Not losing weight despite massively cutting back

[Morgun]

Can anyone analyse what I’m eating and tell me where I’m going wrong? I’ve cut back so much yet the scales are not shifting. I’m 5ft 8 and 16st

breakfast - porridge oats, 2 slices of wholemeal toast with low fat spread, a fat free yogurt and a banana

lunch - pasta salad with a wholemeal roll and a packet of low calorie crisps.

Aftetnoon snack - apple, nuts and sometimes a fat free yogurt but not always

dinner - homemade spaghetti bolognese (wholemeal spaghetti), 2 small slices of garlic baguette, a weight watchers mouse and a piece of fruit

evening snack - a couple of biscuits

this is far less than I used to eat yet the scales are not budging. I’m being told to cut down further but I can’t see what else I can do, I’m struggling as it is.

She has quite a few health issues actually - mostly related to the fact she doesn't eat healthily.

She clings to the smoking as it keeps her weight down.

You are missing the point OP. People, including me, are saying that you are still eating too much. You seem to be focusing on the fact that you have already reduced the amount you eat, instead of the amount that you are still eating. It sounds like you are just used to eating a lot of food, so a standard regular meal seems ridiculously small to you. To put into context - I'm not trying to be mean saying this, but you are asking for advice/help, so here goes - the amount that you were eating before was extreme, I mean really extreme and way too much. You have reduced it, but because it was a huge amount to start with, cutting back has made little difference. A bowl of porridge, may with fresh or dried fruit on top should be enough. Most people will have that or a couple of slices of toast or if they are having a large lunch, yoghurt and fruit. You are having all three, that's what they mean when they say you are having three breakfasts. Having pasta salad for lunch is a meal in itself, you are adding a wholemeal roll. Try having the pasta salad (which depending on the contents and the size of the portion, might still be calorie laden) which fruit or yoghurt for desert or have the roll, with a bit of ham/chicken and salad. I don't think posters can make it clearer tbh. Also with the amount that you were eating before, you must have felt very full - stuffed almost, and I wonder if the issue is that you are used to constantly feeling full. Feeling hungry before mealtime is normal.

@Calliopespa

It's not a massive change. This is what she used to eat.
her bar was so low to start with that she feels she's made huge changes but compared to what is a healthy diet, she's a long way to go.

For breakfast I used to have chocolate granola, white bread toast with butter, a normal yogurt and a cereal bar

For lunch I used to eat a big white roll with bacon, a sausage roll, a flapjack and a packet of crisps

For dinner I would have a ready meal, cheese cake and then a whole packet of chocolate biscuits as evening snack

She's changed the white carbs for wholegrain but she's still eating too many of them. I wonder how much sugar she's adding to her porridge or if it's one of those ghastly 'pots' that already have sugar added?

The 'normal' yogurt if it's plain, is fine but if she's now eating a low-fat yoghurt I bet my bottom dollar it's got added sugar or artificial sugar.

She's having white pasta for lunch (not said otherwise) so that's no different to the white roll. She was having 2 portions of processed meat - bacon and sausage- which is a risk for bowel cancer. So good she's stopped that.

The ready meal- well, we don't know what it is, but the rest is awful.

Can't see any veg or fruit in that at all, but her new 'diet' has very little as well.

@Morgun Depending on your age, you might like to ask your GP to run some blood tests for cholesterol (you were eating huge amounts of saturated fat), blood glucose levels and Vit D levels.

I honestly can’t believe that someone who is trying to be in a calorie deficit would eat all that bread and biscuits? You simply can’t eat like that if you’re trying to lose weight! You’re literally eating extra bread with each meal that you don’t need? Cut out all the bread any sugary treats and you might start getting somewhere.

That’s 3 breakfast for a lot of people who are maintaining their weight. Personally, 40g of oats cooked in milk would be enough for my breakfast. I am someone who is maintaining their weight. If I were to want to lose weight, I would need to eat less than the 40g of oats and milk.

Personally, if I were to eat more than I normally would and go for a first breakfast of oats with milk, a second breakfast of toast and a third breakfast of a yogurt with fruit; as well as a lunch of pasta salad with a second lunch of a bread roll (with a very processed spread) and a packet of crisps; then a dinner of spaghetti bol with a side of garlic bread (spaghetti bol is a whole meal in itself without needing a side); then 2 desserts (one of which is extremely processed); then unhealthy snacks before bed; as well as high fat snacks in the day; if I ate all of that over the course of a couple of months I would probably be a good few kg heavier than I am now.

