To think finding the time to lose weight is IMPOSSIBLE?!

[Fat40Unhappy]

Probably get roasted as I’ve posted here for traffic.

I’m about 3.5 stone overweight currently.

I’ve had a shit 3 and a half years. Had a baby, had PND, was doing a stressful degree which included placement, my sibling was diagnosed terminally ill and died last March, my relationship broke down and I’m now working full time in a stressful job with a toddler and I’m a single parent.

My working hours are changing soon to 8:45am to 6pm and I will have one non-working day per week.

I also have a serious mental health condition which requires medication which is very sedating, causes weight gain and makes it difficult to lose. This conditions impacts my sleep so I need to prioritise this to avoid getting ill.

I’m most likely peri-menopausal as well.

Normal day is get up about 7, get myself and toddler dressed, drop to nursery and head to work. I have a 20/30 minute drive depending on traffic. My mum picks toddler up every day after nursery so has them for 2 hours before I get home.

Get home say 6.30 with new hours and then have to feed toddler and myself, bathe toddler and do bed time. They go down about between 7.30-8.30pm. They still wake up 2/3 times per night and I end up in their bed beside them most nights. Broken sleep all week which kills me.

I feel so depressed, I look at myself and feel disgusted. But I don’t know how to organise my life to incorporate exercise and losing this significant amount of weight. I need some motivation and ideas.

TIA

Zero fat cottage cheese is good. Also high protein zero for Greek yoghurt. I guess I'd also go for Tofu in place of scrambled eggs.

Walking pad is a great idea. You can also get a stand for an outdoor bike that you use indoor - much cheaper than Peleton. It's a Wahoo Kickr and then think you can get a subscription with Zwift or another one.

I also got a national disability card with a doctors letter which got me a heavily discounted Better You gym membership.

I've been on quentiapine before and seen what it does to other people. Even maintaining weight on it is hard! You're starting from a very unlevel playing field.

For me time would mean being able to plan meals and stick to the plan. As opposed to planning and then being too exhausted to cook even something basic.

In lockdown, and before the shit hit the fan with DS, I was batch cooking, using the slow cooker, lots more cooking from scratch. Feeding DS was always difficult as he's moderately restricted in what he'll eat.

Yes, there are things I could do better, better choices I could make but I'm exhausted, anxious and depressed - sleep wise it's like I've had 12 and a half years of looking after a new born, with the added stress of them now being a pre-teen and suicidal, and being made redundant in a few months so have to add job search to my stressful to do list.

@Fat40Unhappy Hello. Just came to recommend Grow with Jo workouts on YouTube. Whilst not the same circumstances, I was also struggling with time to exercise. So I started doing her ten min workouts in the morning (I’d get up 15 mins earlier) or do one in the evening while dinner was cooking or before bed. I realised that not giving myself 10 minutes was a sad indication of how I felt about myself. I loved them so much that I started doing 20 min ones about 3 times a week (also in the morning by getting up a bit earlier) and then 2 longer ones on the weekend. I’ve had incredible results and love her videos. She has everything from 10 mins dance workouts to 1 hour intense walking workouts - something for everyone. My body shape has changed, I’ve lost weight and I’m healthier and happier. I also eat healthily but note that eating isn’t an issue for you. Feel free to PM me if any of that is helpful and you have Qs x

Don't worry about exercise. Try to eliminate most of the baddies from your day to day diet. Like biscuits, cakes, pastry chocolate, crisps. We all know what they are. Then stock up on lean meats and veg. Maybe try an online slimming group.

Be kind to yourself. Your brain and body have been through a really rough time, and you've got enough stress going on.

Try and reframe it as looking after your body. Nourish it with foods good for your health. Aim for more managable movement snacks- they're the best time: benefit ratio for people struggling. Frequent bursts of movement are good for keeping your metabolism raised. Try and get active with your toddler rather than having "exercise" as a big intimidating block of time that you struggle with. If your toddler still does the pushchair, walking parkrun could be something more formal that you can go to together.

Little 5 minute habits of self care here and there when you can fit them in; a glass of water, a dance in the kitchen, a breathing exercise can do a lot for your health and well being (and managing weight could be a nice side effect)

The easiest 'time-free' way I found was to have a very structured approach.

