Week 2 - May 22 Low Carb Bootcamp - our first weigh-in thread

[BIWI]

Sorry for the late start.

Here's the spreadsheet for you to confess all!

A quick peek shows some really good early results, with @UnOeufIsEnough and @loopylou3030 both hitting the half stone mark. Brilliant!

The recipes are making me feel hungry! I had dinner around 5, then took the DCs to the playground, and it was 8.30 by the time I got home. I was hungry but decided it was too late to eat, so I've just been drinking water. The food posts are killing me though!
B. Creamy coffee. 2 chicken thighs.
L. Bolognese with mashed turnip.
D. Bolognese with buttered greens.

I cooked today so nice food. DH loves Bolognese so almost no leftovers.
Scales are descending gently, which is inspiring.

@Frenchpoodle thanks for the accidental tea, I will take it and have a restful weekend anyway!

Friday I fell asleep on the sofa at 7pm until 11, can't tell if its because it's been a long work week, a lack of water, impact of this WoE, or just my body's way of avoiding the temptation to have a drink!

Friday was:
B: Greek Yoghurt and tea with whole milk
L: salad with egg and cheese
T: Fajita vegetables, sour cream and avocado

2.5l of water, three teas with oat milk. Still need to up this! But fell asleep with a 1l glass of water in front of me, so was trying 🙃

Happy weekend all!

Also the pesto med veg sounds delicious. Just need my basil plant to put a growth spurt in so I have enough leaves to make pesto: DH is allergic to every drop bought one we've tried as he has a nut allergy, isn't allergic to pine nuts in the pesto but they always have either sneaky almonds (cheaper than pine nuts) or are cross-contaminated.

@Ulelia just buy one of those basil plants from the supermarket, I've always found they grow like mad and last me a whole season pretty much, in fact I need one.

I've managed to get to the end of the thread! Every time I come back here I run out of time to post by the time I've read all the lovely updates 😁the dinner recipes in particular all sound amazing and have inspired me to do at least some cooking this week (I'm about to do our food order). I'm STILL recovering from covid that I caught back in March so have been surviving on food we can bung in the oven or microwave without any prep. I'm going to start with chicken thighs with pesto and feta!

I usually do intermittent fasting but woke up starving in the middle of the night and again this morning. Pre-bootcamp, what I just ate for breakfast wouldn't even have crossed my mind, but I've just had leftover meatballs in a creamy sauce as my husband didn't eat them last night. And a very tasty breakfast they were too! Now I'm finishing off with a cup of coffee and cream and a pint of water. Happy weekend all!

@Frenchpoodle I sometimes have vegetable soup for breakfast, or mushrooms on low carb bread, or a cheese and vegetable omelette / frittata. I often make the fritatta for dinner, eat half and then have quarter for breakfast (twice). I sometimes have cheesey spinach just butter, spinach, grated cheese and worcestershire sauce It's very spinach-y but I like that iron taste. Left over cauliflower cheese with bacon is lovely for breakfast / lunch.

Food for today:
B - avocado with cheese, mayonnaise and a small chopped tomato (and lots of black pepper)
L - veg soup
D - slow cooked lamb casserole, cauliflower, spinach, broccoli, green beans

Next week I'm looking forward to moving onto intermittent fasting. For the next 4 weeks I'm taking dgc to school each morning, which should make the whole process easier. I'll have to be out of the house before 7 (no way I'll have breakfast before that) and not back until about 10am. I'll have a mug of rooibos tea while dgc are eating breakfast, then brunch about 11am. Dinner eaten by 7pm and off to bed by 10 should give me the 16/8 structure.

12st 2 1/4lb this morning - that's 10 1/4 lb since we started last Monday. Broke my fast last night with a lovely creamy avocado with olive oil and (separately ) some shoogled sprouts. I have boiled some eggs to take with me to Murrayfield.

The "good" result is also an illustration of how your body slurps up the water into your cells when you fall off the wagon, so a lot of that will be water loss. I'm expecting the weight loss now to settle down to 1-2lb/week. I'm motivated to continue as ds' graduation is on 5 July . mentally calculates where I might manage to get to by then

I've not tried "the dress" on again this morning - I'll do that when I get back from Murrayfield in the afternoon. But I've certainly given it a good go

Someone commented on avocados: my cousin is a high heedyun in Westfalia, the world's largest avocado producer. He says that Lidl and Aldi never buy "top" quality avocados, hence why they are so variable. Waitrose & M&S are prepared to pay for the good ones.

Have to say that that's my experience: the Lidl ones are hit or miss whereas the ones I get from our local greengrocer (more expensive) are lovely and creamy.

@BIWI
Ive not done boot camp before but have done (with success) Moseley’s low carb which includes skipping b’fast and having an ‘eating window’ of 8 hours. Dr Jason Fung recommends this too. I’m now in the habit of no bfast & simply not hungry til midday. So I’m just wondering what the rationale is for 3 meals on boot camp please?

and @pinknsparkly if you are used to not having a bfast how have you found boot camp?

apologies if I shouldn’t be asking this here.
huge thanks!

@kimlek you can ask any questions you like - that's what we're here for!

The rationale for 3 meals a day in the first two weeks of Bootcamp is to make sure that we keep our blood sugar levels stable, which means not getting hungry between meals.

It's especially important for those new to low carbing. If you're already a practised intermittent faster, then it's ok to keep going with that.

