Week 6 - New Year Low Carb Bootcamp _ Where I start to wave my big stick again

[BIWI]

Morning all

Here it is - come and confess all

Now. Three things have come to my attention.

1. There is a lot of baking going on. Sweet things and bread substitutes.

Please remember that we are trying to avoid sweet things and that we are trying to avoid using artificial sweeteners.

1. A lot most of you are falling off the wagon - either 'accidentally' () or because situations arise where you have not planned ahead or deliberately.

This is not a very forgiving WOE. Lapses/cheats like this will have a big impact - at the very least you will not see any weight loss for a while - most likely, though, you will see a gain of around 3-7lbs. You really have to plan ahead and make sure you do everything you can to stay focused and avoid the carbs. Going out for a meal or to dinner at a friends does mean that you have to think about what's going to be on offer. You cannot assume that low carb options are going to be available (although most restaurants should be fairly easy to navigate).

1. There is a lot of moaning about seeing a weight gain or not losing.

May I refer you to 1 and 2 above?

Please, please, please go back to Bootcamp/Bootcamp Light rules. They are there for a reason!

I can tell you that almost every time someone posts "I don't know what to do, the scales aren't moving for me/I've gained half a stone and I don't know why, because I'm being really good/have been following the rules" this is a massive signal that, actually, they haven't.

Fat is key.
Water is key.
Too much alcohol will stop weight loss.
Dairy - especially cream and cheese - can be an issue for many (yoghurt is better tolerated)
Artificial sweeteners are to be avoided.
Fruit should be severely restricted.

We have only five weeks of Bootcamp left, including this week. Let's get serious and back on track.

BIWI...I second your post about the same 2 or 3 lbs. I am pretty much at my target weight. I put myself on the spreadsheet in order to keep myself under the threat of the big stick keep myself accountable to you lot.

As I have said before I have been following this WOE for well over six months, the Olympic park was a challenge, and have had holidays, Christmas, celebrations etc in that time.

What keeps me going is that I do not feel deprived and I enjoy this way of eating.

And occasionally I get a little whoosh which is very welcome

I'm very impressed by all the running going on, especially in this bitter weather. I'm more of a low-impact gal myself, having dicky hips still from SPD in both pregnancies but am keenly walking whenever possible. Having no car helps!

After a few nights of mediocre dinners I cooked a cracking chicken thigh and roast swede traybake with halloumi and ras-el-hanout spice mix. Roast spicy swede = amazing. Who knew?

Welcome new folks. If you get time I heartily recommend investigating the Low Carb Resources tab on the website, there's some really useful and inspirational stuff in there, especially the video

That swede sounds lovely Ewan - can you put it on the recipe thread, please?

Happy birthday bullet!! You share the same birthday as my DH and my mum

Enjoy your day

Will do! Weights and measures might be slightly windswept and approximate though

Yes the swede sounds yum!

BIWI - I'm the same - last half a stone sitting on my middle and on my thighs. Seem to be maintaining an ok weight though but think that weight may only come off if I really cut my portions down.

Happy birthday Bullet!!!! Have a good one.

Had a lovely tea of ginger, five spice (Tesco brand) Garlic, light soy, sesame oil chicken with zero noodles (like something from a SCI FI movie in space) and stir fry veg. Really lovely meal.

Got a wedding next week and nothing to wear.

Grinot - how's your wedding planning going?

the chicken and swede traybake recipe is UP, y'all.

That sounds really fab, Ewan. How long did you put it back in the oven once you'd added the pepper/Halloumi, etc?

Morning all. I'm back on track and not worrying about what went on last weekend. DH is on his way to Paris for a business meeting, so I'm going to go out and buy a lovely big steak for dinner tonight and I'm going to cook it with loads of buttery green veg.

Choos - wow, that's amazingly good going. I started two years ago, but I can't see me ever doing more than 10k due to EDS issues. To be honest, I'm beyond thrilled that I can run at all.

Regular exercise can reduce sensitivity to insulin, so it doubles up the low carb work and benefits. I'm studying sport and fitness psychology/physiology, so let me know if anyone wants a pep-talk or just wants to hear about lovely benefits of exercise.

Novelty don't beat yourself up by measuring what you do against others, could you try measuring what you do now against how you used to eat?

Happy Birthday Bullet! Hope you have a good one!

BIWI, if we get stuck on a weight close to our target weight, is that the body's way of telling us that we are fine now? I mean does this woe self regulate, IYSWIM?

I am no where near that yet, and still have between 2 and 2.5 stones to lose, but just wondering as a few of you have mentioned getting 'stuck' on the last few pounds.

Thanks again.

I don't know, mumat39 - although I have read stuff saying that your body self-regulates and will automatically stop at the optimum weight.

