Critique my diet

[Chubbychubkins]

I'm putting on weight at an alarming rate. I now have a BMI of 29, 2 years ago it was 23 (6 months post 2nd child) and prior to my first pregnancy (6 years ago) it was 21 and had been for 10+ years.

My diet is very samey, I know this. But I find batch cooking easier and we only do a weekly online food shop, we don't live near a shop and we both work full time, so picking up bits is difficult.

I've spent the last week logging everything that has passed my lips, but this is pretty typical. I have cut out our weekly cake (Saturdays) and cut out the alcohol (2 drinks twice a week), both in the last 6 weeks.

Breakfast (when I eat it) is 40g porridge, 1 dollop -heaped tablespoon of greek yogurt and 60g of summer berries.

Monday:

Breakfast as above
lunch - 1 bread roll with chicken tikka sandwich filling, lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes and onion.
Dinner - saag panner - 100g paneer, half tin of tomatoes, 100g frozen spinach, red onion and spices (dried, not a paste). No oil. 2 microwave poppadum's.
Drinks - 120ml of semi- skimmed milk.

Tuesday -
No breakfast
lunch - chili with nachos - 100g 5% beef mince, half tin of tomatoes, onion, garlic, chili, herbs and spices, no oil, 20g cheese, dollop of greek yogurt, 1 corn tortilla cut up and baked in to tortilla chips.
Dinner - chicken jalfrazi - 100g chicken breast, 40g almond butter, tomatoes, peppers, onions, herbs and spices, garlic, ginger. handful of mange tout.
Drinks - 350ml of milk.

Wednesday:
no breakfast
L - chili beef as above with a handful of green veg
D - chicken jalrazi as above

Drinks - 120ml of semi- skimmed milk.

Thursday
B - as above
L - shakshuka - 60g chorizo, 2 poached eggs, 1 pepper, onion, tomatoes, paprika.
D - Saag paneer as above

Drinks - 150ml of semi- skimmed milk.

Friday
B - as above
L - chili beef nachos as above with broccoli
D - Chicken Jalfrezi as above

Drinks - 120ml of semi- skimmed milk.

Saturday
B - no breakfast

L - smoothie bowl - 60g red berries, 30g oats, 25g peanut butter, 60g yogurt,
D - Steak tacos - 100g steak, 1 tortilla wrap, salad greens, 30g feta, tomatoes, 15g pomegranate seeds, tablespoon of geek yogurt, cucumber. Herbs and spices.

snacks - 1 mini twister, 1 mint club.

drinks - 150ml milk.

Today (Sunday)
breakfast as above
lunch - chili beef as above.
Dinner - to be decided. no snacks yet and 150ml milk.

I also drink 2-3 liters of water a day.

I'm not as active as I should be. I do a 30minute home work out 3 times a week (Les Mils) and 2 half hour yoga sessions per week but I'm generally fairly sedentary otherwise mainly as we have drive everywhere as we live semi-rurally.

So let me have it. This week I've put 0.5lbs on. I can't live like this.

@Kona84

Under eating can also cause weigh gain- your body will start storing fat as it thinks resources are low. The body coach diet for example had me eating almost 2000 calories a day- with a 30 minute hit session a day. Prior to that I was limiting to 1200 a day and exercising for about an hour a day. I dropped 20lbs in 3 months on that diet

Interesting. I always thought that was a myth. Maybe I will give it a go - DH has done it. He didn't stick to it though!

@Kona84

Also do you drink tea/coffee with sugars? Fizzy drinks?

No. No fizzy drinks at all. No sugar in tea or coffee. Tea and coffee with milk which is accounted for in my OP.

Paneer has shocking amounts of fat and calories and I don't eat it for that reason.

That is masses of food. You're having two cooked meals with meat a day in some cases and nut butters and smoothies and porridge

I have coffee for breakfast, take away low fat sandwich or sushi or salad for lunch, stir fry or lean meat and vegetables or fish for dinner.

I maintain weight with that

You skip breakfast half the days, my advice is first of all to sort that out and stop skipping breakfast.

Secondly becoming more active is never going to be a bad thing if you're trying to improve your health and fitness. If you are sedentary then you need to find some form of movement that you enjoy and can fit into your regular routine, even if it's just walking.

I never eat breakfast and never did. I'm not over weight.

The OP wasn't weight loss advice and is being told to add in another meal

@CrouchEndTiger12

Paneer has shocking amounts of fat and calories and I don't eat it for that reason.

That is masses of food. You're having two cooked meals with meat a day in some cases and nut butters and smoothies and porridge

I have coffee for breakfast, take away low fat sandwich or sushi or salad for lunch, stir fry or lean meat and vegetables or fish for dinner.

I maintain weight with that

But there’s nothing else in the paneer meal. So the paneer is 300 calories, then there’s just tomatoes and spinach. The OP needs to eat something

@CrouchEndTiger12

Paneer has shocking amounts of fat and calories and I don't eat it for that reason.

That is masses of food. You're having two cooked meals with meat a day in some cases and nut butters and smoothies and porridge

I have coffee for breakfast, take away low fat sandwich or sushi or salad for lunch, stir fry or lean meat and vegetables or fish for dinner.

I maintain weight with that

I don't call 1350 calories a day "masses of food" did you look at the weights I listed? No-one else on this thread has said it's masses of food either.

@nancywhitehead

You skip breakfast half the days, my advice is first of all to sort that out and stop skipping breakfast.

Secondly becoming more active is never going to be a bad thing if you're trying to improve your health and fitness. If you are sedentary then you need to find some form of movement that you enjoy and can fit into your regular routine, even if it's just walking.

