To think “healthy eating” isn’t the best way for lose weight?!

[dontchasewaterfalls]

I did Slimming World for a number of years and I managed to lose 3 stone and keep it off.

Since having my baby at the start of the year, I’ve gained 2 stone.
Since Slimming World classes were shut, and I wanted to try something different, I decided to just try and eat healthily rather than actually following the Slimming World plan.

I’ve been doing this a few months now and I’ve only lost 5lb, which I could easily lose in a week following Slimming World!!

So what exactly am I doing wrong??

Here’s what I’ve eaten today -

Breakfast
Two weetabix, topped with a handful of raspberries and a small banana. (Semi skimmed milk)
Cup of tea.

Lunch
Tuna (1tin made with light mayo) 80g Wholemeal pasta(dried weight) lettuce, tomato, pickled beetroot. Light Mayo.

Dinner
Fajitas.
Chicken breast, peppers, onions, mushrooms (dry fried) 2 x small wholemeal wraps.
Handful grated cheese.

Snacks
Pomegranate seeds
Large orange
Chocolate fudge Alpen light cereal bar

That’s a typical day for me. I do occasionally have some chocolate or a pack of crisps.

Once a week, usually on a Saturday night, we will have a takeaway. Hubby and I will share a pizza and chips, or I will get chicken tikka pieces in a pitta with salad.

I don’t drink any alcohol. I have at most 3 cups of tea a day and the rest of the time I drink water.

I don’t do any organised exercise, but I do go for a walk every day which is usually 45-60 minutes.

I’m not counting any calories, just trying to eat sensibly. But it’s not working well.

What do you think I’m doing wrong?
Should I just go back to Slimming World?

I lost 4.5 stone in 2017 and I ate carbs with almost every meal - the blanket rule of "carbs are the devil" is nonsense. A calorie deficit leads to weight loss whether you're eating lean meat and vegetables or pasta.

Can't wait for when someone finally fully catches onto the carb fear.

The Haunting of The Bread House😂
The occupants of The Bread House are all trying to lose weight and are haunted by a sourdough loaf with vengeance.

Can posters who haven’t realised OP is breastfeeding please stop telling her to go on an 800 cal daily diet or to start fasting! This is not the time for radical changes!

OP cut yourself some slack. You gave birth this year, you’re still breastfeeding and you are actually losing weight slowly. You’re doing ok!

Personally I’d suggest exercise. Just 30 minutes a day a few days a week, a jog or a YouTube workout. Even with your current calorie intake it will make a big difference.

Also carbs are not the enemy

I think you are eating healthily, but as PPs said, the correct amount to maintain weight, not lose it. I think you need to make a few little tweaks which (unfortunately!) amounts to eating less!

Calorie counting works for me. It is a faff, you have to weigh things etc. but you quickly get used what you should be eating, and it's not so much effort. I use My Fitness Pal - it has a lot of things programmed in.

In terms of lowering your calories in the example you gave, I would suggest:

• one weetabix rather than two, and maybe dropping the banana as well. Or ideally, banana raspberries and fat free yogurt instead of the weetabix. I am fortunate that I don't need breakfast (I usually feel sick if I have anything more than a cup of coffee), but on the rare occasions I am hungry before lunch I have a couple of satsumas or a banana.

• 80g pasta is a lot for weight loss purposes. I do 50g per person as standard.

• depending on how much mayo you have, I sometimes mix a teaspoon of low fat mayo into fat free yogurt or quark instead of having all mayo

• I would split a tin a tuna between myself and my partner (or save the other half for another time) and bulk it out with more salad/veg

• a small jacket potato would be less calories (and imo more filling) than the wraps

• not sure how much your 'handful' is, but for weight loss I try to stick to a maximum of 30g of low fat cheese when it's an 'extra' - maximum 50g when it's the main protein.

If you find your meal doesn't keep you full, add in snacks like veg sticks, pickled onions (my favourite low-cal alternative to crisps!) or fruit.

Try to stick to one carby/sugary (excluding fruit) snack a day - like you are already with your one Alpen bar.

Obviously this is what works for me, not for everyone, so take my advice with a generous pinch of salt!

