids. Been drinking coca with no sugar, tiny sprinkle of salt and dash of almond milk. Cocoa powder itself seems quite low carb but maybe that’s the reason.

Anyway, a strict week ahead!

Oh, just to be clear, when I fell off the low carb wagon I piled weight on, even while still being very careful. My metabolism has changed so much in the last few years.

Morning. 1.8lb off this week to add to last week's surprising 3lb. I'm well happy. Getting used to drinking all. the. water. and am planning to stay on bootcamp with the possible transgression of a couple of the M&S seed crackers (3g carbs) with cheese. Managed a cheese and wine evening with friends on Saturday where I just had cheese and celery with a Tanqueray 0% gin, soda and a spritz of lime juice. Not bad.

Also placed an order for several bags of Montezuma's peanut butter mini eggs which use their 100% absolute black chocolate and are 8g carbs. Figured one of those mini eggs if I succumb to chocolate cravings won't do too much damage. But if @BIWI needs to get out the Big Stick then I'll comply ;)

Morning all. Congratulations to all the posers and KOKO to those not seeing the results they'd like. I'm 2.5lb down this week. I started a week early so 6.5lbs total. I did have a bottle of wine over the weekend and we went out for buffet breakfast yesterday (I ate ALL the bacon). Had a nice beach walk after and I watched everyone else eat ice cream.

Losers, not posers! But you can pose if you like 😉

Thanks for the new thread @BIWI
4lbs down this week, I flickered into the next stone bracket, but settled just above - saw someone else mention that experience, it's very motivating! Suddenly all feels quite possible.

Food today:
L - some kind of omelette with veg probably
D - aubergine parmigiana with green salad

I’m joining the annoying husbands club ! @Fleecy @UnexpectedItemInShaggingArea @ChiefDogsbody
DH normally thinks he’s going to starve to death if there’s no potatoes , but suddenly …. Still eats bananas , apples etc and has milk in his tea though , and has lost 6lb in less than 2 weeks

He’s ploughing through the Micheal Mosley book ( that no one on here rates very highly ! )
Makes my life much easier though , so I’m just smiling and nodding

OMG @CrystalTits those montezumas eggs look fantastic
Maybe they can be my Easter treat

Well done to all those with losses and KOKO for all of those in the week 3/4 stall.

0.5lbs off for me (4lbs in total) but I had a planned transgression for an event on Saturday night. Feeling a bit bloated so will koko and drink all the water! Will do another week of full bootcamp as I didn't complete the two weeks.

@CrystalTits The 100% chocolate is definitely an acquired taste! I don't like eating it but it makes really rich hot chocolate, chocolate mousse and the like.

@missfliss I'm hoping my incoming supply of those Montezuma's eggs will last until Easter :)

@Hopeislost I keep a bar of 100% in the cupboard so that I have something chocolately that I can eat. Not gonna lie, I do think it tastes like a bitter cross between ash and coffee grounds, but the choc hit from just a tiny amount is enough to keep me off the proper stuff, and I'm sure the addition of peanut butter will make it palatable!

Brilliant @Purpletomato. You must really notice that. I am bouncing along losing and gaining the same few pounds but I am due a whoosh. I am 5lb above my maintenance weight but would like to be on the other side of it to allow for transgressions.

I have some of the Montezuma 100% chocolate with orange. On its own, it's too bitter but a square with a spoonful of clotted cream is positively decadent nice

Have to admit to a 1lb gain this week - although up until this morning it looked like it would be 2lb. Last week was Week 3 for me and a rather large amount of wine was partaken on Burns Night as well as haggis

Still, I'm KOKO and off to drink the water

In news, after doing my Jillian Michaels DVD (currently on Level 3 of Ripped), I went out for a 3km run. First run out since the end of October (which was itself my first run since having my Achilles' tendon sorted) since when I caught Covid (early November) and then there was Christmas.....

OMG @prettybird I'm drooling here!

Grrr! I'm mad at myself, something has upset me today and head is elsewhere not eaten and went to fridge ate loads of cheese far too much and pepperami stick x2. Ffs feel like iv undone all work. ...
Well done to everyone else!