Jan '23 Low Carb Bootcamp: we come to the end of the first half!

[BIWI]

Morning campers

Here's the spreadsheet

So this week marks the end of the first half - doesn't time fly when you're having fun?!

Remember that this week is still renowned as a tricky one in terms of weight loss, so if things have slowed down or stopped (or even reversed) for you, don't panic. Just KOKO - remembering the water, fat and veg in particular.

Re the statins @MotherBuckets, I'm not a medic - so if your GP has advised them, it would be irresponsible of me to warn against them (especially with your family history). But as you say, it will be interesting to see what happens as a result of low carbing (although it will be difficult to attribute any improvement to either diet or medication, I suppose). And hopefully your results will be good @Jenasaurus

@JanieRead - apart from the noodles! - why don't you list out for me your menus over the last few days, and let's see if there's something we can spot that might help you

@Greatly i had 3 coffees/decaf with a spoon of cream yesterday! But that’s highly unusual. Usually try to keep to one a day at the most, and as an extra, not to replace a meal. If I start getting into a habit of having the ‘oh just one more’ talk with myself too often then I know I need to knock it on the head for a good while! For me it’s always about balance and if my habits are becoming unbalanced I like to gently nudge myself the other way.

Oh I always have 3 or 4 coffees in the morning instead of breakfast. With almond milk not cream though. The only time I eat breakfast is in strict bootcamp and I only start to lose weight once I bin it.

I haven’t eaten breakfast in years either. It doesn’t suit me at all and I feel much better sticking to that.

(Meant I don’t skip one of the actual meals I do routinely eat. But that’s not just for nutritional intake/well running metabolism/insulin control, it’s also partly because I like to have food more often! )

Oh I meant to tell you all about my amazing cheese sauce I made last night. We were meant to have chicken stuffed with Boursin but it was really late when I finished work and I just CBA faffing with the chicken. So instead I whacked three quarters of the Boursin (there are three of us and I usually stuff with a quarter each) and a generous glug of cream in a pan, heated through and it made the most delicious cheese sauce to pour over the chicken. Willl definitely be making again.

I had a delicious celeriac dauphinoise yesterday from the Keto Kitchen cookbook. It was lovely. Even my husband agreed that it was much better than he expected (he hated celeriac chips....)
But woke up this morning with indigestion which is very unusual for me so feeling a bit sad. I've got leftovers of it for dinner tonight and looking at it with suspicion now!

Ah @BrendaLee I think it can happen anytime you try something new. I usually just take portion size down by quite a lot the next time and slowly work up to having a bit more. Often there's a sweet spot.

I'm going to do a fennel gratin next week (once our next veg box arrives). I'm already looking forward to it!

@BrendaLee That sounds good. I'll try that sometime too!

Argh meant @AllTheBlackCoffee! Clearly haven't had enough coffee yet!

Morning everyone. Not much to add, just checking in. Thanks @DryWhiteagainW for the savoy recipes, I will definitely give them ago.

Breakfast was boiled egg and a sliver of cheese, lunch another fridge bottom soup, red pepper and tomato probably and dinner is pork steaks and mashed swede with a cream pepper sauce. I seem to have a lot of cream left over this week!

@OldandTired66 I can never make up my mind on cream - if I buy the small one it tends to run out too quickly and there's not enough to cook with, but if I buy a big one I usually have some left and I absolutely hate to waste money/food.

@Greatly I see what you mean about butter v cream seeming very similar. I think the significance of it is because on "keto" diets it's considered fine to eat fat on its own since the primary goal is insulin suppression, but you'll see on BC we're encouraged to consume fats with vegetables (and protein) rather than on their own, as this also sustains good gut health/nutrient intake too. I like a creamy coffee from time to time but I do it as a LC treat rather than to provide nutrition whereas in keto circles bulletproof coffee (a version of which is buttery coffee) often seems to be used as a meal replacement, which isn't consistent with LC bootcamp ethos.

Great looking food @TangledWebOfDeception!

