Shocked by calories

[FasterMichelin]

I haven’t felt body confidence for a few years and have decided to make an attempt to lose a dress size, even if short lived. I’ve reinstalled Myfitness pal and am reducing my calorie consumption to 1200cals a day.

Saying I’m shocked by how much I normally eat is an understatement! For context, pre kids I was a size 10 and found it easy to maintain my weight, post kids im a wobbly 12, predominantly on my tummy. I was convinced until recently that it’s just my “mum-bod” and that having two pregnancies has taken its toll and my metabolism must have slowed.

But with my new found insight, I can honestly say that I have been massively overeating. A few biscuits here, toast every morning, slice of cake there, always accepting any offers of food, regardless whether I was hungry or not. I completely lost sight of how many calories I was eating and it’s shocking how quickly it all adds up.

Its made me realise that I can’t be alone. There must be so many of us who consume way too many calories through mindless eating. Especially when juggling a young family.

Do you calorie count? Do you know how many calories you usually eat everyday?

One thing that helps is to stop and think ‘am I hungry or am I bored?’ And have a glass of water instead!

I second drinking water. It sounds strange but sometimes you just crave something to take in. And often you're more thirsty than hungry anyway.

Also...cleaning your teeth with a nice minty toothpaste after meals can stop the inclination to snack.

I don't find 1200 or so calories a problem but I'm short and sedentary which probably has a lot to do with it.

Eat enough healthy fat and protein or you will constantly feel hungry no matter what calories you have.

I agree about sometimes just wanting the feeling of consuming something. I moved to having a cup of peppermint tea in the evenings and that's helped a lot. I will make it once DDs are in bed and I'm sitting down to watch a bit of TV so it has become synonymous for me with resting or time to myself rather than running round after young kids.

My maintenance calories are about 1450 😢

Makes it nearly impossible if you eat out fairly frequently.

Good idea - thanks .

Wow this thread has been fascinating.
Like many on here I've put weight on with each child and now 2.5 years from birth of youngest, my excuses of postpartum weight no longer fly.
I gave up all sweet things entirely in Lent but lost not even a kilo which I was dismayed by. Now I realise it's because I swapped sweet stuff for nuts, thinking I was being healthy. At work I could easily get through half a jar of nuts a day, just to have something to nibble on.

Will be tracking my calories and making some changes. Do others meal plan? Feel like I barely manage to organise healthy balanced meals for the family as it is without adding on another challenge for myself. Plus I get in from work late and am so tired and hungry that all my good intentions fly out the window.

I sit down once a week and plan my meals - I’ve always done it for budgeting purposes though and just found it easier to know what I was going to cook when getting in from work and everything hectic!!

you could start easy - replace the nuts with water (I have roses lime cordial to keep it interesting!) and just look at what swaps you can make to your current meals

I don't meal plan, beyond what meat we are having -usually end up buying mince, chicken and something else depending what's on offer. But whether the chicken becomes curry or stir fry, or the mince becomes bolognese of chilli, depends on my mood on the day.

I keep in pasta, rice, noodles and frozen mash/jacket potatoes so that there's always a choice of carb to go with whatever we decide.

I’ve started using MyFitnessPal and it’s great. I weigh everything and manage a couple of glasses of wine and 25g of Love Corn at 5pm Try to keep to a calorie deficit most days so that the odd blip like a lunch out won’t affect to much. I’ve lost 7.5 stone in 6 years. But 4 of them have been since last June. I’m sure everyone thinks I’ve been jabbing.

I’m a two meals a day person. Lunch and dinner. Breakfast one scrambled egg on a slice of granary with 25g of smoked salmon. Tea a baked salmon fillet or chicken breast with a couple of new potatoes and broccoli or asparagus depending on season. Lots of fruit and raw vegetables throughout the day. Works for me.

I use Nutracheck during the week to track. I don’t have a definite limit that I stick to - some days I’m more hungry than others - but just to be aware and keep an eye on portion sizes. Also to be aware of protein.

My ideal day is:
skip breakfast/ intermittent fasting
early lunch 12:00pm chicken salad with lots of veggies and a nice home-made dressing (olive oil/ tahini-based). Fruit.

Afternoon snack - Greek yoghurt/ kefir with seeds, fruit, honey (basically what I could have had for breakfast)

Dinner - baked cod with cannellini’s and roasted veggges.

Sweet treat - dates and walnuts

But today I was hungry first thing and had yog with honey, blueberries and peanut butter for breakfast. My husband was out so I had porridge with raisins and seeds for dinner. I’ve got a sweet tooth - but I don’t drink so that’s my little vice.

At the weekend I relax up a bit and we have some red meat to keep my husband happy.

Like doing a budget and being on top of spending and your bank balance, watching what you eat has to be a way of life.

