Jan 2023 Low Carb Bootcamp - Week 1!

[BIWI]

Welcome everyone! We have over 160 people signed up this time, so things are going to move quickly.

Here's the link to The Spreadsheet of Fabulousness which has been carefully and lovingly curated by the very lovely @FinallyHere

There are a few bits of admin that I need to post before we get going. The first of which is the usual disclaimer:

I am not a medic, a scientist, a dietician or a nutritionist. Everything that I post here is based on my reading and my own experiences of low carbing gained over the last 20 years. You follow the guidance here at your own risk - although I very much hope that there are no risks!

Very importantly, though, if you are on any kind of long-term medication, please talk to your GP/nurse about low carbing. This is especially important if you're on drugs for hypertension, cholesterol and/or diabetes, as a low carb diet should have a positive impact on all of those conditions, which would mean that your dosage may need to be decreased, if not removed altogether.

The second is about etiquette:

Please, please, please read all the posts on the thread before you make your own post. These threads work so much better when we're all here interacting with each other, as that means we can offer help and support when it's needed. Don't just jump on the thread to plop down your meals for the day, your weight that day and then just fuck off. That doesn't help anyone.

More than anything else, it's incredibly irritating when someone posts a question which has already been answered early in the thread. I, and lots of other Bootcampers, spend a considerable amount of time responding to people's questions and concerns, and it's pretty insulting when it's obvious that these haven't been read.

(Oh, and it's very obvious if you haven't read the thread, so take that as a warning )

i visited Ireland last year for the first time, I was blown away by how lovely it was. My son got married at the Ross Harbour Resort, his wife is Irish, they live near me in Surrey but got married near her home town, my son said I would want to move there when I saw the place and he wasn't wrong.

Morning campers,

Period arrived this morning which is interesting. Tho I knew I was due on I didn’t get my usual insatiable cravings. I don’t have a sweet tooth usually but this time of the month, I’m not normally safe to be around sugar but so far so good!!

In the office today so have some eggy quiche type things for breakfast on the run, out for lunch with friends (salad and soda water, not even looking at the menu) and am going to chuck a chilli with mushrooms instead of kidney beans in the slow cooker before I head out. Tuesdays are a nightmare here with three different mealtimes for various reasons so slow cooking helps.

Have a great day everyone and don’t forget your water!

@Happyface120 I believe once you ur body is fat adapted you will find you have better endurance, I work out a lot but have only started since low carbing so don't know what it's feels like on carbs, I've not ever had a problem. From what I have read it takes about 3 weeks to be totally fat adapted but people who have trained for marathons both sides of the carb ship have found it easier on low carb as the carb fuel needs replacing quicker. There is quite a lot of interesting reading out there on the subject if you have a quick Google.

Morning all.

Woah I've woken up with a searing headache this morning. Surely it's too soon for the carb withdrawals? I thought they started 3-4 days in? Cant remember but I'm not going to let them deter me anyway.

B: boiled eggs and avocado
L: left over cheese and garlic stuffed mushrooms with kale.
D: either cauliflower kedgerre or a taco bowl, I'll see how I feel later.

Just sipping on my black coffee now and will make sure I get through my 3ltrs of water throughout the day.

Heres to day 2!

@Happyface120
Endurance swimmer here! I find low carbing keeps my energy levels steady - and is better for my sport.
I do have to eat a lot of protein - chicken, Greek yoghurt etc but it works for me and carbs make me feel sluggish.

Morning - had a good day yesterday
Greek yoghurt and cream
Brocolli feta bacon salad
Steak leeks and mushrooms

Really yum

Runner here - I think I'm quite well fat adapted for during the exercise but it does make me crave carbs either that night or next day so that's the bit I'm fighting against - when this happens I only want carbs and anything g non carbs just isn't attractive - it's hard

Looking to lose twenty pounds in long term would be delighted with ten this round

I used to live on low fat carbs and it really suited me the. Peri menopause hit and nope - bloated face, carbs making me drowsy, binging so this really suits me now just have to be consistent - it's the events that derails me and sends me back to fatty carbs - when life is normal I can eat however I want if that makes sense

Thank you all this thread is great

Morning all,
Mild headache here, not bad, going to do some yoga in a minute

B. Leftover Portobello mushroom with boursin from last night, soya latte
L Greek salad
D Tofu stir-fry with onion, peppers, mushrooms etc

@Happyface120 - @BIWI often recommends this book but I'm ashamed to say I've never read it

The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance https://amzn.eu/d/bF8XM9g

I've never felt the need to as I know that once I'm ketogenically adapted, I have plenty of energy when I go for a run not that I'm back up to marathon distances I can even go for a run/do my exercise DVD at the end of an extended fast

When I used to run marathons (I've run 3 - but 30-35 years ago - the last one I ran in under 4 hours ), the big thing was being prepared to cope with "the wall", usually at about 22 miles, when your body shifted from using your energy from the food you'd been eating (its glycogen stores) to cannibalising your muscles for energy. If you're following this WoE, you won't go through it as your body is better fat adapted.

