please help

pinksuedeshoes

hello everyone,
I have been a lurker for many years. I have laughed and cried at some threads and i think this forum is a fantastic place for help and advice. So now i have come for your advice.
I am very overweight and my confidence is -100% i need someones help anybody. I have lived on a diet of junk as our family of 4 food budget was £20 ish a week. Now after paying off some debts it is £40 a week please,please if anyone has any healthy eating meal plans, shopping lists, ideas for a £40 a week budget please let me know because i am desperate. Please if anyone has anything please let me know i am desperate for my family to eat healthy they are all skinny things but i need to know they are ok cause this is killing me

nuttybabe

hiya

you will find loads of advice on here, they are brilliant people who have helped me alot.

here are 2 blogs to look at

http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/

http://thirty-quid.blogspot.com/

i get my food bills down by buying whoopsies and looking for offers. aldi and lidl do good fruit and veg offers. i get meat half price (when lucky) from ugo and stock up when i can. i batch cook which is cheaper. bulk out meals with lentils and veg instead of meat. everything i learnt from here. i even make my own washing gloop and cleaning spray which saves a fortune!!!

Amber_Babies

I do all my shopping in Aldi for about £30 week to feed 4 (although I have lapsed a bit lately). Dont use any ready meals. Freshly prep everything. It is possible with a little bit of planning. I tend to have an idea for daily meals in my head before I go out. And make a list!

Can you cook? What sort of things do you / family like? Maybe a recipe book for inspiration?

Kate

frugalsar

Well done paying off the debts to give you the extra budget! That's a great achievement in itself!
A good place to start is cutting out fatty, sugary things - such as switch to sugar free pop (value of course), sweetner instead of sugar, low fat butter, light sauces etc, brown bread! also try cooking come meals from scratch - spag bol (with added value veg), shepherds pie (with added value veg), chilli and value rice (with added value veg) - mon/tues/wed on my meal planner! no puds or value fruit, sugar free jelly, muller lights (on offer always!) the little changes add up! Dont buy chocs/crisps/sweets even if they are dirt cheap!
Also take advantage of coupons (see discount codes thread), glitches (on the grabbit), watch out for whoopsies, yellow stickers, and dont underestimate the value ranges! after all carrots are carrots no matter what the packaging!

Most of all think positive! xxx

rachbc

Eat as unprocessed and simply as possible. I wholeheartedly disagree about low sugar stuff I'm afraid - sweeteners are horrible things and i would rather my kids had a little sugar less often than glugged artificially sweetened stuff - so water for drinks, or milk.

Lots of fruit and veg, fill them up on healthy carbs (at least some wholegrain if you can), try not to add extra fat (bake/ grill not fry).

Aldi si great, as are markets, avoid big supermarkets if you can. Use B&M/ Home Bargains too.

Maybe tell us what you eat/ buy now and we can suggest some cheaper/ healthier versions so its small changes to start

aplaceinthesun

Definitely agree with rachbc please dont pump your family full of stuff with unnatural sweetners , absolutely dreadful stuff....

Good luck.

silvermaid

I also agree with rachbc. All those over-processed foods and drinks are very bad in my opinion. Also agree that cooking things from scratch is the way to go. I find Aldi very reasonable price wise. Grated carrots and other root veg added to mince along with lentils bulks the meat out and makes meals cheaper and counts towards your 5-a-day.

Jariya

I haven't been a lurker - I ended up diving straight in - hoping I don't tread on anyone's feet! :0)

About the weight loss.
I was on diets for about 20 years and my weight went up and down always. I paid a fortune for classes and diet food.
I gave up in the end. I was only 2.5 stone overweight but I was back at that weight again even though I was doing Weight Watchers.
I ended up ordering Paul McKenna CD's - there was a set of four cd's called Easy Weight Loss.

I lost all the weight using these almost 8 years ago and haven't put it back on ever since.
One cd within the pack worked for me which was called 'Secrets of Naturally Thin People.
I listened to it twice.
You can get his cds on ebay and sometimes for as little as £4 but the cd mentioned is really important - if it isn't in the pack don't get the cd pack.

Alternatively - try to follow the principles within the cd - a friend of mine has recently and has lost a coulple of stone since January.

1. Never touch 'diet' food - it doesn't fill you up.
2. Only eat when you are hungry
3. Learn to recognise when you are full - you will start to recognise the feeling in the space between your ribs if you think about it when eating.
4. Whatever you have - in the beginning whether you are full or not leave one tiny thing on your plate - even if it's one baked bean - this gets you used to leaving some food - and will lead to you reducing your portions (this part is about retraining your tum to accept less food).

I was terrified of giving up 'diet' food - but I've never looked back.

Give it a try - but make sure you think about the above while you are eating. :0)

Good luck!

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

Hi pinksuedeshoes, welcome to the forums and well done on taking the first step to losing weight.

I lost 2 stone following the rosemary conly diet, I did it at home with a book out of the charity shop! Basically, its a low fat diet making sure you take account of calories, not rocket science, never hungry tho which is good for me and family can eat it too so easy and healthy. You can get inspiriation from her free website, just google her.

Its an opportunity to save money too, no junk, pop, crisps etc just 3 meals a day with lots of veg. I stopped buying butter and marg and still dont eat it, my indigestion cleared up and I could stop the omeprazole and hubby lost 1 1/2st too!

Take it slow, day at a time, get help from your gp or practice nurse or pharmacy. There is lots for free advice out there and even a lose weight thread on this board too.

Good luck, at least you could just eliminate fat to start by changing cooking methods. Dont forget exercise too, I got rid of my car and saved a fortune that way. good luck x

squeaky

Hiya

This thread should be of great help:- Weight Loss the Old Style Way! Part 7. Please read posts 1 and 2 before posting.


I'll add this thread into it later...


Good luck

frugalsar

Sorry,
I didn't mean it to sound like I was saying have loads of sweetner, I meant is as a middle step as its very hard to go from drinking loads of pop and sugary drinks (in my case esp. tea!) to water and milk (or in my case unsweetened tea). I've always found if you change things gradually you don't notice it as much! Little steps, you don't want to revert back after a week or two because its all too much! (depends on your individual willpower I suppose)

by the way I'm down to one sweetner in my tea now from two big sugars then three sweetners, then two!:rotfl:

also....water is pants!:p