Low Carb Bootcamp challenge - lose half a stone before Christmas

[BIWI]

If we start next Monday, there are 6 weeks leading up to Christmas.

Hopefully that means that we can drop 7lbs in those weeks - but only if we're properly strict.

It's entirely up to you if you want to do strict Bootcamp, or Bootcamp Light across those 6 weeks, although I'd suggest that if you haven't got too much to lose, you veer towards a stricter approach.

It's also, we need to bear in mind, a more difficult time of the year to think about losing weight as there are likely to be more social occasions, so a stricter approach around all of those events is probably a good one!

Who's in?!

I'm only a quarter of a pound down this week - been gaining and losing the same pound all week. Not sure what to do to kick start the next loss.

Everyone is back at school/work today so I'm going to look at (and do) some step exercises on YouTube and maybe drag the Christmas tree out of storage - I eat less if I'm busy! The house has never looked so clean!

Good morning all!

Well, I'm very happy to report that I'm down 9lb in total these last 2 weeks - thank you so much to everyone for their recipes, inspiration, help and advice, and of course to @BIWI for organising it all and being there when I'm wobbling (literally 😭🤣). Last time I was this weight was over a year ago, so I'm ecstatic. I know the goal was lose 7lb by Christmas but I feel great (especially as I'm not shifting an extra sack of spuds/large baby - pick your frame of reference! - around anymore) and I'm pushing on to see if I can get below 13st, which has been a bit of a psychological barrier when trying to lose weight by conventional (ie miserable) methods.

Annoyingly, I'm still bleeding, but hopefully my body will sort itself out very soon.

Onwards and downwards, wishing everyone a successful week!

Chicken waldorf for lunch then a very quick bunless burger planned for dinner, as I've stupidly agreed to do a friend a favour and have to leg it across London to Chalk Farm for 6pm to stand in at very short notice as the Angel Gabriel in a Mystery Play, and won't get home til gone 11pm. Tempted to go biblically accurate and stick a load of googly eyes all over me...

Scales not working so can't weight, but I do feel a tiny bit slimmer, so will koko.

Have found a good family friendly meal formula

chinese five spice on some meat or tofu - cook in airfryer til crunchy
stir fry some green veg
add noodles or rice for children
occasionally put it all in a broth

Everyone seems delighted with this so far

Hi all, I have stayed the same this week. But I need some serious help please, as yesterday I fell off the wagon completely for the first time since I started in September. I don't know what happened, we were on our Christmas day out and i had a lovely low carb picnic, but then bought a mulled wine and had half a mince pie. Then ended up raiding the sweet cupboard at home. I am out of dark chocolate and cream at the moment but I think I will get some in as although it's not ideal I think I could have resisted better by having that instead.

@BIWI when I go into the spreadsheet I is showing what I have added so please can you let me know if you can't see any changes your side? Thanks

@Lovecat your day has made me laugh! Well done for saving the day!

Back where I started so now only 3 weeks left to lose 7lbs but at least I have undone most of the damage from my weekend away. And I have another weekend with friends coming up this weekend 😭. So now til Friday is strict bootcamp for me. Just checked myfitnesspal chart - I've been stuck in the 89kg zone since August so clearly need a reboot.

A good low carb week here.

Neighbours were invited to ours (rather than us to them) and enjoyed a low carb dinner without realising it😁.

No movement on scales. Even possibly .5 up. I feel lighter though.

Well I've had a spectacularly difficult few days to navigate - and they culminate in a wine-tasting tonight (an invitation from our neighbours that was extended to us a couple of months ago) which is going to involve tasting 36 red wines. . I'd happily not go except for the fact that we've accepted an invitation, and already paid our £35. Another . Even if you spit it out - - that's still a lot of wine.

So I'm recording a STS weight this week, as I haven't dared get on the scales, and I'm just hoping that it IS a STS. Although on Friday we have a mammoth Christmas lunch to attend, where there are no choices, with 5 courses and a different wine with each course. TBF, usually the food does end up being pretty low carb, and small quantities, but it's still a very boozy affair.