Interestingly, I can attribute my first bout of weight gain to starting to eat breakfast. I got an absolute dressing down from a nurse about not eating breakfast so started and then struggled to stop.

Like I've said, I'm going to try and do a lunch time walk daily. I do already do 30minutes of exercise 5 times a week but my day job is sedentary, and I can't change that.

OP please look up lipoedema and keto. I'm not saying you have this disease but your pear shape and upper arm weight gain really stand out. I mention this as I have recently been diagnosed myself.

I agree that 1400 calories for someone who is 5’7” is not much at all.

@Misty999

OP please look up lipoedema and keto. I'm not saying you have this disease but your pear shape and upper arm weight gain really stand out. I mention this as I have recently been diagnosed myself.

That's a depressing thought! But good shout, thanks.

I definitely wouldn’t buy into the ‘eat more to lose weight.’ I would look at your portions and make certain they are as low as you think. Also maybe start weighing/measuring things like yoghurt, as ‘a dollop’ could be a lot.

@4PawsGood

I agree that 1400 calories for someone who is 5’7” is not much at all.

I agree, Im the same height, a decade older and probably eat twice that amount, which I know is too much but my weight only increases very slightly on that amount.

If I manage to cut down to around 1800 to 2000, I lose weight quite easily. Several sources put my TDEE at around 2200 so there's something going on for the OPs to be so low.

@Kanaloa

I definitely wouldn’t buy into the ‘eat more to lose weight.’ I would look at your portions and make certain they are as low as you think. Also maybe start weighing/measuring things like yoghurt, as ‘a dollop’ could be a lot.

I weighed it today and "a dollop" was 43grams. So smaller than I've been accounting for my half!

Yep the old though shalt not miss breakfast advice is about as useful as the old "choose low fat and saccharine instead of sugar alternative options and eat lots of pasta" diets. There's no one magical meal that you must eat nor is it in any way important to eat 3 meals instead of two.

I think that if you're sure your portion sizes are right and you're definitely not snacking on anything else then others might be right that your GP isn't completely on the ball breezily assuring you that your thyroid medication is correct - not telling you the exact values somewhat supports that suspicion.

UntilYourNextHairBrainedScheme

I've had several GPs since my diagnosis and other than my diagnostic blood tests I've never been told anything other than "within normal range" or "slightly elevated, increase dosage" etc. When pregnant I was under the endocrinologist and he gave me details but they were "optimal" at that point.

I'm definitely not snacking, we don't have anything in the house to snack on except apples and bananas. And I HATE bananas.

Chubbychubkins I live abroad and we have to be given complete printed breakdowns of the results of all blood tests, which is why I get suspicious if actual results aren't shared! I am out of touch with what's normal for the NHS though - not being told seems odd but if its been the same from several doctors perhaps thats NHS normal practice...

I don't know - I'd cut out one cooked meal completely as I said but not if your meals are tiny (I don't weigh food or calorie count so I only know that one cooked meal and one porridge or salad per day works for me - I'm sure my meal must be bigger than yours if everything you eat adds up to 1200 calories or less) and you're always hungry and really only eating 1200 calories long term at 5 ft 7!

Btw I get hungry if I've eaten processed carbohydrates the day before or earlier in the day - I've realised that (blood sugar spiking and crashing) is more often the cause of my feelings of hunger than insufficient food intake. I'm ironically hungrier if I ate a whole pizza the day before than if I ate a salad for lunch and a small piece of fish and vegetables for dinner. I'm sure you know that though, and you don't seem to be eating excessive processed carbohydrates. I find vegetable (including potatoes) carbohydrates don't mess my blood sugar up, its basically just flour and sugar that do.

I do believe you that you're counting correctly, but something can't be right with your metabolism if you're gaining continually on 1200 calories at 38 years old and 5 ft 7!

I don't think a salad would be fewer calories than what I'm eating now, not if it's going to keep me going until tea. I tend to have lunch around 1 but don't eat dinner until 8/8.30.

I assume they'll give me blood test details if I ask, but not otherwise.

@Kona84 @Chubbychubkins

Under eating can also cause weigh gain- your body will start storing fat as it thinks resources are low.

That was basically what my dietician had said to me:

That because I'd done so many vlcd for so long, as soon as I start to eat anywhere approaching normally, my body stores all the cals it can as fat ready for the next time of starvation that it has come to expect, hence why I start to gain so easily, even at a relatively low intake of cals.

So we ended up with pizza last night for one reason or another, so I had 1/4 of the pizza -427cals and a large salad with a boiled egg which was around 200 calories and a sprinkle of balsamic vinegar (no oil).

Total for the day was 1214 calories.

Today I've not eaten yet. Trying to decide what to have for lunch. I'm WFH and it's batch cook time this evening.

If you undereat for long enough you will lose weight. VLCDs, especially very low carb ones can mess up your metabolism.

One thing I haven't seen you mention OP is whether your body measurements have changed at all although you haven't lost weight? I found my shape changed a lot with weight training as I was losing body fat due to a high protein, moderate carbs and fat diet alongside the weights.

@WeAreTheHeroes

If you undereat for long enough you will lose weight. VLCDs, especially very low carb ones can mess up your metabolism.

One thing I haven't seen you mention OP is whether your body measurements have changed at all although you haven't lost weight? I found my shape changed a lot with weight training as I was losing body fat due to a high protein, moderate carbs and fat diet alongside the weights.

I've got bigger, my clothes are getting very tight. I don't think it's muscle.

OP said her measurements are increasing as her larger clothes are too tight.

I’d go back to the doctor. Something isn’t right.

In which case I think you need to speak to your GP as this could well be thyroid related or down to something else.