Sick of being overweight

[Octowussy]

I've been overweight since I was about 4, I'm 25 now. Can you give me meal and snack ideas? I am a bit fussy, as in I don't like raw vegetables so the idea of a salad or a plate of carrots and hummus fills me with misery. I only enjoy a handful of vegetables but I like most fruits. I also struggle with cutting down on sugar, specifically chocolate.

Will kettlebell exercises at home be sufficient or will I need to attend the gym? How long should I work out at home?

I feel very overwhelmed, I'm 5'1, approx 180 lbs and I want to get to 140 lbs as a first goal.

Any help is much appreciated, thank you

I’m eating a lot of fruit at the moment instead of other snacks. Since you’ve been overweight from a young age have you had your thyroid function checked ?

My advice if you find cutting sugar down difficult is to cut it out completely for a couple of weeks. It's a tricky couple of weeks but you realise that sugar was an addiction and can come back to it much more sanely. Just before xmas may not be the best time to do this.

Don’t Snack. Eat three healthy meals a day and you will lose weight.

I haven't had this checked. Is this something I'd have to push for at the doctors or is it routine?

It's going to be so hard, I still live at home with my mom. She's bought so much chocolate (quality streetc chocolate coins, advent calendar etc) I'm not sure how to manage

How do I overcome the urge to snack? It's tricky and overwhelming, especially when I get bored/when WFH

I'm planning the following until christmas:

Greek yoghurt, nuts, chia seeds.
Salad with cheese or ham, or apple with peanut butter etc for lunch, try to keep the protein up.
Meat & veg for dinner.
Apples or tangerines as snacks if needed.

Your mum can buy it but it's up to you whether you eat it or not. You can eat it if you want. You're just choosing not to until (say) next week.

I I had regular bloods done and then had to specifically ask for a thyroid function check (even though it’s a common side effect of my meds)

Fruit, full fat yoghurt and splash of honey for breakfast
or egg omelette with whatever veg you will eat
homemade soup for lunch or beans and eggs on a slice of toast
lean meat and whatever veg you will eat for dinner
snacks: 100 cal crisps and 100 cal chocolate biscuit to keep cravings at bay

Kettlebell is weight training, so it will make you stronger and leaner but muscle weighs more than fat. You need to do cardio for fat loss so fast walking for 20/30 minutes a day will make more difference to weight.

Can I ask, what do you tend to put in salads? I've never liked salad type foods so it's tricky for me to force myself to eat certain foods (especially tomato and cucumber) I do like spinach and onions but that sounds like a sad salad. The rest of what you've listed is definitely doable for me, thank you!

Oh I know it's definitely a choice to eat it or not, it's just even harder when she buys it and the fridge is fully loaded with chocolate and snacks 😭

Thank you. Is there any sort of symptoms I'd need to present to the doctor for them to consider a thyroid check? I'm not sure what I should be looking out for

Thank you! Can I ask, do you weigh out your yoghurt, fruit, vegetables etc?

You know what to do. We all do. Eat three healthy meals. Don’t snack. Get out & walk for at least 30 minutes a day to start with & you’ll lose weight.

If you don’t like salads for lunch, make some homemade soups or do roasted veg with feta/halloumi. Good luck!

Thank you for this info, it's good to know. I might invest in a fold away treadmill, going to the gym after work is not a great experience for me!

See if you can get on Wegovy. It's life-changing. All of the food noise disappears.

I’m not sure as the only symptom I noticed was weight gain. Just say you are overweight and want to make sure there isn’t a medical issue causing it

Do something else when you get the urge to snack, walk round the block, play a game on your mobile phone, write a journal.

You have a habit and are addicted to sugar, so treat it like that. You may feel worse briefly because your body is so used to it.

II am British but of Chinese heritage so have been raised and have raised DS on a mainly Chinese diet, DH is English so we do eat English food and I do like it.

But stuff like biscuits rarely even pass this threshold , I was not raised on pudding. I was raised on quite healthy food. Chinese food is not like Chinese take away food it’s much healthier. It’s easy to naturally slide in to what we were raised with, it’s not your fault. DS English GF is used to English food obviously, she has lost quite a bit of weight as she stays half the week with us. She is actually very pleased with the outcome.

One thing I did find with some ex colleagues is some people seem very offended if you do not take cake, biscuits etc at tea break if they are also taking it. Your Mum may be like this so be prepared for this angle.

I'm in my 50s and recently went on my first diet.
The GP suggested keto - high protein and fat, v.low carbs & sugar.
It is working for me as I don't feel hungry.

I no longer have hot chocolate for breakfast, kit kats during the day, desserts, most fruit, or even sweet vegetables such as carrots. But I don't feel hungry.

Can you ask your Mum to move the chocolate to somewhere not accessible? It is all very well people saying it is your choice, but out of sight out of mind will help a lot.

I've just had a quick look online at this as I'd never heard of it before. Can you tell me your experiences with it? Thank you

but muscle weighs more than fat
This is bullshit! A lb of anything weighs a lb! Muscle is more dense than fat so you could be more muscley but weigh more than someone who in appearance looks around the same size as you. That said, as women it is very hard to build significant amounts of muscle and a couple of weights sessions a week at the gym aren't going to make you "overweight". You need to do weights alongside cardio to loose weight as muscle burns more calories than fat. It'll also help to stop you going saggy!
Ultimately though, 80-90% of weight loss is what you put in your mouth so you need to track calories as even eating healthily you can still be eating more than you burn. I would start by aiming to do 10,000 steps a day, use your kettlebells 2-3 times a week and track what you eat. I'd aim for 1700-1800 calories a day but with exercise you could probably loose weight on more.

I think your mum/dad have a lot to answer for if you have been overweight since 4. I am so sorry about that. Have a talk with your parents and ask them they need to help you by not buying crap. That's a first step. Good luck

I've been losing weight this year with a combination of intermittent fasting (16:8) and daily workouts.

I'm post menopausal, which brings its own set of weight/metabolism issues, and I also have underactive thyroid, CFS and Fibromyalgia.

My GP suspected thyroid issues because I was always cold, exhausted, and putting weight on even though I was working out and eating healthily. It's always worth getting checked out if only to rule it out as an issue.

Intermittent fasting is so simple to do and effective. When you get into a pattern of eating within a set number of hours and then stopping for the day, you adapt to not snacking and making sure you eat enough at each meal to ensure you're not hungry. Increase your protein, and keep snacks (if you need them) to eg apples, nuts & seeds. Cut out milky coffees, cut right down on sugary stuff - sweets, biscuits (I still eat the occasional biscuit/sweet/chocolate because I like them and life's too short to stop having treats altogether).

Try cooking from scratch so you know what's in your food. Avoid Ultra Processed Foods where possible.