Too fat for weight loss group..

[Fattygettingthin]

It's been a few months since my last post and I've moved house and into a totally new area. I've joined weight watchers and I'm recovering slowly from my operation.

Anyway! I went to the drs and asked for help with losing weight. I've lost 2 stone since May but that's without really trying as I've been getting better from my operation. He referred me to a weight loss initiative that he said he had to refer me for as I was fat too fat for my height.

My BMI was 52 and now it's 48, yes I know it's appalling but I'm doing something about it.

Cut to today I get a phone call from the organiser of the weight loss group and im too fat for it. I have to have a bmi of 35 before I'm eligible to get help from the dr referred weight loss group... wtf??! How is that a thing?

So I rang the gp back and he's referred me to a dietitian and the 'weight loss management team' to discuss bariatric surgery.

How is it possible to be too fat to go to a weight loss class? wake up call here you are!!

I feel for you As I can’t access my local Authority service either. They have priotisized it in such a way that I can’t physically get to a group. I can’t drive for medical reasons and It’s either 2 busses or a group that I can’t go to and back in time to pick the kids up. I actually want to discuss surgery but even though the service say it’s nothing to do with them, the gp and sleep clinic say it’s the only way to access surgery. If I could find contact details for the service I’d just ring up but I’m yet to find any.

In the end I joined slimming world and have lost nearly 1 1/2 in 2 months. I’d still like to discuss surgery, even if I decide not to go through with it, because I have so much to loose, it’s causing health issues and I have mobility issues which make it difficult to loose weight.

@MentalUnload

High fat diet is good for weight loss, but doesn’t bode well for maintaining

Why not? As long as you follow a high fat and low carb way of eating, it's fine. And perfectly healthy too.

There's more and more science now showing that. LCHF diet is much better for us that the diet we've been told to follow (low fat/high carb) for the last 30+ years.

It's not just about weight loss either - it's proving a better diet for diabetics (and to prevent diabetes), it's recently been shown to help cancer drugs work better - because high insulin levels impede the efficacy of the drugs, just to name two things.

Like many things, there is evidence going both ways. To show balance, here are links to the dangers and also a link showing how if it’s done right lfhc can be good for maintaining with a few caveats.

Heart disease nutritionfacts.org/2015/05/19/low-carb-diets-and-coronary-blood-flow/

Red meat caution www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/diet-and-cancer/diet-facts-and-evidence

Importance of high vegetable intake and caution about source of fat www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/low-carbohydrate-diets/

@Fattygettingthin

Here's a selection of 'typical' low carb meals. (Remember that if it's low carb it is also high fat)

Breakfast:

Full fat Greek yoghurt, plain if you like it that way or

• with double cream added
• with cinnamon or vanilla extract
• with a handful of berries
• with a handful of nuts/seeds

... or a bit of all the above!

Bacon and eggs

• with low carb sausages (a lot of the high quality supermarket sausages are very low carb, along with brands like The Black Farmer)
• with mushrooms
• with tomatoes

all fried rather than grilled

Scrambled eggs (scrambled in butter)

• on their own
• with cheese
• with smoked salmon
• with bacon

Any form of eggs really!

And if you don't like the sound of these, or haven't got time for a cooked breakfast, then there's always a continental breakfast - cooked meats, smoked fish, cheese etc (just no pastries or bread!)

Alternatively, leftovers from the previous night's dinner - breakfast doesn't have to mean specific breakfast food.

Lunch:

I usually have something with salad (easy to grab from the supermarket near work):

Mozzarella with avocado and tomato, with some basil if there's any available

Some form of sliced meat (ham, chicken, pastrami, beef), or hard boiled eggs, or smoked salmon with salad, with an oily dressing (home-made, using extra virgin olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt and freshly ground black pepper)

Again, I often take leftovers from dinner to heat up in the microwave at work

I have a microwave egg poacher (Lakeland) which I use, and sometimes have a couple of poached eggs from the microwave

I occasionally buy a packet of two salmon fillets, and over two days will have that - one each day - poach in the microwave with a squeeze of lemon and some butter, for a couple of minutes max. Have this with salad or sometimes broccoli, or asparagus, which I also cook in the microwave, with butter and lemon

