My diet is amazing. I eat healthier than anyone I know and have done for the past year so why am I still overweight?

[crumbybear]

I say amazing but that is compared to before I went on a health kick. I cut out most red meats/all processed foods/booze and sugar swapping them instead for wholegrains,water pulses and vegetables.

I must have lost about 6 or 7 pounds changing my eating habits and I have three small children so I am rarely sitting still, walk briskly with the buggy (lots)

typical food consumed (yesterday and today for example)
Porridge made with Soya milk and cinnamon dried fruit
Avocado salad- low fat dressing
smocked fish with steamed beans/broccoli/spinach
roughly 10 large glasses of water.

Today
fruit for breakfast with yoghurt (unsweetened)
handful of almonds
brown rice salad with seeds
Tomato and basil soup with green salad to follow
about 10 cups of Tea (herbal) and 10 glasses of water

This is typical I have not eaten any white bread, cakes, sweets, chocolates or white pastries for a whole year.

I had to really twist my doctors arm to get a blood test done and all is fine. He asked me to write a food diary and I'm sure he thought I was lying, he mentioned that I should've been a size 10 rather than my size!

I am a small size 18 and apple shaped. I am really thinking I should just eat crap and be done with it lately as i am seeing no results with heaps of effort on my part.

Can anybody give me advice or tell me where they think I am going wrong?

I've never had any fertility problems or period problems either.

Would that not have come up with my blood tests. What do I need to ask for?

I don't know anything much about it I'm afraid. But you could always ask your GP.

It wouldn't always show up with blood tests, espcially if you have polycystic ovaries without the syndrome. You would need an ultrasound scan. I would sugest you ask for a referall to a gynaecologist who would carry out all the necessary tests. Might also be worth asking for a dietician referral.

You may not display all the symptons, but the common ones are,

difficulty in loosing weight
irregular periods (or long cycles)
painful periods
excces hair, usuall all over body but especially top lip eyebrows etc
trouble concieving
Acne and skin complaints.

i hope that helps,

It doesn't make much difference what I eat.

I lose weight when I drag my sorry ass out running 4 times a week.

I don't lose weight when my 'only' exercise is running around after my two small children.

Crumbybear, I totally sympathise. My DTs are 3 now, and I started trying to ditch the weight when they were about 10 months. So far, I've lost about a stone and a half - great, maybe, but that's over 2 and a bit years, and now I've stopped and got stuck. I had a good hard look at what I eat and realised that whilst I eat healthily, my portions are too big, and I conveniently "forget" that I ate bits of the twins' tea and so on. Also that stuff like fruit juice and cappuccinos counted even though I felt was being virtuous to not have muffins with the coffees...
I go to the gym fairly regularly (3 times a week on average) and decided the only way to deal with it was to chage my mindset. The scales may tell me I still have a lot of weight to lose but my clothes fit better and I am fitter than I have been all my adult life. Since deciding that losing weight is not my goal, but to be fitter and to look better in my clothes, I've been a lot happier. And I lot kinder to myself! And I've discovered I enjoy the gym - it's time for myself, and I always feel good afterwards. Good luck!

I really sympathise as I don't eat crap yet can't seem to lose weight. I get annoyed reading things like "cut out processed foods and you are bound to lose weight" because I really haven't eaten that kind of thing for years. I think the answer really is exercise, it's just finding the time for it.

Anyway, you might find an online calorie calculator useful, you can put in your current weight and activity level and it will calculate your calorie requirement. Then you enter everything you eat and it will come up with your daily total. You might be surprised, for example 22 almonds are 172 calories, quite a lot. You can also input your exercise.

There are a couple of free sites like this: Foodfocus and Fitday. Hope that helps.

i don't think you are eating enough filling food.

20 nuts ois going to fill you up but it will provide a biggish dose of fat.its not worth it.

you'd be better off having something more filling.

i swear by slimming world. it is so easy to follow and you lose weight easily.and it's eating real food in real portions so you dn't feel deprived or hungry.

isn't that should say!

