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Low-carb bootcamp

Join discussions about low-carb bootcamp plans, meals and progress. Consider speaking to a medical professional before starting any diet.

Pre-Christmas BootCamp 2022: Week 1

491 replies

prettybird · 17/10/2022 01:02

While @BIWI takes a well-earned break from running BootCamp after many, many years of supporting people in this Way of Eating I have, for my sins, volunteered to run the Pre-Christmans BootCamp Shock. I'll admit to only doing so for selfish reasons: I needed the BootCamp in the run up to Christmas and the accountability of running it would in turn help me to be more accountable Grin

My Big Stick might not be as big as @BIWI's but I will do my best to channel her Wink. And with the support of all the other experienced BootCampers and @FinallyHere's help with the Spreadsheet, I am sure we will see a lot of success in the run up to Christmas.Smile

Here is the link to the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness You don't need to log your weight if you don't need to but within the various tabs of the Spreadsheet are The Rules ( very important), Vegetarian Rules links to resources that outline how and why this Way of Eating works, menu plans, veg carb counters and many other resources.

I'd strongly recommend that even if you don't weigh yourself (and even if you do), you should measure yourself at the start, especially your waist. That way, if your weight loss stalls, you may still see progress in other ways. BootCamp is very effective at reducing visceral fat, which will manifest itself in a smaller waist measurement.

Anyway, on to the important stuff: here are The Rules

1. Eat three proper meals a day.
You must eat breakfast. It doesn’t have to be a lot, and it doesn’t have to be absolutely first thing, but you must have something. For the rest of the day, if you’re eating enough food and especially enough fat, you shouldn’t be hungry between meals. But if you are hungry, eat something. (Hard boiled eggs make a great snack). After the first two weeks of Bootcamp we will relax this, but these two weeks are critical in terms of helping you switch easily to a low carb way of eating - and if you start to feel hungry, it makes things much harder! Eating this way will ensure that your blood sugar levels are kept stable, which will mean that you are much less likely to experience hunger. A typical high carbohydrate diet can mean that snacking is a routine part of your day. Once your blood sugar levels are stable, by eating low carb, you should find that you no longer want to snack. But the rule of thumb here is ‘if you are hungry, eat!’. (Just make sure you are only choosing low carb snacks, of course!)"

2. Avoid processed foods.
Focus on pure, natural protein as the basis for your meals - meat/fish/eggs. Things like sausages, ham, bacon, pre-prepared burgers etc should be avoided as much as possible. You can have them, but just not at every meal, every day.

3. Eat lots of fat.
Eating fat will not make you fat. Honestly! But it will keep your appetite satisfied, and it sustains your body’s energy requirements perfectly. Fat does not provoke an insulin spike, unlike carbs which do (a lot) and protein (a little). Fry in butter, add butter to vegetables, eat salad with a home-made vinaigrette dressing (not made with balsamic vinegar though, as this is too sweet), add mayonnaise where you can (just check the carb count on your mayo first). Eat fattier cuts of meat – e.g. pork belly, roast chicken with the skin on and/or eat the fat off your lamb chops. Absolutely no low fat/light/’Lite’ foods of any kind!

4. Make sure you are eating vegetables and salads with your food.
"This is where your carbs should come from, and this is non-negotiable. But choose only those vegetables that are on the allowed list. Make sure that you focus on eating those vegetables that are under 5g carb per 100g, and this will ensure that your carb counts are kept low. You don’t have to weigh/count carbs – this is one of the great joys of this WOE (way of eating), but if you’re new to low carbing it can be helpful to weigh your portions of veg in the early days, just so that you know how many carbs are in the sort of portions that you like to eat.

The vegetable carb counter is helpfully colour-coded into green (eat freely), amber (go easy) and red (best avoided as much as possible), which will help you to make your choices."

