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!

Your diet doesn’t sound awful or great. Sort of just in the middle. I don’t think soup and crisps would do me for lunch, would you be able to substitute something like a chicken and vegetable wrap? I would also try to (maybe only some days) swap kit kat and biscuits for something like carrot sticks, or maybe apple slices and peanut butter. It would fill you up a bit longer I think and possibly save you getting an afternoon slump.

I've checked again and TDEE is actually coming up as 2366 calories.

Then either you are under estimating your weekdays cals (easy done) or your weekends are high enough to more than couner act your weekdays.

Personally, I'd use the next few days to accurately and honestly track normal weekdays to try and see which is true. It will help you focus on where to change first.

However, with a TDEE of 2350 you can easily look at something like:

Mon-Thu, 1750 cals
Fri - Sun, 2000 cals

That results in an average per day of around 1850, which is 20% lower than your TDEE and should give you results without being overly punitive.

I do think my metabolism is screwed due to the yo yo as others have said, but also I'm definitely eating the wrong things.

Then please don't just cut hard to very low cals. It will not give you long term, sustainable results.

Take the time to do the thing right. Eat higher amounts but focus on a small deficit and nutritionally dense foods. Even eating at maintenance for a few months to settle into 1 weight. Then cutting by 10-20% to start a loss.

Accept it may take 1-3 years to get to your goal but it will be a kinder process and set you up to keep the weight off. Weight loss alone is not success. Keeping the weight off, is.

PCOS is improved by weight loss. You should be aiming to have a balanced blood sugar level throughout the day rather than yo-yoing with sugary carbs. Go with low GI food stuffs that fill you up but don't peak your blood sugar - good slow release stuff.
Ditch the honey from the porridge.
Add lots more fibre into things and make sure at least 50% of calories are vegetables. Replace kit kat with plain rice cake and an orange or carrot sticks. Make up a salad for lunch or make your own soup with wholegrains and lots of vegetables. Curried parsnip, carrot and coriander, spicy squash and sweet potato. Allgood now the weather is likely to get cooler. Ditch the low calorie crisp junk and replace with a slice of wholemeal bead.

I suspect white carbs are your enemy. The evening meals have 'vegetables in there' as opposed to being mainly vegetable and protein sources. Don't have the sweet thing afterwards, it will give you rebound lower blood sugar and make you hungrier. You need to level out blood sugar levels throughout the day. Replace chocolate with a banana, apricots or grapes.

Ideally eat earlier and have nothing after supper to give a longer period of fasting.

@Stamen196

This is as good as I can find. Probably an average representation of my portion size. It's a pasta bowl, by the way...

You need to weigh. Not do it by sight.

60 grams of dry pasta is enough. Maybe 70 grams. And that's a lot smaller than one would imagine

OP the things that are helping me are:
Intermittent fasting- I try to eat mostly between 1-7pm. I drink shedloads of water and tea in the mornings to get me to lunchtime! Your day might need a different pattern but I would encourage you to see if you can reduce your overall eating “window” at all. It is meant to help reset insulin sensitivity and metabolism.

Eating less sugar and carbs (not low, just less)- for me this looks like more protein at lunchtime to keep me going, to save room for one small sweet treat later in the day if I want it).

Today for me looks like:
B: none
L: 6x crackerbread, turkey, 2 hard boiled eggs. 360 cals
D: low cal Thai green chicken with a mound of veg. 425 cals

I’m trying to keep under 1200 a day at the moment, so that leaves me about 400 to play with, depending on how the day goes, there’s often a late afternoon snack in there but I am trying to make that higher protein. If I lay off the carbs and sugar it’s doable but there are some foods I can’t even think about without really struggling!

Best of luck.

That's your average day BEFORE trying to lose weight?

I eat far FAR more than that in a day and am a size 10. I think you're hiding some calories in your diary OP.

If you actually stick to that meal diary in your OP then I think you'd lose weight. Good luck

I dunno. That position size looks very reasonable to me. I eat a similar breakfast and dinner to you and a much larger lunch (and drink more beer and wine!). I don't snack a lot but I will usually have an apple or, just like you, a couple of biscuits at some point in the afternoon most days. I think it's quite a light diet. Have you recently started eating like this? I'm at a loss as to how you could have a BMI of 37!

Today have had porridge (but a very big bowl), a glass of apple juice, a coffee, a mid morning snack of a Fage yoghurt, raspberries and granola, and now am eating a bowl of pasta with tenderstem broccoli and Parmesan and a small bowl of beef stew. (I wouldn't usually be having the morning yoghurt.) I also take fewer steps than you, probably about 10,000 a day, though this makes me more active than most people I know. My BMI is 18.5 and am trying to eat a bit more because my face looks fucking old.

It sounds as if you eat pretty well and I can't see any huge room for improvement or for cutting out more food. But it is obviously very important for your overall health to lose a significant amount of weight. Surely there must be some other medical issue going on? If you're not losing weight very fast like this then I think you should ask for blood sugar, thyroid tests, etc. Good luck!

Your eating five times a day Including a two-course, carb-heavy dinner late in the day.

Even if the portions are only average that is a staggering amount of food. Unless you are an artic fisherman you need to seriously cut that down. No wonder your BMI is high.

The big positive is you have loads of room for improvement, best of luck!

Also, personally, I don't think 60g of dry pasta is enough if it's the main dish. That's not much!

