September's Schlankheitskur aka the 7 pound club

hethmar

Cheese is one of my absolute favourite foods - Id happily live on bread and cheese, I really would. Sadly - you check out the calories in cheese - horrifying.

Just an example - Cathedral cheddar, 100 gms, 1 slice!

Calories 416 Protein 25.4 Carbohydrate 0.1 Fat 34.9 Fibre 0 Alcohol 0

Im trying to keep to 1200 calories (ish) a day. Yesterday I bought a pack of mince pies from Somerfields as OH likes them (I made 6 dozen last christmas!!) - when I made him a cup of tea and gave him the mince pie - my goodness 250 calories for a mince pie!

Katie-Kat-Kins

AdrianHi wrote: »

Hi Kat,
I started out in February this year on a BMI of 25 and it's 20.8 today. Actually I started out much earlier just trying to eat sensibly etc. but it wasn't really making much difference and wasn't disciplined enough. Calorie counting made the difference, choosing foods that satisfied the appetite well but with a reasonable calorie count. I'm also very partial to wine - especially red (150 calories a glass) and beer (180 calories a pint). 3 of those and it's the same as a roast dinner in calories!!!
Since the new calorie intake habit has to go on for many months or more and life would be miserable with no wine / beer so I've been able to make room for a couple of pints or the odd half bottle of wine each week in my 1500 a day average calorie allowance (thats for a male office worker, slim build - yours could be different about.caloriecount.com can help you find out what's right for you). This should give you a 1-2lbs a week weight loss but it's not consistent and might take a few weeks to kick start.
Slow cooker sounds excellent to be able to eat as soon as you get in to avoid snacking before dinner.
Eating late in the day is only a problem if digesting food keeps you awake at night (or causes you to snack). It is a myth that eating late (such as after 8pm) somehow results in your body not digesting food properly and creating more fat. I typically eat the main meal of the day between 8.30pm and 9.15pm and have still gone from 12st 11lbs to 10st 9lbs since February.
Good Eating.

I thanks for the welcome Adrian!

I'm also an Office Worker, I have a long commute too so lots of time spent sitting around and not moving enough..... I'm female though.

Well done on your weight loss so far, I'm not hoping to get my BMI that low, and to be honest when I was that thin I didn't look great on it. I carry quite a bit of muscle and tend to build muscle fairly easily for a girl so I weigh heavy for my size. People are generally surprised by what I weigh and people in the same clothes size often weigh over a stone less than me. But I also know that at the moment I am carrying too much fat and need to cut down.

I agree entirely about finding room in the diet for a drink, I'd rather have a glass of red wine than dessert or a bag of crisps to be honest. I'm generally happy to have a glass of wine rather than a beer as that is lower calorie too.

I've tried calorie counting via the food focus website but to be honest found it too much of a faff to keep up with, though I agree that calorie counting would probably be my preferred approach and I believe that most diets work on this basic premise even though "gimmicks" like food combining or eliminating carbs may be the way that they acheive the restriction in calories.

I've heard that the eating late in the day thing is a myth too and it is generally a way of putting you off late night snacks rather than a serious proposition that you would loose weight by bringing your evening meal forward an hour. However at the moment I have too long to wait before lunch and dinner (RISKING SNACKS) and can risk still feeling full at bed time so I'm hoping the slow cooker will be helpful!

Anyway nice to meet you and best of luck on those last few pounds!

Kat

Katie-Kat-Kins

hethmar wrote: »

Im trying to keep to 1200 calories (ish) a day. Yesterday I bought a pack of mince pies from Somerfields as OH likes them (I made 6 dozen last christmas!!) - when I made him a cup of tea and gave him the mince pie - my goodness 250 calories for a mince pie!

Yikes! Will think twice about mince pies this christmas!!!

Wonder if home made ones are much better though???

jack92

Hi Kat! The slower cooker sounds like a good plan - if you have a look on the Old Style Moneysaving forum they've got loads of ideas for what to cook in them :money:

I'm loosely following the Weight Watchers system of points, but I'm not going to meetings.

Also, with mince pies on WW, it tends to be the pastry that bumps up the points value rather than the mincemeat itself. You could make up little parcels of mincemeat wrapped in filo pastry as a lower cal/fat option, or the mince pies topped with icing rather than pastry are a good alternative.

Good luck

Nicola
x

Katie-Kat-Kins

Hi Nicola, I've been on Old Style already, they inspired me to buy a slow cooker, as I don't know anyone who uses one. I'm keeping simple at the moment, I did Beef in Beer from the cook book the other day and trying out a curry tonight. Will try some of the ideas of O/S when I get chance.

On the mince pies, I normally find home made ones have thinner pastry and that it is less sweet so I guess that they would be better then. I normally don't have a full lid on mine either......

