If you have lost a lot of weight please read and advise

[needchange01927374]

Hello everybody.

I posted on here a few weeks ago about being in a dire state and needing to change. I tipped the scales at 17 stone which makes me obese.

I have been chatting to a family member tonight who is into fitness and nutrition, and they advised me that I should avoid all processed food. They said that I shouldn’t calorie count but rather eat foods that are not processed as I will feel fuller for longer.

I was planning on doing calorie counting because that’s how my brain is wired. I did it in the past and it worked for a bit. I also lost 4+ stone on WW, so mentally for me this is how I lose weight - by doing some form of counting.

I don’t know anything about nutrition, and I find the mass of information out there overwhelming. However, I have just bought the book “ultra processed people”, which I plan on starting tonight.

So my question for you is…. have you lost a lot of weight by not eating processed foods? Are there are any golden resources / cookbooks that I should be following? I want to lose at least 6 stone.

I would really appreciate anyone’s advice / tips / sharing of their experiences.

Oh yes, I agree, actually I was genuinely asking "why".

As an aside, once you stop eating and consuming this stuff it's like a revelation, @needchange01927374 . It's like a film is peeled back from your eyes and you see everything differently. The supermarket isn't a shop, it's a battleground where companies vie with each other to force you to buy their dangerous RUBBISH and ultimately harm your own health!

And I wasn't even that bad with processed food before, but I realise how I was taken in. Taken for a fool, actually, for years.

A big positive is it gets a lot quicker to go round the supermarket because you can skip past whole sections of sugary crap.

I've lost three stone over the last 8 months or so. I go to the gym two or three times a week, which some people say doesn't help, but it seems to help me. The other thing I did was to think about what I was eating and where I could cut something out in a sustainable way.

I identified that I could stop having a piece of toast with breakfast, and cut out a slice of bread at lunchtime as well. I have slightly smaller portions of dinner, particularly of carbs, and I've cut down on how much chocolate I have - I buy myself a small bar when I go shopping and when that's gone, that's it until next week's shop.

I didn't think about UPFs at all, but about what I could give up or reduce long term, although actually we don't eat many UPFs anyway. All of this has meant I'm eating slightly less calories in a sustainable way. I will admit that my weight loss has plateaued the last two months and I'm about a stone above where I'd like to be, so I can see I'm going to need another think about what I can stop/ reduce eating. But this has worked for me so far.

I haven’t read everyone else’s comments but my immediate response to your question-

Take your time. You need to make a sustainable diet change. You can’t just lose weight then go back to old habits.

Reducing UPF helps with that. Do it first, but no need to be zealous about it. Just gently swap across as much as you can.

At the same time, record everything you eat. Just make a list.

Try and eat more protein and vegetables.

That should do the trick.

The goal in slimming isn’t to get to a number and stop. It’s to be healthier than you were yesterday. So if yesterday you had two biscuits and a bag of crisps, today cut out the biscuits. Little by little you’ll reach a healthy weight.

I’m speaking as someone who was morbidly obese for decades, tried everything, and am now at the top of the overweight band trying to live normally, without restrictions, while following my own advice!

@needchange01927374 i think you need to get the upf thing out of your head. It's just the latest fad. Food is enjoyable and getting rid of all the nice processed stuff will only lead to binging or putting the weight back on.
Your 'what you are today' post just screamed of someone who had no plan. It was a real mismatch and I think starting simple by planning would really help you. Plan in treats but not so many - hula hoops, mini roll, chocolate and ice cream seems excessive. Cut your fizzy drinks and switch to water. If that's too much switch to diet. Plan nice meals you'll enjoy. Cool from scratch if you can.
And remember it's a marathon not a sprint. I lost 5stone but it took a year. Don't expect to be dropping 3lbs a week and don't give up if the scales don't budge for a couple of weeks.
Good luck!

@waistchallenge I was replying specifically to the OP who was proclaiming confusion over dietary advice, not setting a national obesity policy. Chill! 😎

Why not be zealous? Why not go cold turkey? I did and I've been very successful.

Some people take a gentle approach, others just go for it 100%.

(⬆️ This is not in reply to @disappearingfish )

@disappearingfish , apart from the first line, my post wasn't in reply to you I was just posting what I thought about the issue.

@whosaidtha concerns are UPF are absolutely not a fad. It's recent because the problem is (relatively) recent.

The makers of UPF are fighting back and trying to pretend the problem isn't there. They're behaving in exactly the same way as the cigarette companies did in the 60s and 70s. This will play out in the same way as the tobacco industry.

