Help! How do I lose weight as a single parent?

[BarbaraVineFan]

I am a single mum to my 5 year old DD and have been getting fatter and fatter since she stopped breastfeeding three years ago. I am now officially categorised as obese. I’m worried about my health and really want to lose weight, but am struggling to work out how to manage it, given that I work full time and have DD 24/7 (her dad lives abroad).

I can’t go swimming, or go for a run. I work from 7.45 until 5.15 and by the time I’ve got DD from after school club and sorted dinner, laundry, housework and bedtime, I really struggle to motivate myself to do home workouts, especially now that she is often not asleep until 8 or 8.30.

Foodwise I also don’t do very well in the evenings, although I do eat healthily at breakfast and lunch. I am a constant snacker and I suspect I’m often eating because I’m bored. I’m also 45 and I think perimenopause has not helped with the weight gain or the exhaustion that I’m feeling!

If anyone has any suggestions for how I can overcome any or all of these issues and start living more healthily, I would really appreciate it a lot.

Does she do any activities? If so, can you use that time to go for a run or something?

That said, it will be diet more than exercise so that is more important - I follow hungry healthy happy on Instagram and it is really good

At 5 your DD could help you with batch cooking too - my 5 year old can chop vegetables and it's actually quite a nice bonding thing to do with him

Have you considered mounjaro?

Why not try Mounjaro to help you stick to all the good diet suggestions people have made?

In the same way as a married mum. Or a person who isn’t a mum. You eat in a calorie deficit.

Find a 10 minute youtube low impact work out and do it together every day with your 5 year old.
She'll love doing it with you it believe me.

Build it up a little each week (to a 20 minute low impact workout) and add some ankle weights after a few weeks. (plenty second hand for £3-5 on ebay).

By Christmas you'll be stronger and leaner.

Do 5:2 fasting, it really works.
Just means 2 tough days a week, but I’d go to bed really early on those evenings to stop the snacking. It’s hard for the first 3 weeks then gets much easier.

And yes, don’t buy anything unhealthy so you don’t have access to it.

Hello op. I'm currently losing weight slowly. I've joined a thread on here that's been very helpful just to be doing it along side others.

What I've found is you have to find the thing that works for you. I found logging all my food into my fitness pal just a bit overwhelming. But that really works for some people. I find for me the more I exercise the more I then want to eat so I've actually focused mainly on diet and easy wins first. I have renpho scales to weigh myself daily which helps me keel track. I've set a easier goal of just a stone to lose first rather than 2 stone. I do some yoga or low level floor exercises because it makes me feel better and keeps me on track but isn't necessarily to lose weight. There is evidence that suggest exercise and diet together you're more likely to stick long term to keep off the weight.

I've stopped snacking and I eat slower and listen to my body when I'm full. At the weekend I will have the odd sweet treat. Doing it this way is more sustainable for me rather than fasting or say a shake diet.

Heading into the 6 weeks holidays I know for me is going to be tricky. Im trying to plan a bit so i know what meals and snacks i reach for if i need to. My children will join in on youtube yoga and Joe wicks exercises so might be something to try with your little one. Overall though I think you have to have lots of compassion for yourself and take it day by day. See the small things as achievements that anything is better than nothing. Good luck op.

I used Nutracheck and lost just over 2st in 7 months by weighing my portions. No exercise just a bit more walking. It cost £34.99 for 12 months (less than 10p a day), free for the first week, you set it to your requirements and it is UK based. Sometimes they have sales on the subscription price.

Weightloss is mostly down to diet, exercise is secondary. It sounds like you get a fair bit of exercise anyway.

You’ve already identified what is likely the biggest contributory factor in your weight gain - snacking. Stop buying crisps and biscuits. We never have them in the house. It will make a huge reduction in the calories you’re eating.

Exercise is brilliant of course - but it’s diet that will lose weight. You can’t outrun a bad diet and there sounds like there is room for improvement. I’d try HONESTLY keeping a food diary for a week - log absolutely everything and accurate quantities. I bet you’ll find where it’s going on.

If you already have a fairly active lifestyle with lots of walking and a non-sedentary job, I wouldn't worry too much about the exercise. As previous posters have said, weight loss is almost entirely about diet.

From what you've posted, there's nothing about the timings of your day or your parenting responsibilities which would make it particularly difficult for you to improve your diet - it's just a question of motivating yourself to get in good habits. Batch cooking is great if you can get organised, but it's not necessary. There are plenty of quick, easy, healthy meals you can make (BBC Good Food has loads of that kind of recipe) and just stop buying snacks. It's not complicated, it's just hard to make yourself do it!

I've been doing a high protein, low carb diet alongside mounjaro weight loss injections. After dieting for years and trying slimming world twice, this has been a game changer. I've lost over a stone now in 3 months.

Weight loss happens in the kitchen so don't worry about not having time for exercise. It's the diet you need to crack. Lots of tips above I'm sure.

Is there an emotional component driving the eating?

Also you say you couldn't go for a run. My 4 year old will rise her bike while we run, and will do a 5k park run in 45 minutes at the weekend (doing run/walk)
It's possible to go for runs with young kids in tow....
The biggest thing is diet though

I had what I thought was a brilliant diet (all whole foods, everything cooked from scratch), but have lost weight by cutting down on:

• avocado (I would sometimes have 2 a day, which can total 500 calories - I had no idea!)
• the small handful of raw cashew nuts I was having as a snack every day
• extra Virgin olive oil that I would slosh over salads
• mayo and soured cream that I would have a blob of on the side of lots of meals
• a 'large' treat, like a slice of cake from the bakery, on a Saturday and Sunday - now replaced with a small dark chocolate bar, or chocolate protein powder mixed into Greek yoghurt.