The_Dragon

Welcome aboard Ruby_Eskimo and KatP - jump right in and enjoy! I hope to weigh in on Saturday (the Furry Dragon will have to go in his crate for an hour or so )

AdrianHi

KatP wrote: »

I thanks for the welcome Adrian!

I'm also an Office Worker, I have a long commute too so lots of time spent sitting around and not moving enough..... I'm female though.

Well done on your weight loss so far, I'm not hoping to get my BMI that low, and to be honest when I was that thin I didn't look great on it. I carry quite a bit of muscle and tend to build muscle fairly easily for a girl so I weigh heavy for my size. People are generally surprised by what I weigh and people in the same clothes size often weigh over a stone less than me. But I also know that at the moment I am carrying too much fat and need to cut down.

I agree entirely about finding room in the diet for a drink, I'd rather have a glass of red wine than dessert or a bag of crisps to be honest. I'm generally happy to have a glass of wine rather than a beer as that is lower calorie too.

I've tried calorie counting via the food focus website but to be honest found it too much of a faff to keep up with, though I agree that calorie counting would probably be my preferred approach and I believe that most diets work on this basic premise even though "gimmicks" like food combining or eliminating carbs may be the way that they acheive the restriction in calories.

I've heard that the eating late in the day thing is a myth too and it is generally a way of putting you off late night snacks rather than a serious proposition that you would loose weight by bringing your evening meal forward an hour. However at the moment I have too long to wait before lunch and dinner (RISKING SNACKS) and can risk still feeling full at bed time so I'm hoping the slow cooker will be helpful!

Anyway nice to meet you and best of luck on those last few pounds!

Kat

I am pretty thin framed so to speak so tend to be light weight when not carrying extra fat. Sounds like you've got in mind already all the things that have helped me, correct calorie intake specific to build, gender etc.
I only did the daily food log for about 3 weeks and stopped as it was indeed to much of a faff. But I learned what I needed to know by then, calories for foods I frequently eat committed to memory.
I put in bold above my belief too, gimmick diets are only going to work short term / be expensive and may be even unhealthy. Atkins - no thanks I need an eating pattern to stick with for ever.
10st 9lbs and I'm struggling to loose more, appetite seems to fight back when there's not much extra fat to spare. Not moved in a month now.
10st 3lb when I was 21, may be I'm expecting too much getting back to that 19 years later
Would be nice to get rid of the last extra bit of pudge I can see.
Let us know how the slow cooker goes for you.
Adrian

Katie-Kat-Kins

Hi The Dragon, and thanks for the welcome!

Hi again Adrian, the slow cooker is going well, made a curry in it last night, it was very nice and almost ready when I got in, just needed a stir and a bit of creme fraiche (reduced fat of course) adding to make it creamy. But DH had decided to go for a bike ride and didn't get back until nearly an hour later so I did cave had a slice of cheese, two olives and a couple of spoonfuls of nearly ready curry while I waited for him. I've got the left overs for lunch today.

Didn't have a great day yesterday, work was a bit disasterous on the food front, I didn't have anything in to bring in so bought a sandwich, which wasn't too bad, but they had samosas at the sandwich place and they are really lovely so I had one of those, then one of the guys in my team bought some cadbury's mini rolls in for the team.......... oh well.

Anyway on a different note, anyone know how accurate old fashioned mechanical scales are? I'm beginning to doubt mine. I weighed myself yesterday and was a bit heavier than I expected, thought it was perhaps a bad day and decided to weight myself again this morning to be sure, some how I weigh exactly a stone more today than I did yesterday. How can that be?????? They were only cheap scales but I didn't think that would matter!

Feeling quite fed up now.

Alexnikov

Hi Kat. I wouldn't weigh yourself more than once a week - fluctuations are bound to happen and they'll just stress you out! Not sure about the accuracy of mechanical scales though as I've got a nice new digital set (only about £7 from the supermarket).

I've lost 2lbs exactly this week, woop! :j

AdrianHi

KatP wrote: »

Anyway on a different note, anyone know how accurate old fashioned mechanical scales are? I'm beginning to doubt mine. I weighed myself yesterday and was a bit heavier than I expected, thought it was perhaps a bad day and decided to weight myself again this morning to be sure, some how I weigh exactly a stone more today than I did yesterday. How can that be?????? They were only cheap scales but I didn't think that would matter!

Feeling quite fed up now.

Not the scales it's you. You really do weigh different amounts at different times of day. I can vary by as much as 3lbs during the day. I've learned that a full bladder weighs about 1lb more than an empty one for example.
Always weigh yourself at the same time of day and ideally no more than once a week same time each week to get a good comparison week to week. I do it evenings while dinner is cooking usually on a Wednesday.