AIBU to ask you to help me lose weight?

Wickedlittledancer
hope its ok to jump om here .. but i share some of op s issues and have never looked into calorie counting .
it was like a light bulb that went off in my head that its personal to
the persons calories they burn and need to define what you aim for each day to facilitate loss.
i am 62 next month and getting soft and weaker and need to be proactive .
please may i ask five foot one - and say no exercise ( i plan to
do some but hate it ) how many calories would

1. maintain my weight

I gave up sugar on 30 September. I’ve lost 1 stone exactly since then. I have to say the first week I had excruciating headaches and it was horrendous I nearly gave up. I was consuming a huge amount of chocolate plus sugar in tea and coffee.

Yes, and if your day goes to shit, just get back on the wagon the following day. I find it helpful to remember that one day of healthy eating won't make a difference if you always eat badly; so likewise one bad day doesn't matter if you always eat healthily. It's when the bad day becomes the bad week and then the bad month that you are lost.

As PP’s have suggested you could try intermittent fasting, the benefit of which is that it limits the times you can eat, which is easy to stick to. The other thing I found both easy and effective was no carbs in the evening (or after about 3pm) so rather than having a big bowl of pasta/rice/potatoes it was protein and veg or salad, which filled me up but wasn’t laden with calories.
It’s not easy to lose weight but by the sounds of it, you know what you need to change, and you’re taking positive steps to improve your health. Good luck!

Eating 12 mini rolls is binge eating though
A sweet treat is one or a couple of squares of chocolate

Use a calorie counter like nutracheck and eat in a calorie deficit. You can just do it for a month to get an idea of how much food that is if you don't like the idea of counting long term (some people think it makes them obsessive)

an app like this will also give you a timescale for the weight loss based on how much restriction you want to go, and if counts up the mix of proteins and fats etc, so you can check you're eating healthier

I certainly don't think you need to consider weight loss jabs for the relatively small amount you have to loose.

I'd avoid anything extreme like very low carb, or cutting things out completely. There is no point as if all comes down to a deficit, and mad diets tend to make people a bit bonkers and obsessive.

If you're vegetarian you could consider going vegan. I lost a lot of weight this way because most of the foods that made me OW, chocolate, cakes, cheese are not easily available for vegans and substitutes not as palatable.
My other tip is to raise your step count as high as you can. Never just sit there if you can be moving. Pace at the bus stop, walk in place watching TV, walk while on the phone, jog on the spot for a count of 150 every hour. Try to build a couple of 'proper' walks into each day, at lunch time, after work. I got my steps to 20k this way and the weight fell off.
Last tip, try 'crowding' which focuses on eating what your body needs in addition to but (crucially) BEFORE you give it what it wants, so the good eventually crowds out the less healthy. Fancy a cake? Fine. But don't have it until you've eaten a portion of fruit or veg. You'll have less appetite for the cake and your cravings will be better managed when your body is properly nourished. This is a good one psycologically as it focuses on the positives of giving your body the real 'treats' it needs, rather than the deprivation associated with diets.

What has been working for me recently is planning better

Agree with this...and food prep is key. BUT also plan for the days where everything goes to shit or you just can't be arsed. Because you won't be perfect and it WILL happen.

I keep a stock of ready meals in my freezer. Absolutely not ideal, definitely higher in salt and lower in nutrients than a home cooked meal would be. However, they're a 5 minute, no-effort meal that I know is 450 cals and 28g protein. And that's far better than the four pieces of white toast with butter that i'd otherwise eat on a 'today's gone to shit' day!

So I eat a HIDEOUS amount of sugar. Just to give an example on Thursday night, I ate 12 cadbury mini rolls and a bar of Lindt milk chocolate. On Friday night, I ate 12 cadbury mini rolls and 2 mince pies with cream. On wednesday night, I ate a bar of Lindt milk chocolate and half a pack of ginger nut biscuits.