I don't meal plan but I try to mainly buy whole food ingredients so will choose four types of protein, fresh vegetables and fresh fruit a week and then I also always keep in stock things like frozen fruit and veg for more variety, pasta, tins of beans and lentils, cous cous, noodles, rice etc. So I can always knock up something and will know roughly what sort of thing we'll be eating e.g this week for protein I bought pork chops, turkey mince, tofu and eggs so I'll be doing pork with new potatoes and steamed veg, I'll turn the mince into meatballs and have in a tomato sauce with cous cous, tofu with noodles in a stir fry, egg fried rice etc.

If ever I can't be bothered to cook I usually make an omelette or have something like beans/mushrooms/tomatoes on toast as it's better than getting a takeaway or eating a ready meal.

I do think having meals that you know the calories of or that are just good for you make this a lot easier. For example my mid week lunches are usually soup with mixed seeds in the colder months and greek yoghurt with nuts and berries in the warmer months. It takes the thought out of it and is good for me, I can have variety in my evening meals instead.

We meal plan but that's because of needing to know what to shop for once a week.

I cook one meal and we always eat together, when DD was at home (uni now) it was a bit more difficult as her ASD/ADHD means she has restrictions and we had far too much pasta dishes. I am the cook in the family and I enjoy cooking, even when coming from work.

But in general I just cut down the amount of food, especially carbs. So yesterday DH and I had baked chicken breast with spaghetti and tomato sauce. I had a whole chicken breast but my spaghetti portion was tiny. If we have meat and two veg I have maybe 3 baby potatoes.
For stir fries I just have a small portion of rice.

The biggest improvement was finally getting an airfryer, the amount of oil used has vastly been reduced. It also means I can put a lot in the drawer together and just leave it.

Yes, I'm postpartum atm and losing weight (which is why it's a little higher), but mine used to be too! And that's in a healthy BMI for my height, not underweight or anything. It sucks

Has that worked for you long term? Eating far far less, do you not just snap back to your former weight when your will power runs out? Although you have to be patient, surely you would rather be consistently making small improvements for the rest of your life, and consistently looking better and better, than yoyo dieting.

I meal plan because we do a weekly grocery delivery and I have to choose what we’re having.

I also meal prep, meaning, I don’t go to bed until tomorrow’s dinner is 100% cooked and in the fridge. Then we only need to microwave it. We get in the door at 4:30 and dinner is on the table and we are eating by 5pm. It takes discipline but it’s become part of my night routine to ensure that dinner is prepped and ready.

I only do this Monday to Thursday. Friday night will forever be pizza night in our house. I make a high protein BBQ chicken pizza for me & DH. Saturday/Sunday I’m more flexible and cook whatever we feel like, often pad Thai or some other kind of Asian dish.

If we eat out (very very rare due to having young kids and finances), it will be at some crappy fast food place where I’ll eat 1 cheeseburger and 4 nuggets with a Coke Zero so that I dont go over my calories.

What would you suggest is a calorie intake thats suitable then?

I'm not an expert but I am happy with my current set up:
I calculated my maintenance calories using an online TDEE calculator. I aim to eat 10% less calories than that every day, and eat 100 - 110g protein for muscle growth. This is doable, plus has the added benefit that I have to eat healthily in order to hit my protein without going over my calorie allowance. It also gives me something positive to aim for rather than just a "low calories at any cost" punitive approach.
I do strength training at home 3x a week
I aim to do about 10k steps / 1 hour of walking every day.

Strength training was the biggest thing to help me lose weight initially, after 10+ years of yoyo dieting. I've kept the weight off for 6 years now.

Im being a bit unfair to you and shouldnt really have asked that.

I have a gastric sleeve and am a bit of an expert and am forensic with my expenditure and intake, I was just interested in what you would say. I know what works for me. Theres no way I would work with 10% less intake in order to lose weight. Im not overweight anymore but I know what my intake and expenditure is very accurately. I would be happy to lose a further stone and know what it would take me.

Forgot to say well done you for being able to walk at 5 miles an hour, thats quite unusual. I do an hour a day but thats 3 miles. 6k steps

It makes all the difference to me, I don’t feel as permanently deprived. My current diet is deathly boring but it’s sound for shifting weight, even if it’s not exactly exciting, also eating the same thing for lunch most days means less mental effort expended which also helps.

Weighing pasta and cereal so its an actual serving size was probably the most shocking thing.

I’m disappointed that I let myself get so fat in my 50s. Most of it was wine and a difficult relationship with my my DH. Never really watched what I ate. It’s actually really refreshing eating within my TDEE.

Another shock tonight… crispy fried onions! You know, those little onions that you put on Asian food or ikea hotdogs.
I made pad Thai tonight, and I started sprinkling crispy onions over my portion. I stopped and thought ‘I should probably weigh these’… without thinking I’d already added 76 calories! I probably wouldn’t have thought about tracking those.

I’m under no illusion that they are healthy, but I often forget to track garnishes and little things like that.

Agree 100% on the strength training. I used to do boot camp, HIIT, cycling, running half marathons etc….

I’m the leanest and fittest I’ve ever been right now and all I’m doing is strength training/weights twice a week, and Pilates twice a week + 10000 steps a day. So much easier and far more sustainable and pleasant for a full-time working mum of 3 young DC.