Would love to join the next bootcamp, but I may be to weird/odd!!

[MissBeck]

Quick intro, In January I decided to cut out ALL ultra processed foods from my diet and try to eat only whole foods. I started at 12 stone 13lbs, and have gone down to 11 stone 18lbs, which is great. I only found this forum/website 3 weeks ago and realised what I was doing was a bit similar to LCHF, so for the last week have axed the fruit and sugar.

As the title says, I would really love to join the next bootcamp, but I really am an odd one. I have Aspergers and OCD, which makes me a complicated individual with very odd behaviours! I come across as being very rude, but that is because I can’t help saying what is in my head, which never goes down well in many situations. Think of a 50-year-old 5’2 female Doc Martin. I swear like a sailor and smoke like a chimney!

Now, here is where I think I will struggle with BC.

1. Counting carbs. I don’t buy anything in a tub/carton/bottle/box/tin/packet. Too processed. so have no labels to go by. My meat/cheese/fish comes from a local butcher and the cuts of meat are fecking mahoosive and weight/size varies each time as I just throw my list at him in the morning and collect the goods after work! I leave him to decide the size of everything he gives me on the list. My veg comes from the local farm shop and eggs from a neighbour who sells eggs. So, every app I have tried to use is useless as it’s everyone else’s guesses from supermarket goods mainly. The only things I do buy that is packaged is double cream, Pork Scratchings (too many), coffee, Kerrygold butter, olive oil and I have just begrudgingly bought a jar of Hellman’s mayonnaise. I have no idea how to gauge protein quantities! Is there a protein spreadsheet for meat and fish? Or is it literally by weight alone? Raw or cooked?
2. I don’t cook recipes! I am the plainest person ever when it comes to food. 3 items on my plate max! Don’t buy spices and all the other weird ingredients that I see in all your recipes posted (although some look lovely), but even if I did, I wouldn’t eat them because I wouldn’t be able to cope with all the weird different textures on one plate. I also don’t fry stuff. Can’t stand the mess from the spitting oil! The only frying I allow is eggs, and on setting one! All my steaks are grilled, where the spitting is contained! Meat is roasted.
3. Salads. Nope! I can’t even contemplate one without salad cream or sweet chilli sauce (which I used to pour over by the bucket full) and after seeing the labels on them with all their added additives and ingredients, wouldn’t touch them again anyway. So, I’d need some suggestions for dressings, but not mayo!
4. Veg – a question about the spreadsheet. Is the 100g raw or cooked? I boil my veg and like it that way. I toss it in butter after it is cooked.
5. I do have a brand new, unused slow cooker!! Given to me. WTF do I do with it? Trouble is with this is I am paranoid about leaving things on when not in the house, so I wouldn’t put it on before work and leave it. I also wouldn’t leave it on through the night either!

These are just a few of the barriers I’m experiencing at the moment, and although thoroughly enjoying my new WOE, I worry about getting my ratios right.

I realise if you’ve got this far you may be thinking ‘Nope, not touching this freak with a bargepole’, but if anyone can address some of my questions above, that would be great.

Good Lord. My first post ever and I cock it up! The weight in the opening paragraph should not say 11stone 18lbs but 11stone 8lb. SMH🙄

Can't speak for boot camp but I have similar food issues and LCHF works for me.

I don't weigh or measure anything unless weight loss stalls or reverses. This is a reasonable list of foods that are ok, I've also not found tomatoes, peppers, onions or full fat dairy to stall me although some do and you might need to experiment.

www.eatingwell.com/article/291245/complete-keto-diet-food-list-what-you-can-and-cannot-eat-if-youre-on-a-ketogenic-diet/

Great Link. Thank you @Defiantlynot41

Have you read the Rules of Boot Camp in their entirety? You can find them in a prep thread or any Week 1 post of a Boot Camp or in a tab of the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness (a link to which is usually in either the OP of each week's Boot Camp thread or very soon thereafter )

I think you'll find that the principles of Boot Camp are compatible with your concerns

To go through them:

1. We don't weigh or count carbs, protein or fats . You just need to follow the principles - and eating "clean" is very much part of that . And no entering anything into apps

1. You don't need to cook recipes. If you don't like fried meat, then make sure to roast fattier cuts like roast shoulder of lamb or pork either way crackling. You don't need to eat spices but you do need to have salt, as you should be drinking lots of water

1. You're wanting suggestions for dressings but not mayonnaise. If you don't want mayonnaise (personally, I use a lot of the Lidl own brand mayonnaise and have even made my own on occasion), can you make your own simple oil dressing with olive oil and some lemon juice or apple cider/red/white wine vinegar (anything except balsamic vinegar)?

1. The 100g is not intended to be weighed - it's just to give an idea as to which veg are high in carbs. An acronym we use quite a lot is "FLGV" - Fuck Load of Green/Good Veg (they're not actually all green ). I eat a lot of shoogled sprouts (Brussels microwaved in butter - shoogled = shaken in Scottish, which you do half way through the microwaving), baby sweet corn and were just coming in to asparagus season ). I do boil my runner beans or fine green beans and finish them off with some butter.

As an aside, I know you say you like your veg boiled but have you tried the "shoogling" method?: veg (like sprouts, baby sweet corn, sliced cabbage) microwaved in a covered bowl with some butter for a couple of minutes, shoogled/shaken and then microwaved for another couple of minutes.

And even then, the carbs per 100g just an indication. Iirc, cabbage looks quite high, but sliced cabbage goes a long way, especially when made into a coleslaw

Don't think I have ever weighed any veg

1. I don't have a slow cooker so can't help you there, but if you're not keen on the idea of leaving things on when you're not around it might not be the best of gifts for you personally I do make a pork belly, chorizo, onion (shallot ) , carrot and canned tomato casserole dish that would work in a slow cooker (that you could make at the weekends when you're around ): I cook it covered in a slow oven (brown off the chunks of pork belly and chorizo first). There were some suggestions in the Boot Camp thread a couple of weeks ago for what to make in slow cookers.

Hope that helps

I did do those • as numbers but the MN App on its wisdom decided to change them to bullet points

Hey @prettybird ! Thanks for the reply! My post only came out like that as I type everything up in word first! Don’t ask, just something I do! 😜

I have indeed read the Boot Camp rules in their entirety and picked through the spreadsheet with a fine toothcomb! In fact, since finding the forum, I’ve been doing nothing else in my spare time except read the low carb threads and all the boot camps (I’m currently on ‘back to school camp – week 6’ from last year ) as well as the current one.

I know we don’t weigh anything, but I am a meat monster, and saw that too much protein could be a problem. For example, my butchers steak tonight was 300g (10oz). This is the norm. Gammons are plate sized! Is that acceptable?

It’s not that I don’t like fried meat, it’s the mess frying makes that gets my goat. That one I will have to overcome. It’s doable. And I’ve never eaten anything ‘lean’ in my life! So that’s sorted.

I did wonder what ‘shoogled’ meant!! I get it now! Never tried doing veggies in the microwave, but yep, worth a try!

And I’ll have that pork belly recipe though, cooking times as well if possible. Will it freeze?

And when does the next Boot Camp happen after this one? I think it will work out fine with just a few adjustments.

And how the heck do you edit a post!! 😅

Thanks.

@MissBeck - I believe you can now edit posts if you use MN on a browser, bug I mostly use the app so I can't edit.

I'm sure I posted the a version of the pork belly and chorizo on the meat recipe thread but I don't really use a recipe any more: just cut a couple of pork belly slices into chunks, cut some chorizo into chunks, fry them with some chopped shallots, add some sliced (and maybe halved or quartered, depending on size) carrots and a couple of cans of canned tomatoes (usually chopped) and then to an oven, covered, at 140C for a few hours. Oh - I also add some fennel seeds but you might not want to. It freezes well.

I'm not sure when the next Boot Camp will be - I suspect @BIWI will be needing a break However, the current Boot Camp will have a final weigh-in and ongoing support thread and people will always offer words of advice.