If you have a Pret a Manger near you, they do a couple of really nice salads that are low carb, and also a soup (No Cream of Cream of Chicken) which is lovely, and also low carb

Dinner:

Pretty much anything goes here - I just don't eat potatoes, pasta or rice. Or sauces thickened with flour. So it's easy to adapt any dish which would normally be 'meat, potatoes and two veg' by leaving out the potatoes, or having 'meat and three veg' - as long as the veg are low carb! To be honest, most veg are acceptable - the ones you have to watch out for are the sweeter ones, so potatoes, sweet potatoes and sweetcorn (clue is in the name!), carrots, parsnips, peas and beetroot.

If your meals are mainly pasta or rice-based (which is the case for a lot of people), then it's more difficult, and you have to revise your menus a bit.

But here are some typical meals Chez BIWI:

Roast chicken/lamb/pork/beef

• with roast celeriac or roast swede, and any green veg you like (i.e. a version of a traditional roast - gravy made with the juices from the pan, but not thickened with flour)
• with roast Mediterranean-type veg (e.g. shallots, aubergine, peppers, courgettes, fennel, garlic, chillies, cauliflower - all roasted in lots of olive oil)

Sausages

• with roast veg (veg as above)
• with mash made from celeriac and leeks, or cauliflower, or swede - all mashed with lots of butter

Bolognese - without spaghetti/tagliatelle of course!

• on its own, with lots of Parmesan grated on top
• using finely shredded white cabbage in place of the pasta
• with spiralled courgettes in place of the pasta
• or with shirataki noodles - supermarkets sell these by Bare Naked noodles - they're made from the Japanese Yam/konjac flour, and are virtually carb (and calorie) free

Stir-fried pork/chicken

• with stir-fried baby sweetcorn (carb counts are much lower for the baby version), mange tout, shallots, broccoli, etc
• with egg-fried 'rice' made from cauliflower - pulse cauliflower florets in the food processor until it looks like rice/couscous and then fry this for 3-4 minutes till cooked, along with other ingredients for stir-fried rice

Shepherds pie - high fat beef mince, shallots and celery fried together, for the base, and then mash made from celeriac and leeks for the topping

Just a few examples! But hopefully shows you how delicious low carb/high fat can be. And you will lose weight. I promise!

Could you share a link re cancer? I recently had a scare, and the doctor advised me to avoid meat and consider going vegan. (I didn’t but as always everything in moderation).

@MentalUnload - yes, absolutely I agree there's evidence both ways. But I think it's interesting, from all the reading I've done over the last ten years or so how much of the anti-low carb stuff has a political bias.

And reading about how we came to be told that fat is the enemy has its roots in exactly that - politics. Along with the media and a lot of 'bad science'. The sparring between the different factions doesn't help anyone.

The first article you linked to is authored by someone who was involved in litigation with Atkins, for example

They're all trying to prove their arguments and score points over each other, rather than (genuinely) thinking about public health here.

Anyway, I'm not going to derail this thread any further, but if any of this is helpful to the OP - to make a decision either way! - then that's all to the good.

Sorry - I missed your last post. Hang on ...

This isn't the original article, but represents it.

There's also a study about to start, which was reported in the media here about a week ago, exploring exactly this. The piece I read was in The Guardian, but I can't find it online - they've changed their website and I can't find the search function!

Whoops - sorry! Have managed to post an invisible link!

Here it is

It’s mostly about calories though, if you eat less calories than what your body needs then you will loose weight.
You can do so by eating plenty of fruit and veg to fill you up or very small amount of high calories food. Fry ups are not healthy, oil brought to a high temperature changes composition and some of those compounds formed are not good for our health.

OP I don’t know anything about weight loss really but I’m so impressed at how much you’ve already lost in your own! And you’re obviously doing it sensibility by making lifestyle changes and eating properly, not starving yourself.

I saw that you mentioned that no-one had noticed; don’t be so sure. For example I have a school mum friend who’s very overweight and it was obvious to me that she’d been losing weight. I didn’t say anything to her (until one day the topic eventually came up) because I don’t as a rule comment on people’s bodies! However I could tell that she was losing weight and looking better for it.

