I weigh 17 stone and I am looking for some advice

[Heybarbie1028]

As the title says… I weigh 17 stone, 5”7. I am obese and I know it’s time to change.

I joined the gym last week and I’ve been considering getting a personal trainer for a while. Well I had a taster session today and I honestly think I am too unfit for any personal training right now. The trainer also wasn’t that encouraging either even though I was visibly struggling. They just sort of just told me what to do and watched me.

I feel like I can’t walk now and I don’t know if it’s best I shed a few stone first by going to the gym and eating well before paying more money to tone up.

What are your thoughts? Anyone been in the same position?

Just to say that healthy food doesn't have to be boring, it can still make you happy! You could find some lower calorie alternatives for what you like to eat and then they would still feel good whilst eating them.
I follow a really good person on Instagram that talks about how to maintain a healthy outlook on food rather than cutting out things you like and end up bingeing on them later

If you’re feeling over whelmed try not to change everything you’re eating at once. Just aim for a healthy nutritious breakfast and see if you can keep that up for a week and then add In changing to a healthy mid morning snack for a week then add in healthy lunch. Baby steps.

I just don’t know where to start.

whether to count calories or not
what to eat (for example I thought weetabix was a healthy breakfast but I’ve been told otherwise)
what to do when I go out socialising

I definitely agree with finding something small and achieveable you can change, maybe weekly or monthly. My next goal when the weather is better is to eat my lunch while walking around the grounds where I work. It won't take long but it could add about 1500 steps to my daily steps total.

I'm obese too and I eat when I'm bored, so I'm trying to do more structured activities outside of the home so I'm not sat on the sofa eating. I'm about to start Ceroc which will be good exercise but also 3 hours out of the house away from the kitchen! I also go to bed much earlier, as soon as I start thinking about eating in the evenings.

Regarding food, I've made portion changes but I'm trying not to cut things out, just cut them down or try lower calorie alternatives for a similar hit.

I would agree you do not need a PT, what you need now is gentle exercise but consistently.Little and often, everyday.

Really focus on diet and portion size to begin with as this is where your biggest gains will be. Limit and then ditch the fizzy drinks, crisps and takeaways for now and take it from there.

Forget calorie counting - just focus on a healthy diet. Keeping to the 5 pieces of fruit and veg a day is a very good way to start. Weetabix is better than a fry up, but don't add any sugar etc. Porridge is ideal with fruit.

You feel crap because you are eating crap.

You must feel dreadful - all that sugar and refined crap.

Start slowly one thing a week.

No fizzy drinks - drink water instead.

Then next week replace something else. And get into the routine of going to the gym. Same time same day every week. Even if you walk in treadmill for 15 mins.

My mind is wired to count calories though or to count something in order to lose weight.

I’ve tried googling healthy breakfasts and lunches and so many recipes seem to have obscure ingredients. I live by myself so I don’t want to be spending lots of money on food I’ll only use one.

Does anyone have a diet plan they could share with me?

I know the fizzy drinks must go. I’ve drunk nearly 2 litres of Diet Coke today. It’s truly terrible.

So I'm not on a diet but this would be usual food for the day

Yogurt and granola
Sandwich/ pitta bread with egg salad or cheese salad
Dinner - meat balls and sauce with rice, maybe chicken breast and rice or chips.

If I'm peckish I might have bag crisps or bar of something.

I only drink fizzy drinks if I'm hungover or have a takeaway.

I also exercise 6 days out of 7.

I absolutely agree with @thedancingparrot and this is exactly what I'm doing. I can't not eat sugar and crisps, but I'm trying to make homemade alternatives so I'm more in control of what's in there.

I definitely see my healthy eating journey as steps... from not great, via reasonable, down to okay, maybe reaching pretty good. I cannot be successful going from my current diet to an instagram-worthy nutritionally top notch diet instantly, it would last a week, max!

Weight bearing exercise is very good for weight loss. Maybe try another personal trainer, if that one wasn’t helpful?

I think, with all things, people who are good at something end up teaching it, and can’t understand why the people they teach need extra help and encouragement.