Large amounts of meat at this point are not so much of an issue. The key thing is to only eat if you're hungry. Lots of protein is satiating, as is fat, so if you're having enough, you'll find that your portion sizes will naturally decrease. If you then find you don't want to finish it, you can always have it cold or slice it and cook it again (dare I say, stir fry it ) And make sure to drink plenty of water.

You can look at your portion sizes if you're getting close to target and are finding the scales are sticking. Ditto with dairy.

Re the mess from the frying, have you tried a splatter guard? I only use mine occasionally but I do find it helpful if I'm frying, say, particularly splattery lamb chops.

Maybe try to balance your protein intake with an occasional vegetable based meal: I'll sometimes just have a bowl of shoogled sprouts to compensate for not enough veg at other times (especially on Friday nights when dh has a Lidl curry or chicken nuggets) or the broccoli, halloumi, capers, shallots and chilli dish that is on the veggie thread.

It's brilliant that you're already eating "clean" and have already lost over a stone. Join us on the current thread and you'll get loads more advice if you need or want to

@prettybird Thanks for the great post and reply. Sorry for the delayed response. My daughter has undiagnosed Autism, Tourettes and OCD and school have asked me to put in a request for an EHCPA, so I'm currently on another part of MN in the SEN forum reading as much advice as I can get as I haven't a clue what to do!

I'll join the other thread (which I am lurking on) when I've got my head around this current dilemma! 😫

I've just lost 17lbs on LC. I don't weigh or count anything
( unless I'm baking a cake!), so I wouldn't worry too much about that. I just ate meat, fish, cheese etc with mainly green vegetables. Ate nuts or avocado as snacks. Had berries with cream, low carb crackers or M&S sugar free granola. An Air fryer is a v good option for cooking meat if you don't like the spitting fat.

You sound like you've already had some great success by cutting out highly processed foods, LC is a very natural way of eating and the food can be delicious! We're all a bit odd on here, as we're going against the grain of what we've always been told is the correct way to lose weight, so come and join us!😁

@Appalonia Thanks for that! I have signed up for the next bootcamp! Can't wait as I have fell off the wagon a few times since Easter and got into the 'just one won't hurt' mindset, then finding out on the scales it has hurt!! 😂I went into a specialist chocolate shop yesterday that sells them, I don't know if you remember, little chocolates in multicoloured little tin foil cups? Always used to get them in a 10p mix as kids. Well I bought a bag with the intention of one a day! That bag was full. 😮Now 5 left. I NEED Bootcamp! 🤐

Haha! And you CAN eat chocolate on Bootcamp. Not straightaway, but I make Bounty bars with high cocoa chocolate and dessicated coconut. I also make fatbombs with cocoa powder, peanut butter, butter and a sweetener like Splenda.Yum!

😮😮@Appalonia You shouldn't have told me that!!! I LOVE Bounty bars! 😂😂😂But no, I have to cut it all. All or nothing for me. Is that recipie online? 😇

Hi @MissBeck I think I’ve seen you over on the boot camp thread but just wanted to say that a simple dressing of yoghurt & lemon juice is good. Add a bit of purée garlic and/or some fresh mint. Or a bit of mustard to the yoghurt. A bit of olive oil if you want to make it funnier. Yoghurt is a good base for a dressing if you’re not keen on mayo.

Ha ha! Not funnier - runnier/ thinner.

@NotDonna 😂Yeah, I caved and signed up.
I couldn't imagine putting yoghurt on my salad, but then I thought about that mint dip that you get at indian restaurants, which I LOVE! and that's yoghurt (I think, isn't it??) , so I'll try your suggestion, although I discovered @Biwi's coleslaw the weekend and love that! Thanks!!
And funnily enough, I bought a mint plant from work today! 🤗

Yh the Indian restaurant mint sauce (raita) is yoghurt based. So is Greek tzatziki. You can do a ranch dressing and a Caesar dressing with yoghurt too. I’ve yet to try BIWI’s coleslaw but think I definitely should!