Week 3 - New Year Low Carb Bootcamp - Full Fat or Light?

[BIWI]

So we've completed the hardest part of Bootcamp. Now is the time, if you wish, to relax things a little, and to move on to Bootcamp Light.

On the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness you will - after weighing in, of course - find the rules for Bootcamp Light. However, as I know some people can't access the spreadsheet easily, here they are:

Bootcamp Light

1. Eat when you?re hungry - if you?re not hungry, don?t eat
In Bootcamp, you should have been eating three meals a day. The point of this being to ensure that you got used to eating proper meals, and so that your blood sugar is regulated and stable. Having achieved that, you can now relax this a little bit. If you find you?re not hungry - which often happens, because ketosis suppresses your appetite - then don?t force yourself to eat. But don?t let yourself get so hungry that you make inappropriate choices! Always make sure you have plenty of low carb food to access quickly, if you need to.

2. Avoid processed food
Focus on pure, natural protein as the basis for your meals ? meat/fish/eggs.
You may include processed meats like bacon or (low carb) sausages, smoked salmon, smoked mackerel, gammon - but please don?t have these at every meal or every day. As well as being highly processed they often contain undesirable ingredients, can add unnecessary extra carbs into your diet, and often include sugar.

3. Eat lots of fat
Eating fat helps to keep you feeling fuller for longer. Fry in butter, add butter to vegetables, eat salad with a home-made vinaigrette dressing (not made with balsamic vinegar though, as this is too sweet and has too many carbs), add mayonnaise where you can (just check the carb count on your mayo first). Eat fattier cuts of meat ? e.g. pork belly, roast chicken with the skin on and/or eat the fat off your lamb chops. Absolutely no low fat/light foods of any kind!

4. Make sure you are eating vegetables and salads with your food
This is where the bulk of your carbs should come from, and this is non-negotiable. But choose only those vegetables that are on the allowed list. You don?t have to weigh/count carbs ? this is one of the great joys of this WOE (way of eating), but if you?re new to low carbing it can be helpful to weigh your portions of veg in the early days, just so that you know how many carbs are in the sort of portions that you like to eat.

Beware that some of the veg on the allowed list can be surprisingly high in carbs once you make up a portion of it ? this is because they are denser, and therefore you tend to use more ? compare, for example, 100g of onion with 100g lettuce! Keep your focus on those veg which contain 3g carbs per 100g and use these as the focus of your meals. Use those over 3g per 100g sparingly.

5. You may eat some dairy
You should aim to include plenty of butter on this WOE. Fry with it and add it to your vegetables. And if you know that dairy doesn?t impede your weight loss you may eat cheese, but don't overdo it. Full fat yoghurt is the best way to include dairy in your diet - but beware, it does contain carbs. Total Full Fat is the best.

If you?ve been cutting out tea/coffee, you can re-introduce this ? but just be careful how much milk you end up drinking. You can end up adding a lot of extra carbs this way.

6. You must drink a minimum of 2 litres of water per day
Even if you?re drinking more tea/coffee than in Bootcamp, this is still a non-negotiable part of this WOE. And the more weight you have to lose, the more water you should drink. Water helps to flush out the ketones that your body will product ? so flushing out the fat. However, drinking this amount of water can affect your electrolyte balance; you need to make sure that you get plenty of sodium, magnesium and potassium. There is less need to worry about restricting salt if you?re eating a low carb diet. Good sources of potassium are salmon and avocado and spinach is a good source of magnesium. You could also consider supplements if you have an issue with this.

7. You may drink some alcohol
But restrict this to once or twice a week max. Vodka with soda is the best thing to drink. Or Champagne, red wine or dry white wine. Absolutely no beer/lager, cider, liqueurs, cocktails or full sugar mixers. You can drink spirits with artificial sweeteners, but bear in mind that we are attempting to avoid all things artificial!

Alcohol is the easiest source of fuel for your body, and it will use this over and above anything else that is available to it. Therefore, even if you?re following the diet absolutely to the letter, including alcohol can prevent weight loss.

