Jan ’26 Low Carb Bootcamp - week 5 and out of the doldrums!

[BIWI]

Morning all

Spreadsheet, as per:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gsWvWpGzTSJld1avBi9-uLJveFZes9Qa2ORKthPMl8E/edit?gid=1415293539#gid=1415293539

… wherein I see that @mumsandaunties has almost lost a stone! Brilliant going

But from last week’s thread it’s clear that there’s been a bit of ’slippage’! Carb creep is easy but deadly - a bit here, a bit there and ‘I’ll start again tomorrow’ (yes, been there, got the t-shirt).

Let’s start the second half of this Bootcamp afresh.

@Gonnagetgoingreturnsagain and @mynamefor2025 you are both very welcome! Please make sure you’ve read the rules, and have a good look at the resources on the spreadsheet so that you understand what Bootcamp/low carbing is all about.

The prep thread for this Bootcamp is also worth a read:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/low_carb_bootcamp/5469664-january-26-low-carb-bootcamp-getting-us-started?reply=149808442

(Just ignore the first posts that were tagging people)

@mynamefor2025 I saw your post on the last thread - what have your last few days’ food and drink been? And how did they compare with what you were eating/drinking before? A sudden, radical change of diet could be causing the diarrhoea

If you have a ' blip ' ( a little one but carbs) how much of a set back is it?

It depends entirely what you did @mynamefor2025! Tell me what you ate/drank.

Evening all. Hope you are enjoying your weekend away, @BIWI .

Hosted a big family lunch today..... I was doing the main course so was able to control the carbs (Chicken with peaches & goats cheese, new potatoes, broccoli, roasted cauli.... I just avoided the spuds), but I asked my DSis to bring a pudding. Now BIL is an excellent baker, so I was steeling myself for the appearance of something utterly delicious and irresistible.... but he was double booked and didn't make it. So DSis (who doesn't cook) just brought some shop-bought tarts and whatnot, which I can easily resist. Sorry BIL, I was quite relieved you weren't here with your temptations!

I'm wearing some trousers today that were too tight a few weeks ago, so I'm pleased about that, but I'm not convinced I've lost any weight this week.

Interesting chat over lunch - both of my siblings are taking the fat jabs. I'll be sticking with low carbing, thanks.... although it's true to say they were both a lot more overweight than me.

I have had the odd “blip” and it does set me back, but I am getting much better at putting it behind me and getting back on the wagon. I also think for the longer term I will want to be able to have the odd blip and not succumb to the old binging habits so I am trying to work on my mindset in dealing with it all.

I have tried BC before in the dim and distant past and not lasted the course but I feel a lot more settled and confident this time. The weight isn’t going down as fast as some people’s, I suspect I’m eating too much cheese TBH but I can work on that and the main thing is that it is heading in the right direction. It took years to put on so it isn’t going to come off overnight. Had a nice meal tonight of steak with creamy blue cheese sauce and a green salad plus EVOO drizzle. Then a few berries, nuts and seeds with FFGY for afters.

We tried the keto naans someone posted about the other day last night. Everyone liked them, they did taste a bit eggy which was slightly weird with a curry but not unpleasant and they were very easy to make.

Tried posting a photo but Doesn't seem to have posted.

Brownie bite. A little tartlet piece. A few pringles, a handful of pretzels. Actually not much over my calories, and certainly. Not for the week but definatley way over my carbs.

@Jumperorcardi those kind of things are always a challenge. However you don't have to eat all the courses, no-one is going to force you... I was at something similar tonight, I choose the vegetable soup (possibly the saddest option on a carb loaden menu), then chicken with potatoes and salad (I ate one half of one tiny pototo - nothing special no need for any more), then the 3rd course was all sweet deserts. I just didin't even try it.

@CointreauVersial a salacious story of you and your BIL's 'temptations'

But weight on the scales is not always related to size. So take heart in feeling you trousers more loose. Apparently that feeling makes us stand up taller and move more easily too. It's all good.

You could really help your siblings by modelling how you eat - making it acceptable not to have bread or pasta, to swap out a burger bun for some saladand avocado... WLI will make a difference and help them but in the long term only if they also change some habits (as with every diet / weight loss programme, including bootcamp).

@mynamefor2025 the thing about this way of eating is that it isn't about how many calories you've had. It is about which energy sources your body is using. Our bodies (miraculous things that they are) are designed to survive. To survive in whatever challenging conditions they face. So when we need energy (which we do every millisecond of the day for everything to function) our bodies use the easiest source of energy first. That might be glucose, alcohol, simple carbs like pastry or pasta (which are very quickly broken down into glucose).

What bootcamp is aiming for is reducing the amount of available glucose and training our bodies to use fat as the main source of energy. That will be fat from the food we eat and fat from our stored deposits - and that's when we lose weight and become healthier. I think (might be wrong) that one of the reasons @BIWI devised bootcamp is that it does require sustained and ongoing adherence to the pretty strict rules. You have to do it for a while, you can't flip on and off from day to day.

