Making a "healthy" meal plan is futile

[MooseBreath]

I'm trying to lose weight. Over my 20s and after having 2 kids, I am no longer a good weight and I am trying to fix that. It is entirely because my portion control is crap and I love crisps.

I'm trying to eat healthier with weight loss in mind, without letting my children see their mother struggling with food. I also want them to know that moderation is key. We walk the dog every day for 45 minutes and have frequent dance parties and play active games throughout the day.

I thought my plan was healthy, but when I add up calories, it just works out that I won't be losing any weight at all (1722cal). No crisps, no sweets, no baked goods. But I don't know what to cut out without losing the energy to care for my boys and dog!
Breakfast: Raisin granola in a cup of milk
Lunch: Scrambled eggs, baked beans, and avocado with a slice of toast
Snack: Carrots, cucumber, and celery with hummus
Dinner: Baked gnocchi casserole with bacon

I don't see how I can make this better without starving myself. AIBU that demonstrating moderation will never work while I'm trying to lose weight?

I don’t know how heavy you are, but I wouldn’t call that a “healthy” diet or something that you’d lose weight on. You’re 5”2 - that’s super short. I’m also short but slim so my BMR calories are 1200. Therefore I’m not sure what you’re expecting 1700 calories to do for someone that’s our height? To me, that’s weight gain levels of food, but if you’re heavier, that could be maintenance calories. Only if you’re very large, would you lose weight eating that much.

To me, being healthy is in part, about reducing carbs - but you’re including carbs in every meal. It doesn’t sound like you’re having a wide range of vegetables either. Do you really need to eat hummus with your snack - it’s pointless calories? I can see so many things you can shave off that diet. What sauce are you having gnocchi with and are you having cheese with it? What oil are you using? I’d be cutting out things like cheese and bread - they’re average items, not “healthy” items. There’s not one meal in there that would be considered healthy to me. Eg for breakfast you could just have a fruit/veg salad without the porridge or granola.

1877 maintenance at 14 stone 5 foot 2

And at 14 stones and 5 foot 2 that's obese not "no longer a good weight "

And since the op isn't losing weight on 1700 I think we can assume

Either she is miscalculating
Or she needs fewer calories than she thinks
Or she expects faster weight loss and hasn't given it time

TDEE is your Total Daily Energy Expenditure
BMR is your Basic Metabolic Rate

TDEE is the amount of calories the calulators will say you need to lose, maintain, gain - it gives you a few readings for the different things.

BMR is the amount your body will burn just beig alive, so if you laid in bed all day, the lowest is what you would burn.

To give you an idea, this is mine at 5'1 and 196.7lbs/size 18 or XL, as you go by your clothes:

BMR = 1,495 Calories/day

Daily calorie needs based on activity level
Activity Level Calorie
Sedentary: little or no exercise 1,794
Exercise 1-3 times/week 2,055
Exercise 4-5 times/week 2,190
Daily exercise or intense exercise 3-4 times/week 2,317
Intense exercise 6-7 times/week 2,578
Very intense exercise daily, or physical job 2,840

Exercise: 15-30 minutes of elevated heart rate activity.
Intense exercise: 45-120 minutes of elevated heart rate activity.
Very intense exercise: 2+ hours of elevated heart rate activity.
https://www.calculator.net/bmr-calculator.html

This is my TDEE:

Based on your stats, the best estimate for your maintenance calories is
1,790 calories per day based on the Mifflin-St Jeor Formula, which is widely known to be the most accurate. The table below shows the difference if you were to have selected a different activity level.

Basal Metabolic Rate 1,491 calories per day
Sedentary 1,790 calories per day
Light Exercise 2,051 calories per day
Moderate Exercise 2,312 calories per day
Heavy Exercise 2,573 calories per day
Athlete 2,834 calories per day
https://tdeecalculator.net/

To lose weight, I need to eat about 1200-1400 per day. Unless on keto/ultra low carb.

