Weight Loss the Old Style Way! Part 7. Please read posts 1 and 2 before posting.

nikki-read

isnt nuttella chocolate spread isnt that bad for you ?
ps what is gc ?

i suppose i have a big plate which i didnt have before and i fill it up thinking about it my portionsizes are alot bigger than they were

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Alternative to Southern fried chicken is skinless chicken breast , cut into pieces (always feels like more then), rinsed in water (so it's damp) and then dusted with a caribbean or texan bbq spice mix, then cooked under the grill, served with lettuce wraps with tomato, cucumber, a tiny blob of cream cheese, plus a corn on the cob.

Oh, and buy small plates, as that re-educates your eye to expect less.

Agave nectar is possibly slightly better than honey for porridge, but just measure out a teaspoon of whichever onto the top of the bowl, don't stir it in or you'll use much, much more.

Avoid fizzy cola like the plague. It's evil stuff that affects your mood, your sleep, your blood sugar, your weight and your teeth. If you must have fizzy, then buy soda water and use it to add to your drinks.

Oh, and increase the lean protein if you're cutting back on carbs, as that will keep you feeling fuller for longer.

cgk1

nikki-read wrote: »

isnt nuttella chocolate spread isnt that bad for you ?
ps what is gc ?

I think the first and most important thing you need to do is read a bit more about food and what is good and bad for you - obviously in a balanced diet, you can have a bit of everything, however if you don't know what's in foods and how good or bad they are for you or indeed, what to look for or avoid you will struggle to lose weight. For example, if you are looking to lose weight, I suggest you avoid both nuttella and fried chicken - both are high in calories and fat and there are better options. For example, Nuttella can't legally be sold as chocolate spread in many countries because there simply isn't enough coco-solids and 15g contains about 539 calories - that's about 1/4 of your recommended daily food allowance.


Oh and I'd echo what others have said, avoid fizzy drinks like the plague, they are poison with no health benefits.

Fruball

There is actually only about 30 cals per teaspoon in Nutella

Its fine to add to porridge - everything in moderation.... Its the big loads of heavy carbs that you need to watch.

Up your lean protein (lean chicken, no skin, lean beef/mince etc) and up your veggies - eat as many veg as you want.

Up your water consumption.

greenbee

Understanding portions sizes can help both your weight and your budget

Have a look at Cheap Family Recipes - the site has been developed using expertise from the OS community to provide healthy cheap meal plans with recipes and shopping lists. It also includes some good basic information on nutrition (with links to other sites) and the recipes are worked out to provide the correct portion sizes.

Invest in a good set of scales and make sure you weigh your food, even when you think you've got the hang of portion sizes. For example, I make my porridge with 25g oats (I mix oats with rice flakes, millet flakes, oatbran, wheatgerm etc), 5g seeds (sesame, hemp, sunflower, pumpkin), 200ml milk (currently semi-skimmed as I'm trying to increase my fat intake - I prefer skimmed or even rice milk) and 100g of fruit (stewed apple, banana, sliced pear, berries - whatever is available). This, with a glass of fruit juice means I start my day with both simple and complex carbs, a little protein (from the milk), some fat, and 2 portions of fruit.

I find fruit, nuts and dried fruit great as snacks, but again, you need to know what a portion is. So an apple, a couple of satsumas, 15g nuts, 4 dried apricots etc. slicing the apple, or peeling a satsuma, segmenting it, putting it on a plate and then sitting down to eat it with a glass of water makes you feel more like you've had a meal than just grabbing something on the run. A couple of squares of chocolate is sometimes more satisfying than a whole bar (again, get the bar out, take the squares off, weigh them so you know how much you've got, put the bar away, put the squares on a plate, go and sit down and enjoy it!).

I find things like soup can be very filling for the lighter meal of the day - maybe with a bit of salad in the summer, or some oatcakes and cheese, or some nice bread (no butter). Smoked mackeral is also nice - half a fillet is usually one portion, so it goes a long way, and can be heated up in winter so you have hot smoked mackeral with salad.

Don't try to go cold turkey on the cola, but do try to cut down. First work out how much you are drinking each day, and how much it is costing you! Then try to reduce it by e.g. buying smaller bottles (so reduce from a 2l bottle to a 1.5l for example, and then 1l and so on) and if you finish the day's allowance, not opening another one. I have a friend who did well on this, and got down to buying cans and having one a day and after that found it easy to give it up!

Keeping a food diary (or using the OS weight loss thread to write up what you eat) can really help you focus on your intake. Try to record your activity too - using a simple pedometer is a great way to measure how much you're doing and helping to increase your exercise levels by challenging yourself to do another 500 or 1000 steps on average each week.

cgk1

Frugal wrote: »

There is actually only about 30 cals per teaspoon in Nutella

Its fine to add to porridge - everything in moderation.... Its the big loads of heavy carbs that you need to watch.

Up your lean protein (lean chicken, no skin, lean beef/mince etc) and up your veggies - eat as many veg as you want.

Up your water consumption.

Opps! I misread the label - a 15g serving is 80 calories which is a lot when you consider that half of that is fat.

tajna

nikki-read wrote: »

ps what is gc ?

grocery challenge thread.

Pink.

tajna wrote: »

grocery challenge thread.

Link to the current one here: December 2010 Grocery Challenge

Hi nikki-read,

Welcome to MSE

We have a thread for people who are trying to lose weight the Old Style way where you'll get lots of advice and support from other like-minded people:

Weight Loss the Old Style Way! Part 7. Please read posts 1 and 2 before posting.

I'll add your thread to it later. Good luck!

Pink

Penelope_Penguin

nikki-read wrote: »

with honey in cause i love honey but is that fattening?

nikki-read wrote: »

ps is mash fattenig i mash the potatoes add a bit of butter aand milk ?

Everything is fattening if you eat enough of it

There are no "good"or "bad" foods, just a good or bad diet. Eat high calorie sugar and fat foods in moderation.

The key to losing weight is eating fewer calories and doing more exercise

• Eat something for breakfast - porrige is good
• Drink more low calorie drinks - water and (I'd avoid the fizzy drinks, even sero calorie ones as they have all sorts in them :eek: )
• Up your fruit and veg intake.
• Start taking light exercise - walk for 30 mins 2 or 3 times a week is a good start

Good luck :T

adelight

cgk1 wrote: »

Opps! I misread the label - a 15g serving is 80 calories which is a lot when you consider that half of that is fat.

And a teaspoon is 1/3 of that serving, so less than 30 calories, which is a decent trade for tasty porridge in my books! Honey has 22, nutella just has a touch more fat from the nuts.


Hope to see you in the Jan GC and the weightloss thread
If you could get your family to switch to porridge as well, you'd easily knock £5 off your monthly shop!
ie if your fam have crunchy nut clusters (£2.69/500G 11 servings) and switch to porridge (39p/500g avg 11 servings) with a bottle of squeezy honey (£2.49/340g 49 servings)
That's £4.05 vs £10.76 for 44 breakfasts!!

Even if you were having own brand cereals, you'll still save a few quid a month and porridge doesn't even need milk- i take mine with only water, occasionally a splash of milk- another expense removed!