Hello - let's start over and get it right this time, shall we...?
Right this is Sarah checking in to Low Carb Boot Camp (and the boot needs to be giving her a swift kick up the jacksie!)
Let's start with the basics: -
Short Bio
Name: - Sarah
Age: - Same as shoe size most of the time (5.5)
Location: - Gerrards Cross, South Bucks (and I know there's at least one other poster here from my neck-of-the-woods; Susie, where exactly are you - north or south of the county...?))
Reason for username: - I was born in Sheffield, and it sounded more lyrical than 'WhiteRose'!
Current diet: - A dismal failure
Confessions: - Complete Sat Fat Scaredy Cat
Reason for LCing: - PCOS/suspected candidasis/Autism (I have Asperger's)
Want to lose: - 17lbs (from 9st to 7st 9)
Current mood: - Fat and frustrated (was 8st 6 on Friday; 9st dead again this morning, so I need to figure out why I'm fluctuating so much!  8st 6 is the lightest I've EVER been my entire teenage and adult life, so you can imagine how ecstatic I was. I was also in ketosis at that point, at least I thought I was (no Ketostix, so couldn't test) and I was as happy as a pig in crap! Now, without doing anything different, I've ballooned 8lbs, and feel like, well, crap!)
I want to do this properly, properly. I've shied away from foods too high in sat fat, because I'm suffering from an unexplained bout of chronic insomnia (this has been going on for months and months) and I've had it in my head that, if the food I eat is too high in sats, and I don't have the energy to go out and burn it off (I used to walk upwards of 20 miles a week, now I struggle to walk the 2 miles to the centre of town).
So this is what I'm requesting, if anyone can help me:-
First of critique what I am considering as the meal plan for the forthcoming week (all days will be more or less the same): -
Breakfast
3 eggs, scrambled with 1-2 teaspoons of EV olive oil
2 rashers bacon
Now can someone tell me whether 100g tinned toms will hurt things too much (4.5g carbs)? I'm trying to wean myself off them; they're a hangover from when I was doing the Harcombe Diet and Zoe more or less gave us carte blanche to eat as many of them as we wished. Now I can't stop eating them!
I have a feeling that the above won't satiate me, so can someone suggest what I can add to this? It'll probably be eaten somewhere between 3 and 5 in the morning (I go to bed at 11/11:30 usually (not tonight as I only woke up around 9 or something and I'm not tired yet!) and wake up between 2 and 3/3:30/4am and that's me done for the night.
Lunch
This is where things begin to get tricky; whatever I eat here, has GOT to be something I can just bung in the microwave, is dead simple to prepare and won't take too long to cook. I was having ham omelettes until I dozed off on the kitchen table one day and awoke to the sound of the smoke alarm and a flaming frying pan! Nope, at the moment, it's best if I stay well away from the cooker - Mum wouldn't be exactly happy if she came home from work one day and found I'd razed it to the ground!
Dinner (thanks Mum for cooking it for me!  )
Either salmon or chicken with a large salad (watercress, rocket, spinach, spring onions, peppers, tomatoes, Super Sprouts (you get them in M&S for, at the moment, £1 for a 50g pack. Can't recall exactly what's in it, but it's something like: - beansprouts, alfalfa, broccoli and radish).
Desserts are simply NLY (Total 0% - because I's still scared of sat fats!) with seeds (now here's one of my problems I think; I'm addicted to seeds (odd thing to be addicted to, I know, but there you go). The packs I buy don't have any NI on them, so I've not the foggiest what the carb count is (looking at all the brands on Sainsbury's online does my head in - surely a sunflower seed is a sunflower seed is a sunflower seed?! It would appear not. How do I know how much of each macronutrient they contain when I'm faced with this: -
Crazy Jack's: - 20% protein/19% carbs/48% fat
Sainsbury's (100g pack): - 23.4%/16.4%/47.5%
Sainsbury's (90g pack): - 23.4%/18.6%/47.5% (can someone explain why there are more carbs in the smaller pack? They are absolutely identical, bar the fact the 100g pack's orange and the 90g green. Why would the smaller pack contain 2.2% more carbs...?
