Any suggestions please

Aliss08

Hi all - I have been trying very hard to loose some weight. In the past year or so I have noticed my weight creeping up and up especially around my middle. I walk a lot most days, have a good diet, always eat brown rather than white produts (i.e. pasta, rice and bread). I don't eat between meals as a rule but I do have the occasional couple of biscuits with a coffee when not at work. I do have an under active thyroid which I take medication for and this has been stable for a couple of years. I put on 5lbs last week for no apparent reason. I had a appointment with my GP about something else and mentioned my weight but she put it down to middle age spread. I am starting to feel uncomfortable and my clothes are becoming very tight. A typical day would be a bowl of museli for breakfast, sushi or a sandwich for lunch with soup, an apple & some clementines and then an evening meal cooked from scratch. I have an Indian takeaway once a week but other than that I can't think of anything that is causing my weight to go up and up. I have even cut out my glass of wine in the evening to no avail. Can anybody suggest anything that might help please, I'm getting desperate. Thank you.

Elle7

Have you worked out the calories of what you are eating?

Initial thoughts would be that soup could be a lunch on its own, so I'd either have a sandwich, sushi or soup, and watch what you choose.

Tea - are you making 'healthy' meals, or just cooking as normal? What do you tend to have?

An Indian once a week doesn't seem big but it can depend what you have. A korma, rice and half a naan can be over 1,300 calories, according to my local takeaway..

glowgirl_2

Cut your carbs for a couple of weeks to less than 25g per day, a slice of Burgen bread with seeds is 10.9g, one of the lowest available easily and cut out all sugar and watch the weight around your middle drop off, after a couple of weeks you can reintroduce carbs slowly, remember veg contains carbs and fruit contains sugars, there is an excellent low carb support thread on this board - hth:)

Aliss08

Thank you for your replies girls. I did wonder if it might be carb related (there seems to be a lot of talk about this at present). However I really enjoy fruit and veg. and ideally don't want to cut these out if I can avoid it plus they are good for your digestive system which is something I need with an underactive thyroid (sorry if TMI). I will try the bread, thanks for the suggestion. Do you know roughly how many carbs there are in a normal slice of wholemeal bread?
Elle - I haven't counted calories but again something to look at. Evening meals are along the lines of chicken stir-fry with rice, shepherd's pie, spag. bol. or an omelette with a salad.

Elle7

Kingsmill say the average calories in wholemeal bread is 99 per slice...which shocked me when I first found out because I always thought bread was a relatively healthy snack!

Your evening meals sound lovely, and nothing too bad. Could you try walking a few times a week to see if it makes a difference?

McKneff

Have you tried portion control as well as exercise.

The easiest way is to put a little less on your plate for a few days, then again for a few days.

My OH was a decorator, up and down ladders, manufal work, hot dinners every night, etc. He had to give up work due to
ill health and ate exactly the same, within 12 months he had put over a stone on. It was off within the next 12 months with
portion control and a bit more exercise.

And here's me, desperatley trying to put it on and jumping with joy at the moment because since I retired a few months ago Ive put on 4 lbs and so on av. about a pound a month. Its never been known apart from 2 pregnancies many years ago.

Chakani

It sounds to me like you have a well balanced diet, actually quite similar to what I eat. When I feel like my jeans are getting tight etc, I usually halve the amount of pasta or rice, and double the amount of green veg etc on my plate, which makes a huge difference.

I'm not good at willpower though, so I rely mainly on exercise to control my weight. I walk every day pushing a double buggy up and down hills, but the thing that made a bigger difference was higher intensity exercise (running for me, but I guess anything that pushes your heart rate up would do it). Walking just isn't enough. Running just twice a week though, has helped me lose 3 stone in just under a year, and I am very nearly back to the size and shape (and activity level) as I was before having kids. Could you fit in a swim/run/cycle or exercise class once or twice a week? The "couch to 5k" thread on here is good, and there is a link to a free podcast - although I accept that running about in the cold isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it is cheaper than the gym

glowgirl_2

Aliss08 wrote: »

Thank you for your replies girls. I did wonder if it might be carb related (there seems to be a lot of talk about this at present). However I really enjoy fruit and veg. and ideally don't want to cut these out if I can avoid it plus they are good for your digestive system which is something I need with an underactive thyroid (sorry if TMI). I will try the bread, thanks for the suggestion. Do you know roughly how many carbs there are in a normal slice of wholemeal bread?
Elle - I haven't counted calories but again something to look at. Evening meals are along the lines of chicken stir-fry with rice, shepherd's pie, spag. bol. or an omelette with a salad.

You can have your carbs by eating veg instead of bread etc and then gradually increase after the initial weight loss, the sugar is the biggie though, not easy but well worth it, I dont count calories so wouldnt know where to start with that - good luck:)

adelight

Try reducing starchy carbs but keep eating lots of colourful vegetables and try to limit your fruit to 1-2 pieces per day but no dried fruit, bananas, honeydew melon- anything too sugary. Have something with more protein for breakfast like a vegetable omelette or healthy creamy scrambled eggs(2 eggs mixed with 2 tbsp quark instead of butter/milk) with a small slice of brown toast. You can eat non-traditional breakfast foods too, like tuna mayo salad! If you don't already, make the soup yourself using tonnes of vegetables and don't rely on flour or cream to make it thick. A hearty vegetable soup with chunks of chicken or a thick lentil soup will really fill you up. I know sushi is healthy but personally I find I have to eat a lot to feel remotely satisfied!
If possible, reduce the potato in your evening meals so you are having only one heaped tbs of potato mash, or make mash using a mix of cauliflower and potato, carrot and sweede mash, or use sweet potato and have 2 heaped tbs of these and load up the rest of your plate with broccoli, green beans etc

Walking is good and couch to 5k is a brill idea but building your muscles up slowly would also be very good. Strength training gets more and more important as you get older to keep your muscles which in turn keep your metabolism up. Try an easy at home routine like this in the mornings before breakfast or before dinner:
10 push ups from your knees
10 step ups onto a chair leading with left leg
10 step ups leading with right leg
20 crunches
take a 1 min rest, then do it again, 1 min rest then do a third time. I've taken quite a guess at your fitness/strength levels here but a general rule is to do as many of an exercise until it feels like you can do only one more and make that the number of reps you do in each set. Try to increase this number every week.

mardatha

Did the doc check your thyroid levels ? Maybe you need to up the thyroxin.

Aliss08

Sorry for the delay in replying to you all. You have all given me plenty to think about and to put into practice. I had my bowl of museli this morning and checked the carb content - 58 per 100g which is roughly what I had. I was really shocked and can see that if I should be sticking to under 25g per day to loose weight that I have a lot of work to do. My museli is also sugar free so dread to think what a bowl of any normal cereal would be. I think breakfast is going to be hard to change, what can you eat that is low carb for breakfast. I eat it a 0630 before going to work so don't want to be cooking anything if I can avoid it.

Well done to all those that have managed to loose weight and also to the lady that managed to gain some too!