Protein loading followed by carbohydrate loading used to be "a thing" - but only in the few days before the race.

We're doing this for the long term.

I recall that another runner on these threads used to find that a banana (usually verboten on this WoE) helped if they were going for a long run.

Day 1 went well. Didn't need any snacks which did surprise me. Today, bacon and egg for breakfast (will try greek yoghurt tomorrow), fresh batch of veg soup with chicken for lunch and spag bol for dinner (sauteed leeks in butter and garlic as spag substitute). Failing miserably on the waterfront, must try harder. Trying not to be alarmed by the fat content after years of low cal eating (not that it did any good...).

B: Full fat greek yogurt, two pints of water
L: hard boiled eggs with mayo
Small tuna salad
D: sausage casserole (fam have butterbeans in theirs), greens

Morning all, I got my water yesterday which at 4-5 litres is quite a challenge!

Any ideas for veg snacks other than celery with cheese?

Today the plan is
Leftover roast pork and cheesy leeks
Salad Nicoise
Mushroom soup

@Happyface120

From the FAQ thread:

6. Surely we need carbs to fuel us during exercise?

No.

When we’re eating a diet that’s high in carbohydrate (the diet that’s currently still recommended by the NHS), this is what your body will burn for fuel. Carbohydrate is converted to glucose in your body, and there are three ways that the body uses this fuel:

• as an immediate source of energy (think of the boost you get from sugar/chocolate as an example of this)
• stored for later use as glycogen, in your muscles and liver
• stored for longer term needs, as fat

If all we’re doing is eating lots of carbohydrate, we only ever access the first two stores – the danger being that the third store, fat, increases more and more.

When you take exercise, you’re accessing stores 1 & 2. But this is limited in terms of what it can supply to your body by way of energy – this is why runners and cyclists talk about ‘hitting the wall’ or ‘bonking’ – at a certain point, you’ve exhausted all the readily available energy in stores 1 & 2. This is why all the high-sugar gels and energy bars and drinks have been created for athletes – they need a quick ‘fix’ of glucose for extra energy.

We all have fat that the body can access for energy – even endurance athletes who have a very low body fat, but it’s difficult to access the third store, as your body isn’t used to burning fat for energy.

This is where low carbing comes in, and it’s why the first two weeks of Bootcamp are so strict. The aim is to switch your body from burning carbs (glucose) for fuel, to burning fat. This process of fat-adaptation isn’t immediate, but a strict couple of weeks will see you well on the way to achieving this.

Once you are fat-adapted, you have plenty of fuel for exercise.

In the short term, while your body is making the transition from burning carbs to burning fat, you may find exercise more difficult than usual – but this is only temporary.

A really good book to read here is “The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance” by Drs Phinny and Volek. They’ve done tons of research into this.

@OldandTired66 try not to worry about the fat, it's definitely carbs that make us fat. By cutting out the carbs your insulin level will have remained steady, and it's the dropping of insulin that triggers appetite. Hence you'll have felt less urge to snack.

@Brassbumblebee are you a vegetarian?

@SpottyBumPony how about cucumber with pâté? Or olives?

(I know that technically olives are a fruit, but they are very low carb!)

@OldandTired66 the reason you're not hungry between meals will be/is two-fold:

• you're eating much more satiating food, as you've upped your fat

and

• when you're low carbing you're keeping three key hormones (insulin, grehlin and leptin) much more balanced. It's hormones that control our appetites, not empty stomachs (at least here, in the developed West)

Don't fear the fat! Have a read of the resources on the spreadsheet that explain low carbing, so that you can see why it's carbs that have been doing the damage all these years, rather than the fat.

A question.

I'm not trying to go all paleo about it, it's just that I'm interested in how we used to live 1000s of years ago. And getting fed up of processed foods in endless packaging.

Would there have been far fewer carbohydrate foods around then? Before we ground up wheat, and long before the potato.
If people were running /walking long distances then, would they have already been fat adapted and their bodies respond naturally? ie in the state we're aiming for now?

@Brassbumblebee get some electrolytes into you to deal with the headaches. A sprinkle of salt and squirt of lemon juice (bottled/Jif lemon is fine) in some water should help. If it doesn't help straight away then it's not a keto flu headache (it has happened before that someone has got ill on Bootcamp and mistook the symptoms for keto flu.) Better sources of electrolytes are High5 Zero Electrolyte Tabletss these do contain artificial sweeteners but you should only need them for the first week or two while you adapt to a low carb diet, or unflavoured unsweetened Electrolyte Powderr which is the one I use.

