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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.

Summer 2023 Boot Camp, Week 1: Here we go!

487 replies

prettybird · 18/06/2023 22:54

19 June is just about upon us and here we are at Week 1 of a 8 week Boot Camp. Are you ready? Smile I'm posting this on the Sunday so that those of you who are early risers can get stuck right in Grin

I'll start a new thread every week.

It will take me a few posts as I blatantly copy across from @BIWI ‘s excellent introductory posts and I’m doing this on the app which makes it more award.

First off the major caveat: I am not a doctor, nor a dietican. This Way of Eating works for me and has done for many others. I’ve followed BIWI on these Boot Camps for many years and there is a lot of support but if you have any medical issues or concerns, you need to make your own choices. You need to be particularly careful if you are pregnant or breastfeeding (in which case follow Boot Camp Light), diabetic or if you are taking any medication, as you may need to liaise with your doctor regarding dosage. I'll post a follow up post with more details.

The Spreadsheet of Fabulousness is here @FinallyHere is Spreadsheet Monitor and most weeks will post the link in one of the following posts after my OP as I usually post via the App and links can be a bit hit or miss. I'll do a link but it might not work for everyone Confused also, if you experience any problems with the Spreadsheet, tag @FinallyHere and she will work her magic on it! Grin

And so to the rules. These are the rules for the first two weeks. After that, we do relax things a little:

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!)

Experienced Boot Campers may follow intermittent fasting (IF) (16:8 or similar) and therefore not have breakfast or another meal but if you’re new to this Way of Eating, wait until you’ve got used to it before starting on IF.

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, which you'll find on the spreadsheet.

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 originally came from www.low-carbdiet.co.uk/ but although the site is now defunct, there are other sources which advise similar quantities of water.

It does of course go without saying not to drink the entire amount in one go: you should spread it out over the day.

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.

The water is really important - any time I’ve noticed myself stalling, I’ve noticed that my water consumption had dipped. I like to think of it as helping to pee the fat away Wink

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. On the spreadsheet, you'll find a nut carb counter, which illustrates just how much they vary in terms of their carb counts.

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 us off and running. I'll follow up with a few Housekeeping posts but I think that's plenty to get started with. Grin

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Thread gallery
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Random789 · 24/06/2023 08:27

On the theme of ordering water in a pub, when I had a beer at the railway station last night I had a newly purchased houseplant with me which was so critically, gaspingly dry that I wanted to give it some water straightaway. So I ordered not just a beer but a glass of water. When the barwoman asked if I wanted ice with it, I said 'yes' because I felt sheepish and furtive about ordering for a plant.
And once me and the plant were sitting with our two drinks I decided the plant wouldn't mind sharing her lovely iced water with me. So the plant protected me from myself by keeping me hydrated on a hot day despite the alcohol. Grin

LadyBiker · 24/06/2023 08:36

It is inspiring to hear your stories and recipes. I have had an ok week and haven't done as well as I could but am blaming a heavy period that made me do it.

Went for lunch yesterday and had an amazing salad made with pea shoots, cucumber, mint, lemon, broad beans, fresh baby peas and feta cheese, with a side of fried padron peppers - it was all so fresh and absolutely delicious. I know peas aren't necessarily LC but there were only about 10 of them.
A favourite meal is cheese, onion and ham muffins - 4/5 eggs whipped up with cream, add softened onions, pour into a muffin tin and add grated cheese and bake - really comforting and filling, I have it with a huge rocket salad.

EvenmoreDisorganised · 24/06/2023 08:42

Morning, I appear to have had an overnight weight whoosh as I am now 4lb down since Monday. However I did not drink enough water yesterday so back on that today.

On the subject of "should have known better at my age" I lectured teen DD about sunscreen use yesterday and then promptly missed parts of my shoulders and neck so I am feeling very much that way as I look at the little pink patches.

prettybird · 24/06/2023 09:00

It's heartwarming to see all the love and support for Jenasaurus (deliberately didn't tag her as she's probably overwhelmed with the number of replies to her). Assuming hoping she's still reading and hasn't run away, we've got you Flowers. We're here for support and positivity and to help you maintain your new healthy weight. FlowersSmile

@MilsonandJim - weight does fluctuate on a daily basis. Did you drink all the water yesterday? Often I find a bigger than usual upward variation, if I've not gone off piste, can be linked to not enough water. And given it was a party, be honest, did you have any alcohol? It won't knock you out of ketosis, but your body will use the alcohol first for fuel, rather than fat.