I could have written every line in this post too OP. My Fitness Pal was a revelation. I too logged every single bite of food or drink that I consumed. I weighed every single thing. I ate the same 4 breakfasts, 5/6 lunches, 6/7 dinners for ages until I was really in the swing of it. I always had some portions of fruit or veg in containers in the fridge and some snacks which were all under 100cals ( my favourite was a little mini Mars bar in the fridge until it was hard and then I sliced it up and it lasted for ages 🤣 Yes it take time at the start, but I’ve very quickly got the hang of it. I have lost just over 5 stone and I’ve kept it off for a year and a half. Look on the time as investing in your own health. You’ll also be teaching your daughter really good habits. Good luck OP x

Only thing that works for me is getting a spreadsheet and making a one month meal plan.

Then enter and save all the meals onto a food tracker. Some meals can be similar to make it similar e.g. tuna and potato salad, salmon and potato salad etc. to save time. Make sure every meal is a balance of carb, healthy fat and protein, and that the total for the day adds up to 10% or 15% less than your TDEE. Include 1-2 snacks if you need them to make it up to that total. That way you have dealt with the planning issue that leads us to poor choices, and you have dealt with the hunger issue that leads to poor choices, as you are never that hungry when meals are regular and nutritionally balanced even if they are smaller. Then batch cook as much of this ahead to last three months. If you can afford a cheap second hand second freezer it will help with storage. I got one on ebay for a tenner.

All that takes a day to make the plan, a day to log the plan and a day to meal prep the plan, so probably three weekends worth of planning, but you are setting yourself up for success.

Exercise wise, don't try and exercise while losing weight, just increase your steps - maybe a home walking treadmill or a Wahoo bike stand to fix a personal bike to. Also lift some weights at home - get some 5kg and 8kg if you are starting from scratch - to prevent muscle wastage loss when dieting, as your body will ditch muscle not fat if it thinks you aren't using the muscle.

Is there a type of exercise you could do with your DD or at the same time eg if she has swimming lessons could you do something then?

For snacks make room in your fridge for 'healthy' snacks. So things like fruit, small portions of cheese and nuts. I know cheese is high fat and nuts can be so do count their calories.

I have some little pots fruit in juice and jelly is surprisingly low calorie if you get the right one.

Allow your self a set number of snacks per day.

Good luck.

thanks so much, everyone. I’m going to try a low carb high protein diet for a while and see if that helps. Also going to do a workout alongside DD, that seems like a great idea as well!

Have you have a recent full blood count? You could have thyroid issues or something causing the gain.

I haven’t in fact- was thinking of losing some weight first and then going to the doctor to have an MOT!

But could consider going before, perhaps

Lots of what you say resonated with my experiences as a single mother, OP. I had a really full on job, it was tiring, I didn't have much time or money, I was often a bit lonely in the evenings and compensated by eating, and I felt I deserved some treats. All of this was absolutely true, but unfortunately it didn't stop this lifestyle being fattening. It didn't matter how much I deserved some crisps, they still made me put on weight! I think I spent a lot of time trying to bargain with the universe over this, like if only I could convince someone that I deserved to have a rest or eat a snack, then I wouldn't gain weight - but I did, of course.

The times I did lose weight were when I accepted the reality that I couldn't eat what I wanted, which worked. I then got totally derailed by the pandemic, which undermined a lot of the sustainable habits I'd built up, and I discovered that whilst exercise didn't make me lose weight, stopping exercise made me gain it - as well as lowering my mental health, so I ate more. I've used WLI to lose the post-pandemic gains as it felt insurmountable, which has been great, and has also given me respite from a constant pointless internal dialogue with myself about food.

The first few weeks are really the hardest. I’d fallen into the trap of having a piece of toast mid morning, or a biscuit.
I now have a satsuma mid morning and nothing in the afternoon, it makes me appreciate my dinner.

One thing I do is allow myself a few chocolate buttons every evening, makes me feel like I’ve had something.

Absolutely right.

@BarbaraVineFan Hi, I used to moonlight as one of the trainers at a celebrity bootcamp. Unless you are going to consistently exercise for hours a day, don't bother for significant weight loss. Do bother for the health benefits like improving your cardiovascular capacity, but if your primary objective is weight loss, it's all about the food.

In a nutshell, don't eat. No that's not healthy but you can worry about that after the initial stage of dropping fat. Of course you must eat something, but it's literally about getting through the day on the tiniest amount you can cope with. Drink loads. Water fills you up more than you think. Diet coke, also very good. Tea, coffee. Chew gum.

It's miserable when you're doing it, but the results come fast and suddenly it's worth it. 3 weeks? You'll be amazed. You won't have lost everything you want too, but you'll have lost a chunk.

You can't just stop, as you'll put it all back on. So after the initial crash, it's about maintaining where you've crashed too. Healthy small portions. Then when you've done about 2 months of that, do your next crash. Rinse and repeat until at goal weight.

At goal weight, I'd then take up some exercise classes. To help tone, and also to keep you in the mind frame that you are more disciplined now and won't slip back to your big eating.

Good luck with whatever you choose x