Keep your motivation high and keep looking after yourself

It depends on the oil that you use for fry ups though. Lard is very good!

Op, you’ve done fantastically well to lose almost 2.5 stones. You should be proud of yourself. Try not to think of the whole journey in front you but set yourself smaller goals to begin with - so aim to lose another stone or something and be happy you’ve reached your goal (perhaps reward yourself with a non food related treat) and then set another goal.

If you can’t cook eggs in the morning on your cooker, what about scrambled eggs in the microwave? Or I hard boil some eggs on Sunday evening to have for the next 3 mornings. I really enjoy my breakfast of a couple of hard boiled eggs, a slice of ham and a few cherry tomatoes.

It’s also good having some hard boiled eggs in the fridge for a snack if you get peckish

Don’t be disgusted, once you make even small changes, you’ll see weight dropping off. Mumsnet weight loss pages are also a great support group too, I get totally inspired by people’s stories

if weight watchers was so great everybody would be slim. They are a multimillion pound business.

They dont care about you. The leader or consultant or coach dont care about you.

You are doing brilliantly.

OP I agree you’ve made a fantastic start on your own! It’s not like you’re on here saying I simply can’t lose weight, you already know you can. I tried HFLC, it did work in terms of weight loss and DH and I both agreed we felt better in ourselves and slept better. If you are missing some more filling foods, it’s worth considering. I couldn’t maintain it personally and lost more doing SW but I think it’s personal choice.

I just wanted to recommend an egg cooker! I got this one as a gift. It’s great - it does up to 6 boiled eggs, 2 poached or a 2 egg omelette. I highly recommend it.

Good luck, just keep going

You are doing really well. Seeing a dietician is good but before surgery would you consider trying gastric hypnotherapy? No side effects like surgery and if it works that's great. If not, then you've just lost a small amount of money.

My friend's mum did it before surgery, and was surprised and pleased how well it worked for her. Is it worth a try?

Well done. Try to avoid surgery if you can and go for free on-line weight loss tips as on the MN weightloss threads.

All weight loss is taking in fewer calories than you expend - we wll all know that but sadly it is not easy for most of us; I and many others find high good fats and loads of veg and medium protein works really well but you would certainly also lose weight other ways too. I find it helps to eat nothing until my late lunch. for others that wouldn't work at all. A lot of people drink many of their caloriesa. I drink tap water, not soft drinks etc and I expect that helps (and is free of charge).

I expect they will not take your BMI simply because of health risks - the person supervising may not be trained in those additional risks.

It's very common for weight management services to work this way. What you are essentially being referred for now is more specialist help which is what should be done for people with higher BMIs. I know it has stung a bit being declined from the general group but try and look on it as a positive in the long term.

You have done so well, if it took you several years to get to your max weight it will take a fair few to reverse it!

Why don't you buy a worktop plug in induction hob to give you the option of a quick hot hob?

Dont feel disgusted. You are doing amazingly and you have the support of your GP which is great news.

I know of a few people who have been similar BMI's and they all got to where they wanted to be.

Im really sorry about your ectopic pregnancy.

Ps - Rayburn oven should be kept hot all the time for immediate cooking (apart from in heat wave weather in which case, switch it off and have cold stuff)

Two stone off in two months suggests you're doing something right all by yourself OP! Excellent start you've made. The good thing about having a very high BMI is that probably with just a few changes from what you were doing, the weight will fall off you. Just the fact that you're cooking now is so encouraging. I'd expect the loss to continue at a speedy rate.

I think the batch cooking is a good call, I am also thinking what about investing in a small George Foreman grill for nights when you can't be bothered? You can do a bit of meat and have with bagged salad or similar, rather than firing up the whole Aga.

Not sure whether you have already been signposted but have you looked into working with an nhs health trainer?

You’ve done really well to try and shift the first couple of stone. The group probably wouldn’t have been that suitable for you as it seems to be targeting people with 1-2 stone to lose and you’ll be facing quite different challenges. I’m quite surprised they are effectively prioritising the support of someone with a bmi of 25/26 over those with 35 plus though. Are there any additional groups or services that are more tailored?

How are you doing OP? I thought of you today as I caught myself putting sweeties into the supermarket trolley! Hope you’re still on track!