To think what I eat in a day is ok?

[Bibblybumblebee]

So I’m overweight and yes I’d like to loose some weight but I honestly don’t think my diet is that bad. I tend to eat the same most days

Breakfast
25g granola or oats
Low fat Greek yogurt
Berries
Honey

Snack
Banana / apple

Lunch
Beans/egg on whole meal toast
(Small amount of real butter)

Snack
Kit kat and a cuppa

Dinner
Jacket Potato cheese/beans
or
Sausage and mash/roast potatoes with veg

We only ever have a takeaway if it’s someone’s birthday

and we only have a pudding on a Saturday night which will be something like ice cream or cheese cake

In a size 16/18 and I do have PCOS

It might not be the healthiest but also it’s not horrendous surely?

... Berries are still low sugar....

I'm not saying she shouldn't ditch the honey/check her sugar intake etc, but people saying raspberries being high sugar just isn't true...

It's good there's not many snacks or crisps, but that's not much veg. It depends if things are ultra processed too- if the beans have added sugar, or the bread has palm oil and guar gum for example. The important thing is your metrics like cholesterol, blood pressure, etc.

I think your diet looks fine - which is probably why I'm overweight! But tbh it doesn't sound like you are eating loads of snacks, takeaways or cakes .
Maybe eating within an 8 hour window and fasting for 16 hours will help?
Honestly when i see what my teens and husband eat and stay slim its just not fair- may as well sew my mouth up🤣

Tbf, I said parsnips and onions are high carb 🤷🏻‍♀️

Banana shallots are 3.3g carb per 100g

Onions are 9g per 100g.

I don't keep track in that sense. Its just how I eat so its what I know m.

Another one agreeing with this.

I don’t have PCOS but since I hit 40 I can’t tolerate carbs like I used to. I don’t cut them out but I would have them once a day rather than with every meal. I also try and eat lots of protein which fills you up and green veg, although I’m not sure how you achieve the protein increase as a vegetarian. I’d tend to have eggs for breakfast, sometimes with sourdough toast, salad with protein for lunch - leftover chicken or prawns usually, then protein and veg for dinner, sometimes with potatoes if I’m extra hungry. I also wouldn’t eat fruit by itself as pairing with fat or protein helps to slow down sugar absorption. So I might have apple with a bit of cheese, Fage yogurt and berries or banana with a teaspoon of peanut butter or a small handful of almonds.

It can be difficult and I do miss chips and pasta and chocolate but I just find that my cravings go through the roof if I eat them so it’s easier to abstain. I’ve also stopped drinking wine which has made a massive difference to my stomach. Being honest there isn’t anything actually wrong with your current diet but it just may not suit your body at the minute.

100G of raspberries at 4G. a teaspoon of honey is 6G. That’s 1/3 of her daily allowance already…before we’ve even started on the granola or yoghurt (7G in 100G). So OP could easily be having 20G of sugar in breakfast alone.

All sources of sugar are not equal - and of course, there's more than one type of sugar, which affect us differently.

Raspberries - 4 g of sugar in one hundred grams of food, packaged with a decidedly healthy 6.5g of fibre and various good nutrients.

Honey? It's just sugar (fructose, I think, which isn't great). Nice taste but really no nutritionally redeeming features.

Yogurt? If it's good Greek stuff again, it's not just sugar - protein is good, dairy fats are now reckoned to not be particularly unhealthy and it's filling, and the sugar is lactose which afaik isn't as bad as most other sugars.

I think you could be confusing carbs with percentages.

Carb intake for insulin resistance should be 30 percent of total calorie intake, which is about 70-100g carbs per day.

30G of sugar. Not confused just not clear!😀

OP is likely having 20G of sugar (2/3 of her daily allowance) in one meal!

You could try skipping the yogurt, fruit and granola and having egg/beans on toast as a filling brunch instead of eating breakfast and lunch. Kit kat and a cuppa to keep you going, then watch portion sizes at dinnertime.

Sadly I couldn't eat three meals a day plus snacks and not gain weight even if it was mostly healthy food.

I have PCOS too. Low GI diet is the only recommended one currently, according to my doctor. I’ve resigned myself to just always being a little bit overweight. My other symptoms are under control. It’s hard to be low carb when you’re a vegetarian. Lifting weights has also helped me.

I have PCOS too ans your diet is similar to mine when I'm trying to maintain my weight. If you haven't gained recently, you're eating the right amount for your body. If you want to lose, you can reduce what you eat daily.

If I were you, I'd stop eating Kit Kats for a month and see if that changes anything. If it's a whole bar, it's about 220 calories. To lose a pound you need to eat about 3500 less than you take in, so you'd lose a pound every 15 days if you got rid of the Kit Kat and kept everything else the same.

That would be 24 lbs in a year! (NB, in reality you'd probably have to adjust again in a few months as a smaller body needs fewer calories, but it would be a nice problem to have!)

I have pcos too, where did you buy your inositol?
thanks

I reckon I eat more than you and I've got a BMI of 20. I eat quite a lot of chocolate and protein bars so overall your diet is healthier.

I run every day, this could make for some of the difference. But I honestly think that calories in/calories out is not as cut and dried as people think. Different bodies have different metabolisms. My father eats like an absolute pig and is slim. A lot of it is in the genes.

I'm sure this has been asked and answered but do you drink alcohol at all? I'm teetotal but I think alcohol has lots of calories that it's easy to forget or discount.

