Why have I lost so little?

[Bumbadum]

I'm 4 stones over healthy bmi. I stayed within syns. I filled 1/3 of every meal with speed veg or fruit. I can eat so much and I didn't restrict portions..walked 30 mins a day.

Typical day
Hex ss milk
Hex 2 weetabix
1 banana
Snack apple, satsuma, cup of tea, 2 finger kitkat
Lunch
Huge pasta or huge baked potato, tuna and synned mayo or mackerel in tomato sauce with side salad
Snack
Snack a jack or wotsits, fat free cottage cheese and tomatoes or fat free yogurt and frozen berries
Dinner
Rice and chicken diet cola (sw recipe) or a sw curry and rice or sw skewered chicken and oven wedges and salad or lentils dhal and rice.
If i have any syns left id have a highlight 40cals hot choc.

4 weeks like that only lost 3lb. My period is regular and had dc with no fertility issues, dont take any meds, drink 1.5 litres water.

I feel pissed off because if its a portion issue at the end of the day id rather then track calories and eat whatever. Fat free is only bareable because of the carbs and when im keto i lose fast but i feel empty and life becomes so dull and boring. Low carb subs stall me, dont taste the same or end up giving me the shakes from insulin spikes (maltitol im looking at you!).

Im just fed up. The only time i lost weight properly is when i was bulimic. I ate very little and when i binged threw it all up.

Im so tired of this. At my wright i should have dropped 7lb at least by now. Im 30, my metabolism is fine when i do keto or fast 800 i lose quickly. On sw it seems sooooo slow. Id be happy with 2lb a week loss.

I think people who lose on sw must be eating less because evidently my eat til you are full does not work.

[Viviennemary]

Too many carbs. Slimming world didn't work for me. I think it was the carbs. More successful with calorie counting and cutting down on carbs.

[doctorhamster]

It's slow because it's a lot of calories. If you enter everything you eat into an app like MyFitnessPal you'll probably be shocked at how many calories you've consumed.

[Lordamighty]

Try just eating 3 meals a day & no snacking in between. Constantly eating throughout the day hinders weight loss.

[dancemom]

Do you really need a banana, an apple, a satsuma and a biscuit before your lunch? And do you need a huge portion of pasta or a huge potato?
And if you have had a huge portion of pasta do you need crisps and cottage cheese too?
If you have had pasta do you need rice too?
While it's free it doesn't mean you should eat it if you're not hungry for it

[Bumbadum]

Yes its probably 2500 cals.
I get confused and hopeful on 'a calorie is not just a calorie'.

If its just about calories then i should probably take strong vitamin suppliments and eat 1000 cals of chocolate and crisps. I think id be happy like that. And less obsessed with 'treats'.

[mineofuselessinformation]

I lost just over a stone over a long period of time while in lockdown.
I ate (massive) salads with lots of ingredients in them, with a protein element. They are very filling, but very low carb content.
I also made (again very filling) soups - butternut squash and sweet potato in the main.
I did exercise, but not to a huge degree.
I really believe it's the carbs that are the culprit for putting and keeping weight on.

[Mintyt]

That is a lot of food. You should not need to snack with a big lunch like that

[TiredMary]

It just sounds like too much food, to be totally honest with you.

[Bumbadum]

Well thats why im so huge, i eat a lot.

Ok so i need to go through the initial hunger. This eat all you want is such a lie when you cant self regulate or have a huge appetite.

Id have breakfast at 5:30, snack at 10 and lunch at 1300 then snack at 1600 dinner at 1900. Sleep at 2100.

[CodenameVillanelle]

@Bumbadum

Yes its probably 2500 cals.
I get confused and hopeful on 'a calorie is not just a calorie'.

If its just about calories then i should probably take strong vitamin suppliments and eat 1000 cals of chocolate and crisps. I think id be happy like that. And less obsessed with 'treats'.

For most of us a calorie is definitely just a calorie. There is no magic in slimming world, it just usually creates a calorie deficit

[Bumbadum]

Mineofuse well done.
Low carb kills my appetite but i struggle with psychological missing of the sugar, carbs. I need to toughen up and just not give in it seems. Its like i panic when i feel the slightest twinge of hunger its an oh no i must shove something in my mouth. Almost like hunger is this umbearable feeling of physical pain. Ugh..maybe i need a food addiction counsellor or something.
I wish i was just a normal weight who can take or leave food.

[Monkeytapper]

It looks like a massive amount of food, I would cut out all the snacks, you don’t need a Kit Kat or wotsits everyday, have them once a week as a treat and just have a normal portion of pasta not a huge one.

[Viviennemary]

Set yourself a few simple rules. One of mine is nothing to eat after evening meal. Like tonight I'm not hungry. Should I have a chocolate biscuit. No. Because I've not long since had my meal and don't need one. All the snacking on SW is just hopeless.