8. You may eat some fruit
Strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and rhubarb are all fine. But please ? only once a day at the very most, and keep an eye on your portion sizes. Just for information ? these are the carb counts:

Rhubarb ? 0.8g carbs per 100g (but don?t forget you will need to sweeten this ? and not with sugar!)
Blackberries ? 4.4g carbs per 100g
Raspberries ? 4.6g carbs per 100g
Strawberries ? 6g carbs per 100g
Blueberries - 6.4g carbs per 100g (although this is a bit controversial - I have had differing carb counts from various sources - some saying as much as 12g carbs per 100g)

9. You may eat some nuts/seeds
Nuts/seeds can make a good snack. BUT it is incredibly easy to overdo it, and you can end up eating your bodyweight in carbs. As an occasional snack they are great, but keep it occasional and keep the portions to a small handful at most.

Macadamias are not only luscious, but they are very low in carbs.

Here are some carb counts ? BUT ? check the back of your packets as I don?t know if these are for raw or roasted nuts:

Pistachios 4.6g carbs per 100g
Macadamias 4.8g carbs per 100g
Pecans 5.8g carbs per 100g
Almonds 6.9g carbs per 100g
Peanuts 7.1 g carbs per 100g
Cashews 18.1g carbs per 100g

10. Avoid artificial sweeteners
The aim of Bootcamp was to help reduce the stranglehold that sugar has on us ? and to curb your sweet tooth. But it does make some things difficult, e.g. desserts at a dinner party, and it is undeniable that it can be enjoyable ? occasionally ? to eat something sweet. However, restrict such goodies. For some people, artificial sweeteners can impede weight loss.

Starshaker we had homemade burgers last night with broccoli (covered in sea salt crystal butter) and salad (lettuce/cucumber). Was delish.

mumat39 we don't use anything in our burger to bind them. Just mincemeat - take enough to make the size burger you want, work it with your hands so that it becomes more like one blob of meat then lots of little worms (if that makes any sense). Then we grill them on a medium heat (or BBQ in the summer) - they hold their shape really well.

starshaker - good start! If I were you I'd have the burgers with celeriac or swede chips and lots of buttery spinach.

We had our burgers last night in big flat mushrooms as the "bun"

MrsHP, not making a reward of a food is such a good idea! I must try and do that with my dc.
Also, I haven't forgotten the challenge of coming up with a recipe for this woe, but I will do, at some point. Just haven't had any ideas so far.

Star shaker,good luck on this woe. How about celeriac chips and salad. I haven't made them yet, the chips, but there have been loads of rave reviews about them on the threads.

Oops. Cross post with Ewan.

MrsHP, I'll try that later. I have lamb mince so fingers crossed it works for those. I usually pan fry them though, so maybe that's why they fall apart.

I dont have celeric. I do have broccoli mushrooms and spinnich though

starshaker I'm also a dr and not a GP - I did think that it would be reasonable to discuss attempts to lose weight with a GP as that is one of the most profound ways in which you can help your health, but it does sound as though your particular practice is not into preventative medicine! I am very sorry you had such a bad experience. I wonder whether your practice is looking for patient feedback at all though (often they do - because there are a lot of requirements now about getting patient opinions. That might be an opportunity for suggesting more help and support for patients trying to improve their own health, lose weight etc)

Is anyone else still 'snacky'? I am. I was supposed to have leftover beef and cauli cheese for dinner, but between breakfast at 7.30 and now I have eaten them as snacks. Am about to make lunch of salad and buttery broccoli, but am feeling quite greedy. I'm only four days in to bootcamp, will I be less 'snacky later, or is snacking okay as long as Im snacking on good lc food?

star- celaric chips and a burger were meant for one another surely ?

Herecomesthesun, hello. It's really good and reassuring that there is a doctor in our group. :)

Pregnant pause, I was also very snarky when I started, but that need has most definitely gone. Olives are a good snack. But some come with citric acid so try and avoid those as citric aid can impede weight loss. BIWI mentioned this either on this thread or on one of the others.

pregnantpause snack away on LC food for now. Do also have a glass of water and try to see if you are actually hungry as well. It will pass and you won't feel hungry and will forget about meals sometime soon.

re burgers i'm with mrshp - i think i once saw a heston blumenthal programme where he said that you don't need anything to bind but if you are having trouble adding a little salt can help

i don't have children but have been working very hard these past few years or so at separating food from emotions - e.g. sticking to the weekly meal plan rather than having 'comfort' food if one or other of us has had a bad day... obviously low carbing helps as you have reduced cravings, but it's still very hard! especially as the rest of the world seems geared up to sabotage you (tea and cake etc)

i'm ok with food at celebrations - birthdays, christmas etc - but i really have had to think about my motivation for eating in certain ways

Hello all! Spurred on by you lot, I am attempting celeriac 'roasties' tonight to have with chicken wrapped in parma ham and green veg. My question - parboil first or just bung in oven - have seen both ways in recipes! in advance for any advice!

