Porridge

Baxter100

The reason you are feeling weak is that you aren't eating anywhere near enough food. Based on what you've said above you're eating around 1500 calories a day which at 6 foot 3 and 19 stone is nothing. Especially when piling a load of cardio on top.

There's a process called metabolic adaptation through which your body adapts to the stimulus which you provide it with. You're cutting calories and adding cardio so your body is going to scale back on other activities, hence the feeling of weakness.

My personal guidance would be the following:

1. Focus on eating whole, unprocessed foods, primarily meat, fish, vegetables, fruit and eggs. Aim to make this 80-90% of the food you eat.

2. Start centering your meals around a protein source. At your weight, aim for around 200 grams of protein a day, equally divided across the day. So if you eat 5 times a day, aim for around 40 grams of protein at each meal.

3. Potentially look at some form of time restricted eating, even if it is eating breakfast 1 hour later and having dinner 1 hour earlier.

4. Focus on some form of resistance training over cardio.

5. Try and establish a regular sleep routine and aim for 7-8 hours sleep each night.

6. Walk a lot more.

Also... (and this maybe slightly controversial), don't assume that your GP actually knows anything about nutrition/weight loss/food quality etc.

Baxter100

Also as for porridge... it's basically fuel food and nothing more. Not bad for you, but in itself not really good for you.

coffeehound

Baxter100 said:

Also as for porridge... it's basically fuel food and nothing more. Not bad for you, but in itself not really good for you.

It's good for cholesterol levels though?

anneleyskiing

Bravo for choosing to focus on your health.  I love porridge but not all brands are equal.  Some are too gritty for my liking but I love Flahavans jumbo oats which I pick up from Sainsbury’s but the Aldi jumbo oats are good too. I top mine with banana and throw in frozen berries (cheap from Supermarkets) and a tablespoon of quality peanut or almond butter.  You can even add a whisked egg so it makes it like custard and ups the protein.  Eat what you like but don’t expect each meal to be a gourmet experience.  

I like Dr Rangan Chattergees approach which focuses on low calorie density foods like vegetables and legumes. You might be able to get his book from the library.

Brie

Hate to disagree with @anneleyskiing but I don't really notice the difference between different oatmeals. The OH buys special Scottish oats and I wouldn't know if I was eating those or the discount brand.  What I do know though is that I recently bought barley flakes - which can be cooked the same way - and they are great!  I got them from a health food shop - about a kilo for £1.50 ish.  Because they are less processed they taste more nutty than oatmeal which I really like.  I suspect there's much more fibre as well.

Another thing - are you drinking enough water??  I have been trying to lose weight for health reasons - I weigh less than you but not by much but am also shorter so we're probably on par.  And I'm garbage at exercising....anyhoo....when I started on this I reported to my doctor that I felt drained, woozy, a bit headachy like I was on the verge of flu and the instant answer was drink more water.  I'm still short on the 2 litres recommended daily but I know when I feel off that the water works quickly to make me feel more lively and focused.

Well done on the life change - it's a difficult thing but there's lots of support available.  There's a quarterly weight challenge on MSE that you might want to join up, or just read for encouragement.  I'll tag you so you can find it.

Baxter100

coffeehound said:

Baxter100 said:

Also as for porridge... it's basically fuel food and nothing more. Not bad for you, but in itself not really good for you.

It's good for cholesterol levels though?

The whole LDL/cholesterol/saturated fat etc thing is a bit of a minefield. Everything should do a bit of reading into the topic and come to their own conclusions.