I’ll give an example of my daily food intake (and I am in no way some kind of food guru, and you’ll notice for me, I eat little and often, which isn’t for everyone):

Breakfast- 4 spoonfuls of homemade muesli with full fat milk. A cup of rooibos tea. A cup of black coffee.

Morning snack- A cup of rooibos tea. 2 dates with 2 squares of 90% dark chocolate and some peanut butter. Some kind of fruit apple/orange/banana/fig.

Lunch- Either a jacket potato with butter (proper butter, not processed spread) and cheese, homemade vegetable soup, cheese sandwich (made with sourdough bread, not processed bread), or a small portion of leftovers from the evening before’s dinner. A cup of rooibos tea.

Afternoon snack- A handful of nuts (cashews or pistachios, usually) and fruit apple/orange/banana/fig (but not the same as the morning’s). A cup of rooibos tea.

Dinner- Today this will be homemade tomato soup, but sometimes it could be meat with potatoes and veg, or spag bol, or veg pasta, or burrito bowls, or homemade curry.

And then in the evening… copious amounts of rooibos tea 🤣🤣🤣🤣 (bit of a theme here).

I also aim to drink a litre of water a day.

I feel like I eat a lot of food. If I were to want/need to lose weight then the dates with dark chocolate and peanut butter would be the first to go, then the nuts, then the fruit snacks, then it would be a case of smaller portions if I still needed to lose weight.

Like I said, I eat little and often, but I know a lot of people don’t agree with that method as there’s lots of studies claiming intermittent fasting is great. It’s not something I’ve personally tried as I think I’d lose weight if I did, and I don’t want to do that. But it could be worth researching if you’re interested in that (in fact, I’m going to go and research it myself as I’m intrigued now that I think about it 🤣).

Another poster made a great point… feeling hungry is a normal feeling and not a sign that you’re depriving your body. It’s also easy to misunderstand thirst for hunger. I’m terrible at remembering to drink water, but it’s SO important.

Improving food quality is very important I agree however being overweight/obese is just as important. There are many, many negative health outcomes associated with obesity. I think unless your outwith the average like a body builder or athlete then BMI is a good reference point for the general public. It’s not gospel no but it is definitely a useful tool for measuring body mass.

Op, swapping out white carbs with whole grain is positive in terms of health (fibre, slower absorption etc) however if it’s fat loss you want to achieve they probably provide around the same calories per 100g. Fat loss needs to be a mix of improving food quality but reducing overall calories. This is where calorie counting will educate you. As I said previously you can often eat far more on a diet by making some simple switches.

Oh and Op I wanted to say, I couldn’t manage off 40g of oats for breakfast either! Im 5 foot 5, 9stone 4 and pretty active. 40g of oats would leave me hungry and feeling deprived! I have overnight oats every day made with 60g of oats. I have a huge appetite but that’s where understanding calories comes in handy! I’m able to manage my appetite and hunger all without gaining weight because I understand the foods that will satiate me and I’m able to balance the calories.

I do think one issue is the constant use of the word ‘snacks’ and the implication that it’s normal to walk round all day nibbling - thing is you can kind of often getaway with it with very active kids and teens, but get beyond that and unless you have amazing metabolism or snack only the odd apple or a square of chocolate or 3 nuts and a few seeds then it’s easy to just gradually gain weight - I honestly cannot remember this amount of snacking when I was young or my kids were young either( so at keast20 years ago) - maybe tge odd couple of biscuits, a crumpet post school or possibly a banana occasionally . I see kids now going grabbing a Maccy Ds ‘asa snack’ and then expect to eat a normal meal later on top - same with people and Greggs sausage rolls etc - I think one biggie is in the rush for cash a lot of actual shopping has gone away from high streets and filled now with various food offerings, so you are surrounded by it

Some people do graze all day and are fine - it depends on your body type.genetic . My dad could only control /prevent diabetes with 6+ eating times a day - the same food over three meals was really bad for him . Other people are better with only one meal a day

so it’s about finding what works for you and not being prescriptive to others

as a child grazing all day meant the odd apple/banana and lots of bread and butter - it’s the what as well as the when that matters. Sweets on a Friday and cake on a Sunday

I'd put on weight if I ate all that.
Far far too many carbs and too little protein, too much food overall.
You need to work out your BMR & TDEE and go from there.
Once you know how many calories you should be eating, you'll need to weigh and measure everything until you get the hang of it, and possibly continue weighing and measuring to be successful.

