I am too fat, please help me to have the willpower to lose some weight.

[colditz]

I did my BMI on one of those charts, and it was 34! I am horrified. I have always been overweight, but have never been this heavy in my life - bizarrly my 4 year old jeans have survived two babies and still fit, but maybe they are growing with me?

But this is more of a health thing than an appearance thing. I obviously am carrying too much weight and most of it is on my front and waist - not good. I am only 26. I don't want to be like this for the rest of my life. The minute I start to think about dieting, it makes me want to eat crap. I eat too much, even when it is good healthy food, I eat too much of it!

Please give me a pep talk that will keep me going! I am going to keep a food diary on here, to make me face it

1 fried egg sandwich
1 sausage
1 and 1/2 burger
2 and 1/2 white bread rolls
good handful of salad
5 small new potatoes
1 tablespoon fried onions.
2 cans lemonade
1 small piece of gateau
1 options hot chocolate.

I know. It's appalling.

Message withdrawn

don't try to force yourself to eat stuff you don't want to. Instead, look at ways of making your faves lower fat (dry fry or poach an egg; make your own burger from lean mince; vegesausage, onion done in no oil, tbsp water instead..) you'll be amazed how easy that is, with a bit of thinking.

Don't try to cut out EVERYTHING you like. Have the options chocolate drink , cook the burger healthily as before, , skip the bread rolls, diet lemonade- et voila, no problem. Fruit or alow fat yoghurt for dessert. Suoup for lunch, porridge or poached egg on crisp vread for brekky- I lost 3 stone doing pretty much that, even founf a good low fat curry recipe.

She's right about breakfast too- for me it was boiled egg with crisp bread, but it gets you in a routine and is much healthier too.

(My other tip is snakajaks caramel jumbo rice cakes- yum, with a banana on top fro brekky or pud, or I now someone who mixes low fat philly with powdered sweetener to do a cheesecake thing though I'm dairy intol like you may be and haven't tried it)

if you make soup, shove in a splash of soya or rice milk- great way to gett he calcium with no taste

I quite like porridge, just prefer it with full fat, but that's not an option! I was surprised by how ok it was made with water and 1% milk though.

For lunch, I intend to have 2 boiled eggs with 2 rounds of warbutons seeded batch (toasted), tiny squidge of low fat spread, and a banana. I know I will like it, but is it acceptable for a weight loss diet?

I skip the spread (but I'm more liely to get my calories elsewhere), TBH though sounds absolutely fine . Ans easy, and sustainable.

Have worked out the whole caboodle will come to around 570 calories. Is this too many for lunch? I might save the banana until later.

Shockingly, I have never dieted before. I am one of the 0.5% I think.

Thank you all for being there to judge me if I fail. Now don't correct me on this, that thought will keep me going. I quit smoking, so I can definately lose 5 stone.

I used to go for 350 lunch when i did that, it was WW that worked for me though, no count.

However, I never, ever will follow a diet that requires you to count fruit and veg. You don't need to. Keep a very careful eye on fats, limit bread substantially. Oh and serve yoursefl a half serving at each meal then fill your plate with salads and veg. that'll work.

570 is fine, dependant on what you're having for dinner. If it's something simple- chicken or fish, rice, sald or veg then no problem at all

colditz

I to need to lose about 5 stones.

I have just started to think about losing like you never needed to diet up to now.

I started by writing down everything i ate and drank for a week and was shocked by how much i was eating.

I now try to eat 3 meals a day force myself to eat breakfast either toast and marmite or cereal.

I also make sure i do a least 30mins walk everyday.

I have lost nearly 1/2 stone in three weeks by doing this. I have tried to cut out the bits and pieces which i was eating out of habit rather then because i am hungry.

As for portion sizes i have started weighing rice (75g per portion) and pasta (100g per portion)rather then guestermating and thinking well its cooked so we may as well eat it.

I think it realy helps to write down what you are eating because it realy brings it home rather the "it's only a biscuit"

Colditz - have you thought about joining something like WW? I'm a convert and definitely recommend it for keeping your motivation up. My eating during the week usually goes:

Coffee in the morning - skimmed milk and sweetners
Breakfast - small bowl (small handful) of shreddies
Grapes - all morning until lunch! I get through a large bag but they keep me feeling full
Lunch - low fat M&S sandwich
Grapes and melon all afternoon
Tea - small plate (I use a side plate) of whatever's for tea - I don't tend to cook anything different, just have less, so tonight I'm having risotto.

During the day I drink as much water as possible and I have a diet coke with tea.

Good luck - and maybe come and post on the BigMoFo's thread in the weight loss section - very handy when you want to eat - type instead!!

Colditz... wanta offer you encouragement! I have lost 3.5 stone in last 18 months and can offer just a couple of tips.. maybe they will help!
I'm certainly not smug about it... we all know how hard it is!
If you could just lose the first half stone, that will give you huge encouragement. The whole thing was a how I felt in my 'mind' its so much a mental thing with me.
I ate very light breakfast, maybe weetabix, brown slice of toast with marmite.
Lunch was tuna with lots of salad and then ate normally in the evening with family.
BUT... I did change a few things...

