Where is my diet going wrong and keeping me obese?

[BoobsGalore]

I am mid 50s. Weigh 94 kg.
Always been curvy, have lipedema (heavy diet -resistant legs) on HRT.
Spent years on low fat artificial sweetener type diets, now for the last 5 years eat less UPF, no low fat anything. Try to be reasonably low carb.

I am doing intermittent fasting (16/8) since early Aug and have lost 4.5 kg but it's painfully slow.
Tried mounjaro back in Spring but had to come off it after it triggered terrible panic attacks.

I am photographing my meals for my intermittent fasting app. Here is yesterday's food - spinach omelette for brunch and a bean and courgette stew for dinner. I had 2 slices of home made bread, a handful of mixed nuts, and an apple as well as what is pictured. Will add a couple of other days as well. Is it the carbs?

I have noticed I don't drink enough - about 1.5 litres a day of tea, coffee, diet coke (1 can a day, I think it's an addiction) and squash or water. Would that make a huge difference?

Haven't read thread. Your food looks great. But what's the yellow stuff on the bread in above pic (looks like butter or cheese?) on white bread.

It could be these little things tripping you up. Your kind of eating looks to be a Slimming World type plan where you are filling up on big volume, low calorie foods and that works great but you really need to watch stuff like cheese, butter, white bread, biscuits, cakes etc.

Have a look at the Slimming World plan. I think it will suit your eating style.

Stay away from UPF.

UPF and obesity/weight issues go hand in hand.

Crosse and Blackwell soup is UPF.

If you remove all upf and dramatically limit all carbs things will improve.

Study the zoe diet.

From everything you've said about your health (specifically pre-diabetes/insulin resistance) it does sound like a low carb diet would suit you. And you've referenced that before in the thread. But that's not what you're eating. The last meals you had look pretty carb-heavy - a bread roll and then the rice with your curry.

TBH I wouldn't worry too much about exercise - unless you're going to do a lot of it, every day, it won't have much impact on weight loss. It's more about your diet. There's a saying 'you can't outrun your fork'!

This is the thing - I have got confused. I don't know if low UPF is enough (home made bread) or if I should do straight calories or straight low carb.
It was actually Baxter's chicken broth and yes UPF, but generally I am pretty good at limiting UPFs overall if you look at my week's meals.

Slimming world is what screwed me up in my 20s and 30s, I don't want to do that again - but thank you, you weren't to know!

Btw amongst all the many things I have done the Zoe diet is one of them. Confirmed poor sugar metabolism and poor fat metabolism and recommended nuts avocadoes and seeds - but eating the Zoë way didn't help me lose any weight, too calorific.

Those meals don't look massive at all!!! I would have that and a third meal too. I'm 5'7 and 9.5 stone so not overweight.

I drink black coffee and water (I do drink alcohol when I go out).

I would stick with it, the meals look fab and I agree if you cut the butter beans you'll end up eating shit.

I have completely cut out biscuits though and if I am hungry I'll have frozen fruit (defrosted) with Greek yogurt. It's UPF and high in protein if you get the right one.

Me too 🤣🤣

3 potatoes! Oh my goodness carb overload 🤦🏼‍♀️.

It's actually quite worrying how disordered some people's thinking on here is.

Hi OP, well done on your weight loss so far.

I'm about the same age 54 and started the year at 88kg and have been maintaining around 68kg for about 3 months.

Here's some things that helped me and are still helping me.

I did count calories at first but now I just do a few times a week to make sure they are not drifting up.

I weight myself twice a week and log it. Have learned that when I don't do this the weight drifts upwards.

I ate in a calorie deficit, very easy to convince yourself that you are eating fewer calories than you are.

Looking at your plates some are more than I would have had. A 500 calorie deficit can easily be chipped into.

I did build in nuts, dairy, high protein yoghurts and avocado even though they are high calories as I found it kept me more full and less likely to snack.

The calorie difference in losing and maintaining is not that much, reality for me was that if I wasn't actively dieting then my weight was drifting up. Finally hoping now to have made a permanent lifestyle change now and can't got back to the portion sizes and snacks that I was eating before.

This is the thing - I have got confused. I don't know if low UPF is enough

No, it's not a weight loss method even though UPF consumption is linked with obesity.

or if I should do straight calories or straight low carb.
It's not "either/or", I combined counting calories, low carb and intermittent fasting to lose my weight and lots of people do similar on the Weight Loss board. I didn't count calories for long because after a couple of weeks I knew where I had been going wrong and because it can be a bit tedious. I also used exercise which, contrary to what you will read on here, does work in combination with other measures. I like to include exercise not just because I enjoy it, health reasons and so on but because it lets me have snacks and up my calories.

God people have gone mental about UPFs

A tin of soup is neither here nor there and not likely UPF although Im sure some are

UPFs that arent great are the sort of cakes and biscuits that are largely made of non food items or ready snacks made of chemicals, not soup and bread or stuff like that

Not enough protein . You need to track everything for cals and nutrient balance.