Two things op.

you are not losing weight. So you are consuming enough cals to maintain a 16 stone body. There is no way round this.

secondly, for most people it is 3 breakfasts. The fact for you it’s less than before, doesn’t change you still have a 3 course breakfast. The porridge is supposed to be your breakfast, not adding in toast and spread as a second course, and then a banana and yoghurt on top of it,

Another example, you don’t need the roll and crisps with your pasta salad.just rhe pasta salad would do. Or the roll with some lean protein like tuna, egg or ham and the crisps.

its your choice, but the simple fact is, if you wish to lose weight, you need to consume less. If you genuinely are not still gaining weight on that diet, which I find surprising, then you can absolutely assume correctly yoire now eating to maintenance. So if you trim 500 cals a day off, then you’d lose an average of 1lb a week.

to do that, I’d lose the crisps, the toast and spread and the garlic bread. To lose weight it’s not just what you eat, but how much.

as said earlier, would you consider weight loss injections. As I strongly suspect you have a major problem with blood sugar, possibly insulin resistance, due to so many carbs in your diet, and thus high sugar levels, meaning when it crashes you get hungry again and are in a vicious circle and that’s why you’re struggling and eating so many carbs,

Yes I maintain my 8st11 weight by having a milky coffee, 3 meals and 3 snacks a day (Monday to Friday certainly), but all carefully thought through to ensure I'm getting the nutrients I need, and structured around my gym workouts (ie a carb-heavy snack like a banana an hour or so before a workout).
But I guess the problem comes in when one person's 'snack' is another person's whole meal.

I think this is splitting hairs really.
You might need 60gms of oats but you're not adding in 2 slices of toast And yoghurt and a banana.

Also- it's not a bad thing to feel hungry.
I think this may be a huge part of the OP's issue.
The amount of food she's eating means she surely must feel full all day.
It comes over as emotional eating where she doesn't actually want to experience any sense of hunger.

I eat around 150-200gms 5% Greek yogurt for breakfast, with mixed seeds , a small banana, or a huge handful of blueberries. I feel hungry by 12 and my stomach is rumbling but that's fine- time for lunch! Mid morning my treat is one square of 80% dark choc.

I put on weight very easily and was a fatty as a pre teen which was horrible. Getting a school uniform to fit meant going up sizes so it fitted my waist.

I lost the weight and decided 'never again'. Every day I make 'hard choices' where I eat probably half of what I'd love to eat, but I know it would just add weight.

I hope OP comes back and engages with the advice or at least take the advice and looks online at recipes and meal plans etc and the basics of a health diet.

OP, this is what I ate to lose 1 or 1.5 pounds a week (I wanted to focus on a healthier diet, lose some weight, but not go on a ‘diet’ )

Breakfast:
A spoonful of granola, a load of frozen berries, a couple of spoonfuls of full fat Greek yogurt

OR 2 Oatibixes with semi skimmed milk

Lunch:
One slice of toast with some protein (e.g chicken slice, cottage cheese, boiled egg, sardines, ham, hummus, chick pea salad) plus loads of salad, actual salad not rice or pasta salad. Tomatoes, cucumbers, a salad made from shredded cabbage with a zingy
based dressing (not mayo)
Or bowl of soup and slice of toast and a piece of fruit

Afternoon snack:
e.g
30g of Brie and 2 oatcakes
A mug of cocoa (semi skim milk, cocoa powder not hot chocolate, half a teaspoon of sugar) and a satsuma
Two Nairns ginger oat biscuits

Dinner:
Normal dinner but reduce the carbs portion and up the veg. Avoid deep fried.

No alcohol on 4 days a week. Glass of wine or beer on Thursday/ Friday/ Saturday eves.

Have carrot sticks prepared in the fridge at all times. Or a forkful of shredded cabbage salad. Drink herb teas / water a lot.

I did eat cake at birthdays, had a few off piste days or incidents, just shrugged and got on with it, looking at the overall picture rather than beating myself up over eating a multipack of Twirl Bars one day

It took a few days to get used to eating less and cutting down on sugar but once that was done it was easy and I honestly didn’t suffer any sense of deprivation.

It has also been easy to keep to my happier weight, 5 years later.

In your shoes I would adjust one meal at a time or make one adjustment at a time.

Good luck!

@StewkeyBlue That's pretty much like me but I'd not be able to eat your afternoon snack! That could/would be a lunch for me- oatcakes, cheese and fruit.

The food industry has gone kind of wild. You can now go into tesco and buy a sandwich or a pot of pasta as a “main”, then get a pasty (yep, full sized cornish pasty) as a “side”, and then get an energy drink/coke/massive cold coffee with shit loads of sugar as your drink and people are being lead to believe this is a normal lunch. That’s 2 unhealthy lunches and 1 very unhealthy drink right there.

