BIWI's Two Week Low Carb Boot Camp - starts Monday 16 April

[PaquesJeLeVauxBien]

I've been back low carbing seriously since February and have lost a stone (almost). I have another 1.5 stones to lose.

It's been going well for me, but I have slowed down in the last month and I'm keen to get things back on track and up the speed of my weight loss. To that end, I have devised a strict two week bootcamp.

It will start on Monday 16 April to give anyone who wants to join in time to sort themselves out, get planning and generally get themselves ready to join in.

Who's up for it?

Couple of easy suppers, that don't really need weighing or measuring or any fancy kind of cooking & are low carb:

Mince (beef / lamb / pork doesn't matter which)
Courgette
Green beans
Celery
half a red pepper
Leek

Fry mince, chop veg into cubes & chuck them in too.
Add whatever herbs & spices take your fancy and some garlic if you like that. I quite like paprika and a bit of tarragon. Add a dash of Lea & Perrins and one table spoon of tomato puree and a bit of water - maybe 200ml. Allow to cook
Serve with celeriac or cauliflower mash (or you could do cabbage pasta - basically cabbage cut into thin strips & cooked) & some parmesan or grated cheese on top.

Corned Beef
Cauliflower
Celeriac or Swede

Cook cauliflower & celeriac & then mash them with butter or cream. If you don't like celeriac, just use cauliflower on it's on - or you could add a bit of swede. Cube the corn beef & stir in. Put mixture in baking dish & sprinkle grated cheese on top. Stick in oven until cheese is melted / crispy - however you like it.
Serve with spinach.

OK, I've put together some of the meals I eat when LCing on a blog, they're all veggie. Excuse the typos as I've done it in a bit of a rush. I think I'll also put next weeks meal plan up once I've done it. I always meal plan for the week as it works out easier for me to stick to it.

LC Blog

So here's a question for you all - how do you explain to your DCs what you're doing? I have two DDs, 4 and nearly 7 and am very keen for them to have a relaxed and happy attitude to food, never use the 'd' word in their hearing and try to be very discreet when I'm trying to lose weight. But have been doing low carb lite for a couple of weeks now and their are starting to notice/comment. (We mostly eat together, especially at weekends and holidays.) So last night we were having a quick tea of cold meat and salad and they and DH were having chips with theirs, I was just having the salad and they wanted to know why. I said as casually as I could 'oh - just trying to be healthy' and immediately got lots of 'I'll be healthy and not have any chips either'. Maybe chips were a bad choice - I've done meals where I've just not had the bread/new potatoes and they haven't commented. Any other suggestions?

I think you can be honest with them and say that you are not eating chips / cakes / biscuits because you don't need to eat them. Tell them that some adults don't use up as much energy as growing children, so they don't need to eat quite as much. No mention of diets required!

Can you not just say you're not really hungry, and you prefer the salad?

flipflapflop - your blog is brilliant and just what we need. If I start a recipe thread you need to make sure you link to it there as well.

Would you - or any other of the veggie posters - care to join me as a veggie Sergeant Major on this bootcamp? I'm very aware that all my experience is very much focused on being a carnivore - and I think that some of the stuff I would recommend/suggest would very well be different for veggies!

Good suggestions - perhaps should add 'healthy' to the list of banned words. I can avoid eating cakes/biscuits/puddings without comment, but it's stuff like not eating cereal that arouses interest - and I don't want to encourage faddiness or worse.

Or - why not try serving you all the same meals? As long as there's plenty of veg/salad on the plates, you don't have to serve chips/potatoes/pasta/rice ...

I suppose you're right - they can always get their carbs for pudding and in fruit (can't quite get my head round the idea that small children can do without them altogether)

But if they are eating plenty of veg/salad they aren't doing without carbs - they're just having fewer of the less healthy carbs.

I tell my DCs that cereal is disgusting overpriced rubbish that used to be given to cows to fatten them up before slaughter - but they still quite happily munch through crunchy nut cornflakes and any other packets of the bastard stuff that they force me to buy for them!

I think it helps to retain a bit of humour about food - it is only fuel at the end of the day. DS is autistic spectrum and was a nightmare when he was young about not eating anything other than meat & bread. As I watched him tuck into a huge bowl of salad on Monday (he is 12 now), I was glad that we'd remained humourous about it all & now he'll try most things.