Make a bowl of porridge in the morning. Just milk and oats; have two (flat) teaspoons of sugar on it. And a banana. That's how you start eating better. Have an apple at 10:00, and an orange at 11;00. Eat a sandwich at 12:30, and then another apple/orange or some carrot sticks every hour until you go home from work. You won't fade from calorific deprivation.

For the record here's my old and new daily eats...

Old diet
Breakfast: 2 (sometimes 4) individually wrapped pain au chocolates
Lunch: half a share bag of skittles, toasted bagel with butter, crisps, half a large chocolate bar
Dinner: Homemade bolognese with pasta or other mostly homemade dinner.
Evening snacks: 1-2 bags of crisps, 4-8 biscuits, 1-2 brunch bars or snack sized chocolate bars

New diet (1st step of a work in progress)
Breakfast: none (I'm intermittent fasting)
Lunch: homemade chicken bites, toasted bagel with butter, 1 packet of crisps, snack sized chocolate bar, apple, clementine, 6 jelly cubes if I'm desperate for a chewy sweet snack
Snack: 1 brunch bar
Dinner: homemade bolognese with pasta or other mostly homemade dinner
Evening snacks: none (intermittent fasting). I go to bed early if I'm tempted to snack!

Swapping a big chocolate bar for a snack sized one, skittles for jelly cubes. Stopping the evening snacking.

Dinner isn't changing much, I am trying to watch my portion size though.

One problem with what to eat is there are quite a lot of different takes on it and there is always something new coming out saying the other things are bad for you and will probably cause cancer. I'd say just pick something that appeals to you most and get started, you can always make changes as you go along.

I'm not perfect but my diet has been reasonable lately..

Today for breakfast I had protein porridge made with almond milk and semi skimmed, honey and blueberries. Plus 2 coffees.

Lunch was a protein bagel with a light covering of philadelphia light, ham, cheese, cucumber and a little mayonnaise.

Dinner was 2 slices of small wholemeal loaf with a small amount of butter (real stuff) light mayonnaise, avacado and 2 boiled eggs.

I did have a bit of cake, a biscuit and I'm drinking wine but I've done a 4 mile school run on foot, spent the best part of 6 hours on my feet at work and been for a run. I am at my calorie limit of 1600 for today but I'm very short and only a little bit overweight so I get less calories than someone taller/heavier.

I'm not the most accurate of loggers but I leave some spare daily to account for that bit of cheese or the cake.

If I were you I would just start slowly, if you want to log calories go onto a website which gives you a suggestion based on your activity levels (Google TDEE calculators) use myfitnesspal to log your foods and try that.

Or just aim for more fruit and vegetables, less processed stuff, more variety. Omelettes are great for breakfast if you have time, use whole eggs or egg whites and fill with things like tomato, peppers, onions, ham, cheese, spinach. I eat so much spinach because it's so easy to chuck into something like pasta or an omelette. I have a carton of egg whites from the supermarket that I mix with a whole egg, I'm not going to lie, a fully loaded proper egg omelette with a shed load of cheese is much nicer but it's not great long term.

You can do this, it's hard, it's horrible and you will want to quit. Even if you fall off and have a load of cake one day it's fine, you need to give yourself the things you love sometimes or you will end up being miserable and going back to eating how you were.

Slimming World worked for me. I'm a foodie and I liked it because you could eat a lot 😋 but it really helped me to understand including more of the good stuff on my plate and eliminate the crap. I learned so many healthy ways to make the dishes I love and nothing was complicated (I don't do complicated!) Weekly weigh ins kept me on track, because if I gained I was annoyed with myself! There isn't any counting calories or anything complex. I loved the ease of it, and endless easy recipes and tips online or in classes!

Right. Lifelong yoyo dieter here. You have a food addiction and it's not your fault. Let me repeat that. You are addicted to food and it is not your fault.
The vast majority of our modern diets are full of Ultra Processed Foods or UPF. They are addictive, they trick your brain into thinking you are going to get nutritious food, then when you end up eating a load of ultra processed crap you don't feel satisfied and end up wanting more and more. They are also way more affordable than actual real food.
Loads of information out there and a few threads on here to get you started. But a few easy swaps
Supermarket bread swapped for sourdough (Jasons is a good brand)
All diet drinks swapped for sparkling or still water, with fruit in if you like.
Breakfast cereals swapped for overnight oats or shredded wheat.
Margarine swapped for butter.
Processed ham swapped for parma ham.
Chocolate bars swapped for dark chocolate, nuts, home baked cakes.
Wraps swapped for Crosta Mollica flatbreads.
Flavoured crisps swapped for plain ready salted.

