I weigh 16.5 stone 🙁

[LadyintoGaddings]

I’m a size 22, I’m 5’7.

I have zero motivation and I like food too much.

I’ve got a 3.5 year old and I’ve no energy most days as he’s very hard work.

I also have ADHD so I struggle to prioritise and plan healthy meals etc.

Smaller plate, ensure 50% of it is veg, 2 pre-chosen snacks per day (I like fruit, veg sticks and hummus, a yoghurt, a boiled egg). Aside from that stick to 3 meals and the snacks. No fruit juice, pop, crisps, biscuits, cake, chocolate, milky drinks, white bread etcz

So my typical diet on a day consists of:

Breakfast - Tea with milk and one sweetener. Boiled or poached eggs on toast or eggs and avocado on toast or granola with yogurt, fruit and sometimes honey drizzled on, or some melted peanut butter.

I then sometimes have a biscuit and tea at a playgroup if I take my son.

Lunch - Varies day to day. But today I had a white wrap with a piece of BBQ chicken in (the birds eye sweet & sticky chicken chargrills) with salad leaves and mayo and a drizzle of sweet chilli sauce
Followed by a Jaffa cake bar 🥴 (I know. I know)

I’ve just had a tub of mango from Morrisons.

Dinner tonight will be meatball spaghetti that my partner makes, using ready shop bought meatballs and he makes his own sauce using tinned tomatoes, fresh garlic, other spices and onion.
Thats white spaghetti, not wholewheat

I usually end up having something sweet on the evening, last night it was strawberries and some single pouring cream.

A cup of camomile tea before bed.

I would look at one meal at a time. For example, you could look at cutting some of the calories out of your breakfast. Eggs are great but breakfast should be one egg on toast. Granola with fruit and yoghurt is fabulous but doesn't need the other stuff.

I lost 3 stone in just under 6 months when I went low carb due to being diagnosed type 2 diabetic.I can honestly say I didn’t diet just changed the way and what I eat and even though the weight dropped off I didn’t stave myself or feel hungry.
I still eat low carb so no potatoe, rice, pasta anything with white flour or bread. Plenty of protein, so lean meat and eggs. Good fats like nuts, olive oil and good quality beef (grass fed if possible). Plenty of green leafy veg and salads plus swapped to low GI fruits like strawberries, raspberries and blackberries. Any fruit with berry in the name is low GI. Fruits like bananas, mango, pear and even apples have a higher sugar content so more carbs and a higher GI so even though they are full of goodness there is better choices of fruit to eat.
Upped my water intake to at least 2 litres a day, no juice or soda.
no sugar even natural sugars like honey and no fake sugars as they aren’t good for anyone.
Not only did I lose the extra weight but my blood sugar is now back down to the normal range. I feel much better, have more energy and the weight is staying off.

The problem, imo, is that there is almost no way you could walk off this amount of calories. I lost weight last year using My Fitness Pal and low carb. To make a defecit I ate around 1200-1400 calories a day, and actually it's not a lot of food (even if people say it is!). When I'd lost most of the weight I started exercising for strength and fitness because you can't really exercise to lose weight, it just doesn't work.

I would say drop the wraps. Don’t have spaghetti have salad. Mango is high GI.
One egg as mentioned above and one piece of toast, no butter.
No sugar substitutes.
No biscuits.
Granola is loaded with fat.
Don’t have mayo.

I think it’s about having an awareness of how many calories are in things like mayo, sweet chilli sauce etc…

Those little bits and bobs can add up. I really do think it’s about restricting carbs and cutting out snacks (which doesn’t mean no carbs in my case, but just smaller portions of them or swap for something else).

It's also massively about portion size. I can't eat a huge bowl of pasta but I can enjoy a smaller portion with salad. Initially you might take a while to adjust but eventually that will feel like a normal portion.

Ds and I have discovered that a 65g portion of pasta is perfect. Filling, and add protein and cook with prawns or chicken, even a dash of cream.

I would never have just one biscuit in a sitting- do you?

whT you’re eating sounds ok, I wonder what the portion sizes are?

muesli/granola- swap for oatmeal
pasta- should be 70g for a portion, and I would have 5 meatballs if they were small or 3 if large.

Weighing foods is a real eye opener.

I think your diet sounds great but its hard to know without portion sizes.

The only time I consistently lose weight was with weight watchers, purely because of things like butter, which I would liberally use! It helped me portion the food properly while still having the freedom to not exclude foods.

You need to focus on food over exercise

its a lot easier to cut 500 calories a day from your diet than it is to burn that number of calories additionally per day.

