To wonder what exactly middle class and upper class Mums do to be skinny

[Humpy84]

I am a Mum of a two year old turning three July. Not an age that he can be packed up for long walks in buggy.

I have gained weight and feeling overwhelmed by everything.

I have noticed and I think it is obvious that middle and upper class Mums tend to be slimmer.

I want to know if you identify this and if so what is your weekly shopping routine, meal plan, how do you exercise with or without toddler/s, tips and tricks etc, diet plans, etc etc.

You've reminded me of the upper class 'two fat ladies'. Home cooking didn't help them! (I know that one of them had also been an alcoholic)

Oh gosh, yes, I remember them

Thank you Rick, I know it was

Gwenhwyfar

The pasta, tomatoes and anchovies is an absolutely standard pasta dish, pasta alla puttanesca, or whore's pasta as it translates, the very epitome of Italian peasant cookery, tasty, cheap, quick, easy, no complicated utensils or significant fuel outlay required. My point being that in the UK we seem to have lost that mindset, unlike other countries.

Gwen, most of the things I cook take half an hour. I used to batch cook when I was a student. We had a cheap veg shop. I batch cooking is an old habit. I don't really like the taste of ready meals as much so I cook.

Home cooking and cooking from scratch does not equal being thin necessarily.

I'm overweight. I don't eat fast food or take aways. I don't drink fizzy drinks or alcohol. I cook every day. I'm a very good cook, but a homemade lasagne can be stuffed with calories for example.

If the basics are correct then, former, you just need to adjust your portion sizes and eat everything with a side salad or green veg, if you want to lose weight.

The 'Eating healthily is expensive' argument is bollox

I don't understand why cooking isn't taught at school, family meals under a fiver..making a basic stir fry, pasta dish, basic curry---easy, cheap meals.

It is in many schools, however a lot of parents either can't afford the ingredients or don't want to 'waste money on food that will be thrown away'.

But schools have enough to deal with. If parents want to learn to cook or teach their kids to cook, the internet has literally thousands of simple, basic video tutorials.

It's not always someone else's responsibility.

calories in vs calories out. That's all it comes down to.

Gwenhwyfar you can get cheap as anchovies in Lidl. The oil they come in is a bit poo so I just rinse them off.

If the basics are correct then, former, you just need to adjust your portion sizes and eat everything with a side salad or green veg, if you want to lose weight

Yes of course. It's all about calories...I could buy three calorie counted ready meals a day and lose weight if there's a calorie defecit. Just making the point that whilst homemade is better from a health point of view, you can still get fat from it if you have a calorie excess.

Search jamessmithpt on Instagram. He's a big advocate for cutting out all the BS in the fitness/diet industry and takes it back to basics. I'd recommend him to anyone who's looking for a starting point (warning: he swears a lot in his videos)

He also has a website where you can sign up to a 5 day free trial (you don't have to enter any card details so you don't automatically get charged after then) and it has a calculator which works out how many calories a day you should be eating to lose weight. His website also has loads of healthy recipes on them

I'm in no way sponsored by him, I just love what he does and his honesty

Every supermarket sells cheap anchovies.
59 p in Asda

Small tin like this, pasta and either fresh or canned tomatoes. You do the sauce while the pasta is cooking so it takes about 15 minutes and no effort at all really.

I don't understand why cooking isn't taught at school, family meals under a fiver..making a basic stir fry, pasta dish, basic curry---easy, cheap meals.
We try to do as much cooky stuff as we can with the money we have in our school but I can see that diminishing rapidly as we are all collectively going to be responsible for gun crime, drill music and kniving.

I also think one of the reasons for an increase in obesity nowadays is that food is just really bloody delicious and looks amazing too. I was watching TV cooking shows from the 1970s on youtube recently. The food looked vile...so plain, boring and unappetising, presented in such a full way. Nowadays there's so much variety...and it looks so lovely too. It's tempting

There's always been delicious, amazing looking food though. You're just comparing the past to the present.

The people in the 1970s would've done the same.

There is far far more variety in food now who was eating Thai food in the 70’s

There isn’t seasonal food now

And food is cheaper the production is cheaper as there is more mass production and the rise of convenience foods which are cheap and easy (which coincides with the rise in weight gain) but other costs have gone up considerably

Compared to the 1970s, portion sizes have increased enormously, while activity levels have decreased. Snacking at the levels seen today would have been unheard of. For many eating out or a bought lunch was a rare treat. Coffee shops did not exist. Now some people do it every day.

I love anchovies but aren’t they really high in salt? Not sure they are that healthy really

Yes to eat out was a real treat and snacking was an apple or tangerine

Agree about portion size. And wherever we go now there is an abundance of food and drinks around often very high in sugar from the high street to parks, museums, galleries, gyms, activity centres, cinema, national trust places and so on there is always lots of sugary food about

In the 70s my mother had cordon bleu cook books and was buying things like carbs, lobster, avocado, etc etc and indeed her impoverished ancestors in 1900s would have had delicious veg, potatoes they grew themselves and they lived by the sea so would have had fresh fish whenever they could afford it and lovely sea food gathered from the beach.

My mum cooked really healthily. Olive oil wholemeal pasta and grew lots of veg. She was extremely working class but very interested in food

@Gwenhwyfar Stop me if I’m wrong, but I believe the OP’s original question was about class. Also, again, stop me if I’m wrong, but the OP never mentioned this was a UK-centric issue.

I provided one link to one study to show you can find a study to back up any side of the argument. You’re deliberately avoiding my point that each individual decides what they eat and how they move their body.

And your rather odd argument against bulk cooking sounds suspiciously like another excuse.

Honestly, with all the shit things that happen to people in life that are totally out of their control, I do not understand why people choose to do the opposite of what they know is best for them and then blame the world for it.

A good fix for that is a stint volunteering in an impoverished country.

Yes probably be at all possible if they have a young family.

Yes it’s all common sense to do the opposite but I can understand what has led to this predicament.

Not be