Carboholics Anonymous Week 4

[emotionalwreck]

Weigh day for me - Have lost another 3 lb despite the chocolate fountain scenario! How's everyone else doing?

well done emotional.

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, my weigh day too. Have lost one pound since last monday, but gained three since friday (confused, angry, pi**ed off emoticon)

I WANT SOME GRAPEFRUIT

Have been studying low GL diet books all weekend................... and they'd let me have half a grapefruit (said in a whiny frog voice)

Humph

Actually , could stick to low carb (still avoiding potatoes,bread etc), but up my carb allowance to allow half a grapefruit. Am fed up of trying to stick to 20g and it doesn't seem to be doing much good.

Ah hell... can't you tell I'm due on.

What to do.....what to do.......

I agree with joelallie though - it can all go to hell over Christmas
Is it only 7 weeks to go?

Am very and ! Was very good for 6 days on induction then had 2 days where I did eat bread and pasta (we have guests) over the weekend and my 3lbs is straight back on and I am exactly where I started! Congrats to everyone else who is losing though

Bad luck Oxo and Frog. Congrats emotional! I am back in the land of the living and can tell you that a good way to get off a plateau is to eat dodgy fish and throw up for a couple of days. 3 pounds down! But I expect it'll go back on as probably water loss etc etc so modified rapture. How many carbs in half a grapefruit Frog? PS I have no intention of keeping this up over Christmas either...

grapefruit is quite high I beleive but not as high as juice. So go for it! But beware of cravings. I've heard tell that fruit is the worst thing for knocking you out of ketosis! If you are worried about vitamins try some good multi-vits (just lecturing crochety on this on the other thread - btw sorry crochety for not reading thread properly - don't think multi-vits would help with food poisoning..) and up the green veg. I agree that gl sounds tempting but just remember that in exchange for fruit you would have to give up cheese, butter and olive oil etc etc. There is no easy way to lose weight but at least this way you don't get so hungry. Well I don't anyway.

Can you tell I'm back on the wagon - my halo is glowing nicely now and I'm full of low-carb zeal! Might last until christmas if I'm very lucky...

No probs Joelallie! Actually I think I will go and look for those H and B horse pills next time I pass the shop. At the moment I am using up assorted bottles of Vit B complex , magnesium etc I have in the cupboard and may restart the echinacea.

Right. I'm feeling bloody minded and determind.

Ah frog! The dreaded plateau. Perhaps you could try the 3-day experiment that I learnt about on the low-carb board I go to sometimes. Basically you spend 3 days on a 5 g carb allowance. Which is simply fish, meat, eggs - no veg. Minimum fat - just enough to cook/dress the food - then up the carbs a little every day until you are back to induction levels. It sometimes works by kicking you back into ketosis. It helped me when I was on a plateau. Must admit I did reach a permanent plateau which turned into maintenance but I was reasonably happy with my weight at that point.

Joelallie, thanks for the advice, but it isn't a plateau as such. My weight isn't staying the same.
I've been up and down between 12.3 and 12.10 for months. At the moment my weigh day is Mon, and sometimes I have a quick peek on say a friday and I will be down maybe 5lbs on Mon's weight, but by the time Mon comes I've gained it all back and am back where I started or have even gone up a lb on the previous week.

I need to really concentrate on exercise I think Also I might change my weigh day as I seem to do better during the week and am more likely to have a drink at weekends

Don't worry though, I'm sticking with it, at least until Christmas.
Must get some more ketostix as they give me a little boost seeing that I'm in ketosis.

Crotchety you'd be proud - I had 2 leftover strips of mackerel from the day before that had been left out of the fridge. Normally I would have scoffed them but I gave them to the chickens instead (atonement for despatching one of their number to our freezer yesterday )

Hope the chickens aren't all chundering now Froggy!

Morning all (or seems like few at the moment - not very busy on here is it?)

Crotchety, I can report that the chickens are all hale and hearty this morning

Strawb, are you sure this is the diet for you?
I'm sure you know this already but here's an extract from Charles Clark's Low Carb High Protein book " this diet works by switching on the fat-burning mechanism we each have as an intrinsic part of our body chemistry. If you switch off the fat-storage mechanism, and switch on the fat-burning mechanism, you will lose fat. This depends entirely upon severely restricting your carbohydrate intake, especially in the early stages of the diet, because it is primarily carbohydrates (not fat or proteins) that stimulate insulin production - the hormone that promotes fat storage. So there is no possibility of 'cheating', even a little, on this diet. If you include the occasional cake or chocolate or pasta, the diet will not work."

But that is a plateau Frog. If you only ever weighed on a Monday you'd think your weight is hardly changing at all. When I was in that situation I used to weigh every day and fluctuate all the time. I used to go up or down 5-6lbs in a week but the mean weight stayed the same. However it don't matter what you call it if it's p*ssing you off.

