Week 1 - Autumn Low Carb Bootcamp

[BIWI]

So here we are! Over 160 of us signed up!

Here is the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness for you to enter your first weight

If you aren't on the list for any reason, just go to the bottom of the list and add your name - the lovely Willie will sort out the alphabetisation later.

From experience of previous Bootcamps, the chat thread can move very quickly! So, if you have a specific or particular question, please post it on the questions thread I will do my best to check it as often as I can, as will other seasoned Bootcampers.

If you have a really burning issue, please feel free to PM me and I will do my very best to help you as soon as possible.

And if you're looking for inspiration for things to cook, here's the recipe thread

Here is a brief reminder of the rules:

We do not eat any of the following during Bootcamp:

bread
rice
pasta/noodles
potatoes
flour
pastry
sugar
chocolate/sweets
biscuits/cookies
crisps

And here are the ten rules of Bootcamp:

1. You must eat breakfast.
2. Avoid processed food
3. Eat lots of fat
4. Make sure you are eating vegetables and salads with your food
5. Be careful about dairy (apart from butter, which is unlimited)
6. You must drink a minimum of 2 litres of water per day
7. No alcohol
8. No fruit
9. No nuts/seeds

10. No sugar or artificial sweeteners

More detail/explanation of these rules is on the spreadsheet ? look at the tabs at the bottom.

One final word from me ? the disclaimer! I am not a doctor, a scientist, a dietician nor a nutritionist. The advice that is given here is based on my own experience of low carbing, as well as the reading I have been doing over the last few years.

If you have a medical condition, or you are taking long term medication, please take advice from your GP/consultant before starting to low carb.

Good luck everyone!

daisy - sorry, that link doesn't take you to the recipe I am using! I'm making shallot, bacon and Gruyere tart.

twit - bulletproof coffee

he's pretty strict about the types of ingredients. because i am lazy money- and time-poor i just have instant black coffee with a couple of tsp of coconut oil in it, which is really nothing like a bulletproof coffee! you have to keep stirring it to mix in the oil, but i do think it's nice despite it sounding horrible!

Thanks BIWI. I will check my mayo portion sizes. I havent found any exercise I can safely do. I'm hypermobile with a ruptured disc/spondylothingy and can barely walk. I used to cycle, swim, mountain climb, run etc and went to being sedentary which is why the extra 2 stone crept on. I am pleased it has gone and am realistic to know I wont have the body I used to have (especially after numerous children) but argh at being so near, yet so far.
The only fat left on me now is that wee pudding on my belly.

Oh that doesn't sound good Are you taking regular pain medication? That's another thing, I'm afraid, that interfere with weight loss.

Although, obviously, I wouldn't recommend you stop taking those!

What about dairy? Have you tried cutting that out/down?

just tramadol. I will cut back on the cheese. Most of my fat comes from mayo. What do you reckon to mayo?

Nothing wrong with mayo - but presumably it's a low carb one?

The other thing I was thinking, if you've been low carbing for a while, would be to check how many carbs you are actually eating daily, just to make sure that you're not a victim of carb creep.

starry I don't know much about erythritol, but this is interesting

But it's also been refused by the EFSA on the grounds that it's not adequately safe for children

Given that it seems to be easier on the digestion than other polyols, if it's only for occasional baking, then it's probably worth a go.

How about Stevia? Have you used/tried that? We had a weekend in Bruges recently, and some of the chocolatiers there are using it in their top-end chocolates. And I have to say that they were fabulous - you would never know that they hadn't been made with sugar.

But remember that one of the aims of Bootcamp is to reduce our desire for sweet things!

Hellmans.
I eat fish, salad, eggs, cabbage, tomatoes and carrots with a few almonds thrown in pretty much exclusively. My dd is on the ketogenic diet so I'm carb savvy and can spot one at a 100 paces
But cheese in the form of Brie had crept in as a boredom snack. It might be that.

Are you eating enough fat do you think?

I dont know now. 2 eggs a day. Fish fried in butter and a mayo habit that keeps Hellmans in business plus a tablespoon of coconut oil off the spoon.
Wouldnt my body burn it off me if I wasnt eating enough. I'm in mid ketosis (I just measured using my dd's kit)
The rest is maybe half a savoy cabbage a day (please stand downwind), 3 carrots, handful of tomatoes, mushrooms, rocket leaves maybe half a bag, 5 almonds, an onion and a fillet of fish or can of tuna with its oil.

