Week 1 - Summer Low Carb Bootcamp starts here!

[BIWI]

Morning all! There are over 150 of us signed up for Bootcamp, so it?s going to be busy I think. If you haven?t already put your name on the Spreadsheet of Fabulousness, here is the link so that you can add yourself:

Just add yourself to the bottom of the list and the lovely WillieWaggleDagger, our SpreadsheetMeister, will ensure that it is re-sorted to remain alphabetised. Don?t touch any of the blue columns!
We work in pounds, but if you are a metric person, there?s a tab at the bottom of the spreadsheet that says ?conversion? which will recalculate from metric to imperial.

It?s up to you whether you choose to enter your actual weight or to index it, i.e. you start today at 100, and for every pound you lose you drop by 1.

You will also see on the tabs on the spreadsheet the rules for Bootcamp, as well as rules for those of you who are vegetarian, and rules for Bootcamp Light, which you can move on to after two weeks of Bootcamp.

There are only 10 rules, and the thinking behind Bootcamp is that it should be as straightforward as possible to follow. If you follow the rules (yes, all of them ? and especially no 7!), you will lose weight.

The idea behind Bootcamp is that we have a strict fortnight of low carbing, to break the addiction that we have to carbs and sweet things. You are making sure that you are switching your body from burning carbs to burning fat, and you will go into what is called ketosis in these first two weeks.

All that this means is that you are fat-burning.

In the first few days of low carbing, especially if you haven?t done it before, you may feel a bit rubbish ? you may have headaches or just feel generally tired and achey. This is known as ?carb flu? ? and it means that you are withdrawing from carbohydrates. Sugar (which is essentially how the body views and uses carbs) is highly addictive, and your body will be craving it. Don?t give in! After a couple of days you will feel much better.

If you are feeling odd or ill, make sure that you are getting plenty of sodium, potassium and magnesium. Add salt to your food and cook with salt. Try making a drink from Marmite/Bovril. Good foods to include in your diet are spinach, salmon and avocado. Drink plenty of water and make sure that you really are keeping your fat levels up. Take some paracetamol if you have a headache (not aspirin or ibuprofen as these drugs can impede weight loss).

Am just going to post my entire day foodwise yesterday and just wondering if someone could see if the quantity I am eating (or how much dairy) is going to impact how much I lose?

b - yoghurt, total 0% (bought full fat yesterday, that was all I had!)
l - brocolli and blue cheese soup (homemade; stock, brocolli, onion, garlic, little bit of blue cheese)
d - celariac dauphinoise (celariac, butter, cream, milk, cheese) pork (a ridiculous amount), broccolli and green beans
s - 3 little packets of full fat boursin, piece of mackerel, 2 coffees with milk

Morning all. Hope everyone is doing ok, and newbies remember "carb flu" will pass in a few days (or you may be lucky and not suffer at all.)

Long walk with dog this morning after school drop off then back to scrambled eggs made with butter and double cream and a couple of leftover cold sausages. Yum.

Ipad is not being cooperative at all, could someone with a more friendly bit of kit please add my weight to the s/sheet at 154. I am Toomuchwaternotwine on there but happy for you to change my name to this bootcamp name now too

Despite me just asking a question there, remember you are more likely to get specific questions answered on the questions thread as this chatty thread moves so fast. Will link in a sec.

twinkle I have a drop of double cream in my coffee instead of milk, it's lush, and I find the taste of milk in coffee not satisfying enough now! Don't drink tea so can't help you there.

questions thread

Oops sorry I forgot about the questions thread :)

all sorted toomuch

vikinglady you can have things in tomato sauce - that is, homemade using a tin or carton of chopped tomatoes (avoid tomato sauce in a jar, which will almost certainly have tons of sugar added as well as other crap). BIWI has found that sainsbury's basics cartons of chopped tomatoes are relatively low carb compared to other brands

i tend to use a lot less though as the tomatoes can add a reasonably amount of carbs if you're not careful. so where before i might have used two or three cartons, i just use one and top up with a bit of water. if it needs to thicken, i reduce it like the devil as you would normally

Sorry forgot about the questions thread too

Convert - squash is a big no no, I'm afraid. As well as the carbs, it is horribly artificial, and we're really trying to avoid artificial sweeteners.

What about fruit teas?

anchovies it is possible that the amount of dairy might affect you considering your menu yesterday - you had dairy for every meal plus snacks. as guidance, i think atkins suggests no more than 100g of cheese per day (which is a reasonable amount I think)

however, it may be that dairy doesn't affect you at all, and it's difficult to know at this early stage. the most important thing for the first few days of bootcamp is to cut down the carbs, and if the cheese is helping you do that then so be it. the only thing 'wrong' with your menu is the 0% yoghurt, but you know that , and i would possibly eliminate the milk from the celeriac dauphinoise as i don't think it's necessary for the recipe really and just adds more carbs

anchovies - your menu (now you've got full fat yoghurt ) looks find - but there's a lot of dairy in there. You may be OK with it, but if you find you're not losing weight, that's the first thing to cut down on.

slatternly - I think if you have become ketogenically-adapted through longer-term low carbing, then the whole 5:2/intermittent fasting is probably fine. Just make sure you don't end up starving hungry and then eating something you shouldn't do. I routinely miss breakfast these days - unless I'm hungry.