The difficulty with 'blips' is that all our previous glucose/glycogen stores get refilled, and it takes another couple of days to return to the fat burning process. I don't know what your "bite of; little piece; a few; a handful" look like. But your body will know. As @SprinklesofRain said, the important thing is not letting it derail you.

Get back right on strict bootcamp. Don't let a 'blip' turn into a 'fuck it'.

Sounds like you did pretty well!

It’s always worth asking if you can substitute things you don’t want to eat, even if it’s a set menu.

Fingers crossed for tomorrow

@mynamefor2025 everything that @venusandmars said!

And I have to ask you, why are you counting your calories? That’s not what we do on Bootcamp.

To answer your question:

If you have a ' blip ' ( a little one but carbs) how much of a set back is it?

First, ‘a little one but carbs’ - Bootcamp is all about the carbs!. So it’s not really a little one.

Second, what will happen is that, depending on many carbs your ‘blip’ was, any that weren’t required for immediate energy requirements will be stored as glycogen in your liver and muscles. This will show up as pounds on your scales.

Third, please don’t lose sight of the fact that you have lost 11lbs already - your ‘blip’ has the potential to seriously reduce that.

Hopefully your blip was little enough not to have too much of an impact on your weight loss. Make sure that you’re really strict over the next few days. Drink all the water and make sure that you take some/more exercise, to use up that stored energy.

But finally - and importantly - why did you do it? Given that you’ve done so well in such a short space of time, why sabotage that?

@mumsandauntiesare you able to freeze portions for a following week so you don’t get bored? I’m happy to have the same thing for a couple of days (especially when I was on my own) but normally try to cook double portions at least where suitable- anything with mince in particular freezes well, stews, even just portions of meat and fish so it doesn’t get repetitive.

I did ok eating out at a French place this week, starter not pudding, and made a great savoy cabbage carbonara for a solo Friday dinner. Steak, celeriac chips, green beans, mushrooms shallot and roasted tomato was great last night.
We’re out for a roast today but will drink lots of water! Did see a new low on the scales yesterday so it’s going in the right direction even if I don’t hold it for Monday.

Hello everyone and good afternoon, hope your Sunday has started well!

Thanks as always, @BIWI. 💐

Plodding along here, enjoying the good food and sleeping much, much better which is such a win - definitely my favourite NSV.

Still not weighing as I am going to leave that 'til the end.

We've got pork belly for dinner today and I am really looking forward to it.

I don't comment much but reading the thread and following along with you all is so helpful. Wishing each of you great progress!

@mynamefor2025 the other thing to bear in mind is that low carbing isn't like calorie counting, so you can't make up for cheating at lunchtime (say) by having a smaller dinner to make up the deficit - it doesn't work that way. That one biscuit or sneaky spud can knock you out of fat burning for a couple of days at least. Low "ish" carb is fine if you want to maintain your current weight, but if you actually want to lose it you have to restrict carbs fully and for a consistent period of time, hence the boot camp.

I have a friend who can't grasp this, says low carbing "doesn't work" but on inspection her diet is littered with little transgressions every few days that together mean that she isn't actually low carbing at all. You really do have to be all-in, at least for the initial period.

Can I just check butternut squash is red on the carb list so is that never or ok on boot camp lite?

That's the bit I find hardest, getting out of that mindset that little blips are not going to hurt provided you are good the next day. As to why it happens, well for me, it's a combination of not always planning ahead enough (I've got a lot going on with work, DCs, elderly parents) and just sheer willpower when faced with a roast dinner for example it's hard to leave the nicest part.

I had a couple of days of not sticking to bootcamp at the start of the week - I was annoyed with myself for putting on last week which then meant I accepted a biscuit at work and crisps at a friends house. I got back on track though for the second half of the week and am hoping for a loss tomorrow.

Being on the red list means avoiding wherever you can. No difference on Bootcamp or Bootcamp Light I’m afraid!

@KellyWithABigBelly - but all you were doing there was furthering the sabotage! Hopefully all will be OK tomorrow though.

I’m going to start next week's thread early, as I’ve been called for Jury Service, starting tomorrow. I have to leave the house early for the first day, so won’t have time to do it then. I apologise, too, if I’m not around as much - although whether I am or not depends entirely on which (if any) cases I get chosen to be part of the jury.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/low_carb_bootcamp/5487930-jan-26-low-carb-bootcamp-week-6-our-last-fortnight

@KellyWithABigBelly - but all you were doing there was furthering the sabotage!

Yes, I know. I can be a bit ‘all or nothing.” But back to being ‘all’ again now. One week to go until the event with a weight limit and I’m not as far under the maximum as I’d like - clothes could easily put me over - so I’m really disappointed in myself.

Ooh, good luck with Jury Service, @BIWI and I hope it's nothing too time-consuming or stressful. I did it many years ago, but it was all over in less than two days, and pretty uneventful. Take lots of reading matter....

You might have to change your name to KellyLadyGodiva and go naked for that event!

If you hear on the news that someone did a helicopter ride in the buff, you’ll know I resorted to desperate measures!