Breakfast was either: home-made granola (all the healthy nuts, grains etc and NO sugar) with fullfat greek yogurt, and maybe some berries (raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, balckberries - freeze dried are OK too). OR egg on toast. I used to alternate M W F / Tu Th S, then have some thing different on a Sunday.

Lunch was the healthiest meal I could find (but maybe a smaller portion?): chicken curry in the hospital canteen, a buddha bowl lunch take away. I tried not to eat the carb heavy stuff of sandwiches.

Dinner was soup. doesn't matter whether it's home made or bought. Sometimes with toast, sometimes without. Maybe a grating of cheese.

No snacks. Nothing after dinner. (but if you needed something have apple segments and peanut butter, or prawns and cocktail sauce - you can buy these from M&S, or you can have them ready in you your own fridge)

Once I had lost weight I found it so much easier to 'move more'. God I even ran for a bus!

I've found success after a baby by prioritising as much sleep as I can - and then just swapping out my lunch for a pile of mixed veg (which I take out of the freezer and heat up). It takes 3mins to get ready and keeps me full. I don't think about my diet and it doesn't take much time. I eat breakfast and dinner without restricting anything, and if I get hungry in the evenings I have another plate of mixed veg

Mine is olanzapine OP, in the same class of drugs, they tried me on metformin too but they stopped that when I started mounjaro as the GP said it would be 'far more successful.

I've since lost 4 stone, since last September, BMI from 40 to 28 so not far until my goal now, thinking of staying on it alongside the meds as my yearly bloods (for the olanzapine) were much better (cholesterol and blood sugars)

Here is a link about them being recommended with these meds. Hope this helps

https://www.stah.org/who-we-are/latest-news/weight-loss-medication-what-it-could-mean-for

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/10/weight-loss-jabs-may-be-good-for-mental-health-research-shows

I had an appt with the MH team last month and they seemed very interested in how I had lost weight on the meds.

Also, just to add to my comment, all the research they've done has shown that exercise doesn't actually help weight loss because it burns calories but also spikes your appetite.

The only thing that helps weight loss is undereating - so I wouldn't even worry about exercise for now if your goal is to lose weight.

As well as all the change your diet advice that everyone is giving, is there a way to work in some exercise to your life, even if it's gentle and in short amounts?
A walk around the block with your toddler before you go into the house to do bedtime? A quick Joe Wicks youtube workout a couple of mornings or evenings a week?
A longer walk and play in the park after nursery on your day off?
A bit of football or bat and ball when you're off, or a set walk you do every weekend together? New forests and national trust places to explore in your holidays?

If your day off is consistent, can you join a sports team that meets on that day, or a gym class whilst your toddler is at nursery?

I think you'll find that a bit of exercise is a great start, and will make it easier to get the momentum going to introduce more when you have the time.

I do think you need to stop beating yourself up about this - your weight is consistent (not increasing)!

This is interesting, thanks very much for the links. I’m seeing my psychiatrist in a couple of weeks so I’ll say to them. I would be scared to use it in conjunction with the Quetiapine without medical supervision but I’m willing to pay for it if it might help.

Agree with others - if you start fasting you save time!! Less cooking / eating / clearing up. Omelettes are super fast and can pack full of veg and protein. Ditto a sort of rice bowl: rice / steamed veg / frozen chicken defrosted and a squirt of soy sauce / hoisin / sweet chilli etc

boil a pan full of eggs whilst sorting toddler breakfast I do 9 at a time - then have 2 a day as snacks.

Pot of cottage cheese - straight out of fridge, filling and protein. Mini cucumbers, celery sticks, tomatoes a d sliced ham - a meal!

I’m quite surprised by the posters stating that exercise doesn’t help. My friend who has been overweight all her life and struggles with binge eating joined a PT group 18 months ago. She’s lost 3 and a half stone and hasn’t really changed her eating habits.

She’s done all the calorie counting, MFP, Team RH, starving herself but this consistent exercise is the only thing that’s ever shifted any substantial amount of weight for her.

To the poster who said Grow with Jo, thank you. I searched this and then seen Pilates home workouts as well so I’m aiming to buy a yoga mat and maybe a walking pad and give myself 20-30 minutes per day for self care.