@Random789 - what a Grin image - you and your plant sharing a drink. Wink

@LadyBiker - sorry about your heavy period Sad but hopefully next week is a new week Smile. Maybe stay on strict Boot Camp for an extra week?

I live the sound of those muffins. With ds' veggie girl friend moving in today, they might be something useful to whip up. I'm assuming it's softened shallots rather than onions in them Wink

@EvenmoreDisorganised - congratulations on your whoosh. On sunscreen and knowing better, I'm usually really disciplined with appropriate sun protection but when I went to Majorca at the end of April for a Beach Rugby tournament with the women's rugby club (I just spectated but had great fun), we spent the 1st day at the pool before it started officially, and I was sooooo out of practice at putting sun tan lotion on that I missed bits on the back of my shoulders and forgot about my stomach completely Shock I spent the rest of the long weekend wearing a short sleeved t-shirt and keeping a T shirt on my stomach if I was sunbathing Blush

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prettybird · 24/06/2023 09:17

Just had the roofer around (he's spending the morning going round loads of customers who'd suffered during the biblical deluges).

He says we don't need new gutters: we just need more downpipes (we'd already put one new one in on the other side of the house, connected to a water butt so that we didn't have to dig up the monobloc) but like the new one not connected into the (water) sewer system as if that backs up, then we're back to the same problem. That would figure as the (wide) street was completely flooded at the time - to the top of wheel arches Shock (and although our street is flat, it's going along the side of a hill, so it's not as if we're at the bottom of a dip Confused).

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prettybird · 24/06/2023 09:57

I'm stuck and can't get up or move my legs Shock

Summer 2023 Boot Camp, Week 1: Here we go!
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venusandmars · 24/06/2023 10:13

@MilsonandJim You haven't blown it at all. In fact the very opposite - you ent to a party and avoided the carbs. Excellent! Now you know you can do it.

Our weight does fluctuate, and some people find that too much dairy can have a small impact. BUT, if you'd been having all that cheese on bread, or accompanying it with crisps or fruit this morning you'd be starting with a full load of glycogen in your cells and you'd have to use that energy before your body could start using fat for energy.

So today be mindful of how much dairy you are having (butter doesn't count) keep enjoying olive oil and mayonnaise on your salads, eat eggs, spinach, tuna... and drink plenty of water. On other days your weight will fluctuate back down and over the period of this boot camp you will see a longer term downward trend. Trust the process.

venusandmars · 24/06/2023 10:16

That is a very relaxed cat @prettybird - what a great way to start the day.

I'm heading to the beach later for a wedding. Will have creamy scrambled eggs with smoked salmon before I go. And I think dinner will be baked ham with rattatouille, and veg in cheese sauce.

FinallyHere · 24/06/2023 10:40

Hello lovely people, happy Saturday everyone. I too am stuck in bed but without the excuse of a cat to justify my sloth like behaviour.

Had a really busy week away from home. All went well and now all I have to accomplish is to check out, one last walk along the coast, return the car and fly home, but it seems my get up and go has got up and gone ...

Gratters to everyone who has stayed on plan this week and commiserations with anyone struggling. I wondered how it would be travelling this time. Eons ago travelling for business on expenses and feeling I deserved 'treats' was a trigger for me to put on a lot of weight

I'm long time LCHF bootcamp et and IF. I drink all.the.water all day and enjoy s lovely meal at night. Ate Turkish on the first night and Greek on the second, lamb chops and salad at both.

The second evening at The Real Greek, scored much more highly on deliciously dressed vegetables.

Going to drink another litre water which I catch up on Mumsnet and then up snd at 'em.

Happy Saturday everybody.

FinallyHere · 24/06/2023 10:43

Oh, forgot to mention that a bonus pleasure visiting Scotland is the delicious tap water. We were in a pub yesterday afternoon, waiting for the service and when asked what I'd like to drink, I found the words 'I'd really like a glass of proper tap water, please and not be fobbed off with the bottled stuff'.

Turns out, bottled water isn't really a thing here. Why would anyone drink bottled water when the stuff out of the tap is so delicious.

Backstreets · 24/06/2023 10:49

It's been a very relaxed first week for me as there has been more dining out than I'd bargained with (also all inclusive hotel with a VERY NAICE breakfast...) so er. But had a go at the scales and things are still moving in the right direction even with changing back to all keto meals when I'm on my own and trying to choose mindfully when I'm out.

Hoping NEXT WEEK will be the normal summer week I'd envisioned this as!

HappiDaze · 24/06/2023 11:02

Morning fellow Boot Campers Smile

My shop came this morning with various Greek and thick yogurts to test out.