I'm 5.6 and losing weight slowly on 1850 cals. Typical day is overnight oats with apple, greek yoghurt, cottage cheese and eggs on toast, chicken wrap and bean soup, or smoked salmon and Puy lentil salad, and spag bol or fish and New potato stew. Maybe a yoghurt nut and strawberry snack or a homemade chickpea and peanut butter energy ball. Lots of water.

IMO calorie counting really helps, esp at the start so you get an odea of what you should be eating.
Then its whole foods all the way! Try and make 90% of your diet things like vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, etc (meat, fish, greek yoghurt is thats your thing).
Save the UPF for special treats or extras. Ive lost over 100Ibs the last couple of years and still have a packet of crisps every night!

(and dont worry too much about protein. Nobody eating an adequate amount of calories is protein deficient, it just doesnt happen!).

ITT: reduce carbs, don't reduce carbs, add protein, don't add protein, exercise, don't bother exercising, eliminate UPFs, don't eliminate UPFs, calorie count, don't calorie count 😬

Daily plate update. After some advice via PM, I am sliding towards low carb.

As well as the pictured items I made a loaf of low carb bread (16g carbs per 100g) from the Body and Fit bread mix, and had a slice with butter. Plus a plum.
https://www.bodyandfit.com/en-gb/Products/Food-%26-Bars/Home-baking/Baking-Pre-mixes/Protein-Bread-Mix/p/11295?feed=yes

Lunch was tinned mackerel in spicy tomato sauce and home made coleslaw (80 percent Greek yoghurt 20 percent mayo)

Dinner was roast chicken and veg. Plus a new potato.

To avoid portion assumptions, let me clarify that the plate I served dinner on is one size larger than my lunch plate. I have another set of "dinner plates" that are larger still.

OP, are you changing your snacks and drinks too? And doing some exercise? As your main meals really don't seem to be the sticking point here.

I am talking through the snacks I have each day, and making an effort to drink more water.

I haven't done a great deal about additional exercise since exercise biking earlier in the week, because we have had an unexpected family emergency which has meant I have to be monitoring someone very closely and can't wander off for a bike ride or anything just now. However it's on my list.

I think lower carb makes sense. Maybe not no carbs, but 1-2 small potatoes like in the post above as opposed to 3-4+. Or one slice of toast instead of two. Gives you energy, but not carb overkill.

I haven't done a great deal about additional exercise since exercise biking earlier in the week, because we have had an unexpected family emergency

OP, this is a really useful insight as it illustrates the sort of mental shift I had to make to lose the weight for good.
When I was overweight I would absolutely have responded as you have here. Anything was an excuse not to exercise- kids ill, family emergency, husband away for work, me away for work, staying in for workmen, etc etc. List goes on.
What I had to do was change my behaviour and consider what I can do, not what I can't. So now, all those things still happen, but I'll find a half hour slot for a Caroline Girvans or a Yoga with Adrienne in my living room instead. Those little changes add up and, together with the changes you've already made to your meals (which are looking great to me) will help you get where you want to be.

Hate to add to the general confusion but I think you could increase the size of these meals by adding a leafy salad to your lunch and a larger portion of broccoli To your evening meal. This should make them more filling but adds negligible calories/ carbs .

... all those things still happen, but I'll find a half hour slot for a Caroline Girvan or a Yoga with Adrienne in my living room instead. Those little changes add up and, together with the changes you've already made to your meals (which are looking great to me) will help you get where you want to be.

I agree.

My 9 am date with Caroline is non-negotiable. As is my daily Bowflex 3-minute plank.

Life-changing.

And I often fit in 10 minutes of Yoga with Adrienne Kassandra - plus a few stretches - in the evening.

Id just up the walking so you're walking every day at a reasonable pace( not taking a really slow wander) and add in some low intensity resistance type training. Something like mat pilates will build muscles which week help the overall progress and general health.
Maybe reduce the nuts too, sustitute with half an apple maybe if you need a snack.

Yesterday's food looks brilliant.

Good luck with the family emergency. They can be gruelling and some people fail to appreciate that your whole life can change in one day.

It's actually my dog that has had an emergency operation on Friday and needs to be kept quiet and calm. She is very attached to me and gets very excited if I try jumping around or going on exercise bike so for the next few days I just can't. If I lock her away she gets very distressed and upset and throws herself at the door which I can't have just now. So whilst I take your point that there is a mindset thing and a prioritisation thing, right now I can only take her for two five minutes walks a day and have to monitor her 24/7 to prevent her jumping on things or running around, just until her stitches are healed in a few days.

Daily plate
Unusually I had breakfast today, albeit late. I had a headache that wouldn't shift, and thought it might be low blood sugar. Had low carb/high protein bread and marmite.
Lunch was Korean chicken with green leaves and red cabbage. Dinner was home made chicken soup and another slice of bread. I also had a babybel and a mini salami snack sausage and 10 nuts.

Before the portion police arrive, I thought I would recommend that you eat only meals served from the Sindy hostess trolley OP, guaranteed weight loss, your head will look all massive just like Sindy’s too!

Nice meals you’ve had today.