5. Be careful about dairy (apart from butter, which is unlimited).
Dairy can impede weight loss for some people. If you are drinking tea/coffee with milk or cream, try to restrict yourself to max 2 cups per day. There are a lot of carbs in milk, so if you are having several cups of tea/coffee per day, you will quickly rack up your daily carb count (e.g. 1 medium latte contains more than 12g carbs!) You may eat cheese but again, don't overdo it. Full fat yoghurt is the best way to include dairy in your diet - but beware, it does contain carbs. You should choose one that’s 10% fat – most of the supermarkets have a Greek yoghurt in their premium ranges with this amount of fat.

6. You must drink a minimum of 2 litres of water per day.
The more weight you have to lose, the more water you should drink.

This is from www.low-carbdiet.co.uk/:

Water is essential to weight loss for those who follow a low carb way of eating. The minimum consumed in a day should be:
Your Weight.........Litres
140lbs............2.5
160lbs............3.0
180lbs............3.0
200lbs............3.5
220lbs............3.5
240lbs............4.0
260lbs............4.5
280lbs............4.5
300lbs............5.0
320lbs............5.5
340lbs............5.5
360lbs............6.0
380lbs............6.5
400lbs............6.5
"High levels of ketones in the blood stream can lead to a reduction in ketone production, therefore being well hydrated could aid in keeping the levels low and ketone production ongoing. Consuming enough water can have many other positive side effects, e.g. it aids your kidneys with the processing of protein, reduces the retention of water, helps with preventing constipation, and reduces the levels of ketones released by your breath, which in turn will reduce breath odour.

However, drinking a lot of water can mean that you also need to keep an eye on your electrolyte balance. You need to make sure that you are consuming sufficient sodium and potassium. On a low carb way of eating, we should eat more salt, so make sure that you are cooking with salt and adding salt to food, if you like it.

Good, low carb, sources of potassium are spinach (raw), avocado, mushrooms, courgettes and asparagus, as well as salmon and yoghurt."

7. No alcohol.
Alcohol is the easiest source of fuel for the body to burn, so it will always use this first before it starts to burn any fat - which is why you need to restrict it, especially in the first two weeks of Bootcamp, when we are encouraging the body to stop using carbs for its source of fuel and turn to fat-burning instead. If you really can't do this - at least try and restrict it to the weekend. Vodka with soda is the best thing to drink. Or Champagne, red wine or dry white wine.

8. No fruit.
Really. Seriously. Honestly. None at all. Zilch. Nada. After the first two weeks of Bootcamp you will be able to introduce certain fruits, in moderation, but at this stage fruit is simply too carby. We are also trying to break the addiction to sweet things, so cutting fruit out is part of this process. If you are getting all your carbs from vegetables and salad, you will be getting all the nutrients and fibre that you need.

9. No nuts/seeds.
Although they are a good source of nutrition and contain lots of fat – which is great for us – they also contain carbohydrate and, because they’re so moreish, you can quickly end up eating a lot of carbs. When we move to Bootcamp Light, after the first two weeks, you can re-introduce these, but be careful and go easy.

10. No sugar or artificial sweeteners.
Sugar is an obvious ‘no no’, but artificial sweeteners are also an issue. One of the aims of this way of eating is to eat pure and natural foods, so including sweeteners is not recommended. Some people find that artificial sweeteners can impede their weight loss, and there is some suggestion that your body can respond to sweeteners as if they were sugar, by releasing more insulin - and therefore laying down fat. Given that the aim of Bootcamp is to help us lose our sweet tooth and addiction to sweet things, then it is a good idea to avoid sweeteners altogether in this first two weeks.

That's enough for now. I'll post more in the morning: in particular the disclaimer that I am not a medical professional and that if you have any concerns, you should check with a medical professional.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
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Canthinkofaname79 · 20/10/2022 19:32

Used the same mince! Yes lots of butter. Not eaten that much the rest of today, had some boiled eggs, bit of cheese and some anchovies and olives. 3 coffee, 2 teas, 2 pints of water. Definitely feel strange! Might have some yoghurt.