I find being active helps me mentally improve my diet and willpower, so definitely do both but food needs to be the priority to lose any meaningful amount of weight.

Having read your update I’d track for a few days on nutracheck. Measure things. The Jaffa bar around 100 cals isn’t what is massively adding to your cals - things like mayo, peanut butter, honey, granola are high calorie and very easy to overeat. Have fruit but a sensible portion - pack of mango probably serves more than one. I have add and weigh scales on the side in kitchen and use measuring spoons.
With tweaks your day could be a lot lower calorie.
So I’d do 2 eggs on 2 slices wholemeal toast with mushrooms and tomatoes.
Lunch chicken (plain normal chicken not Birdseye) salad with tablespoon of chilli sauce.
Jaffa bar if you want.
Fruit.
Dinner have spaghetti & 5% meatballs but 75g dry and fill plate with salad.
Strawberries no cream.
This is type of things I eat on SlimmingWorld and I lost 5 stone in 8 months. It’s not compulsory muller lights and mug shots - it gets slated in here but it’s been life changing for me.
Bupa has a decent guide to healthy portion size.

@LadyintoGaddings Hi, I was bigger than you 16 years ago, I lost over 10 stones

you need to understand that while food is nice it can be the most toxic thing !!

because of your size you are carrying enough fat stores that you could just go low carb and one meal a day to kick off the weight loss, slow and steady when you have a lot to lose is HARD I know I’ve been there and it sucks

I know you’ve said you love food but it’s the food that’s made you feel and look this way. So you have to make some choices, keep eating this way and possibly have your health decline or change and be the person you want to be and reach your goals

look up the FAST 800 by DR Micheal Mosley

good luck 🤞

A tablespoon of mayonnaise is same cals as Jaffa bar. You’ve registered you’ve had Jaffa bar but mayo not really - easy to dollop on 2 tablespoons and not register it.

Download the myfitness pal and track your calories. It’s so easy to go over the RDA of 2000, a lot of it is due to portion size.
start weighing and logging all your food, and cut your calories down to 1800 a day. Then after two weeks reduce to 1700, then 1600.

Honestly Op a few changes and you will cut 100s of calories. It’s not as daunting as you think. Your mayo and cream will be 300 cals minimum saved.
Logging cals can be eye opening - you soon get in mindset that 70 cals in a digestive isn’t worth it.

I was 44. Had pcos and sick of being 108kg. Gastric sleeve and now 66kg loss slow so not too much loose skin. Sorry to say people perceive you differently when you are a size 10 x

Slimming world works and works well, until you stop following the plan and pile it all back on again. I’ve seen many do it. I lost 3 1/2 stone with them and put 2 back on.

Then I approached with up exercise and down calorie intake and it worked. I got down to a bmi of 21. My weight has fluctuated by about 7 kilos in the last 5 years but never more. I got so used to thinking about calories in I can calculate a day in my head without thinking about it. But not in an unhealthy way, some days I’ll sink 3000 and others I’ll only have 1200. As long as it evens out over the week it’s all good.

But that’s true for any diet if you stop and go back to old habits you put it back on. It’s free to go at target they don’t make any money off you. The Slim for life advice is very sensible encouraging you to add a few nuts, avocado etc for your maintenance cals not choc and crisps that might trigger you into old ways.
Op is free to try whatever she likes but it worked for me. Some areas do a free nhs referral for 12 weeks.
I went from a size 20 to a 12 and stayed that way and find it very doable not faddy - I cook from scratch not mug shots. I’ve had eggs & berries for breakfast, chicken salad lunch, kvarg & banana snack and will have curry & rice & green beans later. I walk 10,000 steps a day.

Would you consider gastric surgery - a bypass or a sleeve? Lots of very affordable options out there now.

I got mine on the free 12 weeks. Thing is I found the low fat unsustainable long term. I could never get the hang of maintenance either. But I then lost it with good old fashioned calorie counting and it’s stayed off now for 5 years.
like I said I fluctuate a little and I’m carrying an extra couple of kilos that I’m actively loosing that I put on on my last holiday. But it’s a habit I’ve found easier to keep, mostly because nothing is off limits. It just needs to be counted in daily/weekly allowance.

Join the Fitness Chef Facebook group for sensible support and ideas @LadyintoGaddings

its free and really good. No forbidden foods or weird diets, just sensible eating

I don’t understand how you can get to a size 22 with this diet - it really doesn’t sound too bad!

I got to 16st 1lb and went to Slimming World about 5 years ago. It worked. I lost 4st over about a year. I've put a stone back on since then but it's not a problem. Take your courage in both hands and join a slimming club OP.