Interested in the yogurt making chat. I tried that a few years ago on bootcamp but it wasn't for me, bit of a disaster and I eventually sold my yogurt maker on. My main motivation was to reduce plastic waste but using glass bottles is expensive (currently paying 91p per pint) and I was forever boiling it over; I think it works much better if you use UHT to skip that step but the tetra packaging isn't great. Stuck with buying it! Great sense of achievement for those of you making it work.

Yesterday I ate scrambled eggs for breakfast, leftover roast pork that DH had his eye on, whoops with salad and mustard mayo for lunch, and a nice curry from scratch involving mushrooms, peppers and coconut milk, on cauli rice. Adapted from a recipe in the vegetarian thread from the Waitrose magazine called King Oyster mushroom curry. Finished off with buttermint tea and a disc of dark chocolate.

I had THE DREAM last night- it was a Cadbury's creme egg

Haha @Rayna37 i had the dream a week or two ago...a whole bag of Haribo. Oh the horror.

Conscious as I've been so good at sticking to rules this bootcamp (unusual for me) I'm getting into my danger zone now: not far off the top end of my acceptable weight, things mostly fit, all too easy to give in to the "fuck-it's". Especially as I have some nice restaurants booked this month.

Need to try a few things on, especially the summer trousers I've never fitted, to keep focus!

@BIWI thanks for your reply, all good here and was just responding there to what reading in the discussion. It's the little me standing up to my big brothers, hands up if I had my feisty on

More important, you and Stuntnun and Tangled and this forum are helping me see into my blind spots. Your support is so wide ranging on this Bootcamp, so many different relationships people have with food, home, experie

experiences.
Wishing everyone well, the dogs having surgery today on her cyst on her paw...so the day is definitely super charged here

Ah @TigerYiger wishing all the best for the surgery! I'd love to see a photo! Still remember the BC where people posted pet photos, and @BIWI's 2 fantastic cats in a box or maybe a bag... (nothing but eyes!)

@Rayna37 I don't have a yogurt maker.

I microwaved just under a litre of milk to 85 degrees c in a jug. Heated it a couple of minutes at a time, stirred and checked temp with a thermometer. It took about 5 mins.

I left it on the counter top for an hour or two until temp came down to under 45 degrees c. Then i mixed a little of it with a big tablespoon of Greek yogurt in a mug until it was smooth/runny then added it back into the jug of milk. I put the oven on for just a few minutes to warm up then switched it off and put the jug in. A couple of hours later I put the oven on for another few minutes to warm it up a bit more. After about 6 hours I had fairly solid yogurt. I strained through a sieve for a couple of hours and stored in an empty yogurt pot in the fridge.

Could be beginners luck though!

@Baystard impressive! My results were decent but I basically decided it was too costly in terms of time/effort/actual£££ for me to stick with it.

I remember a hip vegetarian type neighbour made yogurt back in the 80s when I was a kid and it seemed incredibly sour- I bet I'd love it now!

@Rayna37 I worked out that if I made it with the Jersey milk every time then it would be fairly expensive (about £1.60 per 500g yogurt) so trying it with ordinary full fat milk today, think that makes the cost closer to 80p/500g. I WFH so fortunately it's not a big deal to keep an eye on it.

If anyone has an Instant Pot then it has a yogurt-making setting that's really easy to use. I use a Balkan yogurt starter from Amazon and strain the yogurt after setting through a nut milk bag to make Greek yogurt.

@Greatly don't get caught up in coffee debate, the discussion wasn't aimed at you so don't take it personally. A black coffee blended with butter is, if anything, preferable to coffee with cream since it is the dairy protein that can potentially cause issues and there's hardly any protein in butter. It's the bulletproof-style coffees that are frowned upon because they have caused issues in previous Bootcamps, either by displacing nutrient-rich foods, or because people end up consuming too many calories and weight loss stops. They can actually be beneficial in some cases when people are very near their ideal weight and weight loss stops for weeks to months on end, in which case increasing the fat macro can help get the scales moving again.

This one @TangledWebOfDeception?!

Yes @BIWI that’s the one!! Love it.

@TigerYiger I hope the surgery went well and your dogs recovering?

I love that photo @BIWI.

I’m struggling today, work stress, health stress and a very unsettled night has left me with all the cravings. The lack of anything non BC food in the cupboards is saving me so far and I will stop looking at deliveroo