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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.

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prettybird · 24/10/2022 00:29

Dinner at my dad's went well - was able to time it around Strictly and we were able to sit down at the dinner table with time to spare before the Grandprix started. Dad had positioned the TV and the dinner places so that the three of them could watch (I wasn't so bothered but could still turn round to see)

The roast chicken was lovely: sooooo easy to prepare in the brick - which I was able to do quickly at home and then just needs 1.5 hours in hot oven from cold and it come out beautifully moist with crispy skin. Served with buttery leeks with cream and buttered sweetcorn. The others had roast potatoes too.

I'm calm about the plumbing because there's nothing I can do about it. However, dh didn't sleep last night and acknowledges he gets unreasonably upset about things that go wrong like this. It's quite triggering for him because his upbringing Sad

We enjoyed our showers at my dad's Smile - and I have a readymade excuse not to do my exercise DVD tomorrow Grin

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Backstreets · 24/10/2022 05:19

Good morning! Down 2.1 :) something tells me it won't be quite so easy moving forward though.
Another busy workweek looming but I've stocked up on BabyBel and avocados and spent significant parts of the weekend filling up the freezer.

Mercedesbenz2022 · 24/10/2022 08:08

Morning bootcampers
down 1.5 lb this week , so koko . a bit disappointed, but think I need to stop the daily weigh and focus on downward trends (hopefully ) per week
I learnt 2 new recipes this week , butter chicken curry and spinach soup , hoping to build on this instead of eating same old
Have a great week !

BarnabyRocks · 24/10/2022 08:30

Morning all. Lost 5lbs this week and some inches off my waist, very happy with that. I have been feeling hungry (waking at 5am some days) and think I'm not eating enough or enough variety so will work on that this week. Also thirsty at times even though i'm drinking the amounts suggested so will try the salt tip. Thank you all for the inspiration and keep on trucking.

ditavonteesed · 24/10/2022 08:39

Morning 2.2lbs down for me which I'm really pleased with.

Feeling better, went back to work yesterday.

Hoping to get to the gym today but take it a bit easy.

@prettybird hope you get the plumbing nightmare sorted today.

Lovely Velma van is going for her mot today so I'll be nervous. Keep everything crossed for her then I can start to plan some fun adventures for next year.

Feeling very positive this morning. Still sticking to the soft food as I'm a bit scared about my tooth (hole or lack thereof).
Hope everyone gets what they want on the scales.

BarnabyRocks · 24/10/2022 08:50

What are people eating for breakfasts? I'm struggling a bit for ideas and come downstairs starving so have reached for the cereal a few times. I've also ran out of eggs which is not helping.

prettybird · 24/10/2022 08:52

Link to new thread Week 2 Pre-Christmas 22 Boot Camp - the first weigh-i n http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/lowcarbb_bootcamp/4661957-week-2-pre-christmas-22-boot-camp-the-first-weigh-in

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prettybird · 24/10/2022 09:04

@BarnabyRocks - Greek yoghurt with a wee bit of cream and a generous pinch of cinnamon is my "go to" breakfast.

Or think continental: cheese and ham.

Or left over food from the night before (like cold shoogled sprouts or baby sweetcorn).

@ditavonteesed - our plumber can't make it until Wednesday Shock Although he didn't put the kitchen in, he did put the whole new central heating system in (including changing all the radiators) in our old Victorian house where nothing is obvious, so we want to wait for him.

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BIWI · 24/10/2022 09:09

Clicky link:
here

prettybird · 24/10/2022 09:13

@Skiphopbump (or others): can you please post a link to the new thread from a laptop.

I used the app to "share" the link but it seems it doesn't work for anyone everyone Confused

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prettybird · 24/10/2022 09:13

Thanks @Skiphopbump Flowers

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JudyBlumesBlubber · 24/10/2022 13:16

Mercedesbenz2022 · 24/10/2022 08:08

Morning bootcampers
down 1.5 lb this week , so koko . a bit disappointed, but think I need to stop the daily weigh and focus on downward trends (hopefully ) per week
I learnt 2 new recipes this week , butter chicken curry and spinach soup , hoping to build on this instead of eating same old
Have a great week !

Oooo That sounds lovely. Do you have a recipe to share?

Rocklobstershell · 24/10/2022 14:45

Down 7lbs in my first week- very happy with that! Thank you so much for all the hard work that goes into running this group. All the resources on the spreadsheet are fantastic Also wanted to thank everyone who contributes to the threads - it’s so motivating! I did second nature once but ended up finding it a struggle as my chat group were so unfriendly and our group leader was (very) patronising… this is a thousand times better!

prettybird · 24/10/2022 15:25

Congratulations @Rocklobstershell Flowers

....come and join us on the Week 2 thread

Week 2 Pre-Christmas 22 Boot Camp - the first weigh-in http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/lowcarbb_bootcamp/4661957-week-2-pre-christmas-22-boot-camp-the-first-weigh-in

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Lougle · 24/10/2022 16:27

Can I rejoin? I've gone back to carby dinners to save money but really should stick to low-carb because I'm getting really headachy again. Luckily, despite a few weeks of pasta, scone topping, potatoes, dumplings, etc., I've only gained 2½ lbs, so it won't be hard to resume normal service.

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