Lewis
well, mostly I need cheap meals (no money til pay day) so I'm thinking meats with frozen veggies for dinners and eggs for lunches at work with things in such as omlettes with added meats / things
These meals sound fine - as long as you are using/adding plenty of fat, and keeping the veg low carb
should I make the omlette in butter instead of oil?
Yes - it will be tastier, and also better - unless you're using coconut oil, cooking with oil isn't great, as the heat changes its nature. (Don't worry too much about this for now - but if you can use butter instead of oil it's always going to be better!)
I can't bring myself to eat breakfasts - any ideas what to have? It will need to be at work (fully functioning kitchen but no time to make anything until lunch hour)
I think to start with you are going to have to get your head around this. The key thing that you're looking to achieve on this WOE (way of eating) is to stabilise your blood sugars and therefore to control your appetite. You won't achieve this if you are skipping breakfast. Eggs are brilliant as they are perfect low carb food, and take no time at all to cook. If you can't face cooking first thing, or really don't have the time - less than 10 minutes! - to boil a couple of eggs, then hard-boil some, and keep them in the fridge. You can just grab one and eat it first thing. BUT BREAKFAST IS REALLY, REALLY IMPORTANT TO GET YOU STARTED PROPERLY!
how about tuna salad (cucumber, lettuce, tomatoes (3 baby ones), mushrooms, spring onions) with tuna over the top and some salad dressing - which dressing are we allowed? is caesar too carby?
Sounds perfect. Salad dressing really should be a homemade dressing - all the shop-bought ones I've seen add sugar. Make your own vinaigrette dressing:
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon wine vinegar (red or white, or cider vinegar)
salt/pepper
Couldn't be easier!
one problem I forsee - I don't like fatty meat... I HATE the skin of chicken etc and find it slimy. Is this going to be an enormous issue?
If you roast a chicken, or a chicken piece, the skin will be crisp not slimy! It is lovely! It isn't the end of the world if you don't like fatty meat, but you will have to get used to eating more fat in your diet. That said, the danger of only eating lean protein is that you eat a disproportionately high amount of protein, and it becomes a high protein diet instead of a high fat diet. I suspect, though, that this is in your head rather than a real preference - and once you get going on low carbing your tastes will change!
I have eaten "low fat" diets for ever (well, when I diet, I mean... if I ate low fat forever I'd not be 21st!) - it's a really difficult thing to get into my head; where to "add" the fat?!
Well, eating a low fat diet clearly doesn't work, does it?!
We have been conned over the last 30 years or so, being told to drop the fat. It's not the fat that makes you fat, it's the carbs. It's one of the most difficult things for everyone when they start following a low carb (and therefore high fat) diet - and it feels like a real leap of faith to start with. But trust us - it really does work! Most importantly, the fat will make you feel full and will keep you feeling full for longer.
I don't really like crisp skin either but it's all right... I think it's more changing my mind about it; since I was a tiny child, my mother removed the skin on roasts etc because it's "bad" for you... that's a good 25 years of input to reverse!
Well exactly!
And now, to finish, two key questions:
HAVE YOU READ THE RULES OF BOOTCAMP? DO YOU KNOW WHAT VEG YOU ARE ALLOWED TO EAT?
This is really important to help you get off to the best possible start. I would also suggest that you have a really good read of all the resources on the spreadsheet - there's some great stuff there (especially some of the videos) about low carb eating. Everything you need to know is here - just look at the tabs at the bottom