I didn't say I wasn't losing weight! I've only just started and wanted help adjusting my meal plan. I have big hips and a large chest, plus a lot of muscle mass from dance. I'm not expecting super fast weight loss. I never said that. I said I wanted a sustainable diet whilst raising my children and not letting them see me struggle with food.

OP, leave this thread. It’s gone the way of all MN weight loss threads.

Reading it is like being inside my head when I was in the grip of Diet Brain.

’Shave a few calories off by having no cheese’, ‘humous is a pointless snack.’

It’s really sad.

Eat food, move your body, enjoy your kids. That’s all you need to do. And if you need bigger jeans for a bit, buy them. Life’s too short for this.

I find calorie counting and TDEE so tedious. Even more tedious if you have a young family. What's working for me, as a peri-menopausal woman in her 50s whose metabolism is shot to pieces, is this:
No processed food or ready sauces or stuff out of a tin: full of hidden sugar. Though I will occ eat crisps
At least 5 portions of fruit and veg per day, usually high fibre ones like lentils, cauliflower, spinach, beetroot, peppers, apples, pears...
Small bowl so I don't overdo portions.
Snacks are no more than 10 nuts or a fruit or Greek yoghurt
Reducing carbs. This has been the toughest thing to do as I am Asian and rice is a staple. Plus my DC need carbs.
Upping protein.
No alcohol except maybe once a month if I go out
Exercise daily but tbh diet makes more difference.

This is where I completely disagree. The original diet posted may not be one that is ideal for deficit and losing weight but it is balanced, healthy and appropriate. The granola is pretty much the only thing that is not healthy (although perceived healthy due to marketing as the OP has acknowledged)

To me, being healthy is in part, about reducing carbs
All vegetables are carbs and a diet rich in veg is very healthy. A diet high in refined carbs would be considered unhealthy but the OP is not having excessive refined carbs.

It doesn’t sound like you’re having a wide range of vegetables either.
Her later posts show she is having plenty of veg

Do you really need to eat hummus with your snack - it’s pointless calories?
There are so many benefits to eating humous - rich in fibre, has some protein, anti-inflammatory properties. I cannot stand how people describe tasty, nutritious food as 'pointless calories'. Eating is also for enjoyment and taste and humous is a fantastic addition to raw veg to make it enjoyable to eat.
Pointless calories are highly processed snacks like crisps and chocolate but we still cant ignore the enjoyment obtained from eating them

Ah one thing to bear in mind OP is you may need extra protein to retain muscle mass and lose fat, rather than losing your muscle weight!

You could try calculating your macros on MFP or similar for optimum results. Usually though 30g fibre is a good amount to aim for, for anyone. My weight loss cals on 1,500 for example are 113g protein, 169g carbs (yes, CARBS, delicious carbs) and 42g fat.

I think you should lose weight steadily on that diet OP. I’m a SAHM with 3 kids (2 preschoolers). I’ve lost 8 pounds in the last 2 1/2 months and I definitely don’t eat as well as you (still having a couple of takeaways a month). Im 5ft 4 and was a size 14 but have dropped a size now.

My calories hover between 1600-1800 each day but I haven’t been too focussed on it. Mostly been upping protein and fibre (and water) and keeping an eye on saturated fats and sugary foods. I didn’t want to suddenly overhaul my diet as I knew I wouldn’t stick to it (I still have a treat of chocolate or biscuits once the kids are in bed) so I understand you not wanting to cut out carbs. And I’ve been massively upping my steps making sure I do the 10,000 a day at least, walking to playgroups etc. It’s better to make changes you can sustain and steadily lose weight.

Come on OP, remove the gnocchi from the gnocchi casserole.

😂 some of the “advice” here is batshit.

I’m also 5ft 2 and my TDEE is 1726, so I need to eat 1226 a day to lose 1lb a week. It’s not sustainable. I have an office job, walk around 10k steps a day and go to the gym 3x a week.