Oh gosh sorry I have just seen that you are BF! What you are eating sounds perfectly fine for BF and slowly losing weight! Perhaps swap wraps etc. for a carby veg like potato, sweet potato or squash but other than that, as you were...

How low are some of the calorie intakes here

@honeybeetheoneandonly

I'm not sure what you mean. SW isn't abnormal food.

Oh yeah I know, what I meant by not learning how to eat “normally” on slimming world, is that I’m always thinking of “Free food” so for me to have pasta without thinking about the quantity has been the norm.

Agree with previous posters OP, you need to keep the regular intake as you are breastfeeding and probably need that last snack in the evening.

I think just slightly cutting down your portions, making sure you are drinking enough, swapping out a few snacks for lower calorie but still healthy and filling items and maybe getting an extra walk in pushing the buggy will be enough to just take it up a modest notch in terms of weight loss. SLowly is definitely the way to go. Eggs make great snacks if you are okay with them. I'm not so keen, but DH hardboils them and keeps them in the fridge for snacking through the week. I'd rather just poach a fresh one :)

No diet is the best way to lose weight unless you can do it forever, and hardly anyone can. Nobody can say that Slimming World, Weight Watchers, Low Carb etc 'worked' if they put the weight back on. All anyone does by yo-yo-ing is mess with their metabolism and cause further long-term weight gain.

I've tried umpteen diets. Every single one of them 'worked' for as long as I stuck to them. But unless the end result is permanent, stable weight loss, what was the point of any of them? Like many people, I'd probably be the same weight or slimmer now if I had never bothered going on a single diet in the first place!

I've realised that for me, eating 3 meals a day, but concentrated into a shorter period, makes me less hungry - so I (pretty effortlessly) eat less at meal times and can resist snacking - so, lower calorie intake but without feeling deprived. Plus I get the health benefits of fasting. I eat breakfast at 11-11:30, lunch between 2:30-3pm and dinner around 18:30-19:00. The only effort is not eating until 11am, but I got used to that after a couple of days. I've only just started this, so will see how it goes!

@lazylinguist I think that intermittent fasting/limiting eating times is definitely good for maintaining weight and also good for a nice gradual loss, not suitable for OPs current situation, but maybe something to look to once no longer breastfeeding.

Sorry - just to add to my very long post . I have decided I am so absolutely and utterly done with weighing, counting, entering food into apps, tweaking 'macros', measuring portions, 'making swaps', cutting out food groups or any of that tedious stuff. So if my new method doesn't work, I will just have to remain a bit fat forever.

Quite right, WaxOn - probably not ideal while breastfeeding.

So actually slimming world didn’t actually work well for you because you regained the weight. It shows that that method Was not sustainable for you.
The approach you are taking now is more sensible. Aim for a slow achievable weight loss using small changes to your diet that will be sustainable in the long term.

[quote WaxOnFeckOff]@lazylinguist I think that intermittent fasting/limiting eating times is definitely good for maintaining weight and also good for a nice gradual loss, not suitable for OPs current situation, but maybe something to look to once no longer breastfeeding.[/quote]
Yep - I'm a big fan of intermittent fasting, found it was working well for me but then I got pregnant and stopped because it's not suitable/advised - and the same is true of breastfeeding. If OP starts fasting, eating too low calorie a diet or generally not meeting her bodies needs for breastfeeding it will really affect not just her supply but her health - it's not worth the risk.

So actually slimming world didn’t actually work well for you because you regained the weight.

Exactly. But over 90% of dieters put the weight back on, many of them more than they lost.

@WaterAndTheWild

Just skip breakfast and stick to your 10 000 steps a day..

I KNOW that skipping breakfast is 'bad' but it's the easiest way to create a calorie deficit while still eating relatively normally, I KNOW that 10 000 steps a day isn't 'based on science' but it's easily doable..

Seriously, the OP is a nursing mother. She needs to actually eat reasonable amounts.

5lbs a week is actually a good healthy amount to lose.

@Hobbitfeet32

So actually slimming world didn’t actually work well for you because you regained the weight. It shows that that method Was not sustainable for you. The approach you are taking now is more sensible. Aim for a slow achievable weight loss using small changes to your diet that will be sustainable in the long term.

@Hobbitfeet32

Well I regained the weight because I ate very badly. Mixture of “eating for two” and then lockdown greed.