VikingLady - you need to snap out of that perspective if you're going to make low carbing work for you! Get back on the Bootcamp wagon and make sure you drink plenty of water.

Makes sense, thank you both. It's almost harder doing this because it's like an anti diet! Will keep an eye on the dairy for the next couple of days :)

Convert you could try putting a few slices of cucumber in a jug of water instead. It totally masks the tapwater taste and is really refreshing.

Biwi and some of the regular low carbers, could you post your menu to give us newbies an idea of what you're eating?

B - Lidl yog
L - boiled egg and bresaola salad
D - stilton and broccoli soup with paté on celery sticks

If it would help, my meal plan for this week has also included...

chicken thigh, roast swede and halloumi Moroccan traybake
five spice marinaded salmon with pak choi and cauli rice
chicken liver salad
shepherds pie (made with celeriac mash)
smoked mackerel asian (konnyaku) noodle salad
pork chops and braised cabbage
naice ham, egg and celeriac chips

Firstly I would just like to say thank you to BIWI and everyone for all the effort and support on these threads.

Secondly I have lost 4.2lbs - is that too fast?
I am over the moon because yesterday I felt so truly crap by the afternoon, bloated, headachey and dizzy. I think maybe a lot of this is coffee withdrawal. So this morning I had the smallest coffee and a minute amount of milk and feel a bit better today, interestingly didn't enjoy it!
b mushroom omelete with chives
l avocado salad
d spag bol without the spag

1lb down for me :)
B- bacon, egg and mushrooms
L- Grilled haloumi cheese salad
D- Chicken in boursin cream sauce (has a small splash of white wine in but not much) with fried white cabbage.

.

yesterday's menu:

B: 2 eggs scrambled with butter
L: tuna mayonnaise (the tuna was tinned with olive oil; hellman's full fat mayo)
D: cold roast chicken with avocado and lettuce with vinaigrette

today's menu:

B: tuna mayonnaise (leftover from yesterday) with lettuce
L: cold roast chicken with mayonnaise and raw spinach
D: homemade beef burgers (i just use fatty mince mixed with salt, pepper and a dash of worcestershire sauce, made into patties and fried) with cauliflower steak and curly kale (i know this seems a weird combination, but it's what i've got left before i do the weekly shop)

ooh, yesterday's breakfast included wilted spinach, and at lunchtime i had cucumber with the tuna mayo

A typical Bootcamp day for me:

Breakfast - one or two boiled eggs, or some Total ff yoghurt with vanilla extract (a non-sugar one that Waitrose sells)

Lunch - some kind of protein with salad, with an oily dressing and mayo (I often have leftovers from the previous night's dinner if there are any)

Dinner - tonight we will be having roast pork, with crackling, with broccoli (which I will parboil and then fry in butter/oil, with sliced shallots and chilli flakes), swede mash (made with lots of butter) and salad with a garlicky vinaigrette. I won't do potatoes for DH/DS2, we will all eat the same

I'm beginning to understand the rules.
I think I've been indoctrinated to think 'high fibre, low fat' for so many years & to reduce portion size that it's taking some getting used to.
Eating a chunk of parmesan, a handful of olives then a big meal & expecting to lose weight feels very strange.

I am amazed that swede is low carb. It tastes so carby. I bloody love swede as well. I will get some for later. I will have to prevent myself from eating the whole lot with a wooden spoon straight from the saucepan whilst reading the paper.

My usual thing

Breakfast - never bother

Lunch - salad wraps (little gems with chicken or tuna mayo, or pate)
Coronation chicken (homemade)
Cheese (I know this can effect some people's weight loss but I have always been fine with cheese)
Smoked mackerel
Smoked salmon (those off cut packets are great for about a quid, perfect for salad)
Boiled eggs with mayo

If I am out a salad from somewhere or packets of mini chicken fillets or a quarterpouder from macdonalds

Dinner

Rotisserie chickens (WHY are these so delicious).
Steak, mushrooms and tomatoes (those little ones on a vine, not too many).
Huevos rancheros (baked eggs, tomatoes, peppers and chilli - bit carby but a treat).
Eggs florentine (spinach with eggs baked in, then covered in hollandaise if I can be bother or cheese if not).
Omelette
Cauliflower cheese - I could eat this every day I love it so much
Cabbage or Kale - I love greens so could eat just a bowl of that, or have it with bolognese sauce or chilli
Laziness - Sainsburys Just Cook ready meals - chicken breasts or meatballs or whatever which you just hurl in the oven for 30 mins.
Fajitas - using mini gems instead of tortillas. A bit carby because of the tomato and pepper.

BIWI - I was going to ask you (I am sorry you have probably answered this many times) - the polyol things in atkins bars and diabetic chocolate? The atkins wrappers say they are not counted as carbs as such. Do you think the body does count polyols as carbs or not?