My day today:
Breakfast - poached egg, a small tin of reduced sugar & salt beans, mushrooms cooked in 10g of butter, slice of white toast (if I’m at work then I’d usually just have a protein shake)
Lunch - ham and low fat cheese salad with low fat mayo and croutons
Dinner - honey and lemon chicken with rice and veg

It's really not insane to recognise that most people have to eat less than that to loose weight..to give you an idea I am 10 stone 11 and want to get to about 10 stone..my calorie base goal is 1437 and that's to loose just about 1lb a week! It's a slow process but it's working and I feel much better but doesn't make me insane..I often wait til I am actually HUNGRY to eat but I think its been really positive for me to learn when I am really actually genuinly hungry or just a bit pickish and could eat something.
Also I do understand the idea of bulking up with veg but what's worked for me is to base my meals around meat (I've lost 2 stone so far) as it's the only thing that keeps me full..plenty of GOOD fats like avocado, steak, raw cheese and eggs. Honestly it's changed my life. So there are other ways to do it. I've never ever felt so good eating like this and keeping low carb (not totally cutting them out as there's carbs in veg but not eating pasta, rice, potato, sweet potato...instead swapping all of the above for cauliflower, broccoil, butternut squash etc etc basically google low carb veg options!) It just annoys me when people go on about how carb being an ED and how they could never do it when I used to feel like that but now it's changed my life for the better, my relationship with food has improved so so much, before i would constantly think about food and would eat for the sake of it whereas now I eat to fuel my body (I do of course eat a 'normal' carby meal every now and then when I fancy it but in general I just don't!)

I really appreciate this comment. It very much sums up how I'm feeling. I don't want to spend my life with diet brain. I want a family-friendly meal plan where I can healthily get back to a good weight while teaching my children the principles of healthy eating.

Taking @LunaNorth's advice to leave the thread. I don't need to feel shitty about myself and destroy my mental health with calculating every calorie, carb, fat, protein, and cutting out cheese/hummus/pasta/rice. It's too far and doesn't fit with my lifestyle at all.

Thank you to everyone who has helped!

BMR is the calories you expend just by existing. Your TDEE is the number you need to work to and it will be a lot higher than 1200!

I have exactly the same mentality and am very similar to you (do not weigh myself regularly either). My children are now 5 and 6 but I refuse to expose them to any form of talk about losing weight or calorie counting. I focus entirely on teaching them which foods nourish our body and allow it to be stronger and work better.

When it comes to meals, we eat as a family but I am more generous with fats (butter/cream/cheese etc) on their portions than I am on mine (I do still have some) and same for pasta/rice etc for them vs me.

Cutting out the snacking on processed foods makes a big difference but I have found it tough as I really enjoy my chocolate and biscuits. I have increased my vegetable snacks and eat far smaller amounts of the sweet stuff alongside. This made a big difference but I am not ready to give it up entirely and I have accepted that is ok for now - restricting myself just results in me binging when I do have some so I prefer to stay where I am.

I would like to lose some more fat around my waist and may revisit this another time but for now, I have come to the conclusion that is not worth the sacrifice to my lifestyle. I am a healthy weight and size, I exercise regularly and am very fit and am just enjoying where I am at.

@retrosteamband , 5'2" isn't super short. The UK average height for a woman is 5' 3.5"

Ahh this changes things. You said your clothes are snug. Which means they still fit. Which is making me wonder where they are snug.

If it’s literally the midriff mainly, potentially rib flare then I wouldn’t be looking at diet. I would check your pelvic tilt. I just had my first baby last year and was skinny as anything from breastfeeding yet my stomach was like a balloon. If I hadn’t been so slim in other areas (like wrists which can’t lie) then I would have incorrectly assumed it was a weight issue. It was a pelvic tilt problem. The pelvis tilts during pregnancy and if your extremely unfit (no muscle tone) or very fit (too much muscle tone) it can have problems going back afterwards. This then disengages the whole of the core, all the corset muscles and your insides are practically hanging about inside a giant shopping bag all slumped at the bottom.

Took about 6 weeks of physio postural correction and another 6 months to restrengthen and rebalance the muscles.