To expect some help from my GP in losing weight?

[Chubbychubchub]

I am a fatty. Properly overweight. About 8 stone over normal weight range (about 19st, I should be 11st at most according to BMI).

Last year I had some health issues. My GP said I'd benefit from losing weight. Just eat less and move more were her words.

I have tried. However I struggle to control what I eat, and have zero willpower.

I did go to a well known slimming group previously. It made me ill, though I did get down to 13st. But it wasn't sustainable.

I asked my GP for help. I was told 'all they could do was refer me to the nurse, but she would tell me the same. That was all they could do and there was no other help available.

I have heard of people locally being referred to a dietician, or sent to slimming group for free etc. Aibu to expect something similar, or certainly some kind of help beyond trite advice?

Start small! Do a Body Coach workout a few times a week. Get on Pinterest for lunch ideas that are better than meal deals (and for your wallet, too). Invest in a cool bag/flasks to take food in (soups are great for filling you up and then have a half a sandwich later on). Learn to drink water (Sistema has these pods you can put fruit in so you can flavour water naturally without getting fruit everywhere).

I don't ever eat butter on bread I can't because of gallstones. I make lasagne because my kids like it but I don't eat the cheese sauce again because i would be in agony.

I could try 16:8 which I'll admit I hadn't heard of before. I don't eat dinner til 7 or 8. But I have my breakfast mid morning at work as I can't eat for at least 3 hours after I get up. So that could work.

I have thought of trying a smaller plate. I've done it a few times. But then ended up even hungrier after and eaten another portion of dinner.

wow AIBU is on fire today.

OP post in weight loss chat
some helpful suggestions amongst the abuse -

honeysucklejasmine Tue 27-Feb-18 13:32:32
Come join us here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/weight_loss_chat/3045244-Anyone-looking-to-lose-100lbs-plus-in-2017-18-Part-3

and/or take up StuntNun Tue 27-Feb-18 14:08:02 's very kind offer of Pm'ing her - she's a weight loss coach.

I echo change one small eating thing per week and 1 additional piece of exercise each week and keep building on it.
eg week 1 - switch tea for Green tea and lemon, do some stretches every morning (get up 5 minutes earlier)
week 2 - big cup of hot water and lemon first thing every morning, add an additional brisk 10 minutes walk everyday
week 3 - no more biscuits. do an exercise DVD with some hand weights every other day

regular small lifestyle changes is what you need. Good luck.

etc etc

Get on Pinterest! Great recipes for gallstones. Vegan/veggie are your friends here.

Looking at your daily diet I don't think you need to make radical changes.

Breakfast - could you swap the peanut butter for something less calorific? Do you like marmite?

Lunch - if you're sticking with a supermarket meal deal then instead of a sandwich, try some sushi or a salad. Swap the crisps for fruit and make sure the drink is sugar free.

Dinner - cut out the bread and have a slightly smaller portion of your main meal.

Snack - cut out the cereal and biscuits. Popcorn is a low calorie snack

I think if you did the above you would lose weight.

Not kind that some people are giving the op a hard time over willpower. She is obviously one of many who struggle with this (including myself) or the diet industry wouldn't be making the millions that it does.

Relying on willpower alone doesn't work anyway. Military-style advance planning, developing healthier choices over time, and making small realistic changes, like swapping one meal for home-made veg soup every day, or aiming to walk 10,000 steps every day, is far more likely to be successful.

Good luck op. . You've done it before and you can do it again.

And I agree it is short-sighted of practices in your area not to provide some sort of patient support group. Perhaps you could try and set one up in your area and recruit volunteers?

You have no medical issue from the doctors view other than no will power. That's your problem to deal with, not your gp's

@Chubbychubchub Stop making excuses and stop playing the victim!

You're never going to lose weight with your never ending excuses.

Maybe a couple of extra walks won't make the weight fall off but you will be healthier and it will improve your fitness levels to enable you to exercise more, which will help you maintain your weight loss.

Do you have a tablet?

But I'm never going to lose weight by going for a couple of extra walks. Running 15 miles a week toned me. I didn't lose any weight from it. I need to control my diet.

This is absolutely correct, people who have never been more than 12 pounds overweight don't realise how hard it is to walk everywhere carrying an extra person's weight with you. It's incredibly hard.