Yes me. 9 stone and still going, 4 more to lose. I stared at 23 stone.

I posted a thread in weight loss chat about it the other day.

I eat no processed food at all and no sugar.

Slightly easier for me as I was diagnosed with coeliac and christ, the ingredient in most GF processed foods are awful and most processed foods contain gluten so they are off the table anyway and I don’t trust food I haven’t cooked myself. Not buying GF process foods means that bread/pasta/pastry/cakes etc are off the table anyway.

But I would never go back. I eat a shedload of vegetables along with meat and fish and lentils. I cook a lot of amazing indian food. I only use real butter, coconut oil and olive oil. Real sea salt and full fat greek yogurt and cream. Only drink water and herbal teas.

I feel amazing. I’m not on a diet, this is my life now.

(Not going to lie though, if i hadn’t been diagnosed with coeliac, I would probably still be overweight. I medically can’t have all the shit foods I loved anymore so that is the main thing that changed me).

You need to calorie count.

All the weight-loss ideas which say you don't need to are aimed at the sort of person who doesn't need to but you aren't that sort of person.

Some people just have an instinct for when to stop eating. When they put on weight they don't get obese they just have a few spare pounds to get rid of. You aren't in that category.

I got down from 17ish to 10.5ish stone with calorie counting and enough exercise to ensure I burned fat. You have to do both.

Do you exercise, @needchange01927374 ? Sorry if I have missed this.

Exercise is also important. It’s a combination of gentle exercise and cutting out UPFs that will mean you start to feel very different. Feeling better is the key to loosing weight as feeling better and looking better become the motivators. If a diet makes you feel tired and grumpy. it’s hard to stick to.

I cut out upf in January and lost 15 kg. I am now at/below my goal weight and trying to find ways to put weight on.

Upf completely messes with your hunger signals, I am now rarely hungry between meals or feeling cravings for upf, it feels like I have got over an addiction.

Calorie counting is no longer scientifically backed becuase it depends hugely on how the calories you ingest are processed by your body. That depends on your gut microbiome and the consistency of the food. In the book Ultra Processed People (which I recommend reading) the author talks about how upf is effectively pre chewed, that is the food matrix has been broken down and reformed. The impact of this is that it is broken down by your body more easily and spikes your blood sugar. There are also trials showing that mice eating a upf diet gain a lot more weight than mice eating equivalent calories in a non upf form.

@SunsetApple diet drinks are terrible for you but it’s not easy for everyone to go cold turkey if they drink them on a daily basis. I’m sure OP already knows they are terrible and has bought the UPF book.

I have never really had a problem with my weight, stayed within a stone of my weight my whole life. However have managed to help a couple of overweight friends with their weight loss in a healthy way. They always asked why I was able to eat pudding when we went out our regularly order a curry every couple of weeks. One friend lost 5 stone and has kept it off for 6 years now. Some people just aren’t very good at moderation. I haven’t read UPF but don’t want to be put off things I that I know are UPF but enjoy - chocolate, crisps at the weekend, salad dressing. My issue with it is that it might continue to spur people on to binge eat ‘bad’ UPF foods that they already have an issue with?

No advice OP but I am in exactly the same boat. When I had my son 18 months ago I was almost 22 stone! I'm now tilling the scales at 18.5 stone and I'm disgusted. I've always struggled with my weight but I'm aware more now of the health implications now I have a child. Its so hard to get the weight off. Its probably not a healthy way to do it but I've been fasting for 18 hours from about 6pm-lunch time the next day and then I have lunch like a piece of fruit and tuna salad and then my main meal at teatime again which isn't always healthy but does have protein and some sort of veg. And I drink a ton of water. I've never drank fizzy energy drinks. My downfall is snacking on crisps biscuits and rubbish between meals so I've madena conscious effort to stop this. I also walk 5 miles a day pushing my son in pram. I know it's not ideal but it's a start. I haven't weighed myself yet so not sure if I've lost any weight yet.

are there any online resources / books that are good for non-processed foods recipes?

Most decent cook books don't use a great deal of UPF's. I know you might not be interested in the actual Diet, but the Fast 800 cookbooks have some great recipes that avoid UPF's and are low in sugar/low in processed carbs. If you have a look on the Facebook pages you will see people sharing the type of foods and the recipes they have tried, might give you some ideas

Sorry forgot to add that the recipes in the fast 800 books have the calorie information for each recipe in them.

