To think I’m not just going to lose all this weight

[BigWolfLittleWolf]

I’m feeling really quite fed up today.

I’m enormous, I have minimum 6 stone to lose.

I have a Fitbit and in the school week I’m doing relatively well - im hitting 15 to 20,000 steps most days, sometimes I’m squeezing in one or two small 5 minute workouts or some very small runs aswell.

Come the weekend I’m stuck at home until DH gets back from work.
I could go out with the children but frankly, I struggle to control my youngest by myself; he is a real handful.
Working out at home with the kids home is hard because I have to keep an eye out for youngest and make sure he isn’t doing anything dangerous or naughty.

When not outside exercising I seem to eat out of boredom, over the weekend, or anytime I’m not outside and physically unable to eat I just eat and eat and eat and eat....
It’s the holidays now and I know I’m going to really struggle not to keep picking at food.

Unsurprisingly I haven’t lost any weight!
I’m feeling just awful frankly, my pelvic floor is getting weaker too, no doubt worsened by my ever increasing weight.

How on earth do I reign myself in?!
I’m not even hungry a lot of the time I’m packing the calories in!

you're? your.

Ooh here we go OP!

That list is great to go off. Stockpile some of that.

A bowl of fresh sweetcorn with a sprinkle of salt would be a lovely late night nibble.

Some tinned mango/pineapple for lunch?

Nuts are a sore subject for me. On a low carb diet i was told i could eat Macadamia nuts. So i did. More and more of the bloody things. Then i checked how high in calorie they are

I have to be in the right mindset to eat to lose weight as well - I was all over the place mentally last year and it showed - even though I was disgusted with myself for putting on more and more weight, I just didn't have the will power to do anything about it.

I've lost a stone since January now and things that have worked for me this time:

• no booze in the week. When we do drink, we are starting later, after we've eaten - this has actually cut down the amount we drink rather significantly.

• Eating in a smaller window. Not 16:8, but I now have a small bowl of cereal when I get back from the school run, an early lunch at 12-ish so no need for a morning snack, a small snack with a cuppa mid-afternoon and then dinner around 630. This has made a massive difference to how much I eat overall and it has helped having DH working from home as we used to eat at 8 or even later meaning I was starving by about 6 and very likely to crack and stuff my face.

I've not even been doing that much exercise. A couple of 30 min barre online barre classes a week and a couple of walks.

12 years ago i lost 3 stone in less than a year low carbing.

I did not do one extra step of exercise for the first couple of stone.

Once the majority of it was off i was confident enough to go swimming twice a week and i toned up.

Do you like colouring? Or sewing? I find if my hands are busy with colouring or cross stitch I don't eat.

Dont have junk food in the house!

How about these under 500 calorie dinner options, add roasted tenderstem brocolli which is about 40 calories a serving

www.kitchensanctuary.com/peanut-butter-chicken/

www.healthyfood.com/healthy-recipes/peanut-chicken-and-rice/

recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=124549

Or a tropical fruit smoothie for breakfast/snack

skinnymixers.com.au/thmiii-tropical-fruit-drink/

I love peanuts and walnuts so now I buy a bag then portion it into servings in little pots, so if I want a snack i grab a portion. Yes they're high calorie but they can be eaten within your limit as long as you stop at 30g.

I was always slim until I went in some medication in my 20’s and I’ve struggled since then. I also have a similar amount to lose. I’m doing slimming world (just at home as I’ve done it before and know it inside out). Today was week 7 and I have lost 1stone. I bought a diary online and i track everything. If I want to snd j I make herbal tea which helps. I also found Mars, snickers and twix do 99 calorie bars so I have them for when only chocolate will do. My husband eats loads of chocolate and crisps so he keeps it in a cupboard that I consider off limits. Today I had porridge and a half grapefruit at breakfast, beans with a poached egg at lunch and have chicken soup planned for dinner. I have had a cream egg as a treat and will count the syns for it.

Not sure if it's possible with the age of the kids but if you are constantly grazing could you find something like puzzles or knitting to occupy your mind and hands (but easy enough to drop if kids need you) rather than eating?

@BigWolfLittleWolf i do find slimming world good for that actually.
When following it (which is the problem) I would have a small chocolate bar and options hot chocolate made with one of my healthy extra A (milk) choices to have a real treat and fill me up. Never felt I was missing out on those days.

Oh and I tend to find there are textures that I miss when dieting like the crunch of a bag of crisps, so I have things like ryvita crackerbread which are 29 calories for 2 or melba toasts which are 80 calories for a pack of 6. Spread peanut butter or jalepeno primula on them, something that's full of flavour and feels rich so you can spread it thin.

I lost 5 stone in 8 months after years of being overweight. What works for me is 3 decent meals limited snacks. Once I start snacking it sets me off. I try and eat plenty of protein and 1/3 plate veg.
My weight loss is mainly down to diet. Exercise helps but it sounds like you think oh I can’t exercise today I may aswell eat everything as I’ve already blown it when you haven’t.
Think in Half a stone chunks. None food treats. Don’t buy it - if it’s for the children small amount in a box for them they don’t need it either.
I do SlimmingWorld but focus on protein and veg. Home cooking not ready meals. I do weigh pasta etc too. I found group support helpful.
Finally my Instagram helps I post my food to keep me on track.

