Not sure if this right place

[elliejane]

Hi

Not sure if this right place to post or get advice. Anyway I am new here so please feel free to redirect me.
I am 39 and am 5 foot 4 and weight fluctates between 9 stone 6 and 9 stone 10 normally average .

A few years ago I used to be around 9 stone to 9 stone 4 at heaviest and never moved from that but over years weight has crept on. At Xmas I went up to about 9 stone 11 basically with overeating and decided to start to loose weight , I have pretty much cut out crisps, chocolate although still have some and started to exercise.

Prior to this I really ate what I wanted and never did any exercise otehr than walking kids to school and odd time on my bike.
My typical day before was
2 slices toast with marg or phildalpeha cheese or a scone (big one from work canteen wholemeal or plain)
Cheese or chicken mayo sandwich or baguette with crisps for lunch or a baked potato with egg mayo or cheese/beans and a choc style mousse for pudding.
Tea varied but was not over healthy or junk food either just normal food really mince potatoes, chicken fjatas, macaroni cheese, just homemade food, would have 2 slices toast later in pm before bed. Just drink water through day nothing else.
Do not think I had a really bad diet but not the best either .

Since then I have cut out the mayo sandwichs for lunch and tend to have baked potato with filling etc but still some kind of mousse or at home tend ot have a cheese bagel at times but eat nothing else all day until tea time till I have normal tea or a weight watchers meal.

I have come down to about 9 stone 7 now sometimes 9 stone 6 on a good day but cannot see to get any lower or if I do then next few days it is back up again

I bought a cross trainer and do it about 3 times a week for about 20mins , I also do hannah waterman dvd about 30mins to 40mins of it say 2 times a week.

I just find no matter how much I eat or how little I eat my weight stays the same I could have a really good week and not loose anything at all then next week have not so good week and drop a 1lb.

This week since Wed I have been really godo with exercise and done at least 45mins of hard intense cardio every day and walked a lot also asI am on holiday from work . Food has been ok but have had a few meals out this week.

I know I need to be consistent but would like some advice or someone to look at my daily food and also exercise for a few weeks to see where I go wrong. Is this right place? I know cheese is my downfall but how bad is it to have cheese.

Thanks for reading any advice would be good.

Ellie

 

[amy1985]

The first thing I'd recommend you do is work out your daily calorie needs. I used this website: which you can use to calculate your daily calorie needs and then work out what your deficit should be. Your BMR is 1351.05, and then you need to multiply it by a number depending on how active you are (by between 1.2 if you're sedentary, to 1.9 if you're very active- the details are on that site). This is the number of calories you need to eat a day to maintain your weight. To lose weight, you need to create a deficit (500 calories a day will give you 3500 calories a week, which theoretically equates to a pound lost a week). Then work out how many calories you're consuming, and reduce on that basis. A lot of people don't like calorie counting (but it doesn't necessarily have to be rabbit food and starvation- see my diary for how I'm doing it, I'm not suffering at all), but at the end of the day weight loss is about eating less calories than you burn.

Cheese is really quite calorific. Taking Cathedral City Mature Cheddar as an example (I googled this), there are 416 calories in 100g, and it's 34.9% fat. It's ok as a treat, but in order to lose weight, it needs to be reduced. (I personally have low fat cottage cheese- Tesco Light Choices either plain or onion and chive- on my sandwiches) Speaking of sandwiches, bread isn't that great for you either. The last loaf of regular bread I had had 110 calories per slice- and I don't know about you, but I really don't find bread filling at all.

Probably the thing to do is to keep a food diary- either here or on your own. I've found my diary on this forum very useful so far, and people have made helpful suggestions and encouraged me. I also use a calorie counting program (it's set up for the US, but it's easy to enter your own information) called cron-o-meter which keeps me on track (although if you're going to set up a calorie deficit you'll need to change the settings it gives you- use the website I gave you and work from that number).

Hope this helps, and welcome

(Edit to add: I'm no expert- far from it- I've just started on this business myself, I've just done a bit of reading and this is appears to be the general consensus of the most trustworthy members here)

 

[elliejane]

Hi

Thanks for your reply I have gone to website and I think I am probably between light to moderate active. Some weeks better than other so gone with light which says 1892 calories so take off 500 gives 1392 a day is that right? No idea what I should be doing but will give it a go. Have no idea how much calories are in most things apart from if it says on packet!


Does 1300/1400 sound right?

