To feel so stupid over hidden calories

[Cheeseandlobster]

I have been trying to be healthier for ages. I follow a lowish carb diet combined with intermittent fasting, do hiit exercises daily, drink loads of water and get on average 9 portions of fruit n veg a day (usually 7 veg 2 fruit). Yet the weight keeps piling on

My go to healthy lunch is veggie scramble. Mushrooms, peppers, courgette, spinach and jalapeño with 1 egg. My pan is shit and the mushrooms stick to the pan or burn so I have been adding more splashes of rape seed oil when this happens. I looked at the bottle yesterday and 1 table spoon is 124 calories so I reckon I have been consuming on average 300 - 400 calories extra in oil. Maybe more. That's another meal! And I feel like an absolute idiot for not realising sooner.

So out goes the pan and I have bought a new pan where you can dry fry and some spray oil with 1 calorie per spray just in case.

I thought I was being food savvy but now I just feel stupid. Does anyone else have any hidden calorie warnings or done something similar?

You can't surely have been using 3-4 tablespoons of oil to fry a few mushrooms though? It will have been horribly oily.

Good luck with the better pan though. It can also help to add a splash of water if vegetables start sticking and burning during frying. It works like deglazing and the water turns to steam, releases the food from the pan and speeds up cooking a little.

But surely you must have known that oil is very high in calories? It is 100% fat.

Just buy a new pan?

Nut butters are another one. Not saying avoid just be aware how much having.

Avocados are supposed to be the meal (with a bit of spice / seasoning) not part of it lol. When I figured that out I started losing weight. Nothing is more satiating than a whole avocado with a bit of salt and pepper.

Avocado is definitely another. I used to have a small whole one on a salad up until relatively recently

tell us about a typical salad that you make

What dressing do you use?
Do you add bread, rice, cous cous, croutons, pasta?
What proteins - cheese, fish, meats?
Any thing else - you have already mentioned the avocado...
What is the ratio of any of these things to salad leaves?
What size portion do you have?

Surely you weren’t using 3 or 4 tablespoons of oil though?!

God that lunch sounds good, I'm starving now!
misses point of thread

An avocado is around 300 calories, so if you have avocado, salad and not much else or a few seeds or a drizzle of oil/vinegar would be fine, it's still a light meal.

Not so much if you have a load of cheese or bread with it.

Also, be careful with MFP and sense check the calorie amounts. They're often per 100 g, for small portions, or a complete work of fiction, so you need to check that the calories are for the amount of food you have and reasonably accurate - just google and use a better quality data source to double check.

PP are right about pans -- if you've bought a new pan, watch out for the sprays like Frylight, I ruined a really good (and expensive) Circulon pan with that stuff!

I actually use butter now, it's easier to weigh out a specific small amount when it's cold and hard from the fridge. And a little bit goes a long way.

Milk in coffee lets me down, that and alcohol.

Do you mean 3 or 4 tablespoons per week? That wouldn't affect your weight loss in such a big way. Maybe write down your days food and drink so we can see? Include everything that passes your lips (sugar in tea, butter on toast , squash etc)

The Le Crueset non-stick steel pans are designed for dry use / with oil sprays. I bought the entire range when they were on sale at JL & am so happy. Have already lost weight since using them.

happened to me, worked out that in 1 day i had over eaten by 600 calories... just by having spoonfuls of stuff like oil, cooking butter, sugar, bit of mayonaise and ketchup etc.

just goes to show you dont have to eat a lot to be overweight, its so easy especially if your metabolism is rubbish.

I actually like to fill up on oil. Fat keeps you feeling fuller for longer.

I got caught out with coffees. It's pretty much all I drink and started to gain weight in my 40's yet no change of diet. started cutting down and couldn't understand why I was not losing even though I was eating around1000 calories a day. But I would have about 8 coffees a day with 1 tsp of sugar and milk. when I added those calories in I was shocked its 80ish calories, so that was about 500 calories a day I was drinking
switched to skimmed milk and stevia, and finally started to shift the weight. Also weighing stuff religiously. It's surprising how small an actual portion of porridge or breakfast cereal actually is.
If you need to weigh yoghurt, soft cheese, etc. put the container on the scales and remove until you have removed the portion size you need.
I don't use MFP religiously anymore, but it definitely reset what a normal portion size was for me.