It seems about the same as what others are listing.

do you eat any leafy green veg other than salad? cabbage, tomatoes and carrots can be at the carby end of the spectrum if eaten in anything other than small quantities as i'm sure you know, but if you're not keen on other veg then i understand if cutting down on them would limit the variety in your diet

Well - I would look to get rid of the carrots and the onion for a start - use shallots instead of onion, and find a green veg to eat instead of carrots. Also, a handful of tomatoes could end up being a lot of carbs.

It might be worth weighing and counting your carbs for the next few days, just to see how many you are eating per day.

Also, have a read of this

Your medical situation (i.e. the pain you suffer) could also be getting in the way, as it puts your body under stress. Cortisol, the stress hormone, is yet another that impedes weight loss.

There's obviously not much you can do about that, though, so I realise that's probably not too helpful.

Maybe the best advice is to relax about it! If you're enjoying your food, and you're not hungry, just go with it and then see what happens.

ok, will give that a whirl. thanks for taking the time.

definately stress and not enough sleep in that list. The stress is so bad I have constant headaches and ended up with a retinal bleed and my cortisol levels are high. There's not much I can do about either of those. That might explain the plateau. Bum.
I'm never hungry so thats not an issue.
I need a beach holiday

Thanks BIWI for the erythritol links. I'm not feeding children or elderly so I think it's worth a go. In actual fact, I'm not really addicted to sweet tastes at all, so I don't see 'breaking the craving' as an issue for me. I just like to bake as a relaxing hobby, and I do like to take the occasional mid-morning treat to work.

I was also thinking about experimenting with making a low carb granola (using the lowest carbing nuts and seeds, eg macadamias, brazils, pecans, flax etc). I want to use a bit of erythitol to sweet it. I think a teaspoon of granola would be nice in yoghurt. I've done the maths and can get the carb count very low, as long as erythritol is ok for boot camp. Now I've got the BIWI green light, I'll report back from the kitchen in due course.

Re your question about the egg whites. 40ml liquid egg white = 1 whole egg. If you are using the whites from actual eggs from which you have taken the yolks, then I would guess 80ml might be 3 eggs. Or you could just strain the whites off and measure the quantity in a measuring jug. But it's not science and doesn't need to be exact - I would just guess it with 3 egg whites.

Thanks, starry.

If, when you're in your lab kitchen you could come up with a really good recipe for low carb crackers, that are properly robust enough for cheese, I would be eternally grateful!

biwi have you tried the i breathe i'm hungry ones?

i find them very cracker-like, though one can't have too many of them as they make me stall and go straight through me

Oh yes! I'd forgotten about those. I've never tried them, mainly because I never had any flax seed.

I may have to try those - but will bear in mind your warning!

Do you think they would work with ground almonds? Or would the texture still be too soft?

I have just discovered that my pack of flax seed, which I've hardly used, has past its sell-by date, which is very irritating!

i don't think so, no, they would be too crumbly with ground almonds, and you would never get them thin enough. the ground flax seems to bind well, and i've noticed with flax recipes that you usually have to leave the mixture to stand for a while before rolling out - i think it allows the flax to take on the liquid in the mixture and bind to itself better

BIWI - I've read a bit around cholesterol and this WOE, generally good things, but it's all based around normal people with high levels, whereas mine is caused by a defect in my lipid receptors. So I'm not really sure if the research has been done on people like me.

When i was diagnosed My levels (aged 24, 5'5" and weighing 9 stone-something) were 8.4mmol. But last time they were checked it was about 7.3. I'm not on meds - I'm young (ish), only slightly overweight, don't smoke or really drink much, female, and none of my close relatives with the same condition have had major heart conditions yet, so consultant is happy to watch and wait basically. Plus, I don't fully trust statins....

So of they shoot up dramatically I'll have to rethink things, which would be a shame! I'm sure my mum's went down when she briefly followed Atkins though...

Ooh BIWI a cooking challenge! I'm on it . Low carb crackers it is.

cocoaone - from the reading i've done, the people who need to be concerned about dietary cholesterol are those with familial hypercholesterolaemia - is that the condition you have? you would be right to monitor closely

WWd - yes that's the one. Although my consultant tells me that the food you eat doesn't have much of an effect on your cholesterol levels.... He advises a Mediterranean diet with oily fish etc, so he's not too adverse to fat in the diet!

that's interesting that he says that in the case of FH too!

'the great cholesterol con' is an interesting read too if you haven't looked at it before