Week 1 - Back-to-school Bootcamp!

[BIWI]

Morning all. I hereby declare this Bootcamp open

Here is the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness

... with many thanks to the lovely @FinallyHere for creating (and managing)

I know you're all keen to get going, so will post this now and then come back with some important housekeeping notes

In the queue at the airport to drop our bags off.

Didn't quite manage the unrealistic 1.75lb drop overnight , but did lose another quarter pound to achieve 11st 8lb 

So yes, @SummerSazz -

Can someone please add me to the spreadsheet at yesterday's weight of 11st 8.5lb

This is quite the revelation. Every time I try to shop for lunch in M&S I get so frustrated that all the salads contain pasta, spuds or rice. Never spotted a Greek salad. Usually end up with the boiled egg pot or those prawns you linked but never thought to check the fancy crisps - I'm definitely trying those Serrano ham ones!

Forgot to finish my sentence @SummerSazz it's early

I meant, yes we do seem to be tracking each other

So impressed by how un-hungry I was yesterday evening after a day of fats, protein and veg plus ALL the water. Had 1 slip up when DH had made a lentil bolognese for dinner (I think I read lentils / pulses not allowed?) but paired it with broccoli, green beans and grated cheese rather than pasta.

I know we're not required to count calories but I did just out it interest and it came in at just over 1300 which I was really surprised by as whenever I've tried to calorie count previously I'm absolutely ravenous if I manage to keep them that low.

I ate more than I'd planned yesterday but all bootcamp friendly.

I made some delicious 'sandwiches' of cucumber, ham and salted butter for lunch along with some tomato and a tin of mushy anchovies. Had had fresh anchovies on holiday and had forgotten that these weren't them!

Courgette with mince was replaced by spinach 'side' from Waitrose and a whole pack of halloumi 😳 as the beef hadn't defrosted in time. That was too much as I realised once I started eating, but eat it I did. I remember one of the things to get used to on bootcamp is not finishing a meal if you are full ... not there yet obvs.

Grocery shop arriving today so hopefully meals will start to become less random.

Thanks for the water reminds. Just had a pint as I went to top up coffee.

Today
B: Beef burger, blue cheese and cucumber.
L: Ham, cheese, butter lettuce wraps
S: Courgette and beef

@venusandmars also appreciating the M&S suggestions. I never seem to find a suitable salad either so great to know there is a greek one. I am familiar with the lovely parma ham crisps from previous bootcamps and always buy a bag or two when passing by one. They come into their own when OH is munching through a big back of corn chips!

Great to hear how everyone is doing.

Don't forget: Water water water!

@prettybird have a fabulous holiday!! Drooling at the thought of all those delicious wines!

Good morning everyone.

I've updated my weight on the spreadsheet. @FinallyHere thank you so much for some splendid spreadsheet action there. As an amateur level user I'm very impressed. 😀

Today's plan is
B: Babybel
L: ham with leftover stirfried cabbage, mushroom and broccoli
D: Veggie paneer curry with roasted veg (this curry is a freezer meal and has onions and - maybe - chickpeas. However, I am out all day and won't be able to cook anything else. Full accountability here - I hope not stick-worthy!

@SummerSazz beetroot isn't allowed on Bootcamp!

Two reminders for this morning:

• These are the things that we don't eat, throughout the whole of Bootcamp:

bread (of any kind or colour)
pasta/rice (of any kind or colour)
potatoes, sweet potatoes, sweetcorn, beetroot
sugar/honey/syrup
flour (and anything thickened with flour)
cake
biscuits/crackers/pastries
crisps (of any kind)
fruit juice
full sugar fizzy drinks/squash
balsamic vinegar (all other vinegars are fine)
grains/pulses/legumes (which includes peas)
sweets

The second reminder should now be obvious:

• As well as my usual disclaimer, I'm going to post my usual (oh, here she goes again, blah blah blah) request for good thread etiquette:

The threads will move very quickly (especially in the first couple of weeks). But please, please, please read everything that's been posted before you post.

My post cross-posted with yours @RooRooCooChoo - but I'm afraid that chickpeas are not allowed during Bootcamp.

Bootcamp is strict! It's designed to be so for a reason. We're aiming to switch our bodies into fat-burning mode as quickly as we can, which is why we eliminate carbs like pulses.