I was in exactly the same position (well, except that my diet wasn't quite as virtuous as yours). Nothing - not even the gym three times a week - shifted it.

But what's worked for me is the Paul McKenna book and, most of all, the CD. I have gone down a dress size, gently, in 2 months, and I think it's mostly down to listening to the CD! He claims it will encourage your metabolism to speed up - don't know whether that is true or not, but it does seem to do something for me.

It doesn't sound like you're doing very much exercise, tbh. I know it's hard with three kids but if you took but something more cardio-intensive like running or swimming you might have better results.

Haven't read the whole thread, but are you doing any exercise?
You HAVE to exercise as well to lose weight. Diet alone will not do it.
If you can do 20 minutes or more of cardio everyday you will see the pounds start to drop off, especially if your calorie intake is on target.

When you find out let me know!

I'm currently sticking to Slimming World and putting weight on. Tried Atkins a couple of years ago and put on 7lbs. I exercise a lot. Can't lose weight at all. Currently waiting for thyroid tests. I do have very irregular and painful periods though so wonder at PCOS.

morethanyoubargainfor - oh my god I have all of those symptoms! I had noticed recently my upper lip hair is upping the ante (I use hair removal cream a lot mroe often than I used to!) The other symptoms I have had for years. Am seeing gynae next month about repair op so will mention it to him.

OP you have done really well to cut all of that junk out of your diet, wish I had your will power! {admiration} I agree things like nuts and avocado quite fatty. I have done WW in the past and it is good in terms of reassessing portion sizes, and calorie/fat ratios out of your daily guidelines.

okay- listen up.

You need to write down EVERY MORSEL that passes your lips. You cannot be eating what you say and still size 18.

Only IF you are eating very large portions of all those foods. You are basically having one small portion carbs, one portion of protein and some veg each day. something's not right!

There was a very interesting TV prog a while about about a person (actress )like you. What she was doing was eating very healthily, but huge portions.

You need around 1200-1500 clas a day tolose weight. You are eating too much.
Tiresome as it is, you have to start cal counting.

Fruit, avocados, nuts etc are high in cals.
eg- a handful of almonds could be as high as 250 cals- a snack would be 5 almonds!

You need to undereat by 250 cals a day for a week to lose 2lbs. If you are eating just what your body uses, you will stay the same weight.

You also need to kick-start your metabolism by working out at something that gets you breathless and sweaty. You also need to build muscle, which in turn burns more cals than fat.

If you eat too little protein- and sounds as if you might be- then your body can go into starvation mode and hang onto calories.

So;

• calorie count and aim for 1200 a day or 1500 max. Try to have 3 portions of lean protein a day. *exercise so you get breathless for 30 mins a day.
• do some kind of workout to build muscle.
• make sure your portion sizes are right. A portion of carbs- eg porridge- should be the size of your fist, like a very small saucer- that's not a huge bowlful, with masses of fruit ( high in cals if dried) on top.

crumblybear - I would be seriously pissed off if I ate that well and only lost 7 lbs. Nothing constructive to add - just sympathy

" He claims it will encourage your metabolism to speed up - don't know whether that is true or not, but it does seem to do something for me. "

How? Seriously. Scientists will be dying to find out how he does that.

I've lost 27% of my body weight in a year without dieting using Paul McKenna - seems to have worked a treat but I think apart from losing this total fixation with food that you seem to have you need to do something radically different.

How about a green gym? Get out there and shake things up. If you want to live as a thin person you've got to get out of this mindset. Whining about how long it's taking should be behind you, focus on where you are going not where you have been otherwise you'll never get there.

And stop the bloody counting of food - eat when you are hungry. You are an intelligent woman, you must know that calories don't jump out the air and into your thighs? Forget them, if you are really genuinely hungry, eat and eat slowly. It's great that you are trying to put so much healthy stuff into your body but I fear that may be playing into your obsession over weight and food - stop it today.

The thing is - thin people aren't necessarily those that eat healthily, we just eat less and move more.