Whose stupid idea was it to do a low carb challenge this side of Christmas?!

@Almahart some days you might be hungry whereas others you won't be - just go with the flow. As long as you're feeding yourself low carb food when you're hungry, we always advocate eating to satisfaction. And you've lost 1/4 stone so far, so all is good!

Oh, and with that stir-fry (which sounds lovely) you could always serve yourself some Bare Naked noodles. This is a branded version of shirataki noodles (a Japanese food). Most supermarkets sell the BNN, but you can also buy the noodles at Asian supermarkets. Look out for shirataki or konjac - they'll be sold in liquid in packs, sometimes in the chiller cabinet, although they don't need to be chilled. As well as the thin noodles sometimes they sell them as flat noodles, like fettucine.

@EversoDisorganised if you can find the menus online of the places you're going to, that will help you plan what you're going to choose. Even if there are no/few low carb options, you can at least decide what your strategy is going to be and pick the 'least worst' option.

@LadyBird1973 why not list out what your food/drink has been like over the last few days, and see if we can spot anything that would help you? Are you sure you've been getting all the fat and drinking all the water?

@Lovecat very pleased for you! I love the idea of the wobbly eyes

@Frumpyunicorn yes I can see you on the spreadsheet. Don't worry about the fall off the wagon. It happens to all of us. The key thing is to put it behind you and get back into LC quickly. Have a couple of super strict days - drink plenty of water and, if you can, up your exercise. The aim here being to burn off the extra glucose that you will have ingested.

@LC4life the first thing to concentrate on is that you've lost 7lbs. So you have already succeeded on this challenge! The second thing, though, is to understand that you won't have put all that back on as fat. When you eat something really carby, it's re-filling your glycogen stores with glucose for longer-term energy needs. Hence me suggesting to FrumpyUnicorn that she ups her exercise levels. Advice is the same for you - super strict with food/water for a few days, and up your exercise.

Also, just to say, there were 3 or 4 Bootcampers who hadn't updated the spreadsheet and despite me tagging them, they haven't replied, so they're off the spreadsheet now.

If you're reading this, and you want back on, just add yourself again, and I'll re-alphabetize it later.

There are a few who have asked to stay on there as they might want to use it, but aren't sure, so you are hidden.

But it makes the spreadsheet a lot neater and easier to 'read' if there aren't gaps.

<insert overtly tidy emoticon here>

Thanks @BIWI

Yesterday was a corned beef and cherry tomato sandwich on low carb bread. Did have a bit of branston pickle on on it and mayo.
4 squares of dark chocolate and half an avocado.
Roast turkey with celeriac (in goose fat) cauliflower and a few carrot slices with a small amount of gravy.
Drinks were coffee and mint tea. I drink coffee pretty much continuously tbh.

The day before was fried eggs on low carb toast and a beef casserole (with celeriac leeks and carrots). 2 squares of dark chocolate. I think the casserole might have been a bit carby but I didn't have huge amounts of it. Had a big handful of walnuts as a snack.

I can't remember what I ate the day before except that dinner was a chicken risotto made with cauliflower rice instead of risotto rice. There was wine in it but I guess the alcohol cooks off?

Hey @BIWI and all! Have had a tough week for various reasons, but coming out from under the clouds now...

Just wanted to check in with you all.

Starting healthy eating (for me and my needs) proper tomorrow!

Actually the risotto might have been Thursday. Friday was smoked trough, crackling and boiled eggs on low card toast. And 2/3 bar of dark chocolate

Morning. Great to hear everyone's news. As a new LCBC I'm thrilled and amazed to report I'm down another 3 Ilbs despite having had a bottle of fizz over the weekend. I'd been feeling so rotten with a cold all week, I needed to celebrate feeling better! Back on the wagon and back to activity this week. So thrilled this works, fingers crossed, might be a slower week but we'll see.

It’s great to read everyone’s progress!

im massively off the wagon as we were away at the weekend. It was a slippery slope of mulled wines and mince pies

back on it today!