But - when excess fat is still visible (and I'm not talking about being super-critical about my body - there is still very visible fat around my middle!) - I can't see how this would be?

I'll see what I can find out about it.

erm.. I was doing it while trying to throw DCs into bed so I couldn't tell you exactly 20 mins maybe? I'd recommend checking after 15 mins whether the chicken is cooked and golden and that the swede and halloumi are crisping up.

this is why my food blog never happened. I fling ingredients around madly, consume, collapse in small heap and forget methodology entirely

Good luck today iamaslummy

Happy low carb birthday Bullet!

How did everyone get on with their cream cheese pancakes. I think I tried to do them too thin (like I would for normal pancakes) and I couldn't turn them. I think I should have made them more like drop scones. They tasted yummy but looked a mess.

How did others get on?

Oh and I forgot to say - happy birthday Bullet

Bugsy my cream cheese pancakes came out beautiful. Wish I've taken the photo..
I used about 50gr cream cheese, 4 eggs, 1 tsp baking powder, about 25-30gr ground almonds and tiny splosh of double cream. Didn't taste too eggy. Makes about 6 pancakes. I think the key is to make them quite small and make sure you won't touch them much until they are properly ready to flip.
I had mine with ham and cheese (put on the top of pancakes and under the grill for few minutes). And for pudding had couple of pancakes with whipped double cream and few raspberries. Yummy!

Oh, and baking powder makes the pancakes bit thicker but that's the way I like them anyway

Morning all.
Due to random technical error with tinternet I have been in living in the technology dark ages for the past week.

Will catch up in thread later.

Needless to say, despite being dairy free for 5 days and sticking to strict bootcamping (no nuts no fruit etc), I still haven't lost any weight.

I have tweaked and tweaked and nothing since the 3lbs the first week.

I am considering hopping back over to Dukan. At least I lost weight with that (3 stone in total).

I think boot camp LC would work well as maintenance for me but it doesn't help me lose any weight sadly.

Well done to the rest of you though. Am trying to avoid envy at the 1st + weight losses on here

Good luck today slummy

happy birthday bullet!

valdeeves sounds like an excuse to go shopping!

novelty i also struggle with willpower. Monday after being delighted with losing a kg, having great breakfast and egg with celeriac chips for lunch (yum in case anyone was wondering) i then lost it and ate ridiculous things (this is after going to friends and resisting cake twice over the weekend). Well, i then barely slept that night (had no idea carbs would do that to me), almost fainted in the shower yesterday morning, felt queasy and on and off abdominal pain all day yesterday.

At least i've learned my lesson i suppose!

Shit.... I've just eaten a whole lindt chocolate rabbit left over from christmas, and it was deeelish. Shit, shit, shit.

Thanks PrettyP. I'm going to give them another go tonight!

Gless you are right, mushrooms cooked in butter are the food of the gods

Oh dear dangerousmouse. Do you know why you did it? What was going through your mind - were you stressed, tired, upset, or just having a fuck-it moment? Had you allowed any carb creep which brought in cravings? Do have a think about what the trigger was

It's done now though and you can't change that

You need to be aware of how your body is likely to react. You will have triggered an insulin reaction, so later on you may well have carb/sugar cravings and be quite hungry. Make sure you have low carb foods available and try not to let the carbs get the better of you. Over the next few days go strict bootcamp to get yourself back on track. Do some exercise if you can.

Don't allow this to derail you more than it has. As someone on another forum advised, if you got a flat tyre would you fix it or would you slash the other three? (Cheesy I know!)

I just felt a sudden craving, went to make a cup of tea and just did it, not stressed or anything. I have been very strict, doing bootcamp apart from a few blueberries twice a week or so.

The same thing happened a couple of weeks ago, I had a sudden, intense craving and ate half a packet of biscuits! It took me most of the week to lose the weight gained. So pissed of as I'd just reached 20lb off in total, now thats wrecked!

Thanks for your advice.

off

It is annoying when your gollum gets the better of your smeagol!

Ok, so you know that sometimes you get these extreme cravings and afterwards you feel really cross when you give into them. Do you ever have cravings like this and you haven't given in to them? If so why not (e.g. too busy, craved food not available for whatever reason etc etc)

Either way, you need to think of a strategy for how you're goin to deal with it next time. I know it's easier said than done when the cravings strike, but really, do you want to be cross with yourself over this again?

You can make sure that you don't have these types of food in the house. You can put yourself to a task where you really don't want to be eating (cleaning the loo) or just generally distracting yourself. Get out of the house if you can. There are some thought techniques too, thinking "do I know what this food tastes like? Is it the fort and last opportunity I'm ever going to have to eat this?" The answer is usually no

Again, this is easier said than done, but you should try to think of strategies to overcome the cravings next time it happens - prepare yourself for it