To ask for your help to sort my diet out

[Worthygirl]

Aibu to ask for your help to lose weight.

I exercise a lot but am not losing any weight and I am fairly sure the ‘80% diet, 20% exercise rule applies to me’. I am virtually vegan apart from eating eggs so I think my diet is too carb heavy (and also too crap heavy!)
This is what I have eaten today:

• 30g oats with raisins, cashews, a chopped up apple, oat milk & soya yoghurt
• lentil & tomato soup with half a baguette
• fruit flapjack
• veg chilli with vegan cheese & a slice of bread
• 2 rich tea biscuits

Is this way too carb heavy? I am 45 so finding it harder to lose weight anyway & at the moment 5:2 (which worked before) just makes me feel unwell so trying to eat a balanced diet.

Am I getting it really wrong?

Oh, and I am 5 foot 8 and 12 stone so could do with losing a stone. I am a size 12/14

I know a dietician who tells her patients to avoid ‘double carb’ meals. So only one carb per meal.

A simple rule but may help?

I'm no expert but every time I give up bread for lent I loose tons of weight. Normally switch it out for crackers.

its sounds calorie heavy and even then hard to tell as some vegan cheese could be 100cals or 600 depending o how much u have. same for the toppings you are putting on your oats etc. you will need rouse something like my fitness pal and calculate/ weight everything to see how many calories all that adds up to.

Use MyFitnessPal app to input the calories for your food. You can also input exercise. As long as you keep using more than you take in you’ll lose weight.

My vegan cheeses was 260 cals- I do have an app to track & todays cals were 1345 - I didn’t exercise much today! Should I be exercising to burn 1345 though?!

Noone can tell you whats wrong with your diet without quantities. Tge cashews for example could be 10g or 20g (or more) which could easily be calories different if not more. So i agree breakfast could be 300cal or closer to 600.

Another vote for my fitness pal

Did you weigh everything

1345 doesn't look right for that list. how tiny is the flapjack and baguette? how many nuts? what are you drinking and are you counting milk calories etc in tea

My breakfast was 285 cals- lunch was guess work as I bought it tea was about 400 cals. So I do measure most stuff & try and track everything. But to no avail - calories for my weight to lose 2lbs a week are 1400 😬

If you’re exercising lots but not losing any weight then you’re taking in more calories than you’re using.
If you’re trying to lose weight then start with your diet. Any exercise you do is great, will help weight loss.
1345 is a low number of cals and hard to maintain. If you did 1500 for a prolonged period regardless of whether they are carbs or not you’d see weight loss.

No. 1345 cal sounds like a 1lb weight loss a week on a relatively inactive lifestyle assuming you are about average height. If you arent losing there are probably major errors in your logging somewhere.

Common errors are not adding oil, pasta quantities, milk in teas and coffees . Look for high calorie items.

I too think you are way out on that being under 1345 cal 30g of porridge oats and one cashew will hit 245cal without even trying

You don’t have enough protein there. You’re probably filling the hunger with carbs. Oats, half a baguette, more oats, bread - that’s a lot of carbohydrate (not including your hiddenand obvious sugars).

Instead :

-30g oats with raisins, cashews, a chopped up apple, oat milk & soya yoghurt- good

• lentil & tomato soup, 2 hard-boiled eggs (eat 2 bowls of soup if you're hungry, not half a baguette!)
• fruit flapjack - no. Have an apple and some vegan cottage cheese instead
• veg chilli with vegan cheese and roasted veggies, cauliflower, butternut squash, peppers etc.
• 2 rich tea biscuits-- Nope. Yog and apple compote instead.

Do a five mile brisk walk each day...the weight will soon fall off.

Your food is way more than 1345 cals

@7salmon yes, that’s what I thought. Yesterday was better- I had same breakfast, lentil soup for lunch & a 2 egg omelette for tea with veg.

Raisins are also calorific as are a lot of dried fruit. I avoid bread as much as possible because one slice has around 100 cals without the spread. Hovis tasty medium sliced has 88 calories per slice. I keep a loaf in my freezer and only take out what I need and it usually takes a month or longer to use it up.
Weight everything and keep in mind drinks have calories too.

It sounds too many calories... Sorry op. I think your underestimating and probably portions bigger than you think.
I lose weight at between800 to 1000 calories a day, over 1200 I gain
I am active as in I walk dogs every day, run around 30km total a week and do yoga.
I am perimenopausal and from age 43ish had to significantly drop calories just to maintain weight at 68kgs..i am 5'4"
And size 10-12
Mfp says I can eat 1450 calories and lose... I really really can't.

I am newly vegan and find it very carb rich/dense so am being very careful about portions.

Dunno what your lunch situation is, but could you make soup and take it? More control over what goes in it then

@theredjellybean I might drop to 800- 1000 cals & see if that helps. I run or do hiit training every day so exercise quite alot

Today's food looks good- but not for weight loss. Its supposed to require a deficit of 500 calories per day to lose one pound a week.
I agree with PPs' advice to log meticulously on MyFitnessPal. It's a bit of a faff at first but you can scan barcodes in off packaging and if you eat something again the calories etc are already saved. It makes you look at portion size too.

Use a Basal Metabolic Rate calculator- they can also calculate the number of calories you'd need to maintain your current weight. Then cut 500-1000 calories off for weight loss of 1-2lbs a week. I'm sticking to 1200 calories but I'm fairly sedentary. I've lost about 3 stone so far, 2-3lbs per week but eating what I wanted at Christmas time, on holiday, occasional meals out etc. Now 5'9" and 10 stone 5lbs.
For me to lose weight, I have something like 2 scrambled eggs made with butter for breakfast- (no toast); salmon- 2 small fillets- and say courgettes for lunch- and maybe a Soulful cauliflower & quinoa curry pot for dinner. Any remaining calories go on my downfall... milky coffees.

Cheese is quite calorific, so a rare treat. No Rich Tea. No flapjack. No baguette with the soup. Or maybe just a small portion of one of these per day.
It's quite tough but once you start losing the weight at that rate, it's very motivating. MFP lets you log your weight and shows you a graph of your weigh loss. I love it- but it might not be your thing!!!

I would ditch the cheese and the bread.

You have to be doing a huge amount of exercise to work off what you are eating. I wouldn't drop your calories I'd just keep to 1500 for 6 months and see how your weight is. as PP said you have to be sure of weights and quantities and you have to be consistent for a long period of time.