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?

The curry looks delicious! For me personally, and there's bound to be some very vocal disagreement, with the way I eat now I would actually have more curry taking up all the space where the rice is and about half a wrap or more likely no wrap, and just some Fage 2% yoghurt.

It really was a tablespoon (not a desert spoon)
I literally took one tablespoon from the pan.

The mango chutney was one teaspoon.

The wraps are about half the size of a typical wrap, I wonder if people think they or the plate are bigger than they are?

Your curry meal looks really nice and a good size portion as one of your two meals of the day.
Honestly carry on doing as you are and be mindful of your snacks.

The food looks lovely but for me those would be big portions unless it's the angle and the plates are tiny? I'm not remotely a competitive undereater my bmi is 25/6

Just checked
The flat breads are 119 calories each and the size of a hand

Your portions look rather large to me. 🤷🏻‍♀️

When you are talking about tablespoons and teaspoons are you using actual measuring spoons or just normal teaspoon / tablespoon from a cutlery set.
A tablespoon or teaspoon in measurement for calorie purposes is very different to a tablespoon or teaspoon that you would get in a cutlery set. Younwould also need to measure it flat not heaped at all.

Sorry didn't see everything I don't think the curry is a big portion.

This is probably a lot of the issue. AI can't accurately juafhe the size of tbe portion or the amount of each ingredient it will just throw up a generic figure for the dish.

I really don't think 7 cubes of chicken and about 15 peas is a giant serving of curry.

It's not, your carbs balance is off though.

It's actually reasonably accurate as I check the size of items that I can easily (eg weight of a wrap, it estimated 40g which is dead on correct).

It says I have 100g rice, 100g chicken, 20g peas and 50g curry sauce.

Artificial sweeteners like in Diet Coke etc trigger an insulin response. Your body doesn't know that it's a zero calorie drink with sweeteners, it thinks it's getting sugar so your insulin goes up. Raised insulin interrupts fat burning as your body wants to use glucose for energy rather than your fat stores.

There's also some evidence that it can increase your sugar cravings as your body wants that sugar it thought you promised was coming when you drank the diet drink.

The curry is fine, stick four florets of cauliflower in it and let it take up half the plate.

I've been pissing around in the kitchen, we had curry yesterday and have rice. One level tablespoon of rice weighs 10g and has 13 calories. I could count the grains without too much effort, but I'm not a total nerd 😄
A tablespoon out the drawer, slightly rounded gives 42g of rice.

Buy the measures linked previously and have half a cup of rice for 100 cals.

So 100g of rice is not a tablespoon
A tablespoon is 15 g

Those measurements sound good.

Sorry to be a twat but a tablespoon is a measure of volume if not measuring liquids and not 15g

100g cooked rice is 120cal

As is childish name calling people's bodies.

Strange how you object to one, but willfully take part in the other.

Yep, no way is that a tablespoon and you say you think you had two biscuits. We all know how easy it is to eat six when we think we've had two. Or finish the chocolate bar when we think there's half left.

Well done on the weight loss and good looking meals.

The food looks good! Some observations:

1. An ingredient in Diet Coke has been found to make people gain weight by increasing hunger
2. The research on intermittent fasting shows it’s more beneficial for men, and can wreak havoc with women’s hormones, so it might be worth trying a different approach and seeing if that changes anything.

Your food looks absolutely delicious.
I'm not sure low carb is what you need. But if you do really want to do that your'll need to cut down on the potatoes, bread, rice etc, beans - all high carb.

Is it a tablespoon of rice before it’s cooked?

Maybe you could let us know what you would like to take from this thread, OP? You seem quite happy and confident in your portions. I think you are probably taking in more calories than you realise but if you aren't prepared to track then there's not much point splitting hairs on this. You must be in a moderate calorie deficit as you are losing weight. If you would like this to go faster then you need to increase your protein and track your calories carefully.

It's not really lower carb though, is it?

Try cutting your carbs right back - so less bread/fewer wraps/less rice. Apples, grapes and biscuits won't be helping you either!