Huge well done for cutting down. As others have said, your diet is carb heavy and lacking in protein and veg. As a general rule, I'd try for only 1 starchy carb per meal eg with the bolognese you either have pasta or garlic bread, for breakfast either porridge or toast. I don't think you need to go super low calorie wise but could eat something like:

Breakfast - 2 or 3 eggs scrambled in a little bit of oil or butter, 1 slice toast. You could add grilled tomatoes,mushrooms etc to this or fruit after.
Lunch - Tuna or chicken pasta salad (include some veg bits in here - sweetcorn, chopped tomato, cucumber etc to bulk it out).
Dinner - spag bol with a big serving of green veg.

snacks - piece of fruit, yoghurt, mini babybel, carrot sticks and a little hummus.

I love a greek style yoghurt with a bit of vanilla protein powder and some frozen blueberries mixed in for a high protein snack, pudding or breakfast.

My point really is that eveyone is jumping on the OP and her food choices.
40g of oats made with semi skimmed milk is only around 250 calories ..people on here saying that’s more than enough. Well for them it might be but in my case my breakfast is more like 450. (oats plus protein powder etc etc)

250 for oats, 64 for toast, 100 for banana and fat free yoghurt 100 so the OPs breakfast might only be 514?? Everyone on here is judging but I think that’s a perfectly decent breakfast. So you can have that amount for breakfast AND loose weight! It’s all about portion control and making good choices. I agree it’s very carb heavy and wouldn’t work for me but this whole ‘oh I only have 1/2 a slice for toast for breakfast and feel so full attitude is disingenuous imo.

You can eat big volumes of food and keep within calories and achieve fat loss. You do not have to eat like a sparrow, especially if you are very active or have performance goals.

The new plan is a massive change: there are actually nutrients in it.

The bolognaise with ( she has confirmed) veg in it is far better than a sausage roll. She has also added fruit, and no, wholegrain isn't necessarily lower in calories, but it does have essential fibre and vitamins and minerals.

No she isn't going to lose weight on it, but it's a case of first things first. It's more important to actually have nutrients. I don't even know how she was existing.

Agree with others - far too many carbs, which your body treats as sugar. Your insulin will be spiking and not having a chance to come down (and exacerbated by the snacks), so you'll be in permanent fat storing mode.

Eat a nutrient dense diet. Fill up on healthy fats (please research low fat food - as others have said, it is full of processed stuff, as well as added sugar and additives). Eat plenty meat, fish, eggs, cheese, full fat greek yoghurt, the occasional blueberry/raspberry/strawberry small portion - frozen are as good as fresh, pack in the veggies, and eat sufficient protein.

Try to aim for 2 good sized nutritious meals (that doesn't include pasta, bread, potatoes or rice) and have your snacks/desserts directly after so you are only raising your insulin once at eating time. If you are eating healthy fats and protein, you won't be hungry and your cravings will go.

I guarantee you will see the weight melt away. If you're into reading, try Dr Jason Fung's Obesity Code or listen to it on audio. It's an eye opener. Also look up Dr Eric Berg's videos online. Short and easy to watch. It'll change your view on processed carbs.

I was a lot heavier than you and am now 12 stone 12, with 2 more stone to go. I wish I had known all this years ago, as I could have avoided an adulthood of obesity.

Best of luck. Hope this helps.

https://www.australianeggs.org.au/nutrition/nutrients-and-vitamins

Warburton's wholemeal bread has Wholemeal Wheat Flour, Water, Yeast, Vegetable Oils (Rapeseed and Sustainable Palm), Salt, Wheat Gluten, Emulsifiers: E481, E471, E472e; Soya Flour, Preservative: Calcium Propionate; Flour Treatment Agent: Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C).

A fat free yoghurt (Muller light strawberry) has Yogurt (Milk), Water, Strawberries (9%), Modified Maize Starch, Flavourings, Stabilisers: Pectins, Acidity Regulators: Sodium Citrates, Citric Acid, Colouring Foods: Beetroot Juice & Black Carrot Concentrates, Sweetener: Aspartame, Vitamin B6, Vitamin D

Eggs have Vitamin A, Vitamin D, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B12, Folate, Biotin, Pantothenic Acid, Choline, Phosphorus, Selenium, and iodine.

That’s actually a hilarious amount of research and you still haven’t detailed the vitamins and minerals in porridge and toast, just the ingredients 😂 I’m not suggesting you should by the way, it’s really not that important

Those are not good choices of bread or yoghurt though, so the comparison is skewed.

Try doing that with Fage plain Greek yoghurt and a good quality seeded rye sourdough. Those are the things people should be eating, and are the fair comparisons for "real" comparison with eggs. It would be like comparing a processed egg with a rye sourdough.

But that's not what the OP is having.