I don’t agree. You can easily swap diet drinks for teas or water etc. Diet drinks aren’t addictive so there is no reason why you can’t just stop them. Also, my comment wasn’t about you, it was for the OP who has said she wants to explore UPF foods. People have forever sabotaged women’s dietary choices and I think making suggestions that encourage them to make the changes rather than telling someone you’ve managed to stay within your weight on your diet which includes you eating pudding (which may not be UPF if it is homemade) or crisps or chocolates on a weekend, which is irrelevant. I’m one of those people who can’t manage to stick to chocolate or crisps on the weekend, not that I eat crisps and some chocolate over 75% is fine. OP might be one of those people and sometimes making a clean break is the only way to do it. This post was about UPF and there is a wealth of information online about how to make changes and what to look for. Interesting that you put ‘bad’ in brackets though, as if any of them are ‘good.’ Not to say I don’t eat some occasionally but I try to avoid as much as possible. Diet drinks are possibly one of the worst things you can include in your diet. Read the evidence.

OP, have a look at Zoe on Instagram. They give suggestions and ideas for meals and things you can do to improve your microbiome, which will help.

I find the low carb approach to be the best! If you combine low carbs with high fat & protein, you will go into ketosis, where you will switch from using sugar as a fuel to using fat. This is converted to ketones, which are your energy source. You can even test this by testing for ketones in your urine using Ketostix. If you also increase your aerobic exercise, you are bound to lose weight!

I have been varying levels of fat since childhood but it peaked in 2021 and I have lost 4.5 stone since then. I'm currently working on the last 3 stone.

After a million failed attempts over the past 20 years, my advice is not to go hammer and tongs right away. If you try to change everything drastically, you won't stick to it so forget about UPF for now and just make small changes every day. It's different when someone has a stone to lose and they want to optimise their diet but I have been morbidly obese (BMI 43) and when you have that much weight to lose, it's about progress over perfection. Optimisation can come later.

I'm autistic and I have ARFID so my list of "safe" foods would fit on a postage stamp. I don't do anything fancy, I eat plenty of carbs but because I was so heavy, the weight came off at first just by reducing my portion sizes. I didn't even calorie count, I just started by skipping breakfast and then I tweaked things as I got smaller.

I am also limited in terms of exercise due to multiple physical conditions so I bought one of those flat walking treadmills and that's all I do.

People have many, many opinions about the "right" way to do things but the right way is the way that's sustainable for you. Many people would be horrified by my diet and lack of intense exercise but my mantra is I can't do everything but I can do something, and that is better than doing nothing.

A lot of people have been conditioned to be terrified of fat. I’ve had so many negative comments about eating animal fat and using butter and coconut oil instead of existing off of rice cakes, 0 fat yogurt and crappy 1 cal spray seed oils.

Good fats are healthy, but a lot of people refuse to believe it.

Low carb worked for me, three stone off in five months.

no pasta spuds bread rice sweets biscuits cakes sugary drinks

i don’t calorie count because it makes me obsessed

meat and two veg, massive salads..not very exciting, but it works.

you have to find something that keeps you satisfied & doesn’t make you feel like you are “missing out”

Anna Richardson's “body blitz” books are helpful

Just ignore them! When you start losing weight, they will change their minds!

I've lost weight through WW, SW, low carb and low sugar/"no crap" (ie can eat wholemeal bread but not cake). With WW and SW the weight went back on with low carb some went back on but not all and with low sugar it's been a longer-lasting steady loss because it was maintainable.

i'm now 6 stone lighter than i was and have been at this weight for about 5 years. both low carb and low sugar greatly reduce the volume of ready-made stuff you can eat. i also try to only eat within a 10 hour window (for me 9am-7pm).

i have PCOS and sugar triggers off cravings for me as soon as i have it - so your example of having a mini roll at breakfast would mean i'd eat sugar the rest of the day. whereas if i have quinoa porridge (i'm now intolerant to dairy and oats...) i'm much better.

i'm not currently managing to eat as well as i should but manage my excess consumption via exercise - but it's taken years to get to the point where i am capable of being so active so definitely better to start with your diet.

what breakfast and lunch would work for you? start with those! and add in some extra walking or swimming or yoga or dancing round your room...

I’ve lost 9 stone so far! But I am definitely going to die of a heart attack becuase I eat butter like uncle John did. (Only uncle john had it slathered on a whole loaf of white bread everyday 🙄, I’ve heard it al!)

Never blame the butter for what the bread did 💪🏻