I know this all goes against a lot of current advice and seems really counter intuitive, but ai promise if you give this a chance you will start to feel properly full and satisfied and will gradually start to eat less.
This is the only way of eating that has made any difference to me, I do not feel the need to binge on crap anymore and I feel properly full and satisfied for the first time ever.

Ultra processed foods www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/4917648-ultra-processed-foods

www.amazon.co.uk/Ultra-Processed-People-Stuff-That-Isnt-ebook/dp/B0B1TRPQCT?nodl=1&dplnkId=58d00d01-0367-4a26-9127-6823254499fb

Popping on to say that I am on day 4 of an on line chair yoga programme and already feeling a little more flexible. It is very gentle. I am 18 stone and 5' 4" , a life long serial dieter with a cake addiction. I am losing weight by having a big bowl of porridge with fruit and Skyr, home made soup (carrot and parsnip is lush) and then meat and veg for evening meal. It's working and I don't feel hungry. Been here before though but time is running out for me so I have to make this my life now.

You seem overwhelmed and seem to need structure around what you need to do

I would suggest either WW or SW then, join up. It doesnt matter which one because they both end up with you eating less which is what you need, stick to their respective system and just be rigid about it

The rules will mean you're not worrying about what to do and what direction to go in

Once you have lost a chunk of weight, couple of stone or something, you might want to then just go your own way

This is good advice in my opinion and I am doing similar. Apart from having worn a continuous glucose monitor it has become apparent that I have a degree of insulin resistance and I do much better with lower carb which stops the big and long glucose spikes I was getting and makes me a lot less hungry and I get properly full now which I didn’t used to do.

It’s going to take time but you have started. Take it day by day for now and don’t try to do it all at once. Nutracheck is helpful I find if you want to count calories. Keep posting here or maybe start a thread in the weight loss section.

Of course you’re going to ache if this is the first exercise you’ve done for a while. you need to walk and lots at least 10k steps But build up to that. That may sound daunting but at an ok pace it’s only 1.5- 2 hours of activity, a very small amt of your day. Honestly walking is underestimated you will feel the difference in within yourself in no time.

I’ve tried googling healthy breakfasts and lunches and so many recipes seem to have obscure ingredients.

keep it simple- less ingredients the better.

example of a healthy breakfast - porridge with fruit. Water and coffee\tea
Or scrambled eggs with 1 slice toast
Or toast with peanut butter

lunch - soup. Loads of easy soup recipes out there. Make it veg or bean based, like lentils.
BBC food website is quite good.

snack on nuts or fruit. Do not let your mood dictate what you do - moods can be changed easily. Walk 10-15 mins before breakfast & lunch. Drink water before every meal.

I had a BMI of 32 for about 8 years from menopause to 60. I didn't do anything about it because I assumed it was age related and inevitable, weight gain.

3 years ago at age 60 I found out I had high BP and was recommended to see my GP. I bloody hate doctors so decided I'd give changing my diet three months and see if that improved my BP.
I switched from mainly UHP foods to a mainly veggie diet of 30+ fruit and veg a week with very small potions of protein at every meal and very few carbs. (i still love wine and gin).

It was like a miracle. Within 3 months my BP dropped from Grade 1/3 to Optimal. And to my amazement, with zero calorie counting, I lost 18kg in 9 months and went from a size 14/16 to 8. My BMI is now 21.

it was genuinely so easy. Lots of fruit, veg, nuts, eggs, Greek yoghurt, and legumes. Very little meat. Small portions if I eat out. 2/3 alcohol free days a week. My BP improved, my heart rate dropped and my dress size plummeted.

If you're looking to add in some exercise but aren't comfortable at the gym, there are some excellent 'walk at home' workouts on YouTube - have a look at Get Fit with Rick or Reps to the Rhythm.