I realise that if you've already got something in the freezer that you're going to want to eat it, but the more you eat something like that (chickpeas are 16.5g carbs per 100g), all you're doing is delaying things and risking impeding your own weight loss.

Low carbing is not a forgiving way of eating, I'm afraid. And although Bootcamp is designed to be easy to follow, that doesn't mean it's necessarily easy to do.

So we've already had chocolate @Rogue1001MNer and wine @VeryGoodVeryNice - and that was just day 1! You can introduce both of those in moderation after the first two weeks, but not in these first two weeks.

Morning everyone. Same as some others I suspect/know I overate yesterday. All bootcamp compliant but definitely driven by things other than hunger (habit/comfort) I also need to learn to listen to hunger cues better. Anyone else have parents that were militant about not leaving the dinner table until your food was finished? I still really struggle with throwing food out. Anyway enough self analysis on with my day...

The Plan
B - boiled eggs with butter
L - chicken salad with coleslaw
D - chicken breast with creamy chilli pesto sauce and either courgetti or roast cauliflower

Try to lay off the snacking, random babybels and spoons of FFGY that I probably don't need

I haven't quite caught up with the thread just as I didn't realise there was a new boot camp until last night. Brilliantly timed for me as I finally got my act in gear and ditched the carbs on Sunday in an attempt to fit into my swim gear before I'm off on holiday in 6 weeks.

I've weighed myself this morning and I've gained a stone since this time last year! I know that boot camp works for me as I lost 2 stone on it many moons ago. Every time I've tried to get back to it since though I end up fizzling out after a couple of weeks as I tend to just lurk.

So this time I'm determined to keep up with the thread and to at least post what I've eaten each day to have some accountability.

B: Greek yogurt
L: green salad, soft boiled eggs, plenty of evoo & mayo.
D: peri peri chicken thighs, fried cauli rice, coleslaw.

Thank you so much BIWI & Finallyhere for all your hard work. Off to catch up now!

@Ihavehadenoughalready

I do have a very small bit of rice or potato because I still make that for the kids, but that's it

I hope you're not still doing that?

Happy holidays @prettybird hope you have a fab time and drink all the wine.

My period is due and I feel like a bloated sausage but strangely enough, no cravings which I'm pleased about. Two weeks today since I started and I can really feel a reduction in my appetite. The last few days I've had to force my meals down and over the weekend I barely ate because I was so busy and didn't even realise. I do love that about this WOE, but it makes meal planning difficult when you have zero appetite.

Todays plan:

B: Greek yog, cream
L: blue cheese, bacon and mushroom salad, olive oil dressing
D: will be spag bol and roast broccoli if I can be arsed putting it in the slow cooker this morning I know I could do it on the stove but I prefer it that way

KOKO everyone and chug that water!!

I wish butter had weight-reducing magical properties!

The fats we tend to recommend are pretty interchangeable - so butter, olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil and lard - but some are more suited, from a flavour point of view, to certain dishes than others.

Sesame oil is better used as a flavour enhancer, and drizzled onto your stir-fry when it's cooked - see here:

How to Cook With Sesame Oil
Light sesame oil can be used much like canola or vegetable oil. It has a similar neutral flavor and can withstand high heat for frying or roasting. Use it to stir-fry and sauté, or use or anywhere that calls for a neutral-tasting oil. Toasted sesame oil is best used in low-heat cooking methods or added at the end or after cooking.

Dark sesame oil can be used for low- or medium-heat cooking (not deep-frying) but tends to lose some of its flavor if cooked for too long or over high heat. That said, its smoke point is relatively high at 450 F. It's frequently drizzled on dishes like soups and stir-fries after cooking. It can be used in salad dressings, marinades, and sauces.

From the website thespruceeats

I'd normally use coconut oil as the frying oil in a stir-fry - but that said, obviously continue with the sesame oil if that's what you prefer. You definitely don't need to substitute it with the butter.

Butter works especially well for vegetables and fish - but again, it's up to you whether you prefer butter or a different fat.

Just one word of caution re stir-fries - typically they don't use much fat, and obviously that's something we have to be careful about. So adding sesame oil at the end to enhance the flavour of the meal is a good idea.

Sorry @BIWI. I am suitably chastened.

I will have taken some pork chops out of the freezer instead. Updated plan is as follows.

B: Babybel
L: Ham with stirfried cabbage, mushroom and broccoli
D: Pork chops with roasted red peppers, courgettes and green beans.