@BeethovenNinth you're one of the posters I removed from the spreadsheet! Do you want me to re-add you?

Oh don’t worry! I should really add myself. I don’t expect you to do my admin for me. Is it a shared drive?

@LadyBird1973 from what you've posted it looks like you need to be a bit stricter and/or make some tweaks:

• Carrots should be an occasional thing, as they can be quite carby so probably worth substituting them with a green vegetable
• Is your gravy thickened with flour?
• That's a fair bit of chocolate overall - what percentage cocoa is it? Even 70% is 34g carbs per 100g (based on Lindt 70%), and 2/3 of one of their bars would be 23g carbs
• Are you adding milk to your coffees? That will quickly add a lot of carbs as well, if you are
• Cooking with wine will remove the alcohol, but not the carbs
• Branston pickle is 35-36g carbs per 100g - I assume you didn't have 100g, but it is quite a dense pickle, so even 'a bit' could have been quite carby - and don't forget, lovely though it is, mayo also has carbs in it - carb counts vary quite considerably, even though generally fairly low

Apart from coffee/tea, how much water are you drinking? You should be drinking 3 litres a day.

Overall, none of these things in themself (apart possibly from the chocolate) are too bad, but when you take them all together they could be adding too many carbs.

@BeethovenNinth Spreadsheet

Just add yourself at the bottom. Don't try and insert your name in the 'right' place - I'll do that later

@BIWI yes, I usually browse menus beforehand but that will only work for one of my outings this week (Friday lunch with friends, venue TBC but might turn out to just be coffee am or pm). Saturday night is a formal function with no info ahead of time and Sunday is an afternoon tea, which, well, that's going to be a bit of a write-off. I don't have much of a sweet tooth though so will minimise cake consumption.

Thanks for the reply @BIWI
Tbh, I don't know what's in the gravy - it was Bisto so probably does have flour in it.
The chocolate is either the small bars from Aldi (where you get 5 mini bars per big bar, which is the equivalent to 2sq dark Lindt) or the M&S small dark chocolate bar (which is surprisingly low in carbs and quite dense so you don't want loads of it).
I don't have milk at all, but do use keto whitener from willpowders. So it's probably the same as having a splash of milk.

So I guess all these things together might be the problem.

My house is full of nice things I've bought for Christmas, so I thought I was doing well to just stick with the dark chocolate instead of falling into the mince pies!
Still, it's Monday today, so new week and I'll see if I can shift the scales down a bit by cutting out some of the excess.

No loss for me but wasn’t expecting one after a bit of a disastrous week. Period came today, bang on 28 days after the last one which was a surprise as I didn’t have one for 5 months before that. But could explain my slight lack of willpower and cross mood over the last week. Back on the wagon, only one month until my holiday so I need to stop slacking off.

As an aside, anyone live in or visited the USA whilst LC (specifically Florida?). I’m imagining things to be a bit of a struggle there - unless things have radically changed in the last 7 years it is a struggle to find vegetarian stuff there, let alone LC veggie, and we’ll probably be eating out a lot.

Another 2lb down , would have been 3lb but had my friends birthday night out. at an amazing American pizza place , note I didn't have pizza I had extremely hot chilli with cheese, I did have white wine and gin with slimline tonic.

I've just had a follow up hysteroscopy today and got the coil removed which they had to put in to help heal my uterus, it's not agreeing with me the hormones and rapid weight gain followed it's insertion, so hoping that helps, I had a pt and was in a calorie deficit before this and couldn't shift any weight due to the bloating and gain from that. I've been bed since getting home better eat soon!

I have bought some more treats to do lighter boot camp, nuts, berries for small amounts with yoghurts, lots of guacamole and tzatziki, and low carb wraps and bread from Amazon. Also bought Keto slim fast shakes as getting egged out now. So hoping that helps for breakfasts. And double Gloucester and chive cheese which I hope is ok, oh and Boursin. I may need to calm on the cheese front,