Happyface120 · Today 06:34
Great to see so many getting stuck in!

I have an exercise question:
I'm marathon training (but only up to 10 miles for long runs) and would usually be hammering the carbs 30-60 mins before a hard session. I did a speed session last night (day 8 of low carb for me) and it was so hard... Any advice for run fuelling?

i would take it easy for a couple of weeks and just get used to training on low carbs, then you will be away and full of energy! Also, I found my energy levels were such that I could run quite happily for 2 hours in training runs, but friends would be taking on gels and sports drinks in a bid to increase their energy and stop them flagging. The first 2 weeks were definitely the hardest though.

The science of low carbohydrate linked to is great.

@amigababy that's pretty much what happened. We used to be hunter gatherers, so our diets would have been based around the meat/fish we could catch, along with whatever berries/fruits/vegetables we could find. And we would have been eating all of the animal, which means all the fat and fatty parts too - as those are the source of energy we would have needed.

Wheat/cereals are relatively recent introductions into our diet.

Morning all - thought I'd be off to a dodgy start this morning after dsd2 was up pretty much every hour last night (he's 2.5 and we think 'hope' its developmental, as all of a sudden he's questioning everything and his imagination has developed amazingly over the last week or so, but my god it hurts when you're working FT!)

Ended up sleeping in past alarms and rushing around this morning - at this point I'd usually make a latte and not eat, instead I did have a cup of tea but with the smallest (15ml) dash of milk, with a babybel and a pepperami (not the best, but not the worst start to the day!)

Got mince in the slowcooker for dinner tonight, kids and DH will have dumplings, carrots and broccoli - I will have with roast broccoli, and other veg last nights leftover mustard cabbage

Again, from the FAQ thread - please read this thread if you haven't already!

7. What is carb flu?

Carb flu, or keto flu as it’s sometimes called, occurs as your body transitions from burning sugar (i.e. carbs) to burning fat for most of its energy needs.
Switching from a high-carb diet to a very-low-carb diet lowers insulin levels in your body, one of the primary goals of a ketogenic diet.
When insulin levels are very low, your liver begins converting fat into ketones, which most of your cells can use in place of glucose.

When your body is mainly using ketones and fat for energy, you’re in a state of ketosis.
However, it takes your brain and other organs some time to adapt to using this new fuel. When your insulin levels drop, your body responds by excreting more sodium in the urine, along with water.
Because of this, you’ll likely find yourself urinating a lot more often in the first week or so of low carb eating.
This change is responsible for some of the rapid – and usually very welcome! – weight loss that happens in the early stages of a low carb diet. However, losing a lot of water and sodium is responsible for many of the unpleasant symptoms of carb flu.
It’s well known that response to this transition is very individual. Some people may feel fine or slightly tired for a day or two after starting low carbing. At the other extreme, there are those who develop symptoms that strongly impact their ability to function for several days.
These are the classic symptoms of carb flu:
• Fatigue
• Headache
• Irritability
• Difficulty focusing (“brain fog”)
• Lack of motivation
• Dizziness
• Sugar cravings
• Nausea
• Muscle cramps
You may only get one or two – you may be lucky and not suffer at all! But if your current diet is very high in carbs, prepare yourself for this.
However, carb flu doesn’t have to be unbearable and there are things you do to get through it and make it less unpleasant.

(Adapted from The Diet Doctor)

If you do find that you're suffering from carb flu (not everyone will), it will only last for a few days.

You may not feel great, but don't use it as an excuse to give in. It really will be worth it when you get through it.

Take paracetamol if you get a headache, drinking plenty of water and keep your fat levels up - use the electrolyte supplements recommended (or make your own) and you will be fine.

@amigababy there is no one true paleolithic diet, it depended on region. Some diets were very low carb such as the Inuit (Eskimos), Sami (Lapps), Maasai etc. Some were high carb. The Hazda, on the other hand, ate a lot of carbs and honey seasonally, and some of the Pacific Islanders ate a lot of yams, sweet potato and breadfruit. What we can do now, is look at the explosion of obesity that started in the mid-80s and see how our diets changed at that point. It isn't just the introduction of the low fat diet that necessitated an increase in carbohydrate consumption that is causing issues. There's also the replacement of saturated fats with polyunsaturated vegetable oils, the introduction of high fructose corn syrup, and the move from "three square meals a day" to a culture of constantly eating. When I go to the cinema I'm always amazed to see the number of people who seemingly can't get through a two-hour movie without a litre of soft drink and a load of food. When I was a child in the 80s you got a small amount of popcorn or a small ice cream in the intermission and you usually didn't have a drink at all. Now it's an all-you-can-eat feast! Also, before that in the 60s, there was a famous marketing campaign "go to work on an egg" not go to work on a sugar-laden fruit smoothie and a big bowl of cereal or Nutella toast.