NotDonna · 20/10/2022 19:35

B - scrambled egg, smoked salmon, half avocado, coffee with milk
L - salad of broc, toms, lettuce, cheese, beef carpaccio & yoghurt for afters,
D - will be the Japanese Al a carte so could be tricky
no snacks, no alcohol & doing better so far on the water.

NotDonna · 20/10/2022 19:38

Thanks @prettybird as soon as I’d finished the beetroot juice I just knew it would be a bad idea! I thought I was being really good avoiding the fruit based ones. Live and learn. I need to see if there are any weighing scales around as I’m desperate to know if anything happening yet. I’m one of those who likes to weight daily at home.

Baystard · 20/10/2022 19:57

It's taken most of the afternoon but I've caught up.

Sorry to hear about the challenges bootcampers are having with bereavement, health and so on, and big hugs in particular to @ZiggZagg

I'm fat adapted and an old hand at IF. I weighed earlier for first time in ages - 11st 11lb and want to lose 11-18 lb. I expect it'll drop quite quickly now I'm back on the wagon. I'm in perimenopause and have occasional big fluctuations which throw me off the wagon Sad but this morning it felt good getting back on.

Sprouts here at suppertime too - fried with chorizo, delicious and with a bit of crunch.

venusandmars · 20/10/2022 20:38

@Lucienandjean @prettybird I'm with you on 'sampling' the carrots - surely that's the role of the cook, to try a bit of everything and make sure it's OK for other diners? Grin I'm also the sommelier and the same rules apply Blush

Had lots of odd left overs for dinner tonight - salami and parma ham crisped in the microwave (although it didn't really crisp very well), couple of left over sausages, last bits of the cold chicken, some cheese with silverskin pickled onions (very retro on a cocktail stick), cucumber batons, lots of salad leaves. dh is now having sticky toffee pudding and custard - no idea how he has room for it, I'm stuffed. And I'm not remotely tempted - it even smells too sweet! @AlhambraQueen honestly you do get used to a different palate range. When other people are eating cake, I would much rather have full fat greek yogurt mixed with double cream, 2 chopped strawberries and topped with finely grated 90% cocoa chocolate - you only need about 1/4 square if you grate it.

I'm heading to Glencoe tomorrow. We were planning to have tonight in our campervan and possibly also tomorrow night but the weather looks pretty atrocious so I think it's going to be a day trip. Early start, then a stop for scrambled eggs and smoked salmon; chicken and veg soup for later when we need to warm up. May still brave the wild winds tomorrow night and coorie doon under warm blankets while the weather does its stuff outside.

Take care of yourself @prettybird sometimes funerals can bring on feelings of grief we weren't expecting, especially havin 2 so close to each other...

MrsTerryPratchett · 20/10/2022 20:40

Fell face first into Parmesan crisps. I MUST remember cheese is deadly.

DearieMeWhatsUp · 20/10/2022 20:46

Another hectic day, no breakfast or lunch, but a nice dinner of loads of prawns with chilli and garlic, mushrooms, peppers and cabbage, with an egg scrambled in.

Done 15k steps today too, but not drunk much water.

ZiggZagg · 20/10/2022 20:51

Thanks @Baystard

I'm waiting on my steak to cook and having with shoogled sprouts!

I have to travel to Durham (from Liverpool) tomorrow and back home again for work, so I'm preparing!

Feeling very smug at my egg mayo and SLCR, 2 boiled eggs, crudités and cheese chunks. Will add some Greek yogurt in the morning for a pick me up on the way there Grin

Skiphopbump · 20/10/2022 21:03

lunch - chicken stew
dinner - turkey burgers with Mexicana cheese, celeriac chips and salad

The celeriac chips weren’t the best but at least they had flavour unlike even my Mexicana cheese. I think I’m about 5 days into covid, hopefully my taste will return soon.