Today I have been good in my opinion and I have had

1 slice toast with little marg so say 120 cal
Chicken red thai wrap from boots which was 256 cal
shapers prawn snack thing 76 cal
kiwi juice still 4 cal
half an cheese oatcake 30 cal
weight watchers chicked and basil meal think was around 350 cal
half banana with some natural yougurt probably 50 cal

So today I would say I am around 800 to 900n calories but this is a lot less than normal . Is that too little or . Will probably have a slice of toast soon or oatcake as getting hungry. Would normally have wine on a Sat night but cut it out tonight.

Think might find it hard to stick to 1300/1400 calories a day but will try. It is things like going to other folk for tea that will be hard as will not have much idea of what calories are .

Cheese will be hard for me to give up as I love cheese so much but so was crisps but nearly managed giving up crisps. Will see how I go the next week sticking to low calories .

Just hope it pays off a bit as found before giving up crips etc not made much difference so it is hard not to go back ot eating them again when you not seeing benefit if you know what I mean

Ellie

 

[amy1985]

Any reduction is better than none, I think (as I say, I'm not an expert, apart from the basics of what I'm saying, don't take my word for it- look at some of the stickies in this forum, they're written by much more knowledgeable people than myself), but the less you reduce (to a point- you need food or your metabolism will slow and you'll get sick) the less weight you'll lose (the guidelines I've read say never less than 1200 calories/ day for women or less than 1000 calories under your maintenance, whichever is greater). If you can't manage that low, you may lose weight slower (or need to up your exercise), but it's better than not being on the diet at all.

I can't tell you if it's right or not, but if you used that website (or others) it should give you a good figure to start with (you may need to adjust depending on your results- everyone's different, so this kind of thing is just a guide).

For calories, you can Google most things (including some store things with packets if you've thrown it out/ can't remember, and fruit/ veggies), and there's even a tool for working out how many calories are in a recipe: Alternately, if you use a calorie counting program like the one I describe, it'll give you a lot of things (I rely on that, followed by packages, followed by Google). I'd recommend you weigh your portions if you can, it makes a difference (for example, on what basis do you say half a banana and natural yoghurt is 50 calories? Google tells me an average banana is 108 calories- but without weighing it, is it small, average, large? Ditto the yoghurt)- or if you can't (scales aren't expensive, I got a big one awhile ago for ten pounds) then go on average size (on that basis half a banana is 54 calories), and the size of the packet (so when I have Greek yoghurt, which I get from a 500g container, I take about a third, which is 166.666666*g, I round up to 170g, which is 136 calories- I eat it in three goes, so it evens out)

I find those Shapers meals from Boots deeply unsatisfying for my hunger. They're a good idea- in fact if I'm out and desperate for food on my new diet that's the way I'd go- but you can do a heck of a lot better for 500 calories (which is a considerable whack of your- and my- daily allowance)

800/900 calories a day is way too little. No matter what you do (except for exceptional circumstances- for example, you've got a bug, are throwing up, and can't hold anything down), you should never eat under 1200 calories. That's what the smallest adult woman, doing absolutely nothing all day, needs to survive on. You need more than that.

For friends, you could try having lower calorie options earlier in the day and so "saving" some of your calories for meals out that you can't account for. Or taking off 100 calories from your daily allowance each day for the next couple of days. This is also how I handle treats (for me it's chocolate and ice cream, for you it might be cheese and crisps). I think about it like a combination of saving up for something with pocket money, and my mum promising something nice if I'd been good for a certain time. I wouldn't recommend starving to do it, but say, if a pack of crisps is 131 calories (a 25g pack of Walkers salt and vinegar is), if you have 65 calories less than your allowance the day before and the day you want those crisps, you can "afford" the crisps. (I wouldn't recommend doing this too often, as you also need to keep in mind your nutrition- it's not all about the calories. Most junk food is very nutrient poor, which is why it's junk)

Another way of handling cheese is by grating it rather than slicing it, and using a stronger type (mature, or parmesan), to make less go further.

Try to get more fruit and vegetables (especially vegetables) into your diet. They're very, very low calorie (tonight I'll be having 260g of spinach which is only 65 calories- and it's multiples of that serving of prawn crisps you had), are full of nutrients you need, and will help fill you up (I use them as snacks). The NHS recommend 5 a day (which is 5 80g servings). In fact the NHS website might be a good place to start for guidelines on nutrition (I use them):

I hope some of this helps. It's an uphill battle for all of us, trust me.