Haha yes BIWI I'd join you as a Veggie Sergeant Major! I know the Rose Elliot book like the back of my hand, so anyway I can help I will

Hurrah!

Recipe thread has started here - please add any of your own

Would love to join, the only thing that put me off is breakfasts. Most low carb breakfasts have eggs involved but my tummy doesn't like eggs lol.

So would love some breakfast ideas that don not involve eggs ( maybe can eat 1 or 2 a week).

If breakfast is an issue, which it seems to be for a lot of people - because we have this view that breakfast is, somehow, a different kind of meal that requires different kinds of foods - then why not just eat what you would eat at any other meal?

Leftovers from the previous dinner can be a good idea!

It's just a mealtime.

Count me in please. I low carbed a few years ago, lost 20kg and felt great even though I really needed to lose another 10. Then got complacent and now found myself back to my old size again, what an idiot.

My response to anyone worried about not having fruit and that this is unhealthy is that you are having fruit, just not the ultra-sugary ones. Aubergine, peppers, tomatoes, avocado...all fruit.

Added a recipe, have been low carbing for 3weeks and lost 4lb :( realised not eating enough carb veg or drinking enough water. Got a large amount to lose.

So taking notes tho don't do eggs in any form so makes things a lot lot harder.

What have you been eating, MNP? If you post a couple of days' worth of typical menus let's see if we can help you.

Hi BIWI,

Salmon and veg like peppers, leeks, cabbage, bean sprouts

Roast chicken leg and cauli mash with leeks and cheese

Mince with leeks, courgette and leek (like shep and cottage pie)

Lamb bite balls that I posted the recipe earlier

Chicken wings

Trout/salmon salad

Cheese salad

Corned beef salad

Cod in Parma ham

Cod in Parmesan crust

Roast lamb dinner minus spuds and gravy

Roast chicken dinner minus above and bread sauce

Made some chicken passanda's (from jar ~10carbs a portion)

Natural yogurt

I got some low carb pittas which are nice split with cheese and onion in then toasted - a pick me up treat.

I also take a fair number of medications and so take in carbs that way.

Tried celeriac but too like parsnips for me, likewise don't do swede, turnip, broccoli, chilli, spicy hot.

I'm in. Have been on the other low-carb thread and doing ok (we'll pretend Easter didn't happen, shall we? ) but weight is staying a bit static and am eyeing up the diabetic choc (!!) so probably need a kick up the bum.

Breakfast-wise, I can't do eggs first thing either. Not that I ever have time to make 'em anyway! My current breakfast routine is things-rolled-round-other-things, eg: strips of smoked salmon rolled around a blob of full-fat Philadelphia
parma ham rolled round a slice of avocado...whatever the fridge yields, really. Or leftover curry!

I do sometimes have a couple of big blobs of full-fat Total yog with a few blueberries but I guess that's out on bootcamp :sigh:

MNP - am no expert but...are you getting enough fat? You must eat fat on this diet - butter with your veg, mayo with your salads, avocado, cheese etc. I can't see much in your menus.

More water, more fat - and maybe cut the low-carb pittas? tempting I know, but they probably aren't helping.

Oh I could absolutely do smoked salmon wrapped round soft cheese.. yum. Or ham.
Yes let's pretend easter was just a figment of our imaginations

MNP - I was going to say exactly the same as teaandthorazine - your food choices are fine (and yummy!) but it could be very easily the case that you're not eating enough fat.

Most of your protein choices are also low fat, so you really need to make sure that you add butter/oily dressings/mayo etc.

And yes, low-carb foods don't help - and they're actually often not that low either!

Yep have butter in veg, don't do mayo am a salad cream/sandwich spread person, avocado no like, cheese or yes my thru the night snack when working (am caring for new born twins currently so up lots in the night)

Had belly pork last week, was delish and all the skin off a 2kg fr chicken the other day.

What about cheese triangles?

Have upped my water (on 1.5lts so far today)

Used iceberg as a wrap the other day was nice.

I cook in rapeseed oil and butter and add better to boiled veggies.

Will try to increase higher fat foods like belly pork and lamb.