A biggie is salad dressings/oils etc. It's a "staple" part of most diets to have salads, but they're pretty boring and uninspiring without some kind of oil/dressing, and that's where the calories are!

Milk, particularly in tea/coffee. I already consider the calories in beverages so will always go for a sugar free option (have done for years whether dieting or not) so I felt especially stupid the other day when my PT pointed out that if I'm drinking several cups of tea a day, plus a bit of milk with cereal and an occasional evening glass, I could be consuming a couple of hundred calories a day.

I've been using fry light and equivalent for 10years and never ruined a pan!

Typical salad is usually mixed leaves, cucumber, piccolo tomatoes, red onion and half an avocado plus a boiled egg. No dressing - just chilli and garlic grinder over the top. I only have carbs for one meal so I might have a small jacket potato too ( the salad is more side salad size ) Before anyone picks up the carb thing I am not doing keto and I am aware that carbs are not just in bread, rice and pasta but with less oil my lunch is actually very healthy and better than the cheese and onion mayo mix sandwich I used to have a few years ago

Portion sizes. I definitely need to keep an eye on these

I could well have been using that much oil. I wasn't measuring it in tablespoons - I kind of did it without thinking as the pan was stickingThe lunch hasn't been oily so I suspect the veg has somehow just soaked it up.

@ElftonWednesday

I wouldn't ditch the oil but maybe have a bit less. Also I think it's better to make your own spray oil from any old spray container, rather than use the proprietary ones as they have additives - but yeah convenience for the Fry Lite or whatever.

I guess the obvious things which are high fat I have to be careful of - butter, avocado, cheese. I definitely eat and enjoy them but make sure my portions are accurate. Also not high fat but milk I was getting quite wrong in my milky coffee - it all adds up over time. I also measure alcohol when I have it at home. Sad but necessary both for general health and weight reasons.

I use the Fry Lite. It's not realistic for me to give up anything processed so I'm never going to have 0 additives anyway. I considered giving up added sugar recently, but it would basically mean never having a shop bought sauce ever again and making my own to use up in a few days is not going to happen.

Would another option be using a brush to spread a small amount of oil evenly?

Re. alcohol, I think gin and tonic is the best thing isn't it in terms of calories? Where I live slimline tonic isn't available, anybody got another option that's not coke zero because that would be too much caffeine.

I only drink water in the week. No hot drinks at all

@Cheeseandlobster

Avocado is definitely another. I used to have a small whole one on a salad up until relatively recently.

I used to use My Fitness Pal and the calories soon mount up. Ias definitely "more aware" when I used it so I thinkI need to go back to that too.

I do drink alcohol. It's probably my only vice though I try to limit it just to weekends. I am also peri menopausal so this probably doesn't help either

It might be perimenopause I'm afraid that's hindering you. Prior to starting HRT, I gained over 10 kilos over 6 months or so which no amount of calorie counting and exercise would shift. In fact, my weight continued to rise. Within days of starting HRT, the pounds started to fall off. (I continued to watch what I ate and exercise.)

You seem to be mixing all the diets at once, low carb, low Cal, low fat, IF. Really you need to choose one and see it through.

If you do low carb/keto then you are consuming too much fruit and possibly veg (20-50g is usual) and it that instance the calories from oil wouldn't matter so much, youd be actively eating oily fatty foods such a avo, mackerel,meats, dairy.

If you are doing low fat/low Cal then yes the oil would matter, but you'd then also have to keep an eye on high fat foods.

Both diets work, both have their merits. Personally I do low carb as the food options available are much tastier.

If the oil isn't in the pan after you cooked it, then it's in your veggies. . an extra 300 calories a day will add up. over a week that's 2100 extra calories which is more than a pound in weight ( rough estimate is 1700 calories =1 pound in weight). so you need a deficit of 1700 a week to lose a pound approximately.

"( although the fact that your 'go to healthy lunch' is a load of fried stuff suggests perhaps you are coming at this from the wrong mindset in the first place)."

There's nothing wrong with frying in itself is there? She just needs a non-stick pan.