To have absolutely no idea what I should be eating anymore

[Piratepete1]

Just that really. I have been overweight all my life after a childhood of being rewarded with sweets and chocolate. This is a really hard habit for me to break. I have managed to break it for my children who both have healthy diets and are healthy weights although my DD has a fairly solid build so I imagine it wouldn't take much for her to put weight on. They go to a school which does lots of sport and they provide traditional school dinners, very old fashioned home cooking but they are served to the children using proper portion sizes. The children have very little choice, they are just given the meal of the day which works very well for my children as it has made them very unfussy eaters.

We need to change things at home. I have got into the habit of giving them a quick tea (crumpets with salad, beans on toast) and then DH and I eating crap later on in the evening. I desperately want to lose weight as I know I am a ticking time bomb. I have bad knees but luckily no high blood pressure or cholesterol as yet. I eat way too much chocolate and can consumes 4/5 bars a day sometimes

I want to make a change over the summer when things are more relaxed but have no idea where to start. I need to make meals that are suitable for all of us but will help DH and I lose weight whilst giving the DC everything they need.

I am sadly in the low carb, low fat mindset from many years of failed dieting but now have the low sugar message too. I have no idea how to eat properly. My friend saw a Nutritionist who told her to eat red meat once a week, chicken twice a week, fish twice a week and the rest of her meals veggie. Is this correct? I have no idea.

Can anyone offer any advice? I would love to start meal planning. Are there any good websites for healthy weekly meal plans that don't use a billion ingredients?

Start with eating what your children are eating and stop buying chocolate.

You're clearly not eating enough proper food if you're hungry and eating junk.

I'd start with 3 large-ish 'proper' meals until you get a feel for a portion size that satisfies you.

I don't think you should start with an actual 'diet' like low carb or low fat but with proper food to see what works for you.

Your food plate should look like food - a protein (meat/fish/ eggs), a carb (potato/rice), and a fuck ton of veg or salad.

Then sit down and eat it and drink plenty of water so you know you're hydrated.

Only after eating proper food for a while should you look to tweak your diet if you need to. You need to stabilise your blood sugar levels if you've been relying on the fast sugar hit from junk.

Good luck

There are loads of recipe websites out there. Lots of them can have recipes that involve faffing about, but for every 10 that are too complicated, there is one that will suit.

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/7-day

www.foodtolove.com.au

Forget 'should, and shouldnt'. Just focus on plenty of veg, some fruit and some protein. If it's meat, the portion should be the size of your palm. Beans and lentils are great sources of protein, too.

I avoid tinned baked beans, they have loads of sugar and taste like a dessert, to me.

Sorry I'm not much help with the sugar cravings, I'm not a sweet tooth, but others tell me how hard it can be.

[Laurie] gives good advice there and I would echo that. No chocolate (go cold turkey zero tolerance) and eat three meals a day and limit snacks. Keep it simple.

Eating advice as per above, and walk everywhere. Get a cheap pedometer and aim to hit 10,000 steps a day.

Also clear all the junk out of the cupboards & donate it to a food bank or something if you can't face throwing it in the bin.

I agree with Laurie. Throw diet books out the window.

Avoid pre-made or processed foods and try and cook from scratch (this can be easy, I've got a roster of 20 minute healthy dinners that I cook). I do buy canned tomatoes, and frozen veg. But like thedogstinks said, I avoid tinned "meals" like baked beans.

Plenty of water, switch chocolate too dark chocolate and cut down on it.

The thing you need to keep in mind is that it took you a lifetime to develop these eating habits, and you aren't going to break them in a month. Keep focus, but don't panic if you "fall of the wagon", just crawl back up the next day and keep on going.

Go discuss with your GP - this is important as if this is a long term issue for you - they can record it to look at other options further down the line, but have a record of what you have done (which I hope you won't need). They can also refer you to a dietician/nutritionist.

Obviously some love Slimming World or Weight Watchers as you can balance meals through various techniques. Do online shopping to stop being tempted by the bad stuff and try and cut out the chocolate (haha, I can't believe I just said those words - I'm a long suffering chocoholic) If you like it swap to good quality dark chocolate as its harder to eat in bulk!

Don't see it as a diet or 'healthy eating' see it as a long term positive change - get your head in the right place - its 80% of the battle!

It is hard to do everything all at once. Maybe write down all of your 'bad habits' - chocolate etc and focus on eliminating them one by one, plus adding a good habit. You could do it by weeks or even a month. So;

Month 1
-no chocolate
-drink 2 litres plain water

Month 2
-no fried foods
-swim twice a week

It will take a while, but if you are anything like me you get depressed trying to 'fix' everything at once and then fall off the wagon.

Here is all the healthy eating and nutrition advice you will ever need:

Eat food, mostly plants, in moderation.

In this context "food" means not too processed, not too full of additives etc. (The usual advice is don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognise/have in her cupboard, but my grandmother had marshmallow fluff so it doesn't work for me!)

Forget low fat, low carb, sugar = crack.