Can I ask about onions. I know they're on the red list, but do they incur a frown of displeasure or result in my being shot at dawn? This will help me manage my reliance on my freezer stash.

@AllTheBlackCoffee if you're already 2 weeks in, then you no longer need to eat three meals a day, so if you're not hungry you could drop breakfast, perhaps?

Glad it's working for you!

Any source of fat is fine @RooRooCooChoo, butter gets extra marks as a source of dairy as no lurking carbs unlike yoghurt and cream. Yesterday didn't go brilliantly so making a fresh start today. Breakfast 1 egg omelette with strips of parma ham crisped up in butter. Delicious. Lunch Tuna salad nicoise, Dinner, Fake pasta made with finely sliced aubergine sautéed in butter with bolognese sauce. Lots of water. Started an art class which serves coffee with milk and biscuits, shock, horror. So will be taking my own coffee with cream and a babybel. And a full water bottle.

Onions are high in carbs at 7.9g per 100g - but they are also the base of so many dishes, it's hard to cook without them!

If you can, try and substitute them with echalion shallots (also called banana shallots), as they are only 3.3g carbs per 100g. They're a bit more fiddly - for every average-sized onion, you probably need 2-3 shallots, but it does help.

Happy holiday @prettybird! I've put your weight into the spreadsheet (unfortunately it rounds up rather than down, so you've gone in at 163!)

Here's a link to a thread we started a while ago for links to/pictures of some low carb products that might be useful

Some of those products may no longer be available, but it could be helpful.

More importantly, it would be great if you could add anything that you come across that others could consider too. If you're going to add anything, please add a photo (if you can) of the front of the pack, but also one of the nutritional panel, so we can see the carb count

Hi all, just checking in. I've been doing this for a little while now, so am doing strict bootcamp to cut down on carb creep and hopefully give weight loss a bit of a boost. So I'm not eating any chocolate, fruit, loose nuts or alcohol. I'm also being a bit careful with cheese and cream because I think I'm prone to eating too much of them.
But, I am being a little bit more flexible on the seeds rule. I have come across 'Olina's Simply Seed Crackers'. Per hundred grams they are 7.1g of carb. A whole box is 80g weight in total. So a serving of 20g is only 1.2g carb. While seeds aren't strictly allowed in the first 2 weeks, these are good if you are really missing crackers and are in danger of going off the rails. I have about 4 of them for easy lunches with butter and Brie or cold meat. They are very handy if you can't be at home for lunch.

Todays food will be a bacon omelette for bf. I will likely skip lunch and I think fish of some kind for dinner. I really fancy the celeriac and leek mash so might pick those up later.

I hang my head in shame re the wine 😔. It was either that or actually murder my youngest child though so maybe the lesser of two evils. Hoping for a better day today, or at least slightly fewer calls/emails from the school about her.

Just a question re oils - is rapeseed oil not allowed? When I first tried low carbing years ago it was through reading Michael Mosley’s Blood Sugar Diet book, and he recommended rapeseed oil so it’s been my go to ever since.

Hi all, just popped on to say hi.

I'm starting today. I'm veggie so will keep some dairy and lower-carb pulses in my diet but considering adding a bit of fish in too to make it easier. My plan for the day is:

b - small portion of full fat greek yoghurt
l - salad with hard boiled eggs
d - black bean chilli

Good morning bootcampers! I am not on the spreadsheet but follow low carb, high fat ways of eating on and off to help to control a chronic health condition and got back on the wagon 2.5 weeks ago so thought it would be good to join in a bit if that’s ok with everyone. I do it more for the health benefits but the weightloss will be welcome at the moment. I lost a load of water weight in week 1, nothing at all in week 2 (I never do) and had a sudden 3-4lb loss this morning out of nowhere.

as a public service, here is my favourite breakfast. Works for any meal but I try to get a whopping portion of veg in for breakfast every morning so I eat it then:

Celeriac sort of hash brown:

grate some celeriac (depends upon the size. About one third or one half of it’s a small one).
Chop a little bit of onion or shallot - really small amount.
Fry the chopped onion and grated celeriac in butter or oil of choice with salt and pepper.
When it’s cooked through, stir in 1 egg.
Top with grated cheese and put under the grill until the cheese goes all crispy and good.

It’s so creamy and tasty. Can’t claim it’s massively like a hash brown but it’s lovely.