@kimlek I've been on every bootcamp since August last year, and in the first couple I took part in I did eat three meals a day as I wasn't doing intermittent fasting. I then started intermittent fasting to add another string to my bow in terms of controlling my blood sugar and in bootcamps since then I've not (usually!) eaten breakfast. I do eat reasonably low carb between bootcamps too, so don't have the same carb flu issues that I might otherwise get when trying to re-adapt from a high to low carb WOE. As BIWI says, if intermittent fasting is something you already do and are used to then you can continue but it's highly recommended that you don't start low carbing AND intermittent fasting in one go if you want to make lasting lifestyle changes! Be kind to yourself and take it one step at a time!

Sorry @kimlek, I've just re-read you message and realised you're already currently IFing (I thought you meant you'd done it in the past but weren't currently doing it). In that case, I'd carry on with skipping breakfast and use the bootcamp rules to dictate what to eat and drink in your eating hours

Do basil plants need a lot of light?? or shady windowsill will be enough??

yesterday for early dinner/late lunch I had air fryed chicken breast, cheesy broccoli mash, and fried mushrooms.

for supper I had cottage cheese.
and 3-4 sticks of polish pepperamis.

Today so far:
Coffee with soya milk
3boiled eggsa, 2slices of roast pork loin ham, 3 slices of cheddar cheese, 1table spoon of mayo, half of avocado, and nice portion of cucumber.

Decaf coffee with almond milk.

for dinner I am planning homemade burgers (no bun) with mixed salad,

not sure yet what for lunch will depend on how hungry I will be.but possibly cottage cheese or mascerpone cheese.

This is my first boot camp, but I am low carbing from last September, with falling of the wagon a few times in between for holidays.

Thank you so much @BIWI and @pinknsparkly I’m joining a bit late (apologies) but I just thought I can copy everyone else just 2 weeks behind. hope that’s ok. I’m pretty low carb as in that I never eat bread, pasta, potatoes etc but I’m a nightmare around sweet treats! Hence having a good stone or so to lose. The boot camp sounds ideal.

I've only lost ½kg so far this time. I guess that's normal because I only have 1 stone to lose?

Loving this thread, there are so many inspirational ideas and there is always something new to read

If only sandwich shops sold low carb food!

know what you mean, @Lucienandjean about sandwich shops having few low carb options, especially the ones who see pre-packages sandwiches. If you can find one making up the sandwiches as they go along, I've found them usually very happy to put the protein and salad in a takeaway box as a salad instead of between bread and prepared to supply dressing and cutlery

I do tend to carry small bottle of made up oil/vinaigrette and a fork or spoon just in case.

@teraculum29 should be, worth a try they only cost about 50p.
@prettybird that is actually inspiration loss.

so I'm actually doing ok now, feeling loads less stressed since dd has actually got study leave approved, yay.

Bought lots of nice food from M&S yesterday so I don't feel hard done by and if we go out today I think I might insist on smoke bbq (even though dh is veggie and will struggle to find anything to eat).
I do have a Colin cake (actually it's Tesco's rip off and was in the reduced section due to missing an eye, dd and wanted to re home him).
Birthday camping trip was cancelled due to dd ( well it wasn't actually cancelled other 3 couples have gone without us) but there is an art exhibition in town from a local artist I really like so May go to that instead.

I need to ask renpho scales owners a question about muscle mass and body fat percentages. Mine just move up and down with weight which obviously isn't right is it just my scales that are faulty or is that all they do. As in I was 2lbs down so it shows a loss of muscle mass which I know is not true as I've been at gym so percentages should be changing, body shape is.

I did put paragraphs in that post, sorry.

@ditavonteesed these scales aren't really that accurate for muscle mass. They use impedance to calculate it.

If you're buying basil in a pot from a supermarket, try splitting it into 4 and repotting it (into similar sized pots as the original). All supermarket herbs are sown very densely - they only grow up, and not out - and actually thrive better with more space, and may grow more bushy, to the size or the original. You can get 4 plants for the price of one.

Great tip on the basil plants @venusandmars !
One of the things I love about this woe is that it forces to me to cook a Lot more so I'm enjoying using fresh herbs. My supermarket basil is doing well. I cannot seem to keep a coriander plant alive whatever I do though!

@prettybird I'm looking forward to your dress pics too no pressure. I'd err on the more comfortable outfit but I'm sure you'll look lovely regardless. Hope you have a fab night!

I've discovered Morrison's make very nice gluten free meatballs. Really low carb, the children like them and have them with pasta, I have them with veg. Highly recommend. They're very reasonable too.

Morning, happy Saturday everyone 😊 😀 😘

Breakfast: bacon, gouda cheese, aubergine, pepper and tomato followed by some cream.

I've eaten late, so can't manage any lunch, I hope this is okay.

Dinner: sea bass fillet, courgette, pepper and tomato followed by a bit more cream.

I'm on antibiotics for a uti, so might feel a bit sickly, but am drinking lots of water and herbal tea.

I after my ceaser salad out yesterday, have found a taste for anchovys, so bought a pot on the way out.

2 x eggs

Homemade ceaser salad (no crutons) with said anchovys and a couple of slices of leftover roast beef.

Roasted Chicken thighs on salad

• Greek yoghurt

The other trick with supermarket basil is to make sure that they sit in a lot of water. I was given this tip and was very dubious about it, but it's true. Water the pot well, and then sit the pot inside another one, and keep it half-filled with water.

Also needs to be in the sun/warm spot.

Dh wanted to video the shenanigans of me getting into it but I wouldn't let him