Trying to loose weight, where am I going wrong?

[VA1983]

I don't know if anyone can help me but I'm trying to loose weight but keep gaining it instead! Is there anything wrong with my daily diet:

Breakfast: porridge with a banana
Lunch: ham and tomato sandwich on brown bread, carrot sticks, grapes, yogurt
Dinner: eg chicken, noodles, stir fry veg
Evening: biscuits

If I gave up the biscuits do you think I would loose weight? Or is the rest of the day not great either?

[Blondie1984]

Hi

At first glance it seems like what you are having is pretty decent which leads me to wonder what are your portion sizes like? e.g. how quantity of oats are you using to make your porridge? are you making it with milk or water?

When you have your sandwich, are you butter or spread? If so, how much?What sort of yoghurt are you having?

Are you using oil when you cook your evening meal? What size serving of noodles etc?

You don't mention any drinks - what do you tend to drink during the day?

When you have biscuits in the evening, what sort are you having and how many?

[APlaceOnTheCouch]

It depends on your portion sizes and your exercise level.

[Fadingmemory]

VA, what exercise are you taking? Can you install a pedometer ap on your phone?

[shiteattheseaside]

A good thing to do is go on google and work out your metabolic rate - basically its like a bmi calculater, you put in your height and weight and age and tells you how many calories you need a day to lose weight healthiliy, or to maintain weight or to gain weight. I have a friend who uses a personal trainer and they swear by the app 'my fitness pal' - ive used it and it has helped me shift a few pounds. You log all your meals etc.

From what youve put, bar the biscuits, sounds like your eating right so i agree that maybe your portion sizes are too big. And maybe your eating too much of the carby things and not enough of the veg etc in one meal, for example you should be having hakf the plate veggies, quarter plate protein - chicken, fish, quorn etc and half the plate carbs, pasta etc .

Also i found if im really hingry between meals, fill up on homade low fat soup or a salad or plain popcorn

[NisekoWhistler]

Need less carbs and much more protein

[NisekoWhistler]

Suggest you skip porridge and make and omelette with feta cheese and spinach, lunch have salmon or chicken with salad and cottage cheese, dinner leave out the noodles and have more veg. Try to ditch the biscuits and snack on boiled egg and cashew nuts or almonds.

What exercise do you do?

[NisekoWhistler]

Suggest you skip porridge and make and omelette with feta cheese and spinach, lunch have salmon or chicken with salad and cottage cheese, dinner leave out the noodles and have more veg. Try to ditch the biscuits and snack on boiled egg and cashew nuts or almonds.

What exercise do you do?

[Lorelei76]

OP that list looks like mine when I'm losing weight - minus the biscuits of course. I wonder about your portion sizes and how many biscuits you are eating.

[Quiero]

Get the my fitness pal app like shiteattheseaside said.

Be honest about portion sizes and see how many calories you are eating. I've lots tons of weight and I eat biscuits, bread, porridge and drink alcohol. You don't necessarily need to cut anything out, you just need to make sure you are eating less calories than your body is burning. It's just science.

Good luck

[VA1983]

Thanks I will try using my fitness pal to add in what I'm eating and see what the daily totals are!

Drinks are green tea with the occasional hot chocolate I forgot to add those in sorry.

This biscuits are nearly a whole pack a night I was just wondering if they are the only reason I'm gaining weight or if maybe I'm going wrong elsewhere too. I did try low carbing for a day but fainted! I'm not sure why!! I had never felt so ill in my life. I'm not sure whether to risk trying it again.

The porridge is 20g of oats and I use semi skimmed milk 150ml and a banana. The sandwich I use vitalight although I think I should probably spread it a lot thinner! Yogurt is an aldi fat free one, I have thought of trying Greek yogurt instead? Portion size at dinner time is probably too big!

Thanks for the feedback, I will join my fitness pal and somehow try and stop eating the biscuits. I think I eat them out of exhaustion once the children are in bed. Kind of like a reward!

[VA1983]

Also I do not do any exercise

[VA1983]

Oh and I forgot to add I use quite a bit of olive oil when cooking, what is the best oil to use or is there a way to stop using oil without everything sticking to the pan?