I stopped drinking (wine, gin and tonic etc!!!) for five days of the week and I think that made a huge difference to weight loss. I was never having that much during the week but always a couple of glasses of wine maybe.
Instead I bought Ame or Shloer and poured a glass of that every night and just pretended it was wine... and it worked!
I stopped eating so late at night... I NEVER ate after 6.30pm... anything!
I stopped buying crisps or chocolate... if they weren't in the house, I couldn't eat them!
And the big thing that helped was eating very little bread. I LOVE bread and I think that was my downfall.
I also bought one of those abdominizer things that you lie on the floor and do sit ups with. I started doing 30 a day and worked up to 200 a day. I never missed a day and I really think it made such a difference to my waist... it gave me instant results and as soon as I could see I was losing weight, I just wanted to carry on and lose more.
I have dropped from a size 12 to a size 18/20 and if I can do it, you can. I am 51 years old and I wouldn't pretend it was easy but after the first stone went, it did become easier and easier because I was so proud of myself.
I do hope you can do it... rooting for you!

Oooops! Meant have dropped from a size 18/20 to a size 12 (not the other way round!)
And also agree with the grapes tip... if I'mm tempted to eat something I shouldn't... I just eat grapes!

Me too hellie- that's how I lost my weight, same sizes as you. fab isn't it?

BTW Coldtiz, no one will judge you. Nobody, but nobody always nakes the healthy choice (unless they're peculiarly anal anyway) and it takes most poeple a lot of false stops and starts

Agree Peachy! Plenty of stops and starts for me during the 18months. Today I have let myself down eating cake and chocolate, but I just KNOW that I will be careful sometime in the next week. I think its just looking at the bigger picture and thinking 'ok, I've been a pig today, but I will NOT let it spoil what I have done so far.'
I'm out for a meal tonight so today will be a bad day... weekends never good... but next week will be more careful.
I just think Colditz if you can kick start a bit of weight loss, it will inspire you.
Really don't wanna sound smug.... I have been there (and I still think there is a fat person in me waiting to get out....!!!)

Having1 small chicken breast (130 cals), jacket potato the size of a man's fist, half a tin of baked beans, lots of peas, cut green beans, cauliflower and broccili. Enough to fill my plate. Is that ok? I don't eat puddings anyway.

Fill the plate up with all those veg! That's good! And not too much butter in the jkt pot!!

no butter, I don't eat butter and beans on the same plate, bleugh.

have you tried the porridge made with sweetened soya milk, and a spoon of honey in it aswell. it is delicious, and will keep you going, i havent had it all summer but now it is getting colder i will be buying the soya milk again

Colditz, that's actually a WW No Count free food meal; unlimted of all those things is bang on ideal.

So! (have saved a bit of my dinner to nibble later, I know I will!)

If I eat like that every day, will I lose weight? I haven't suffered today, I could be happy with this level of strictness. Or do I have to be stricter?

Don't be too strict! Not only will that doom you to a lot more off the wagion days, it'll wreck your metabolism. Eat like that, try and get a bit more excercise (a walk is enough)and you'll lose it. Not too fast though, if you do it'll be water and again will shatter your metabolic rate.

Haven't had time to read the whole thread, but something that has always rung true with me is that 'eating too much interferes with the pleasure of eating'. It is so, so true, that awful 'I really wish I hadn't eaten all that' feeling that any over-eater is so familiar with!!!! Start by leaving just a couple of forkfuls on your plate, and get used to being able to stop before your plate is empty, and you'll be amazed how much freedom that gives you. Try to identify whether you are eating from 'mouth hunger' i.e. you just fancy something, or 'stomach hunger' i.e. you are really hungry. We in the affluent West have so lost touch with the concept of actually being hungry (and I speak as a former size 22'er who used this method to permanently alter size) allowing yourself to wait until you are actually hungry before you eat makes eating a real pleasure again, instead of an exercise in just cramming it all in willy-nilly. It then allows you to stop and consider what you really want to eat, i.e. I don't always have 'traditional' foods - sometimes have a salad sandwich for breakfast or toast and cereal for tea, depending on what I actually really feel like eating at the time. It took a little while to get used to the concept but it really completely transformed my (previously very warped) relationship with food. HTH.

P{orion control IS important but something to be introduced down the line- at some point in a diet a long term dieter will need to give her metabolism a kick start because they will plateau with weight loss; that is the time to reduce portion size. It also pays to change one thing at a time- what you're eating now, how much later.

Stop when you're feeling full: that triggers the arean of the brain known as the satiety centre to work (reduced activity in this are common in overweigt peolpe) which in turn controls your appetite

And don't panic about losing weight slowly - apparently the target to aim for is to lose 2 pounds every month. If it comes off slowly, it's more likely to stay off.

1 bowl f porridge made with water, 1% milk and 1 tsp sugar.

2 cups of tea with 1% milk and 2 sugars each.