prettybird · 20/10/2022 21:04

I will take care @venusandmars - thank you. Flowers Clydebank Crematorium was where my mum's funeral was 10 years ago and I've not had reason to go back since then. So I recognise that that might dredge up feelings. Flowers

I'm planning on just having water at the purvey - and if there are cheese or ham sandwiches, to pick the middle out of them Grin

OP posts:
DurhamDurham · 20/10/2022 21:21

I have to travel to Durham (from Liverpool) tomorrow and back home again for work, so I'm preparing

Welcome to Durham tomorrow, hope it stops raining for you 😆 @ZiggZagg

CaffeineFreee · 20/10/2022 21:27

@AlhambraQueen some of us are more prone to carb flu than others. I can feel grotty after a few days of LCHF eating. Zero tabs added to water are my saviour. Plus they help the water go done too.

B. Eggs, spinach feta.
L. Burger pie with gerkins.
D. Salon green beans.

LiesDoNotBecomeUs · 20/10/2022 21:35

Hang on through the carb-flu it is horrible but doesn't last long and it shows that you are moving to living on your own fat.

The body uses all its tricks to get you back on easy carbs instead. It does not willingly give up its stores. (It is programmed to prepare in case there is a famine ahead).

Once you are fat-adapted, you will feel a real lift and then stay there. (No sugar spikes and falls.)

WitchWand · 20/10/2022 22:21

Another one here remembering being in the midst of carb flu. It really came as a surprise to me and showed me just what an unhealthy relationship I'd built up unknowingly with them. It felt like I was breaking out of an addiction.

Like others have said, it was so lovely to get to the other side of this. And now I'm not very keen on lots of the sweet foods I could wolf down in the past.

BIWI · 20/10/2022 23:25

@DurhamDurham mushy peas with mint sauce on a hot pork pie is a Northern meal of queens

Grin
NotDonna · 21/10/2022 01:53

Love pie & peas with mint sauce. Reminds me of bonfire night as a kid. That and Parkin (a gorgeous treacle ginger cake).
What’s meant by fat adapted please lies
and what are ‘zero tabs’ added to water please caffeinefreee?
The Japanese dinner option was ok actually - a starter of salmon tartare (essentially salmon on mashed avocado with a bit of cucumber) and beef teriyaki with veg. The sauce could be carby I guess but all other options were with rice/noodles mixed in so the lesser of the evils. No pud and no booze. But probs not enough water either. Chilly today so drank quite a bit if mint tea.
oh that reminds me, what’s buttermint tea please? Or was it buttermilk tea? It was butter something tea. Thank you all!

sheepdreams · 21/10/2022 05:31

persevered yesterday through carb flu but felt terrible. Lemon and salt water helped. Made a deliciously creamy fish pie with cauli and cheese topping which was yum.

still struggling with the concept of eating so much fat! but enjoying the food.

Thank you to those lovely people giving reassurance and tips to manage carb flu. So far I feel a little bit better today I will KOKO.

plan
Br: coffee with cream
Lu: Eggs with butter and mayo with salad
Tea: Mediterranean veg and pork chops

and….. ☕️💦

Have a great day everyone😀

Backstreets · 21/10/2022 05:57

Good morning all! Looking forward to today. And here's something I've noticed since I started hoovering up water at any given opportunity (at a meeting last night where I wasn't talking much I downed at least four glasses!) - I don't wake up thirsty or dry-throated in the middle of the night anymore, and my lips don't chap at all. Bonus!

Mercedesbenz2022 · 21/10/2022 08:10

Well I fell off the low carb plan last night , I blame tiredness , the lack of planning , so lesson learned !
😊

back to it today !
hoping to redeem myself today
and lots of water

koko

Mercedesbenz2022 · 21/10/2022 08:19

@NotDonna this is the tea
and if anyone knows where it is stocked
( without ) buying a lorry load , )
please let me know as I can’t find it anywhere

Pre-Christmas BootCamp 2022: Week 1
prettybird · 21/10/2022 08:23

@NotDonna - congratulations on navigating the Japanese dinner Flowers - sounds like you made tasty choices.