[KittyOShea]

I follow Slimming World and have lost nearly 4 stone doing no exercise either

I'd say the biscuits are the biggest problem all right. Could you cut to 1 or 2?

If I have porridge for breakfast I have no bread at lunch- either salad or soup (with protein in to fill you up). Otherwise I have scrambled eggs and mushrooms and fruit for breakfast and have a sandwich or ryvita for lunch with salad etc.

I use fry light instead of olive oil for cooking dinner (except for mince I just fry it in water)

[sandylion]

Holy shit you eat a whole packet of biscuits a night?? I'm not a dietician, but I think that may be the issue! It's probably your whole day's calorie allowance right there! What kind are they?

[VA1983]

Yes a whole pack of biscuits minus 4 (I give my dds 2 biscuits each after school with a drink, the 2 packs I buy are supposed to last them all week but I end up going back to the shop to replace them as I can't stop eating them after they go to bed ) they vary between bourbons, cookies, chocolate digestives etc.

[VA1983]

I did try slimming world but I found it to complicated and didn't stick to it. I still have the books maybe I should have another go.....

[Veterinari]

The biscuits you're eating are 60-80 calories per biscuit. Assuming you're eating 12-15 (I don't know how many are in a pack) that's over 1000 calories each evening. If you're an average 5'3" -5'5" sedentary uk woman your daily calorie requirement is probably in the region of 1200-1600 calories/day

So you're basically eating your daily calorie allowance in biscuits, plus eating regular largish portions of food, oil, butter, hot chocolate. I don't want to sound harsh but are you really surprised you're gaining weight?

The good thing is that you've recognised it so you can change it!

[sandylion]

Your talking in excess of 1200 calories in biscuits alone then. Definitely use my fitness pal it will help you see what you're really eating calorie wise! Good luck!

[cece]

I do slimming world.

So a typical day would be something like this.

Breakfast - 2 Weetabix with fat free natural yoghurt and a chopped up banana

Lunch - whole tin of tuna in brine, lettuce, cucumber, tomato, peppers, mushrooms and some cold pasta (left over from dinner). Usually with either very very light mayo or low fat ceaser dressing. Pudding would be a couple of slices of melon.

Dinner - roast chicken (no skin), slimming world roast potatoes (made with hardly any fylight), carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, gravy. Pudding would be chopped up fruit, a meringue nest with a muller light yoghurt over the top.

Snacks - fruit or fat free yoghurt

I have honestly never eaten as much as I currently do and have lost stone and half so far. Also found it very easy once I got the hang of it, although I find I need to plan ahead a bit more.

[Porpoises]

I guess the key thing to understand is why you are eating the buscuits? Is it an emotional thing? Your way of treating yourself? Or maybe staving of boredom or sadness?

Are you hungry?

If you are hungry at night time, then maybe for now you should increase the amount of all the healthy foods you're eating, to replace the biscuits. That would get you off of the sugar cycle.

If its emotional reasons, there is no shame in that. Its helpful to try and recognise whay the triggers are and look for alternative solutions.

[VA1983]

I eat the biscuits as a reward after getting the girls in bed. I guess a reward for surviving the day with two kids I have never added up the calories in the biscuits before, I guess I was too scared to, but wow my whole daily calorie allowance just in biscuits is horrifying. It looks like I need to find something else to reward myself with after a hard day!!

[VA1983]

And I'm not hungry at night at all, we eat at 6pm so at 8pm when I eat the biscuits I'm not even hungry.

[VA1983]

The slimming world food sounds amazing. Maybe I need to have another go. I think I need to get a handle on the biscuit eating first though. Too much change at once and I always give up as it feels too much effort and a shock to me!

[Porpoises]

Yes a change of reward sounds a good idea! Bubble bath? Box set? Fresh strawberries and rasberries with yoghurt? Posh flowery tea?

[cece]

My favourite thing about Slimming world is that you can have a cooked breakfast and it's considered 'free' so you can eat unlimited amounts of;

grilled mushrooms and tomatoes, eggs, bacon (with fat cut off), beans and sw syn free sausages (from Iceland). As long as you fry food in fry light oil.