Someone really resonated when they said that when they realised that they didn’t care about themselves enough to give themselves just 20 minutes a day made them sad. This is how I feel. Feel like I’m chasing my tail all the time and there must be 20 minutes in the day somewhere, I just need to start caring about myself again.

And thank you to the people who acknowledged that I am starting from a very unlevel playing field due to my meds. I should give myself grace because I know this makes it easier to put the weight on and harder to lose it but when you feel so crap about yourself it’s easy just to think you’re fat and lazy and nothing else.

Exercise has loads of benefits:

• increases your metabolism (slightly, but anything is better than nothing)
• improves your posture
• boosts mood
• toned muscle looks leaner, stronger, better so clothes will fit better.

but you have to do an absolute crap tonne of it to make up for excess calories. As they say “You can’t outrun a bad diet”, and exercise makes you hungry so more likely to eat above your calorie needs.

Like everything it’s about balance, increasing your exercise in moderation would be a great thing to do, weight exercises will do more for muscle tone and metabolism than aerobic exercises but the ideal situations would be a bit of both. Alongside that you need to eat a good mix of all food groups and stick to eating less than you use.

Exercise has loads of benefits: mental health, physical health, energy etc - but yeah studies haven't shown that it helps weight loss. Google research if you're interested - it's a bit of a myth that exercise helps weight loss.

By all means exercise if you want to improve your life, but if you want to lose weight and have limited time, I would just diet. And the most time efficient diet is probably to just fast/skip a meal, as that'll actually save you meal prep time.

I discussed it with the GP who monitors me yearly for blood tests for the olanzapine, they were ok with it, I was quite overweight though and blood tests showed high cholesterol and high blood pressure- which they thought might be linked with taking olanzapine.

A couple of months into mounjaro I had those sets again and things were better

Oh, also when you get the mounjaro prescribed online you have to tell them all your meds and they check to see if it is suitable for you, and I have always done this and it has been fine.

Hope the psychiatrist is helpful. Mine just told me to 'eat smart' when they put me on it, and it's really not that simple with these meds. They cause cravings for carbs, and mounjaro takes that away making it much easier.

This was interesting also

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-11/queensland-schizophrenia-weight-loss-drugs/105398508

Can you talk to the GP/psychiatrist about changing medication? Some are a lot more weight neutral than others. For example, my pal was on olanzapine and gained a lot of weight. Switched to aripiprazole and the majority of the weight fell off without even trying.

I haven’t read the full thread for everyone else’s comments so apologies if repeating. It sounds to me like you don’t have the energy to lose weight, rather than don’t have the time. Technically, you could do an exercise video and cook a healthy meal and a healthy packed lunch after your toddler goes to bed, but you’re probably totally knackered at that point in the day.

if it were me I would focus on the food side of things not the exercise. Maybe think about exercise when the toddler starts sleeping better. From the food side of things, try batch cooking a few recipes that you’ll get to know and will be able to whip up without thinking. Then just repeat those recipes. I find thinking about what to shop for / cook etc is another task in itself so you need to make it as simple as possible by repeating the same recipes.

if you can afford it, the weight loss injections coupled with healthy eating is probably your best bet.

But overall, be kind to yourself. It’s so exhausting trying to lose weight and it’s so difficult.

OP I really understand how hard it is working long shifts and having to find healthy food. I now make up a salad with cheese and cooked chicken and a Quaker porridge for breakfast /late morning.Protein really is a filler and I take nuts in for late pm X

This .Kind comments make a big difference 🙏

Losing weight is really really difficult, but time is not the big issue

Forget the diet for the minute.

All you have to do is try to form a calorie deficit (no matter where those calories are coming from )

Easy ones to cut out : alcohol (full of sugar ) any excessively milky/sugary drink.

Eat brunch instead of breakfast and lunch. Eat tea as late as convenient for you (decreases likelihood of snacking in evening )

Walk, walk , walk. Don't bother doing all this slimming world/keto/running/gym fads (you'll do it for 3 weeks then give up )

Initially, all you need is the calorie deficit. So start eating less not different and take up moving instead of fitness. Lift your heels up and down whilst stationary. Do a few stretches.

Then you build on it, and then you look at your overall diet. Fads and "diets" and complicated exercise regime's are there for one purpose: they make people rich. Eat less, move more , you will lose weight (it'll be slow) . Work up gradually.