To ask what you think of my average "working day" food?

[Stamen196]

Just got off phone to doctors. BMI is 37 and I need to get it down to below 30 for many reasons.

Background: I carry my weight relatively well so am a size 16, but this doesn't help as I just let it creep up without many people seeming to notices. I have PCOS, not planning on kids so no particular issue with fertility, but it does affect my ability to lose weight and metabolism.

I would say this is my average working day:

• Breakfast: 6.30am. porridge with honey or fruit and fibre with milk). Cup of tea.

-Snack: 10ish. Usually a mini kit kat or apple, or both if I'm hungry!

• Lunch: 12.30. Soup and bag of low cal crisps such as pop chips for lunch, and maybe a yoghurt if I'm home or an apple. On a particularly bad day, a couple of biscuits.

• 3.30pm: Afternoon snack. If I'm out it's a skinny cappuccino. If I'm in, whatever is in house. I am tired and energy levels low and so reach for 2 biscuits (not if I've had biscuits at lunch though). 🙄

• 8pmish: Dinner. Usual types of thing such as jacket potato, mushroom risotto, salmon stir fry or pasta, but probably a bigger portion than I realise. Veggies in there though. Some sort of sweet thing afterwards... Usually chocolate.

I only drink wine at weekends but I tend to stick to 1 glass. But my weekend diet is probably way worse with a meal out or takeaway featuring at some point!

What do you all think of my average day of eating compared to your own? Is it awful? Any tips would be very gratefully appreciated.
Do you worst....I need it!

You are having a lot of carbs in the evening, I would try to stick to protein and veg at that time of day and instead get your carb intake at lunchtime.

I would replace the chocolate, crisps and kitkats with healthier snacks or cut them out. I wouldn’t have a dessert after dinner every day either (this would be a rare treat).

Eggs are good for breakfast if you stick with breakfast.

If you have PCOS, a low carb ( not no carb ) diet is the way to go. PCOS causes insulin resistance which is kept in check by limiting carbs. Makes a massive difference. The pasta, potatoes etc need to go, replaced with meat and fresh veg, especially green veg. Porridge is OK if you ditch the honey. Good luck. Its hard. I have PCOS and this is the way of eating my gynea told me to stick to after having PCOS related issues.

Try the "eating off a smaller plate trick" - that really helps me. The other thing I've been fiddling with (watching too much international Masterchef!) is fancy plating. So rice in a little bowl on a larger plate, say, with some salad on the side as well, then your protein portion, alongside an artful drizzle of sauce.

And whoever said upthread to weigh everything is absolutely right. My 'small' portion of porridge turned out to be three times what I should have been eating when I weighed out the oats! I'm trying to lose the lockdown weight at the moment so am calorie and macro counting a lot more than usual:

Today, breakfast was 30g porridge oats with 200ml semi skimmed milk, and a small squeeze of agave syrup.

Lunch is a chicken and giant couscous salad - 38g of the couscous, 100g of chicken, plus other salad veggies and a squeeze of lemon juice as dressing. It's actually more than I can eat right now so I've just put it aside to type this post!

Dinner tonight is the other half of the chicken satay I made last night, which has one chicken breast, 50g (uncooked rice) then a satay sauce which will be mostly protein and fats - peanut butter, lime juice, coriander, a red chilli etc.

Two coffees with s/s milk (one when I get up - one when I get into the office) and in the evenings I have a gin and slimline tonic. The fancy fevertree tonics taste lovely and are minimal calories!

Since you have pcos (like me) you could ask your gp if you can try metformin, it's really helpful to make you feel more normal and also does help with weight loss, IF you are eating sensibly. I would also say don't eat low fat anything! Low fat and low cal usually means either high in sugar or stuffed with sweeteners. Fat is not actually the enemy its made it to be, we need some fats!

Thank you so much everyone! I really want to change. Annoyingly I lost over the 7 stone in my early twenties from eating less and moving more. I've put most of it back on again. I know what I have to do but I'm rubbish at thinking of meals that incorporate more protein. If anyone has any good recipes, please do drop them here!

It sounds OK to me. But hard to judge portion size. I eat more than that, walk fewer steps and have a BMI of 20, so hard to see what you’re doing wrong. Can you get rid of the chocolate? I have chocolate most days, though. Maybe it’s the weekend takeaways. I never have takeaways.

I’m overweight myself so not best places to give advice!

But I think 15k steps a day is a lot of calories burned! Well done. Have you done a calculation in my fitness pal of how much/little you need to lose weight? On that output you could probably eat a reasonable amount and not gain.

Go onto the skinny people threads on here- they never feature biscuits, desserts or snacks.
No sugar breakfast
Soup or salad lunch
Protein and veg dinner
No sweets/snacks/crisps/alcohol/drinks other than water/no cal.
That is why they are skinny and we aren’t!

I suspect the quantities you are eating are too much. Also there's lots of 'treats' in your day!
I'd highly recommend using my fitness pal or similar calorie counter to understand exactly what you are eating. I do it every so often for a week or so to reset my view of what a normal portion is as it's so easy to let it creep up over time.
I've lost nearly 3 stone since March mainly doing Michael moseley's fast 800 which also focuses on lower carb- it's amazing how easily you can cope on 800 calories a day and really gives you a good perspective on portion size.
I used to roll my eyes at those people who said that a square of dark chocolate was enough to satisfy sweet cravings and now I am one of those annoying people!