[nancybotwinbloom]

Sometimes a bovril cures my pangs

[Bumbadum]

Yes bouillon worked in the past. I must get some next time im out.

Vivienne what you say is sensible.
I think i want too much too soon and on every plan i always seem to push the boundaries. Its probably a form of self sabotage.

Yeah i think its sensible to have a treat once a week i think i have this bratty resentful teel inside that wants to eat whatever and be skinny. Even as a teen that wasnt me, but i was dead jealous of my siblings and peers who ate junk and were thin. Of course they ate quarter the amount of junk i ate so it was still within their calorie range.

I think i keep chasing the next diet unicorn and the next. When i should probably just eat bloody way less.

Sounds so easy.

[stillfeelingmad]

Honestly you need to track for a week on something like MyFitnessPal, even if you're following the rules strictly and you're smashing 3000 calories you'll not lose weight,

I do a week
Tracking every now and then and it's enough to keep familiar with portion sizes. Honestly I bet you're hitting 3000 a day there rather than 2500

[picklemewalnuts]

I do slimming world. And I struggle with potentially disordered eating. I found it very hard the first month then settled into a system.

I found it very helpful to stop eating breakfast as a form of intermittent fasting. So I don't eat between 8pm and 12noon. Some days it's hard, but I don't get up very early and find I can manage.

That means two meals to manage, plus snacks. My daytime snacks are all free- boiled eggs, a slice of ham, fruit.

My hexa can be used for cheese and apple, with nuts if I haven't used my hexb.

Then I use some syns for cooking, and the rest for an evening treat.
Muller light make some excellent yogurt pots which are only half a syn. And I don't like yogurt!

Don't abandon it, tweak it a bit to make it work better.

[strawberrycherryblossom]

@Bumbadum when you cook rice or pasta do you weigh them? I know SW says 'unlimited/no weighing' but it's helpful to remind yourself what a portion should be.

The recommended portion of pasta is usually 75g dried weight. I'd have that for an evening meal or 60g for lunch.

For snacks, I'd have an apple or an orange or a Kit Kat. Not all 3. I'd also say one 'naughty snack' a day - a less naughty snack is jelly.

You have to remember that eating until you are full doesn't work if you are used to overeating. Slowly reduce the portion sizes if you're not ready to drop suddenly but you'll quickly find you start to feel 'full' again on less.

If it helps, today's menu on SW was:

B - overnight oats (30g oats - hexB/120g ff yog/60g fruit) with a coffee

S - piece of fruit

L - 4 x ryvita (6syns) with 2tbsp cream cheese (4 syns) topped with salad

S - piece of fruit and a coffee

D - sausage and spinach mac & cheese (3.75 syns)

S - muller light (1 syn)

[nancybotwinbloom]

I've found in the past that an omelette with. Loads of veg in the morning fills me up.

Meat and veg to snack on.

Cut the carbs out.

[Wbeezer]

I'm sorry but that looks like a lot of food to me, I'm on a pre Christmas diet at the moment I'm losing about 1and a half to two pounds a week. I have a coffee and a satsuma for breakfast, one slice of toast and low fat cottage cheese for lunch, a small banana for a snack, whatever I'm cooking for tea but with a half portion of carbss and extra veg, sometimes a yoghurt if I'm hungry or something else small. Occasional snack of a couple of prunes or 3 or 4 nuts.
This is five days a week, at the weekend I still skip breakfast and late night snacks but will have the odd glass of wine and some crisps or a scone or a pudding.
You need to ditch the kitkats and weetabix and eating between meals!

[Wbeezer]

My menfolk are like that about hunger almost making them panic, ive got used to feeling a little bit hungry several times a day, im a bit hungry now but I'm going to ignore it and it'll go away when I'm asleep.

[disconnecteddrifter]

I'm not on a diet and bordering overweight on the bmi scale as I'm 10.6 at 5ft5. I couldn't eat the amount you eat so maybe its portion? I dont eat well by any means - - Today I had an omlette with herbs for breakfast and 1 piece of toast for a snack. Then I had a packet of 50g crisps for lunch. For dinner I had sardine pasta probably about 100gs? Lots of veg and a g and t. If I'm trying to be healthy I ignore the hunger until 12 and have some soup and 2 pieces of toast and fruit and then chicken and salad or veg for dinner and no snacks.

[12frogsincoats]

You will not lose weight if you aren't in a calorie deficit. It doesn't matter if you are within your 'sins.' It doesn't matter if pasta/rice/whatever is a 'free food.' If you eat too much of it you will not lose weight.

[cactusisblooming]

OP I'm amazed that you are losing on that diet, that is a huge amount of carbs. I sympathise though, I have a thread about being really careful and not losing any weight.

[Malin52]

Hells bells. That is a LOT of food. Drop the Kitkats and Wotsits. No one ever lost weight eating choc bars and crisps.