OP, don't be ashamed about being hungry. You shouldn't need to follow a punishing regime where you're always wanting more food than you can have. I think something else is going on. How old are you? (Sorry if you said.) If under 35, I will say that the PCOS might be about to let up. I have it mildly and had very long irregular cycles up to early 30s, and a face full of spots. Now in my early 40s I have a 28 day cycle and no spots (only wrinkles). Also less of a moustache. Maybe if it affects your weight rather than your skin it may prove easier to lose weight as your ovarian reserve goes down...?

Thanks everyone.

Some conflicting opinions about how much I eat here! Some say staggeringly high, some say it's not that much! I wouldn't say I'm hiding any calories but I may be off the mark with portion sizes. The list presented is pretty much accurate, but I can't say I weigh everything. I'm starting that today!

I am early 30s.

PCOS is definitely part of the problem, but I can't blame it on that entirely! I think I need to take all the dietary advice on board, particularly from those with experience in PCOS!

Vegetable and lentil soup on the hob right now.

I'd try not to eat after 6pm, but if that's not possible, have a lighter meal - you could have the soup then. And have a bigger lunch - protein, lots of veg, a bit of carbs. If you're out of the house, it will require a bit of effort and planning if you need to make a packed lunch (eg salmon and veg, and a bit of potato salad). Smaller portions, cut down on sugar and hidden sugar - Fruit and Fibre has loads of sugar.

2366 is more than most men need

For me I try and bulk stuff up so think volume if you're hungry
Carrots, salad etc so more volume for less calories
And I had to cut my calories a lot, technically I can eat more and my TDEE/BMR says that as I'm tall but I have to eat 1200-1300 to lose

@baytreetavern

2366 is more than most men need

Not necessarily. The weight of a person affects how many calories they burn just to keep them ticking over. Someone weighing 8 stone will burn a lot less than someone who is 14 stone.

I bet I eat fewer calories than a lot of people weighing many stone less than me. It's about METABOLISM, not just how much you weigh.

I eat circa 900 cals a day and have a BMI of 27 technically overweight.

This is the price I pay for being morbidly obese on and off for years with a BMI that got to 47.

I try to have around 1200 cals a day. Things that help:

Stick what you eat on mfp and go with their suggested portion sizes.
Drink a lot of water & tea to help you stave off the pangs
Some of your calories are either empty or you're eating things that don't work for you or don't fill you up. Make some of the swaps suggested up thread for more filling meals and more energy.
Swap out your porridge if it's not working for you- it's touted as a wonderfood but it doesn't help everyone. There was a thread on here about it recently. I subbed mine for full fat greek yoghurt because I was so hungry by lunch if I had porridge.
You will initially feel crap- just through the first couple of days.

Look at how you think about what you eat and your rationale behind snack times to see what you can cut out and manage by bettet fuelling yourself at meals. I managed to cut out snacking bar the epic dip I always seem to have in the late afternoon- I have a low cal hot choc when I get home, alongside some celery dipped in low fat cream cheese. It's my one treat & stops me buying crap on the way home.

2366 is more than most men need

That's not how much I actually eat per day!

OP, your diet doesn't look awful to me. I would suggest enter EVERYTHING you eat into MFP, even make sure you weigh everything including butter on your sandwiches etc. Its quite easy to eat extra calories without realising, I'm terrible for finishing off the kids dinner (surely the odd pizza crust can't hurt .. thats what i used to think anyway!)

Do you have a fitness tracker? If you are walking 15000 steps a day then you would be burning a lot of calories, especially if you are a bigger lady. If your tracker is logging steps make sure its tracking correctly, mine will count when I'm washing up or brushing my hair etc. I try and make sure I actually go out for a walk/run (nearly) every day and not rely on what my tracker says I've done in the whole day.

Anyway it doesn't matter if you eat a couple of biscuits a day or pack of crisps. Its just calories in vs calories out. Its as simple as that. (Eating more junk food is not likely to not fill you up so you could end up eating more overall).

@Bahhh Is there no way of bouncing your metabolism back? Huge cogratulations on your weight loss. That's amazing!

So I'm in a similar situation to you. I had a medical in the middle of lockdown and my BMI came back at 37! I've now got it down to 34.5. Mine was a combination of portion size and snacking. I was given a smart watch for my birthday which tracks my steps and reminds me to move if I haven't moved much in the previous hour which has really helped. I've also started exercising after my 4 year old is in bed. I was going a walk but as the nights have drawn in,OH got me a fold up exercise bike which I use in front of the tv most nights. The watch can also track how hard I'm working on that and record it. So I can see what I'm doing. If you can afford it I'd recommend some digital scales with a watch app so you can track your weight and see your progress. I now use smaller plates at meals, eat cheese with my lunch and add wheat bran to my porridge which is half water/half full fat milk. Avoid anything diet unless you've read the label as normally they've taken out fat and added sugar and you need to keep your GI index down to avoid sugar spikes. I now have things like carrot batons in the fridge so I have something there if I need to crunch munch.

Anyway it doesn't matter if you eat a couple of biscuits a day or pack of crisps. Its just calories in vs calories out. Its as simple as that

Apparently not, according to Mumsnet physics. Those that are able to power an adult human female's body for a day on half a chicken breast and a sniff of a lettuce leaf should offer themselves up to those trying to solve the energy crisis.

@Stamen196 - if I'm lucky it'll 'reset' a bit if i can maintain my current weight long term. Some say weight loss surgery helps it do so but I don't believe it's proven yet. Time will tell!

Shocked at the 'big boned is bollocks' posters! Heavier bones 8s definitely a thing. I'm 5ft 6 and a size 8-10 but my BMI is just nudging into the overweight category. My dad is very tall and lean but as also always had the same problem. Full believe we have heavy bones!

Google it. Bigger bones might weigh three pounds more but not several stone! Skeletons weigh bugger all.