Skinny fat - any suggestions?

euronorris

elsien wrote: »

Fitting exercise in (without a great deal of motivation, hence the excuses) isn't easy at the moment. Not so bad if I'm on an evening shift starting at 3 ish, although I do tend to spend those mornings catching up on house jobs and shopping. But at the moment if I'm working early, I finish 4 or 5, walk the dog, visit relative in nursing home (have to stay at least an hour) get home 7 ish, slump in front of telly, come on here.
I did try the early bird swim sessions but I need the incentive of meeting a friend to get my @rse out of bed that time of the morning, and she's now working then. Although I could try to go once a week on one of my days off.

That's why I opted for the 30 Day Shred DVD (you can get it on youtube for free). 20 mins a day. Removed my excuses of not having time, or being too tired etc as it is only 20 mins!

I managed to stick with it this time. I lost weight all over, including 4.5 inches from my stomach and 2.5 inches from my waist.

I did also adjust my diet, which wasn't very good at all. I cut out all soda, ate more home made meals with less carbs. I haven't been great at cutting out the carbs as much as I should, but it's a work in progress in my opinion. There's only so much change I can cope with, and cutting out soda was the big one for me (I was completely addicted!). Now that I have adjusted to that change, I can concentrate on other areas.

Nuts and berries are a good, quick choice for breakfast. I've never really been keen on nuts before, but I'm really beginning to love them now! That reminds me, I need to get some more tonight. I absolutely love peanuts, but they aren't the best nut for you. So I get the baked (not roasted) ones that are still in their shell. Takes me longer to get into them, so I only end up eating a few at a time, rather than big handfuls.

OH got into it with me too, a favourite of his is unroasted almonds with raisins. He loves that combination, and it's better than the amount of chocolate he used to knock back. He wasn't intending to, but he's also lost weight - his favourite jeans and shorts are now too big for him!

ktb

elsien wrote: »

The thing is, unless I have bread, potatoes or rice with a main meal, I don't feel as if I've had a proper meal, I feel as if I still need more. All in the head, or something I can do something about?

My Dad used to be exactly the same elsien, he was a meat & potatoes man through and through (followed by pudding obviously!!:)) and was absolutely convinced he would go hungry without the carbs as part of his evening meal.

We genuinely never, ever thought he would be able to them give up... his spuds especially, but he has been eating low carb since November last year and he swears he will never go back now!

His cholesterol reading went from 7.2 to 5.8 in less than 2 months and he has lost a stone without feeing deprived. As he now gets to eat MORE meat, cheese, nuts, cream etc it is a way of eating he feels he can stick to forever (he was always starving on calorie controlled, low fat diets).

You mustn't just remove the carbs... you need to ensure that you include more protein and fat (butter, cheese, cream, avocado, olive oil etc) with every meal so that you feel satisfied and snacking on nuts and cheese if/when you feel peckish.

He also gets to have pudding in the form of berries, cream and nuts... so his sweet tooth is satiated by that. It really works for him and I would have classed him as a bit of a carb-a-holic previously.

elsien

Started off last night - I'd been planning to have pasta bake to use up some cauli and broccoli so swapped it for broccoli and cauli with feta cheese and gammon, which was quite nice. I'm sticking to my post tea mini choc bar as they're the snack sized ones and I'm not ready to cut that out as a treat.
However today went pear shaped when I was on a training day, sandwiches and fruit skewers were the only lunch options, then the trainer started flashing the box of roses.......I really do have no will power at all.:o
I think I need to start retraining my brain - I don't eat eggs, and although I like cheese, cream etc I've spend years thinking there was too much fat in them and I shouldn't eat too much. This is going to take a bit of a shift in thinking. Off to the poundshop in the morning to see what they do in the way of nuts and raisins that aren't covered in salt.

Mojisola

ktb wrote: »

You mustn't just remove the carbs... you need to ensure that you include more protein and fat (butter, cheese, cream, avocado, olive oil etc) with every meal so that you feel satisfied

It's really important to increase your fat intake. If you've spent years on a low fat, calorie diet, it can feel wrong but your body needs it.