Oooh, thanks collywibbles and MrsHP - great omelette tips!

I shall try them henceforth. I was starting to think there must be some kind of scientific/magic formula that I was NEVER going to get. Will be very happy with Tastes Good Looks Awful. That would be more than I'm achieving now!

(MrsHP - will come and camp outside your house. Waitrose Love!! )

Willie that is true, I have also tried not to give her chocolate to make her better if she bumps herself which lots of my friends do. Doing it consiously for her, has made me work hard at trying to do it for myself. Harder said than done after 30 odd years of celebrating with chocolates or comforting with take aways.

Hi Biwi thank you for responding to my earlier posts. I used 2 kg of mince, 390g for passata and 390g of chopped tomatos in juice and one of those little bottles of wine that's a glass full I think. Tbh I thought that with that quantity of mince and spread over several meals the carb content would be ok but I hang my head in shame, I should have checked first.

I added the onion granules as I thought they would just intensify the flavour a bit. At first it was a bit bland so I just kept adding stuff till it tasted really good. I didn't even consider the carb content of the onion powder though.

Any thoughts on what I could use if that's too many tomatos? Only ever really made bolognese type sauces and always put tomatos in to thicken and flavour.

The ketostix are old and it was just a moment of curiosity, don't use them normally - sorry Biwi!

mrshp it is very hard (might have to get some tips from you if we're all still around here if/when i have children!). my mum was very very strict about food and it sounds like you have a good balance

dp's grandfather died recently so he's been very down and i kept thinking 'what can i feed him to make him feel better?', which is exactly the sort of thinking i want to avoid. in my mind i'm thinking of making him cakes or biscuits, or buying him treat food when i'm in town, so he feels comforted and loved, but we have tons of stuff left over from christmas and i'm not eating any of it so he's got to plough through all that on his own already! so i'm trying to make him feel comforted and loved in other non-food ways, but it is difficult to go against conditioning

though tbh he's eating the same food as me plus carbs so every day is like a treat for him with all the slow-cooked pork belly!

and you can stop smirking at the back there at 'comforted and loved in non-food ways'!

Lavendersblue - with that amount of mince, you should be fine. Just be aware that tomatoes can quickly add up in terms of carbs. I'll work out a recipe with carb counts and post that soon.

And if the ketostix were old, perhaps this is why you didn't see anything? They do have a sell-by date, I believe.

mumat39 - if you're making home-made burgers:

• buy the fattiest mince you can
• put the mince into a large mixing bowl and add loads of oil
• add salt, very generously (more than you think you will need) and then black pepper
• squidge the lot together, using your hands, and then form into patties
• when you put them into the frying pan/on the griddle, leave them for about 5 minutes, so that they form a good, brown crust on the bottom, which will help hold them together

pregnantpause - you should stop feeling snacky soon; it is, though, also an indication that perhaps you should be eating more fat - but as the mantra on this WOE is to eat when you're hungry, then eat! A small piece of cheese is a great snack, as long as dairy is OK for you

MrsHP - the day the Waitrose opened near you really lifted my spirits! But it's really hard to get parked there. Imagine my delight when they opened the other one in Wimbledon!!!

I am away to Brussells this weekend, and found out that the htoel we are in tonight serves breakfast from 7am. We need to be on the Eurostar at 6.45!
So I am thinking of stuff to take with us for breakfast - have a load of sausages in teh oven (for dc dinner too) and made those Oopsie rolls for the first time. Didnt want to make them becasue of the stupid name but they would appear to be ideal for meals on the run. They didn't rise (?) and so i've got sort of pancakes/wraps, but that's ok. That and some olives and maybe a chunk of cheese should see us across the channel

captainmummy, my "travelling" foods are: pepparami, baby bels, macadamia nuts & for emergencies Atkins Day Break bars. I'm not a big fan of franken foods like Atkins bars, but I'd rather eat one of those than crumble & have a croissant in desperation!

Afternoon all.

So for my lunch today I had 2 burgers with loads of salad, followed by FF greek yog, sprinkled with a little pure chocolate extract here & vanilla powder, was scrummy.

vanilla powder