Stay motivated over winter

[BoyMamma2]

I have lost 4 stone since early Spring which tbh I found okay. Now the cold weather is come I am finding it harder. Im rural and we do get pretty bad weather. I’m craving pies, hot chocolate etc. Really stodgy food.

any ideas how to stay on track?

Just keep thinking that you don't want to go back to your old unhealthy habits.

Think of all the things you can do, now you've lost 4 stone.

Can you plan to have one of those things once a week? Then you can look forward to it and you know you aren't depriving yourself. You can even allow for it in terms of calories by taking however many calories off each of the other six days, and it might not even be a noticeable reduction. That's assuming you do calorie counting, though!

You can have all those things just look for options that are lower in calories, they aren't always as good but even if they're 80% as nice they scratch an itch.

Hot chocolate with almond milk, make a pie with a filo crust instead of puff pastry.

I make mashed potato, with half potato and half cauliflower, it pretty much tastes the same to us (my children refused to eat my MIL's fully potato mash!) and it virtually halves the calories, and you need less butter or whatever you use, as the cauliflower doesn't absorb it.

Soup. Chunky, warming, rich soup.

Soup is great - I make a scrumptious pumpkin (or butternut squash, depending on season). It is 1kg pumpkin, 700ml stock, one large onion sliced fine, 150ml double cream, cumin, coriander and hot smoky paprika to taste. Cook onions for five, add pumpkin, after five minutes add the stock and spices, cook covered til soft. Add the cream and blend. It make a really thick filling soup. I toast some pumpkin seeds and a few croutons fur crunch. So filling.

I am losing weight and have a hot chocolate most days. Almond milk, Whittard luxury hot chocolate powder, mini marshmallows- in total 144 calories, totally doable within a healthy balanced diet.

I love a hot chocolate ! I've started having the options flavoured ones at 39cals, though I do put a splash of milk in them so slightly more. They aren't luxurious but really nice and still feels like a treat at night for less cals than a chocolate bar.
PP is right though, you should be able to have enough cals left for a decent hot choc at night if you build it into your day

Soup is definitely your friend, and lovely casseroles with lots of vegetables. I made a chicken casserole this week and had 1 small dumpling instead of 2, and served myself a much smaller portion of mash potato than I would have liked to, but it still hit the spot.

Also Options hot chocolate is really nice, I have the white one at the moment. Make sure you weigh the powder out though if you don't get the individual sachets as my usual portion was about double their portion. White hot chocolate with a splash of no sugar almond milk and a sprinkle of cinnamon is delicious.

I can also recommend the Aldi light hot chocolate as a much cheaper alternative to Options, it tastes exactly the same. DH accidentally bought Aldi's normal hot chocolate and it was rank.