I bought it from my protein.com, it’s honestly been so beneficial for me. I even had my first period in 11 months 6 weeks after starting this, not sure if it’s a coincidence though.

Wow!
I was on metformin years ago and it made me feel so rough although I did eventually get my periods back I’m not sure I can face going back on them so this sounds like a good option. Thank you for responding!

30g of added sugar not total sugar in the day.

Your diet doesnt sound awful but you could try mixing it up a bit and adjusting a few things.
For eg, ditch the low fat yogurt and use full fat as nutritionally full fat is better (this includes things like butter and milk but i use semi skimmed because i really dont like whole milk. I will sometimes have full fat greek style natural yogurt with cut up fruit but no honey. Eggs and beans are also good as another brekkie option.

Poached eggs on w/meal toast or beans with a tiny sprinkling of cheese maybe. Or maybe just an omlette?

For dinner what you make doesnt sound too bad but again maybe mix it up with other things - salmon fillet with peppers and cherry tomatoes in the oven for 30 mins and some steamed veg is a really good healthy meal, then sometimes we have it with a bit of mash, or rice, or pasta (all small portions) and always with some steamed veg. Or some chicken and veg, maybe a healthy protein filled curry etc.

I dont beleive you should completely cut down on treats because you can end up failing and binge eating so small treats in moderation maybe not everyday but every other day. Treat yourself to a takeaway meal every now and again if you have really good and strict, but also if you take up some exersice you will soon notice a difference along with the small dietary adjustments. Maybe take up cycling or weight exersices? If time is an issue look at you tube videos you can do from home. Hope that advice is helpful for you in some way at least

It's not bad but it could be better.

Why not ask your GP for a health check including blood test for sugars and cholesterol. It might give you some indication on where you could improve further.

I would suggest trying to increase the plants and fibre you consume. You don't eat much variety of fruit and veg. Meals with tons or a variety of veggies will be more satiating and good for the gut microbiome.

For example, I make a vegetarian chilli in the slow cooker with carrots, celery, onion, mushrooms, lentils, chopped tomatoes, mixed beans and serve that with brown rice and avocado with a bit of cheese. It's all of your five a day in one meal, the leftovers reheat well, and it's very filling without being too carby.

You could try making your own granola for a healthier version if the one you get is very sugary. I bake oats, nuts, some dessicated coconut and a bit of honey for 20ish minutes and it makes nice non-UPF granola that lasts for ages. Porridge might be a good alternative too.

If you're not a big fan of plain water, try a variety of herbal teas or cold brews. Spearmint tea is apparently good for PCOS. I like peppermint green tea in the day and camomile at night. Staying hydrated also helps as sometimes you can misinterpret thirst as hunger.

Do not listen to people who tell you to forget about chocolate and potatoes but judge falafel okay.

As you have PCOS, you probably also have insulin resistance, which few posters already mentioned.
Insulin resistance is a metabolic disorder – to be precise, it is a part of metabolic syndrome that is not yet well understood by medicine.
It means your body has difficulties managing insulin and glucose levels in your blood.
To manage insulin resistance, you need lifestyle changes, which must be bearable, not a quick diet. It is impossible to not eat UPF and sweets. You would feel isolated at every family gathering and birthday party.
Many people don't understand insulin resistance, but one of the symptoms can be the urge to eat sweets. By trying to eliminate them completely, you would set yourself up for a failure and binge, which is worse than a kitkat after dinner/lunch.
Check tables for glycemic index – they are all over the internet. They will help you to understand groups of foods. From this, you can start to think about a balanced diet that you can maintain forever.
There are some tricks like, for example, cooking your potatoes and cooling them off to make them produce resistant starch – this way, your sugar won't spike as much.

However, you should have your Kitkat as part of a balanced meal – this way, let's say simplistically, sugar will be metabolised for longer (that's why we call it balanced. As a result your blood sugar should be lower than if you have a Kitkat on an empty stomach.
The same goes for apples, bananas etc.
You can have a takeaway for celebrations. Many people eat with the 80/20 principle. As long as 80% of your meals are well-balanced and you do not overeat, 20%, especially occasionally, is not the end of the world. You may not be able to have Kitkat or ice cream every day, but it will be fine on some days.
In fact, you should always have all groups of food on the plate. Some studies show that if you start your meal with vegetables, then protein and fats, and at the end, pasta/potatoes, your blood sugar will be expected, i.e., spike after a meal but reach normal levels within 2 hours. That is how it works for healthy people.
Another study shows that as little as 20 minutes of walking helps insulin resistance. Sport is fantastic, but not everyone has to like it. As I said earlier, insulin resistance won't go away and needs to be controlled for the whole life. You don't want to feel like you need to torture yourself to be healthy.

Good luck, it will be better.

You are likely craving chocolate due to an iron deficiency. Most menstruating women are iron deficient and almost all vegetarians are.

There's a tiny bit of iron in chocolate which makes you crave it.

Either eat an absolute ton of leafy green veg or take iron tablets (with orange juice/vit c rich juice).

Also be aware that tea reduces your iron absorption.

@cordeliachaseatemyhandbag hoe on earth can you state ‘almost all vegetarians’ have any particular deficiency/surplus? I’m sure if I stated ‘almost all meat eaters have high cholesterol’ plenty of people would put me right!

fruitsandveggies.org/stories/buzz-vegetarians-higher-rates-anemia/

60% of veggie women are anaemic.

It's a serious health problem.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3966789/

Meta analysis finds no difference in cholesterol levels for meat eaters and vegetarians.