I'm back on wagon and doing OK. Not weighing as usual but just keeping fingers crossed that LC will work it's magic in it's own time.....

Joelallie, I seem to have been in this state since June. Managed to get down to 12.0 at end of June, but then went away for a fortnight and blew diet completely. I gained about 7lbs in those 2 weeks and have struggled since then to get back to where I was.
I'm feeling hopeful again though as I finally came on yesterday and the bloating has gone.

Had a yummy 2 egg omlette w/ small tomato, sp onions and cheese for breakfast.

Fingers crossed then!! . I do so feel your pain as I was there for ages. In fact I've more or less given up on the idea of getting below 10s 10ish as that appeared to a semi-permanent plateau. My 'ideal' weight was apparently 10s 3 or 9s 13 according to to diet site I visited but TBH that would have given me a BMI of 19/20. Funny how an 'ideal weight' is right at the bottom of the healthy range instead of in the middle which would think was healthies. I don't know what to suggest really if you don't want to try the 3DE and I'm sure you've tried everything else. Are you losing inches?

Hi everyone,haven't been very regular on here,but I'm still doing it ,have lost another pound this week.
Crotchety ,I also gave my rather sad bit of mackerel to the dog after your episode.Dog fine btw.
Where do you get your ketostix from ? I got yhem from ebay before but my paypal is buggered atm.Have you bought from chemist before?

Don't seem to be losing the weight from my middle where I need to.My bum is disappearing and my legs getting thinner (thanks to body pump classes),but the tummy region still as fat as ever.

Ggirl, I've bought my Ketostix from Boots, my local chemist and the pharmacy dept in my local Morrisons supermarket. They cost about £5 for 50.
I'm going to get some tomorrow.
Try some crunches/sit ups for the stomach, or some upper body twists - that's my problem area too.

Joelallie, I don't think I could do the three day thingy as I like my veggies too much. But I'll bear it in mind if I don't lose at the end of this week.
By the way according to the BBC BMI calculator you are at your ideal weight. According to Charles Clark this type of diet (low carb) "will automatically reduce your weight to the correct level for you, and then stop" So maybe your body has decided that this is as far as it goes

Having pork chops for tea with cauliflower and broccoli. Yum

Wouldn't worry about the mackerel Strawb. I'd hate to be responsible for the wholesale decline of mackerel sales, apart from as animal feed... I'm also now starting to wonder if it was actually a virus as a couple of people in the office have had unpleasant episodes as well this week...

I hate you strawb. Not really (obviously) I'm just extremely

Having a really bad week at work. My fabulous boss is probably going to be made redundant whilst her marriage is crumbling and her middle boy is in hospital with some undiagnosed neurological condition. Makes you think about whats important in your own life.

So, the next thing is I've got my jaws locked around a rogue piece of strawberry cheesecake. Obviously cheesecake isn't important but I thought it would make me feel better and it didn't.

Enjoying doing GL on the whole but must admit I'm having more cravings of late - watch this space!

Keep going froggy!

Morning.

Sorry you're having a tough time Emotional. I found that I had cravings too when I was on GL. Lets hope Monday brings a good weigh in

Going shopping today I think, so I can stock up on yummy things again and get those Ketostix.
Last week I bought one of Tesco's own low carb choc drink (1.5g for the carton). It's the first time I've bought any of the pre-prepared low carb stuff, and I was saving it as a treat. Well, I had it last night and eeuuuuurrrgggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh (spitting bad taste out of mouth emoticon) it was bloody awful.
Won't be doing that again

Well done strawb! Excellent!

emotional - that is the prob with GL and low Gi for me - cravings by the bucket load. I just have to accept that I can't eat carbs or not very often.

Hope you lose this week froggy.

Made a lovely thing for dinner on Tuesday - chopped 2 courgettes length wise and stir-fried them in loads of olive oil with garlic, chillie, a little onion and some mushrooms. Then added strips of chicken breast and cooked until the meat was done. Very nice indeed. I find my self getting more inventive as I always seem to have the same things in the fridge and it get's boring after a while.

Sorry Strawb, forgot to congratulate you on your fantastic loss , Congratulations ! Well done that strawb

Joelallie, I did a similar thing with courgettes last week. I was craving a noodle stir fry so had the idea of using thin long strips of courgette stir fried with broccoli, sp onions, strips of steak, a spoonful of thai green curry sauce and the obligatory chilli. Was indeed delicious.
My weigh day isn't until Mon, but am going to be good and not weigh myself before then (virtuous emoticon)

Had 2 egg omelette again with sp. onion, sm tomato and cheese for breakfast. Wasn't hungry at lunch time so have just had 8 macadamia nuts and a glass of water instead.

Emotional what kind of things have you added to your diet now you're doing Gl ? What sort of meals are you having ?