The NHS website has some good advice about healthy eating.

www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/Healthyeating.aspx

Also, highly recommend "memoirs of a former fatty" by Gemma Reucroft

The BBC good food website is fantastic - tens of thousands of recipes, searchable by key words such as 'Healthy' and 'Quick and Easy'. I heard rumblings that it may be taken down in the near future, so save as many as you like to your own computer.

thefoodchampions.org (sorry, can't link properly on phone) is a great website - free recipes created by food/sports scientists for the GB Olympic team. That stuff is seriously healthy.

The nutritionist (or dietitian? Anyone can call themselves a nutritionist, a dietitian has actual qualifications) sounds about right.

Healthy balanced diets contain mostly vegetables, pulses, seeds, nuts, grains, fruit. Although it is entirely possible to get all the nutrients you need from a vegan diet, I find it tastier to include meat fish eggs and dairy.

Carbs - potatoes with the skin on, brown rice (needs cooking for ages), brown bread. They contain more nutrients and fill you up way longer.

But yeah, 'eat mostly plants' pretty much covers what a healthy diet is (for adults anyway - kids need more calories per gram from their food than adults do, you don't have to stop buying fish fingers) , and most diet books are selling an expensive fantasy.

If you suddenly increase the fruit and veg in your diet you may find it has - ahem - effects on your system. It won't last long, don't worry. Also, if you suddenly decrease the sugar in your diet you may get the odd headache/feel tired at first. It's temporary.

Like pp said, it takes a while to learn not just different recipes, but different ways of thinking about food. Don't be hard on yourself in the meantime. If you make one healthy meal this week, that's an improvement. Build up slowly, and if there's a night where everyone ends up with pizza and chips, well, sod it, the sky won't fall in.

Eat before you go food shopping - you 'll buy less junk.

Have a think about if there are other areas of your life where you would like to make changes. I don't wish to be intrusive, but speaking for myself, the times when I have taken advantage of my corner shop's 3-chocolate-bars-for-a-pound offer, I wasn't eating because I was hungry.

The Body Coach (Joe Wicks) Books and 90 day SSS plan is what helped me relearn how to eat properly. Highly recommend it.

Following with interest. Thanks to mumsnet I have started to buy less processed food (butter instead of marge now!) and have noticed that I feel much fuller and more satisfied now. Now I just have to eat less

Oh, and a great dinner for the kids is, salad, as you said above, with one or two boiled eggs, tinned tuna, or (my son's fave) smoked mackerel. Easy least, and no cooking.

Cut down on sugar. If you crave sugar, eat fruits.

The less sugar you have, the less you'll miss it.

Don't worry about fat. Eat as much dairy as you like, semi skimmed milk fine too. But avoid deep fried food.

Crumpets with salad

Laurie gives good advice

I have recently lost 3 stone, I'm now back to my pre baby weight 2 years after my youngest was born.

I have fish 2 times a week
I have chicken 2 times a week
Red meat 1 time a week
And 2 days I eat no meat and have veggie dinners
I snack on raw veggies and 2 pieces of fruit a day
I don't have 'low fat' yoghurt as they just put extra sugar in so I have normal Greek yoghurt.
I have only 2 glasses of wine a week on a Friday

The bbc website and Jamie Oliver have some fab healthy recipes to make

My fitness pal is great to track calories and it helps me see the calories add up during the day.

Good luck with the weight loss OP

SlimCheesy2 - your advice is fantastic, gradual is the way to go. It is so hard to adjust to 20 changes at once.

If it helps, I lost 2 stone a couple of years ago (very gradually, and kept it off) with 2 meals a week chicken, 1 meal a week red meat, 1 meal a week fish, 1 meal a week dairy (i.e. paneer curry, risotto), 2 meals beans/lentils/tofu.

I also (generally) switched to having at least 3 portions of veg with dinner, and 2-4 with lunch.

I follow the NHS-type plate for portions as I find my brain doesn't feel sharp without complex carbohydrates (although my diet is v low sugar now).

I'm not hard and fast with those rules and I waver now and then, but always correct back to normal. However, once I adapted to it, planning along those lines because routine and now it's just normality.

Joining slimming world was a huge help for me learning to cook healthily. Lots of fruit and veggies, limited bread and cheese.

LostQueen mentioned him but I can second that the Body Coach's recipes really are simple and taste great. He posts a lot of ideas on his facebook page also he is proper gorgeous

It sounds as though, before you start thinking about fat, carbs and sugar in meals, you need to stop eating chocolate and just concentrate on having three balanced meals. I think SlimCheesy's plan sounds really good, I agree.

Thanks mouse, ereni. I have to admit I am overweight but i try 'diets' and try 'no carbs' or some other sort of rule and get very manic and panicked and then it triggers me. So I have been aiming for small changes myself. The last two weeks I have been having just water and herbal teas for drinks, and adding in a short yoga dvd daily.

Things are starting to change, and it feels much easier and less stressful overall.

I'm in the process of reading Eating Less: Say Goodbye to Overeating by Gillian Riley and it's given me some lightbulb moments about how I think about eating, food, weight and most importantly, self-esteem. The suggestions for recipes above are all good; I also like A Modern Way to Eat which has tables of things like omelettes, with lots of different ways of doing them. Good luck.

Grilled meat and salads. Fruit for dessert.
Avoid grains and starch.

Crumpets should only ever be eaten with lashings of butter, surely?