Whenever I have followed Slimming World it works very well. I also maintained my weight loss for several years.

I think I’ve just gotten to a point where I feel a bit fed up with it. Counting syns, weighing my cheese etc.

I thought I’d give something else a try but actually I’m so trained to do Slimming World, I’m finding it a bit of a struggle to understand how else to actually lose weight.

I'm not sure what you mean. SW isn't abnormal food.
I think the "eat as much as you want" is getting wilfully misunderstood!

In your case, I would say to skip the takeaway for 4 weeks and see if it makes a difference.
I used to have a takeaway once a week when meeting family. When lockdown happened, we didn't get together and didn't get a takeaway and it made a massive difference. I'll be honest and say that I wouldn't have given it up voluntarily though. I suggest, if you do it for a specific number of weeks only, then at least you'll know if it's that (it really is for me- but I will still happily go back to it when our weekly meetings resume).

You'll never lose weight with carbs at every meal unless you are doing extreme calorie counting!

@CeibaTree

You'll never lose weight with carbs at every meal unless you are doing extreme calorie counting!

@CeibaTree

Is that just if I was following a calorie controlled diet?

I lost 3 stone on Slimming world and pretty much had carbs with every single meal.

I’ve been a bit of a pig in lockdown and since the start of my pregnancy I’ve gained two stone. It’s taken my BMI over 30 so I’m desperate to get it back down again.

I’ve realised that after years of following slimming world I actually have no idea how to eat ‘normally’.

The diet you outlines in your first post was fine, and you were losing. There is nothing wrong with losing more slowly - all the evidence is that people who do that, even a few lbs a week, over a long period, maintain their weight loss. Diets like SW or WW result in more weight gain in the long term.

You also need calories, fats, and carbs to produce milk, as well as a lot of different nutrients, just ask any dairy farmer. Losing more than 5lbs a week is not recommended for any nursing mother and it's likely to affect your milk supply, and if not that your long term health.

You need to work out your basic metabolism rate first. There are websites that do this for you. It depends on you activity levels, current weight and height. This will be the basic calories you need in a day, then you can work out how many calories you need to aim for to create a deficit. It doesn't matter where the calories come from although healthy eating should be about improving your health - weight loss is the by product, however if you got all your calories from bread and there was a deficit you would still lose weight, It just wouldn't be a healthy, balanced diet.

BTW you must already be in a deficit because you've lost 5Ibs. Slower is better anyway but if you want to increase the weight lose you will have to increase the deficit by eating less, moving more or both.

Idk if it's already been said, but if you're eating quite a lot of carbs and sugar, it's going to make you hungrier, esp if you're breastfeeding. I did the same as you - put on nearly two stone because after having my baby I was just SO. HUNGRY. and stupidly ate piles of fresh pasta, butter slathered on bread, oat biscuits, treats which were small but regular - basically my blood sugars were out of whack, I was insulin resistant (endo) and had markers of prediabetes (did a private blood test)

Also I wasn't that big, everyone said I looked fine, I wasn't obese. But I was unfit and unhealthy, but so, so, so hungry.

So here's the thing

• It is actually OK to be hungry. You should experience hunger daily. You should be hungry for your next meal. An hour of hunger won't kill you and if you drink a glass of water and go and do something else you'll forget all about it

• if you go serious low carb, you will be less hungry and most of your cravings will go away very quickly indeed. If you continue to be careful of your carbs, and reintroduce them slowly, with plenty of time between consuming them,the cravings will not comeback.

I have lost two stone since the end of July. I started running (25 minutes five times a week) and on top of that have tried to be generally more active (baby bike seat on my bike for weekend family cycle rides)

For nearly 2 weeks I basically ate chicken, eggs, spinach, some cubed roast buttersquash, and berries. That seemed to "detox" me of cravings and since then I've been satisfied with half of what I ate before, plus I haven't missed junky snacks in fact they make me feel a bit sick.

@CeibaTree

You'll never lose weight with carbs at every meal unless you are doing extreme calorie counting!

This is utter rubbish - the 'carbs are the enemy' stuff is a blanket statement more akin to a religious belief than a statement of nutritional facts. Cutting carbs works brilliantly for some people but it isn't the one true way.