Nobody is calling you names though. You are doing that to yourself.

And nobody is trying to make you feel bad. Again, you are doing that to yourself.

I am 15 stone, which on my 5'2 frame is 6 stone overweight. it's a small person overweight. What helps me massively isn't willpower, it's accountability - I write it down then I tell someone what I ate. I don't WANT to tell anyone I made a sandwich with white bread, cheese, butter and minicheddars and washed it down with full sugar coke, and sometimes that is all that stops me doing it.

I'm coming from a place of unserstanding, even down to the abusive relationship, but until you decide that it's not going to happen any more, it's going to happen, because nobody else is putting those foods in your mouth, it's on you.

And that's hard. It's going to take me years on a 1400 calorie a day diet. Sometimes I have a pear for lunch to have a heavier dinner. But that's my choice to make.

Op. What do uou put on your toast then?

The way you're posting now it's difficult to fathom how you're 19 stone.

I feel for you OP as I massively struggle too.

There are a couple of very friendly running groups on FB, you said you used to run. I do too. I will never be fast and I will never run non stop but the support I get from within those groups is amazing.

FWIW am don't think SW or WW are the way to go. Like me you have an eating disorder which means you eat for reasons behind hunger, neither SW or WW will help you address that.

I really do recommend rebelfit who has lots to say about diets and why they don't work.

The other group is called Beyond Chocolate which helps to look at why you eat.

I also belong to a binge eating support group as I am aware I can binge.

It's not just willpower.....lots of research has been done about this. We live in an obesogenic environment with lots of high calorie foods available. When we starve ourselves (diet), we are biologically prone to then seeking our high calorie foods. Hence why so many dieters fail to maintain their loss. Don't take my word for this.....google "diets and effectiveness" to see the poor results.

Cut down on your portion sizes gradually. Don't aim for a quick fix, aim to permanently change your eating habits.

Eating smaller amounts doesn’t work for me. It’s eatjng the right amounts of the right meals. When I was doing 16:8 I ate 2 larger and one smaller meal of the right stuff and shed loads.

Peanut butter is higher in fat than cheese, so a peanut butter sandwich isn't a healthy option for your gallbladder

I don't eat a high fat diet. I never eat butter or oil, cheese. My milk is fat free. My crisps are those low fat ones. Anything else aggravates my gallstones. Even avocados. However I can eat chocolate in certain quantities. I do eat biscuits but the ones lowest in fat.

@Chubbychubchub

My suggestions are (and apologies if you already do this):

-crustsaway or WW bread for your toast with flora extra light or similar
-the meal deal sandwich etc - you don't say what sandwich etc you normally get, but look for the lower fat/calorie ones eg boots shapers, lower fat crisps so walkers baked, wotsits, quavers, walkers lights.drink - get a diet drink (not fruit juice or full fat coke etc)

• evening meal - watch your portion size, perhaps add a side salad to fill up the plate with a vinegar eye or diet dressing. Use low fat meats etc. For cottage pie use half potato and half swede or butternut squash to decrease calories. Don't have the extra bread

-evening snack - you don't say what cereal you have but porridge with skimmed milk, special k etc are good but measure the portion to the size suggested on the packet (you'll be surprised how small an actual portion is).

I'm also an emotional eater etc - rewards/to cheer up/to celebrate, and found having small chocolate bars in the house (eg Cadbury fudge, curly wurly, small dairy milk bars) meant I'd eat one of those rather than go to the shop and buy 3 large bars.

Exercise - perhaps try power walking, or could you cycle to work (you don't say how far it is)? I used to cycle 8 miles to work each day and found that I had to incorporate exercise into my day otherwise I wouldn't do it.

Hope this helps. Unfortunately I think you do need to just power through and use what willpower you have. You've lost weight before so you can do it!!! Good luck.

