Lose weight 27

Missy™

Hello HoneyD Welcome to the thread!

It certainly doesn't look like you're overeating. Have you ever added up roughly how many calories you're consuming in a day, and worked out your daily calories required to maintain your weight at your present activity level?

The optimal level for fat loss is supposed to be around a 10-15% calorie deficit from your maintain level. So if you need 2000 calories per day to maintain your weight, by cutting this to 1700-1800, the fat should come off nicely

Calorie reductions of greater than 15% can lead to a slowdown of metabolic rate and cause muscle loss, which in turn makes fat loss slower.

With the cross trainer exercising, if you were doing a similar workout every day and not varying it much then it's likely that after an initial improvement phase your body adapted to it & became more efficient at it, therefore burning fewer calories. Try ringing the changes: do different types of exercising, different volumes, different intensities. Follow hard days (where you've pushed yourself either in effort or duration), with easier days or a rest, keep the body guessing.

Hope this helps a bit - good luck, I hope things start moving soon!

Vixstar

Just had a weightloss lbm - should be requesting slimline tonic in my gin and tonics at formal dinners! (Also should be having a non-alcoholic no cal drink inbetween each alcoholic drink - but I've known that for ages and always say I will)

sarymclary

Hi Honey,

Welcome to our lovely thread. Missy and Victory have already given you some great advice, and as maintainers have had their own journey battling the weight, so any tips they can offer are bound to be good ones.

I don't know if you noticed the very first page of this thread, but I would suggest you use a logging website such as foodfocus.com. It's free, and you can log all your foods on there (even the ones not in their database you can add manually from the info on the packets). The site helps you to work out your recommended daily calorie intake to maintain, and then gives you a target daily calorie intake for weightloss. Aim for an average loss of 1-2lb a week to encourage a steady regular loss. Crash diets might give you a sudden loss, but then you tend to not lose much more for ages, and it's not good for your body. You can log your exercise on their for each day, and it then takes the calories burned off of your daily total, so you can see the benefits.

Looking at your food diary there are certain small tweaks I see you could make, that won't cause you to feel hungry.

Firstly, I'd use sweetener instead of sugar. I know the taste is a bit different, but you tend to get used to it after a while, and it's saving calories every time you have a cuppa. Switch to a 1% milk, or skimmed milk. I can't quite get along with fully skimmed which is 0.5%, but 1% is no different to us than semi-skimmed, and all my kids and BF happily use it on their cereals. It's another little saving.

Your meals are high in carbs, which gives you an instant 'full' feeling, but can be short-lived, and then you can feel like wanting to eat again shortly after. Carbs often contain a lot of hidden sugars too. You could make these carbs healthier by making them more complex, such as your wholemeal bread, and eat wholewheat pasta and wholegrain rice. I would substitute some of the carbs, such as pasta and rice for lots more vegetables. They give you the full feeling, and you can fill your plate with them.

Do you have a set of kitchen scales? I would weigh all my portions for at least a week, and get into the habit of using a certain cup or container to then measure out my portions. For example, I have a scoop I use to do my porridge with, and I know that when completely full it holds a maximum of 50g, so I have a bit less than that, with a 1:3 ratio of milk:water and a couple of sweeteners in it for my breakfast. I have a particular serving spoon that I know weighs out about 50g of cooked veg or mashed potato.

There was a programme on TV a couple of months back that showed how soup can keep you full up for longer than an actual meal, but it would have to be a 'hearty' soup, full of veg, that can stay in the stomach for longer to be digested. Can you have anything other than tomato soup? I can see why you were hungry on the 19th, you simply didn't eat enough. Some days we feel hungrier than others, but if you're keeping a log of the amount of calories you are eating, you could have probably had a couple of slices of wholemeal toast, or a bowl of cereal as a supper to have satisfied you that day.

As Missy recommended, alternate your type of exercise from day to day. Allow muscle groups the time to heal and regenerate. Professional athletes will have a programme of exercise/training to work different areas of the body from day to day, never working the same group of muscles each day. Is there another type of exercise you could do apart from your cross trainer?