"Fat adapted" is also known as "ketogenically adapted" - when your body starts using fat first as a fuel source, rather than the more easily accessible sugar. The transition to it is what can cause carb flu. I like to visualise it as your body eating its own fat for energy maybe a bit gruesome but it works for me Wink It's also helps us stop having the immediate hunger pangs as there is always a readily available fuel source.

It's also why you need to eat so much fat: you need to give your body confidence that it has an abundance of its energy source and won't lay down the excess as more fat (the other reason why you need to drink so much water).

Zero tabs are electrolyte tablets, which can help as you're drinking so much water and are also needed to be sure that you keep your salt and magnesium levels up. I don't use them but many people find them really useful. I use a homemade electrolyte drink - a pint of water with a shake of Lo:Salt and a squoosh of lemon juice, which seems to work for me Smile.

Buttermint tea is a Twinings herb tea that tastes of Murray mints. They periodically stop making them but Bootcampers probably add to the demand. Grin

@sheepdreams - hope you continue to feel better today Flowers

@Mercedesbenz2022 - glad you've dusted yourself off and got back on the wagon Smile

OP posts:
prettybird · 21/10/2022 08:41

@Backstreets - better skin, lips etc from the water is a good example of an NSV (Non Scales Victory) arising from this WoE.

As a reminder to others, if you are still finding that you're thirsty, yet drinking all the water, that would suggest that your electrolytes are out of whack and you need to have an electrolyte drink (whether with zero tabs or a homemade version Wink)

OP posts:
debka · 21/10/2022 08:56

Morning everyone!

Getting on pretty well here, no deviations and feeling ok. Today is Yo Sushi day and I'm thinking to have some eggs before hand and then just a bit of sashimi as someone suggested. It's just for the kids really so I don't mind not eating.

I'm looking forward to weighing in next week- hopefully it'll be a good big loss!

Food today- B- eggs and butter
L- sashimi
D- steak and salad

HaveGogglesWillTravel · 21/10/2022 09:26

I'm loving the sound of all the sushi too. Sashimi is a great call.

I'm on my way to the natural history museum with two rather excited and bouncy kids. I've positioned myself in the same train carriage as the loo as I slosh through my water allowance.

Thanks for the buttermint tea recommendation, it sounds delicious. I am drinking a lot of Twinnings superblend range at the moment. The turmeric, orange and star anise tea is really good - much nicer than it sounds.

I made this Tuscan chicken recipe for dinner yesterday - without the flour - and it was delicious. Wasn't sure about whether the wine would be allowed, but figured 150ml between 5 of us wouldn't be too damaging... I hope!

thehappyfoodie.co.uk/recipes/mary-berrys-tuscan-chicken/

agnesmartin · 21/10/2022 09:30

Morning all!

Doing ok here except I'm exhausted - I was exhausted pre-BC so nothing new just hoping for more energy eventually. Still waking a couple of times a night - but will mostly be menopause. Was ravenous at 2am so had BC compliant snacks.

I didn't cook liver and onions and cabbage last night as was suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion at about 6 yesterday pm so pulled out a tub of chili I'd made earlier in the week but didn't make an extra veg to go with it. If I'd had the full meal with veg I would hope that I would've slept through.

I did however made veg soup (leek and cauliflower) earlier the day so that'll be useful.

I deviated very slightly yesterday - I had a couple of sips of cider! Not planned. And I don't like cider generally (but this was surprisingly nice). I'm try to make apple cider vinegar and was testing if it had got to the vinegar stage - it hadn't! Now safely bottled with muslin where the cap should be, and hopefully it will carry on doing its magic and become cider vinegar before too long!

I do occasionally have carrots but only when hubby is cooking curry as he makes a cabbage and carrot side to replace rice for me. It's not ideal but it doesn't happen too often. And I make sure I have lower carbs during the day when that happens.

Hope carb flu starts to ease.