To ask whether “just” eating healthily made you feel better?

@Rootsmaneouvring Thank you. chicken is good if you eat meat. If not then plenty of beans, chickpeas etc. salmon, tuna? Eggs, tofu? Those are good.

The best thing I think is you'll get used to the taste of less processed foods. Cakes, chocolate, shop bought baguettes, will feel heavy and unfulfilling. So it will put you off them.

And always put loads of salad or veg on the plate. As you know. 😀

Are you vegetarian?

Have you had your bloods done, as quite often veggies who have a poor diet have several deficiencies.. that might be why you're so tired.

You have to really throw yourself into it to get a well balanced vegetarian/ vegan diet.

Yes and no. I think improved food makes a huge difference - and certainly, sinc ewe've been doing 30 plants a week we have all felt an overall improvement in our health, energy, vitality etc.

BUT, if you've been living a relatively unhealthy lifestyle for a long time, I would consider getting your blood checked for all the things that so often can also impact you, or, at the very least, exploring a couple of bog standard over the counter things to try for a few weeks.

In particular, I'd look at Iron - many many women are low in iron, if not anaemic, and a good quality OTC daily supplement can be helpful. I'm never sure if it's placebo affect but both my sister and I (who, admittedly, do both have lowish iron levels at times) find that the moment we take one of those spatone sachets we start to feel less tired very quickly.

Vitamin D at this time of year is also a good call.

Magnesium, Omega 3 and folate are also good ones that are often lacking through diet alone with magnesium and folate particularly challenging for women.

Or a good multi vitamin could help too although I'm always dubious about the benefits of a multi vitamin to really make a difference to any actual deficiencies.

Edited to add - most of these, if we're a a bit low, lead to fatigue.

Your new meals are much nicer than the old ones.
Eating better food is the key to feeling good, for me.

Yes, definitely. But your breakfast is still quite carb heavy which will cause a blood sugar spike. Your dinner is too. This is my suggestion:

Breakfast: sugar free granola, berries, full fat greek yoghurt

Dinner: roast veg with chicken (or omelette if vegetarian)

No snacks, try to eat enough at meals. Add fresh fruit and/or a sweet treat after lunch or dinner if you find out difficult to get through the day without one. Dark chocolate covered almonds are great.

I think eating healthily does in an 80/20 kind of way does help. I think my mood is better when eat well and I have less premenstrual symptoms.

Your diet is low in digestible protein, look into protein complementary to increase the amount of available protein.

Basically, vegetable proteins fall into groups, and each group has a limited range of essential amino acids. The vegetable protein groups are beans, grains, legumes, nuts and seeds. Quinoa and soya are both complete proteins and you don't have to mix them with anything else.

You have to mix 2 or more groups to get all of the amino acids, so;
beans on toast - beans and a grain.
mujadra - rice and lentils.
bean salad with nuts, seeds and wholemeal bread.

Not really. Quitting alcohol made a gigantic difference though.

Where's the protein in your example?

The people I know who are in great shape eat what seems to be 60% protein, 30% vegetables or fruit, 10% carbs as each meal.

Your new food looks fantastic. I'm sure you'll start to feel better soon. I think when you eat lots of processed carbs, UPF etc it takes a while for your body to withdraw from it.
Make sure you've plenty of protein. Of course you can still have things like cheese, croissants and baguettes but you'll probably only want a small amount once your body adjusts to more fibre etc.
Drink tons of water as well.

I gave myself a kick up the bum round about this time last year - I'm 56. We'd slipped over the previous few years into eating a lot of ready meals and probably not enough veg. And snacking loads.

Last year I made a real effort with more veg, home cooking, salads and also, I think most importantly, more protein.

I'm not talking stupid amounts of protein or supplements but eggs in the morning and making sure I got protein at lunch or dinner.

I think it's really helped. I've been exercising more, but cutting out the snacking has been the real thing. I've got more energy (not at the moment as I have flu) and feel better. And I've lost weight.

I also feel fuller. I'm not getting the same sugar highs and lows and not feeling quite so knackered at night.

I also took my blood pressure and got a shock - very high blood pressure hadn't been helping and had been making me tired.