If it helps to do it, why not log your daily intake on here each day, and tell us how you're getting along, if you feel hungry that day, what exercise you've fitted in that day, etc. We all find that posting here as regularly as possible can help support us, and keep us on the straight and narrow as much as possible.

honeyD

Hi, thankyou for all of the advice!
Im a bit of a fussy eater so I find it difficult to find things I can have instead of other things such as the carbs. Im getting better over the years though mostly due to my husband having me try new foods. I didnt eat mushrooms a year ago even :eek: now I love them! Ive bought a couple of packets of Ainsley Harriets cous cous but I have no idea what to do with them or what to put with them! Im such a bad vegetarian!
Ive been limiting my veg in meals, which now I see is wrong. I only did it because the nurse at my doctors told me I could have lots of good things but eat too much and its just as bad so I thought I had to limit those too! Nice to see I can have more lol.
I wouldnt mind changing to sweetener as Ive had those before and will look into that as although it seems like I dont use a lot of sugar, I do go through a bag in a month so that is bad!
Im keeping the food diary to show the nurse in November, so was really wanting to see what other changes I can make so when I go back I can say Ive done this and this and if I havent lost weight she will be refering me onto a program they offer where you go to the gym and have a personal program set for you.
Im finding it difficult to motivate myself to do exercise, I think its because of working so hard in June/July and no change! My cross trainer is broken now so I only have one of those big gym ball things but I cant do most things as I cant balance haha, and I have a trampoline. Oh I have a bicycle but I find it hard to go out and feel so self conscious on it and husband wants to go on hours long rides and Im not up to that yet so it puts me off going. Ive been using tins of beans to work my arms, and the ball sometimes to work my stomach but really the rest isnt getting much work!
The nurse gave me a measuring cup which is just a plastic thing which has guides on it for how much a portion of some things are which has been a little helpful though obviously only has a few things on! It shows how many portions of things I can have per day and I have been trying to keep below that especially for carbs (5-8 per day) I just find it difficult really as I feel a meal has to have something like potato, rice or pasta with it. I can change soups, I didnt used to like anything but tomato but can now eat veg soup and have bought a weightwatchers one and a WW carrot and lentil soup so will see how that goes!
I had been making stew but I havent made any for a couple of weeks but that is stacked with veg so I think I will start making it again.
Thanks again for the help so far, it really is very much appreciated!

honeyD

Sorry, I have tried looking at foodfocus.com and I just get a site with lots of text but nothing where I can log in or anything? It seems like its a program but I dont see anywhere to download it? Can someone help please? Thanks

nmlc

Afternoon all

Would like to join if I may. Had my LBM looking at friend's wedding photos in May this year, and was truly horrified at what I saw, they say the camera never lies! Also have a big bday coming up in Jan 2010 (4*th) and don't want to be fat and f***y - feel that if I am then it's gonna be even harder to loose. So have not joined any of the big weight loss programmes, have done this in the past and whilst I lose weight it's all gone back on and more. So decided I would cut out all the crap etc, cut the portion size down and generally eat better, have now lost 2 stone since I started in June this year. So weight coming off nicely but now starting to slow down, so may need to up the exercise.

honeyD

Oh well done nmlc! That is great 2 stone since June, wish I could have done that too lol. Great stuff. :T

Missy™

Honey my diet is quite high in carbs, if you are active I tend to think you can get away with a higher carb diet - I know not everyone will agree with this but it seems to work OK for me The best eating plan is one that works for you and fits in with your likes, dislikes & lifestyle.

One of the best exercises you can do is walking, a 40+ minute walk can burn a significant amount of calories and work the whole body without feeling too tough. If you can include uphill gradients and trickier surfaces (cross country rather than pavements), it increases the workout.

Won't your hubby go for shorter bike rides with you to help get started, and hopefully work up to the longer ones later on? Or could you work out a laps system so that you join him for one lap, and he carries on and does more on his own if he wants a longer bike ride?

Hello nmlc welcome to the thread! You've made a great start, yes unfortunately as many of us know it gets harder the closer we get to target, and we have to up the ante! Good luck with getting the next few lb off by Christmas

grannynise

Wasn't offended at all Victory. :D I wish schools would be a bit more thoughtful about what they ask parents to do/contribute.

Hello Honey and nmlc. If you want to join the weight loss challenge let me know by Wednesday evening how much weight you've lost this week .... (or gained )....... but you don't need to do it if you don't want to. It's helpful if you tell me in big bold bright text as it helps me spot it. And we don't need to know how much you weigh, just what the changes are.

Honey there's good evidence to show that exercise doesn't really help much in losing weight, so it's not surprising that you haven't seen a huge loss since you started your exercise programme. Evidently most people tend to reward themselves, unconsciously, with a litle something extra after exercise and it undoes all the calorie burning they have just done. Being aware of, then cutting down what you eat,as given in the good advice here already, is much more important. (But obviously exercise is good for all sort of reasons ... Missy will bop me if I try to sugget otherwise:eek:)

honeyD

Thankyou grannynise
I dont own scales so I can only give my weight loss/gain when I go to see the nurse and the next one is Nov 5th so will update then. Hopefully Ive lost something this time lol, Im beginning to wonder what is wrong with me that I cant lose any!