What's working for me at the moment is taking a picture of my weight on the scales once a week and sending it to a trusted friend. She's even made me a chart with my losses on. It's the accountability that keeps me on track, knowing that someone else can see if I've stuck to it or not.

Do you have a garden? Would you be able to make exercising into a game with your children? Set up an obstacle race, throwing a ball around anything to increase movement. We have some plastic small cones to run round, a skipping rope, balls and a mat for outside. You could even use plastic tubs, empty bottles for skittles before recycling.

It really is down to mindset. If you tell yourself you won’t lose the weight, then you won’t. And I say that, kindly, as someone who has been in your mindset.
Look into fasting, Jason Fung on YouTube is really interesting. Best thing about fasting is that it’s free!
Don’t stress about exercise or use it to punish yourself, just keep doing it when you can to make yourself feel good!
I’ve been overweight my whole adult life, finally in a good place having lost 3 stone in the last year thanks to intermittent fasting and improving my relationship with good. You can do it!

I 2nd looking up teamrh on facebook. Loads of free advice. I discovered walking videos on youtube through following them. Nearly 15k steps done and havent left the house today lol

I'm about halfway through my 6 stone and have been doing 16:8. I do it 5 days a week and have weekends off, but I stick to it like glue. I'm 3 stone down since early September and haven't found it difficult.

Can you stop buying the chocolate and biscuits etc, that you find irresistible?

Just don't have it in the house.

I use an app called centr. Yeah spelt this way. It has exercises for each day and a meal planner. I've not followed the meal planner as it's a different meal nearly everyday and I'm happy to batch cook or eat the same thing from week to week.

Don’t have junk food in the house!
DH has turned his diet around, he’s gone vegetarian, is buying a juicer etc so our main meals are largely healthy and he doesn’t eat junk food now but we have three young children.
They would go absolutely mental without their treats.
If it was just me and DH here there wouldn’t be junk in the house

I’m not being a god maxi but you can’t blame having junk food on kids. My wonderful mum bought treats all the time because her mum never let her have them. As a result me and my siblings all have terrible snacking habits as adults and respond really badly when our partners tell us to avoid them and eat proper meals. You’re setting them up for the same issues you’re having now
I’m not sure what you are getting at here..?
Me and DH do let them have treats.
Because my DH has completely revamped his diet and I struggle to stop eating if it was only me and DH, as in we didn’t have children, we wouldn’t have junk in the house.
But it is here because the children are used to having treats.
They don’t have them all the time, they are moderated

@Laiste - pat yourself on the back is a good one. I mean a literal pat on the back - it's very rewarding & a good mental action. I used to do it but out of the habit. Will try again.

I've a ton of weight to lose too OP. 2 stone down since start of Jan though so I'm proud of myself. Have you a pedometer? I need to see the achievement of steps. My Fitbit broke & had to order another one straight away.

Other things that help me...Like @Popskipiekin I tend to go to bed early & watch something on the iPad. I never eat in bed so the association for food just isn't there!

Also doing at least 10k steps a day, (Sundays off!). Get up early every morn & walk & listen to an audiobook. I have a freezer full of soup split into portions. I have soup almost every day & it's easy. Easy makes it better. I eat a lot of roast veg & measure 75g cooked rice to mix with it, with chicken or prawns. Toast cauliflower & broccoli is gorgeous

I did no alcohol Jan & Feb which helped. Trying to moderate to weekends now.

I love the bliss whip bars from home bargain. Either the salted caramel or white chocolate & raspberry. Only usually have them on a Saturday night for a treat but delicious! I need to do this one myself but plan for the danger zones - Saturday night snacking for me so will gather my allowance of snacks & include pickled onions, dulse & healthy stuff in a box to budget it. Then straight to bed when it's empty!

You can do it OP. On another weight loss thread in here someone said the other day 'you don't need willpower, you need determination'. That's stick with me

@HalfShrunkMoreToGo can I ask about calorie allowance please? MFP allocates me 1300 per day so I kind of go with that. I'm currently 16 stone 9. My much smaller friend mentioned a while ago that she gets 1400 per day.

I used the same reasoning, I have to have some treats in the house for the kids.
It was changing this mindset that the weight started coming off.

• I deliberately buy snacks for them that I don’t like.
• They both love berries and melon, so I buy them.
• Realising that they don’t need processed snacks was a game changer for us. Behaviour, sleep and health improvements happened.
• They get to pick a chocolate/ sweet on a Saturday and they eat it... means I don’t have a chance to eat it first 😂

@buckeejit that calorie allowance doesn't sound right at all. Go into the 'goals' section in your MFP profile and double check that the settings are all correct.

I have mine set to not very active and 1lb a week loss.

At 233lb when I started I had 1690, now at 175lb I have 1420 a day.

It should be roughly TDEE minus 500.

If you google TDEE you'll get a calculator that you can fill in. It will tell you your basal metabolic rate (how many calories your body needs just to exist) and your maintenance calories (how many calories to stay the same weight).

If you want to lose 1lb a week you need to eat 500 less than your maintenance number each day, or 3500 over a week.

That's all rough numbers, it's not an exact science but gives a general idea of where to set your goal.