The Yeo Valley organic super thick natural yogurt which I had for breakfast is delicious

I've got Saturday Kitchen on in the background and they have so many great low carb dishes today. I'm going to try a few out actually because they're easy and very tasty looking.

prettybird · 24/06/2023 11:42

I've got the two dress I ordered from Weird Fish. I like the neck line on one but the cut of the other Confused

I'll not say more than that and take photos of them on later and see what you lot think. Dh was useless Hmm to be fair, he was busy doing something else Wink

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Baystard · 24/06/2023 11:44

@MilsonandJim don't panic, I bet it's a coincidence that you've gained 2lb (weight fluctuates loads anyway) I would be amazed if it was actually gained (as opposed to just increased water retention) or related to the cheese. It doesn't sound like a bad day at all!

OldandTired66 · 24/06/2023 11:56

Morning all. Fantastic work on beating diabetes @Jenasaurus. Trying to get a grip on my jungle garden today. Boiled egg for breakfast, smoked mackerel and salad for lunch, steak and buttery veg for tea. I alwys forget to mention my drinks, but generally start with a cafetiere of proper coffee for breakfast, then one or two cups of instant during the day, all with cream. Water in between and with all meals. Our tap water (Midlands) tastes fine, @FinallyHere, but my mum's water in Yorkshire is really delicious 😁. Back to the weeds...

EvenmoreDisorganised · 24/06/2023 12:10

I live in the SE with very hard chalky water which I love although many hate - I do notice the difference in Scotland and the West Mids (have family in both) and am envious of the lack of limescale but somehow the soft waters don't quench my thirst like our chalky stuff.

prettybird · 24/06/2023 12:25

I forget how good the water is up here - until I go back to the South East.

My standard order in the rugby club is now "A large glass of water, please". In winter I have to add "No ice" as the water from the tap is plenty cold enough Grin

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Random789 · 24/06/2023 12:40

We have lovely soft water in the north east. It is very tasty but I still feel the need to buy fizzy water to make sure i drink enough. Bad habit.

The downside of our lovely water is that it is completely pants at rinsing soap off of skin. Takes loads of sploshing to do the job.

I want to mention how low carbing helped me last night. I had had a lapse, so was beating myself up a bit, and when that happens, all the self-sabotaging thoughts rush in - along the lines of 'You stupid f@!"$$ you've ruined it now, you might as well just scoff all the food to compensate for th misery of failure ...' etc.

Normally when that kind of emotional assault comes along I am also dealing with the physical cravings. Not only do those cravings make it nigh on impossible (in conjunction with the negative thoughts) to resist the urge to overeat, they also overload your brain with such a sense of urgency that you don't really have the time or mental space to address the negative thoughts.

Low carbing gives you more thinking space, more opportunity to rnotice and reflect on mental habits. In my case these mental habits include fear -- a fear of food, which paradoxically makes me overeat. It's like I want to 'get it over with' by eating the forbidden food so that it no longer lurks and threatens me.)

So anyway last night the absence of cravings meant that had time to deal with my thoughts and I didn't eat anything after my evening meal. I found that it was ok to have failed a bit. I hope that repeated episodes of similar minor failure will diffuse the fear of food.

Small failures are good. Part of the process.

EvenmoreDisorganised · 24/06/2023 12:49

@Random789 I agree, if you analyse why you ate what you did you can really learn from that.

MilsonandJim · 24/06/2023 12:52

@prettybird thanks - hopefully will fluctuate back down. Definitely no alcohol - it was really warm and held in a garden and I drank loads of home made unsweetened ice tea, which was basically just pukka tea bags in cooled water with ice.

Gingerwarthog · 24/06/2023 13:33

Off topic but more cat pics please @prettybird.
Beautiful Burmese there!

HappiDaze · 24/06/2023 14:37

@Random789 I had a mini lapse last night because I was really stressed about something.

My brain was just tipping into that kind of automatic eating, not really tasting or even realising what you're doing.

As I went to dip my spoon back in, something snapped in my head and I just stopped and put it all back in the fridge.
Originally I was just going to eat one spoonful or just lick it and then without thinking I was automatically eating but not even tasting or enjoying it.
I didn't chastise myself though I just sort of rolled my eyes at myself and made a cup of tea instead

HappiDaze · 24/06/2023 14:38

@prettybird cats and dresses please Smile

prettybird · 24/06/2023 15:08

@Gingerwarthog - he's a lilac point Siamese. We have a pair of brothers. Smile

I'll do pictures later: at the moment dh and I are in a frenzy of cleaning in preparation for ds and his girlfriend getting home.

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Random789 · 24/06/2023 15:33

He is really beautiful, prettybird.