OK. So, I was never overweight pre-chronic illness. About a year into said illnesses, I started to comfort eat which is in the same group as having no willpower, the issue you have. I'm now about 5 stone overweight and in the process of losing it. My issue, like yours, is in my mind. However, I don't think the NHS, a service crippling beneath itself, owes me any help with this. In an ideal world with rainbows and unicorns, it would of course be a case of, "But if we help this person, it'll improve their physical health and thereby take pressure off the NHS," but this isn't the way it is. They have to prioritise over what they can and can't treat and I do believe that someone suicidal, schizophrenic, manic etc should have the upper hand over folk like us who can't stop eating biscuits. Remember I'm speaking about myself here too, not being a rude wench.

The truth is, we need to help ourselves. I go to counselling and, amongst other things, explore my relationship with food and why I have the habits I do. It's helped me tremendously.

The NHS can't be responsible for everyone's actions. It doesn't have the budget. We have to take accountability.

OP as I said before, small steps.

You say you have gallstones. Have you researched a suitable diet? By diet I mean 'the food that you eat' as opposed to 'weight-loss plan'. My mother had terrible gallstones and I know she was in excruciating pain before having them removed. I remember researching that citrus (particularly grapefruit), and plums/prunes contained compounds that helped break down the gallstones (which are essentially calcium deposits). I assume this is why you are off the dairy (calcium content)?

So a really easy small change would be to eat half a grapefruit before meals and drink hot water with lemon/orange instead of tea, then eat plums/prunes for dessert/snacks.

Sorry OP - I was posting a bit distractedly, but meant well (I missed the points about butter and cheese and am sorry).

I mean this kindly - but you seem to want a negative reaction here to prove to yourself that you're an impossible case. This will hardly help. But there's a lot of kindness in these replies, as well as the usual 'astringent' AIBU replies. People are generally well-intentioned.

Of course you're exhausted working 12 hour days and looking after a young family. I'm sorry and wish life were easier - it is what it is. But being 8 stone overweight is not good for you and addressing it needs to move up the priority list. You didn't post in the first place for fat acceptance, but because you do want things to be different.

look at portion size, fat and sugar intake.
it really isn't difficult just a change in mindset.
If its psychological could you go for counselling?

I think you'd probably lose a couple of stone to kick start losing weight by just cutting out crap.

no, your diet isn't particularly high in fatter, but there's room for trimming.

It IS high in empty calories but again, you know that.

I don't know what you want people to say. You know that sitting eating biscuits is making you fat, and you accept that you're going to do it anyway. You need to stop - you know this. Nobody can stop you. Nobody is going to come to your house and smack them out of your hand.

I put sliced banana on my toast.

When I was younger my daily food (to stay at about 11-11.5st) was a slice of toast, a banana, a cup a soup and dinner. Some days I skipped the toast.

I would struggle to eat so little now. Clearly that is what I should be eating though.

I've not had any help for the abuse I got. Mainly as np one believed me because by the end I was twice my Ex's size and people thought I should have fought back when he hit me or verbally abused me.

Put down the chocolate bar and pick up your swimming trunks. Low impact, high muscle group work out. Aim for 10/15 lengths and build up from there.

Stick with and after a few weeks you’ll start to notice a difference. You can easily lose 3/4 stone in a few months as the fat initially falls away quite quickly.

Also, ditch pizzas, bread etc and eat salads, home cooked meals (spag bol etc). Don’t use jars of sauce for this as they’re high in sugar. Instead use tinned tomatoes.

It’s really not that hard. Stop making excuses and looking for the NHS to do the work for you.

Did someone on page 2 really mention victim blaming?! I really think that’s just total misuse of the term. Victim of whom?! An out of control chocolate digestive?!

Anyway, OP I do think weight is partly down to individual metabolism. I’m what someone up thread referred to as a ‘usually slim’ - I’m actually a bit of a pig and can be so greedy - four slices of toast for a snack or a whole pack of Mr Kipling cakes (yep I like junk too..) yet I’m never over ten stone at 5’7’’. That’s not just said to piss you off it’s because I get it, I love food and when I’m sad/bored/breathing I just fancy stuffing my face sometimes. My DH is the same but he’s nearly 4 stone overweight, it’s bloody unfair on him. He’s recently lost 2 stone just using MFP - I really think you could replicate that using google and a note pad. but the problem is you’re basically having to give up on a whole mindset/lifestyle of enjoying food when and how you like, and I appreciate that is so fucking hard. It’s the only way though, and no one can do it for you, no one can take that burden but you.