It's the same with the pumpkin seeds (and, there again, the Sainsbury's own-label has that 2.2% discrepancy between the larger and smaller packs). What do you think I should do - take the average and use that...?
The problem is that the tubs are just there and I tend to nibble a small handful more or less every time I go in the kitchen. I'm trying to wean myself off this, because say they are 18% then, if I get through 50g a day without thinking about it, then that's 9g I've not counted! I could easily be eating 30g+ per day without even realising it! (though it didn't affect me going into ketosis for one solitary day this last Friday. I got down to 8st 6 which is the lightest I've ever been in my teenage and adult life. Two days later and I'm back up to 9st without doing anything different!)
I've felt like rubbish these past two days; aching all over, constipated, bloated and I've had to dig out my 'fat' clothes just to feel comfy (and, as for a bra - forget it!). I've been adding flax to my yoghurt but it's not really helped and I'm drinking at least 4l a day, so it's not as though I'm dehydrated (in fact, I know I'm not - I have a 'pee colour chart' blue-tacked above the loo in the bathroom (no, I'm not kidding!) and it's never gone above 3 (10 means you should have keeled over by now!)) I eat a lot of salads (and cucumber is about 99% water or something).
I am going to ditch the agave, and swap it for flavoured stevia (when I can afford to order it from iHerb).
Because I'm too shattered to exercise, I've been avoiding stuff like cream and butter but, if someone can reassure me that I can have it and still lose without exercising every single day, then I'll add it to the shopping list.
There is one other thing I should mention; I've been drinking rather a lot of soya milk (Alpro Organic Unsweetened (ingredient: - Water, Hulled Organic Soya Beans (6.5%)). I've been using it to eke out the Total, as that's rather expensive (at £2.50/500g as I can't get it at Sainsbury's, they only have the 10% version, which has a third less protein, and I find the sat fat content scary (7.9%), it does have marginally fewer carbs, though (at 3.2%, but I've read that the bacteria in the yoghurt consumes most of those and, because it's strained, then most of the lactose is gone too. Or something.) I've read that soy isn't the best thing for someone with PCOS to be having - can anyone give me more info on this? Should I ditch it completely?
Is quark okay to be having (Sainsbury's BGTY is 3.4%). I'd like to start eating it again because I love it, but not sure. Not sure I dare get clotted cream, because I'd probably eat the whole tub at one sitting!
How much cheese should I be allowed? I really miss it (particularly a good vintage Cheddar, or a strong blue cheese - I absolutely adore roquefort and Blacksticks Blue (never tried it...? You should. You can find it in M&S, Sainsbury's and Waitrose.)
I'm just attempting to sort the wheat from the chaff, and I hope someone can assist me in putting together a 2-week Induction plan that I can stick to, including easy things I can take out with me so I'm not tempted to buy stuff I know I shouldn't!
Sorry this is so long, I hope you made it this far. Any help and advice gratefully received!
I have an added incentive now for getting to goal and sticking there; my sister's boyfriend came round yesterday to do the old-fashioned thing of asking my folks for permission to propose to her (they're off to Turkey today, and he intends to pop the question over a quiet, romantic dinner in a taverna somewhere...). I VERY much doubt she'd ask me to be a bridesmaid (not sure I'd want to be even if she did) but, say there's the remote possibility that she did, and I was in a state to do it, I don't want to be the fattest one there my sister's not skinny - 14-16 - but all her best mates are!)
Mark's a real sweetheart; they've been together about 7 or 8 years, have moved house twice and have 2 cats (and c'mon, a house, a mortgage and 2 cats - gotta do the decent thing by her! )
Right, that's me done (I can hear the cheers from here! ) I really am tired now, so it's beddy byes for me! It's nearly 3, the time I'd usually be waking up, so I expect to be eating brekkie around 6!
Thank you very much for any help!
Hugs
Sarah xxx
|