Stop buying this stuff. If you haven't bought it, you can't eat it. Find some healthier or at least less damaging ways of satisfying a sweet craving. Natural yoghurt with a little honey, for instance, or even a small packet of sweetened popcorn is not terribly healthy but better than all that cake and chocolate.

Diet and exercise won’t help, you need to deal with your trauma.
You have an eating disorder, you are not greedy.

OP I also agree that you should consider this.

How often do you eat like that?

I agree
That's not greedy, it's disordered eating.

Did you have trauma growing up?
You need to fix the emotional side first

I'm also vegetarian. You do need to do calorie counting to teach yourself what healthy food looks like. You will feel fuller if you eat high protein veg like beans. Stop eating sweets - switch to very dark 75%+ chocolate, have a small amount of honey on yoghurt.

Beans, yoghurt, eggs, cottage cheese, leafy veg are the best vegetarian diet food.

OK, so 12 mini rolls alone is almost 1500 calories, which is more than my calorie intake for the entire day.

I don't say that to be a smug competitive under-eater btw. But that is where your problem lies. Couch to 5k will never sort that, I'm afraid!

You need to cut the sugar, drastically. I have one sugary treat per day (eg a single Twirl with a cup of tea in the evening) and work it into my calorie count for the day. Up your protein and green veg - I eat lots of eggs, cottage cheese etc, have a salad alongside every meal.

It is harder for veggies, though, I think.

Oh, and avoid SW/WW like the plague. Their business model is literally setting you up to fail.

Beans, lentils, quorn mince, cottage cheese.

OP with that amount of sugar you are risking diabetes in future, I don’t know how old you are. But I don’t think it’s psychologically healthy to say no sugar ever as I think this risks the binge cycle we can get into. Do you like dark chocolate? Maybe try having a square of it with a couple of Brazil nuts. Do you have to have all these sweet things in the house? If you are planning better you can have a small amount without binging.

Why are you against calorie counting? I find it the only reliable way to lose weight consistently. Because you can eat anything as long as you factor it in, you don't get cravings and the urge to binge as you do with diets that cut out particular food groups. You can combine it with general healthy eating/avoiding processed foods, but it isn't catastrophic if you have the odd UPF item as long as it's counted in.

If you're careful, you don't have to weigh/measure often - just weigh/measure once and remember how many calories are in half a mug of rice or an average sized jacket potato, apple, the amount of cheese you'd usually cut off the block etc. Anything pre-packed has the calories on the packaging. You don't need to count minimal calorie, healthy foods such as green veg.

Thursday night, I ate 12 cadbury mini rolls and a bar of Lindt milk chocolate. On Friday night, I ate 12 cadbury mini rolls and 2 mince pies with cream. On wednesday night, I ate a bar of Lindt milk chocolate and half a pack of ginger nut biscuits.

This sounds as though you may have a binge eating disorder and might need some professional help?

Exercise alone won't do it, sorry OP. It's a hard and boring truth but the only thing that really works in weight loss is eating fewer calories than you use.

I never wanted to be one of those women who knew the calorie count of the foods I ate, but after losing 35lbs this year just by keeping to a calorie deficit, I've had to admit that it does actually work!

You don't need to get obsessive about it, but you do need to be honest with yourself about what you're putting in your mouth.

What has been working for me recently is planning better what to eat and trying to be mindful. So during the week at work I’ll have protein rich, vegetable based things like a salad with cottage cheese , hard boiled eggs or make myself a sweet potato and lentil curry or something like that keeping the carbs to a small amount. Same at night when having carbs I’ll just make sure it’s not loads. I don’t weigh anything but just eat a bit more protein. I have chilli and a bit of rice or similar. The key being to think ahead about it and also resisting mindless snacking so have things there which are more healthy.

These organisations have a huge failure rate, 95 percent for weight watchers, 97 for slimming world, it’s how they make their money, it is much better the op teaches her self health habits rather than undertakes a diet program where is almost guaranteed to regain the weight. It’s about 80 percent with other diet methods for regain.