Think of five things you could try - the more outlandish the better (every considered extreme ironing) and do one of them tomorrow - I've taken up tree coppicing - sawing wood is really therapeutic and I now have no bingo wings - hurrah! I've also got fuel to keep me going through the winter.

Get a backpack and carry a toddler round. I constantly am carrying one or two children when we're out.

You can do this but you need to get over this idea that you need to diet to lose weight, diets only every teach you how to get fatter more effectively by putting you into a vicious cycle of failure and depression. As well as playing merry hell with your hormones and metabolism. Ditch them entirely, start again. Get moving!

Hypnosis can definitely speed up your metabolism as well, if done right. As well as what PT said.

And wmmc, that's post of the day. And spot on too. Now all I need is a coppice...

"Hypnosis can definitely speed up your metabolism as well"

how?

librasbiscuitsoffortune - yeah it does sound like bollocks doesn't it - hypnosis may cause you to focus on healthy habits (like exercise) which may cause your metabolism to speed up is I assume what's meant. But then breathing deeply also speeds up your metabolism so perhaps having more sex is the solution! (unless it gets you pregnant, that does make you get fat for about nine months I believe )

Drinking 20 cups of liquid a day is excessive and some of the weight will be down to that - weigh yourself with electronic scales before and after drinking a pint of water and you'll see what I mean!

The latest recommendations are to drink around 6 pints (12 glasses) of water or other non-sugary liquid a day; apparently the 8 glasses mantra was invented by the bottled water companies...

What blood group are you? I have just read the Eat Right Diet by Peter D'Adamo which is based around the argument that there are certain foods which suit the different blood types - food which will aid weight loss in one blood group will have little or no effect on another.

It does make sense on reading it. I have been following it loosely for about 6 weeks, have lost weight and was feeling pretty good until I got swine flu ...

I haven't followed it exactly as he recommends no dairy for blood group O and I still have milk but other than that it hasn't really felt like I've been on a diet or anything and I desperately needed to lose weight - am also apple shape by the way and it's so difficult to shift that middle weight.

PaulMcKenna has made a fortune out of re-cycling well-accepted psychology including elements of NLP.

He says nothing new, just packages it and hypes it up in a novel way.

True- you should only eat when you are hungry- and that means learning to listen to your body- and being able to decide when you are genuinely hungry, or eating out of boredom or anger of some other emotional trigger.

Having said that, even if you do only eat when you are really tummy-rumbling hungry, you then have to consider portion size,calories and the amount of exercise you do.

There is no magic solution- the best way is to keep your calorie intake 250 cals a day under what your body needs.

In addition you should also exercise for the health of arteries and bones- not simply your weight.

Best way if you are serious about losing weight is to cal count, and also get a heart rate monitor, so you can see if you are really moving!

I don't think you're eating enough and it's easily done when you go on a health kick. I've recently had my diet analysed and to my shock am only consuming around 1100 a day despite a very hefty exercise regime.

Please don't let yourself be put off by the numpties who say "calories in - calories out" bobbins - clearly someone who's never battled with their weight. There is a lot more to it than that.

I would look at your breakfast - porridge + dried fruit is actually quite high GI, you might want to look at a more paleo style of eating.

FWIW a friend of mine is 13 stone... she just won a mountain-biking competition but she battles and battles to lose a solitary pound. Or maybe she's just a fat pig who doesn't know how to count to 1500!

As for your Day 2 "menu" - it's shockingly low in "substance" - any fool who whines "look at your portions" clearly has a very loose handle on what eating clean entails. Exactly how many fucking tomatos would you have to eat to knock up 1500 calories? You'd be spewing tomato soup through your eyeballs.

Stick with the nuts & avacado, yes, they've got fat in them - ALL the right fats - ALL the stuff you need for a healthy mind and body. The fat found in an avacado is a million miles away from the fat found in a Greggs pastie.

In fact, fuck all our suggestions - really, it'll only piss you off. Get yourself down to the library and get a load of books on nutrition and for the love of god stay away from the traditional pyramid style eating. Educate yourself about vitamins & minerals, omega-3 vs. omega-6 and so forth.

Good luck!