You eat a hell of a lot more than I do - most of which is sugar - and I run 50-odd miles a week.
With wine and takeaways at weekends as well, I think you have your answer as to why you have a BMI of 37....

Hey! I read it and thought your diet sounded ok tbh.

To clarify a few questions asked:

• I am already on Metformin.

• I am average height. I hate to say it but I really am "big boned!". Very stocky shoulders and generally thick skeleton, haha. I was still coming up as "overweight" when I was a size 10 a few years ago, but I don't want to use this as an excuse any more. I am clearly obese if my BMI is 37 even if I have heavy bones!!

• Yes, a very carb heavy diet when writing it all down! Have tried MFP but rubbish at sticking with it. Will dust myself off and try again...

I'm not one to talk as my diet is worse than yours, but it looks like you're getting about 4-500 calories from pointless snacks (100 in kitkat, at least 100 in 2 biscuits, 100 in crisps, at least 100 and possibly much more in chocolate). That's a big proportion of your daily calorie intake.

Good luck op. If you have yo yo dieted your metabolism is probably fucked and you'll have to eat much less than someone your height who is already thin and then keep it up for the rest of your life. You will be hungry but you have to accept it. Exercise will do very little. It's so depressing. Or get weight loss surgery. I did and lost nine stone. Hoping to keep it off forever but it's still not easy.

Big boned is kind of bollocks.

I find having bigger portions earlier in the day helps. I’m not losing weight this way but more importantly I’m not putting any on
Aim for my last meal to be around 6pm

I think there’s too much sugar, processed foods and snacks.

Porridge for breakfast is fine but I’d ditch the honey. If you have a decent breakfast, maybe with protein for a change, you shouldn’t need a mid morning snack.

Your lunch sounds very thin. I’d go for some protein, maybe a piece of chicken, and some salad. That should fill you up and negate the need for the afternoon snack.

For dinner, I’d really watch your portion sizes and again, lose the sugary treats.
The other thing I’d mention is to ask yourself if you are hungry before you eat. If not, don’t eat and wait until you are genuinely hungry.
Oh and drink loads of water.

Good luck, hope this helps.

I wish I could eat at 6pm but the nature of my job means I don't finish/get home until 8 or 8.30pm on weeknights.

@RandomWordsandaNumber5 Thanks for taking the time to give this constructive advice! I will be buying some chicken for my lunch tomorrow... 😊

PCOS really affects my ability to process carbs. It is a pain, but best way is to cut out rice, pasta, bread, grains and rely on natural carbs from veg. ( avoiding potatoes, corn and legumes). If I cut carbs out, then after a few days i stop craving them, it is easier than trying to moderate them - I don’t appear to be able to do moderation! Lots of protein and healthy fats will keep you full for longer. Drinking lots of water will help too.

It would be more helpful to know roughly how many calories you’re consuming.

Also, just to add I average about 15k steps a day in working week, but I appreciate that I need to do proper strenuous exercise to actually burn the calories I need for weight loss.

You really don't. By all means, do cardio for heart health, for psychological health, just plain old because it feels good to do it. But don't rely on it to burn calories.

Calculate your TDEE, taking into account your PCOS. e.g. thepcosbible.com/pcos-macro-calculator/. Find 3such calculators online and take an average of all 3 answers (they may be slightly different).

Subtract 10-20% calories from them and then multiply by 7 to get a weekly target.

Realistically think about your week and how you want to distribute your calories to fit. e.g. if you are happy to eat lower on week days but want a bit more for weekends then allocate them like that. e.g. Mon-Thu = 1500 per day. Fri-Sun = 2000 per day, the average eaten per day is 1714kcal.

Each week day, keep 200 is calories aside for things you really like but that are not nutritionally dense. e.g. 3 hobnobs. Each weekend day think about reserving a higher number for these kinds of foods, e.g. 500 per day.

Use the rest of your cals to eat as nutriotinally dense food as you can, whilst still enjoying it. This will naturally tend to lead you to lower carb, or at least more complex carbs. For your exmaple diet above, that means replacing most of the choc, crisps, biscuits with something a bit better for you. e.g. you may find all that adds up to the same cals as a salad bowl or a small wholemeal sandwich that would go with your soup and help fuel you better for your day.

Eat like that for as long as it takes to get where you want to be. If that's going to be a long time then...

a) keep looking for foods you enjoy that are within the guidelines above.

b) give yourself permission to move to your total TDEE (maintenenace) calories anytime you are finding it really tough or you have special events, like Christmas. That still means counting and trying to eat right, but it gives you more calories to play with without reversing you into weight gain, plus provides a psychological break. You then cut cals down again when you're ready to keep going.

Oh, and swapping honey for Yacon syrup might be easy way to avoid that particular sugar-dose.

You eat a hell of a lot more than I do - most of which is sugar - and I run 50-odd miles a week
With wine and takeaways at weekends as well, I think you have your answer as to why you have a BMI of 37

Wow, that is SO helpful! OP must be thrilled that you decided to contribute to this thread! Let me quickly screenshot this fabulous advice of yours so that I can refer to it next time I want to eat a biscuit.

Big boned is kind of bollocks.

It's 100% bollocks.