Weight and peri/menopause.

[crosser62]

I’ve always had weight problems but have been able to shift weight.
For health reasons a year ago I changed to a wholly plant based diet.
I started my fitness pal and a step counter.
Also I try to do 5/2 diet.
I dropped a stone within the first 6 weeks but since then I cannot shift anything, the good news is that’s my weight has been stable, the same give or take a lb or two ON but then this comes off.
Cholesterol is low, blood pressure healthy, hba1c normal but I am still in the overweight category of BMI.

Is this a thing with meno?

I want/need to be in the healthy range but can’t do it even though I made radical changes a year ago.
Still having periods regularly, hot sweats have hugely reduced since changing diet, foggy brain, forgetfulness and sleep issues loom large as do very very low mood. So I’m probably peri meno.
Pissing me off now.

@crosser62 I want to help but as PP says you are not listening.

I have suggested more than once you list a day's food- or a couple of days- and with exact quantities. You haven't. Why?

Is this because you are in denial and afraid we will come along and tell you that you are in fact not eating the 1K cals you say you are?

I've spent a lot of time trying to help you with portion size and cals, but unless you engage here and let people help, it's not going to work.

Sorry I’ve not been back I work very long shifts so don’t get on here for days at a time.
Yesterday I had
2 crumpets with thin spread of peanut butter. (Less that t spoon for both)
A nectarine and half a small pear at lunch time.
2 Lidl oatie biscuits with a black coffee mid afternoon
Tikka sauce (about 2tablespoons)with 3tablespoons of boiled rice.
A small packet of salt and vinegar crisps (Aldi own make)
A square of dark chocolate with orange and almonds.
Drank 2 black coffees and about 2 litres of water.
That is a lot of sugar and a lot of white stuff isn’t it! It’s high carb intake.
I was on my feet really busy all day 8.30 in the morning until 8.30 last night at work, did 10000 steps.

@crosser62

I'd like to help but I'm afraid of sounding harsh.
Based on what you have posted, that is a very unhealthy intake of food. I'd feel ill if I ate so little protein.

Can I be blunt in order to help?

You have had practically zero protein, no calcium, only 2 portions of fruit, no veg, and a fraction of the 30grams of fibre we all ought to have. What you ate was essentially rubbish. The only things that had any nutrition was the fruit.

If you carry on like this for years, you are putting yourself at a high risk of osteoporosis ( we need around 1000mgs calcium a day in peri and post meno) and also heart disease and bowel cancer because of the lack of fibre and fruit/ veg.

You should eat 3 good meals a day with 5-7 portions of fruit and veg, some dairy, some good fats, and 30 grams of protein (read the labels to see how much is in a portion).

2 crumpets with thin spread of peanut butter. (Less that t spoon for both)
A nectarine and half a small pear at lunch time.
2 Lidl oatie biscuits with a black coffee mid afternoon
Tikka sauce (about 2tablespoons)with 3tablespoons of boiled rice.
A small packet of salt and vinegar crisps (Aldi own make)
A square of dark chocolate with orange and almonds.
Drank 2 black coffees and about 2 litres of water.

How to get fibre
www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/10/how-to-get-your-daily-30g-of-fibre

Sounds perverse but try eating more. So many posters on this site claim to be eating only 800 calories a day and maintaining their weight. It doesn't add up. My anorexic patients had to eat far more than that to gain weight after living on around 1000-1200 for years. If you f

Posted too soon. If you don't eat enough your body goes into starvation mode and holds onto what you do eat. Increasing the amount you eat will increase your metabolism and you might see a difference. Also increase your exercise and be totally honest about what you eat and the amounts.

@crosser62

Have you thought about buying one of the Michael Moseley books?
They might really help you understand nutrition better.

You say there is a lot of sugar and white stuff in that day's food but there isn't.

The only added sugar is in the one square of chocolate- probably about 1/3rd teaspoon.

There is some natural sugar in the fruit but not a lot in that amount.

There are refined grains (wheat and rice) but no sugar (crumpets are low sugar.)

Peanut butter can be sugar-free.

There is no sugar in crisps, or oat cakes, (might be in the tikka sauce- have to see the label.)

When you said you were eating a plant based diet, that for me would be

oats- made into porridge with dairy free milks ( soya, almond or hazelnut milks)
plant based yoghurts
lentils or pulses for lunch or main meals, or wholegrain pasta, with piles of green veg, root veg, peppers, aubergines, tomatoes, salad greens, mushrooms, tofu, Quorn, fresh fruit, nuts and seeds.

If you don't have dairy you can get your calcium from large portions of green veg, dried fruit, some nuts, but you have to eat very large amounts to get up to 800-1000 mgs a day.

Christ, I've just read what you eat and you must feel like crap on that! Apart from the fruit, it's all empty calories and no protein apart from that tiny amount of PB.

Today
2 slices whole meal toast, scrape of a veg spread and a scrape of jam.

Couscous with added baby tomatoes, spring onions, peppers, about 6 chopped grapes and a handful of spinach.
Apple
Tea is lentil and chickpea curry with carrots, red onions, white onions, a tonne of spinach and about 4 tablet of rice. (All homemade)
A fresh orange.
That’s more like an average day.
Day one is what I eat when on long shifts at work. Today is a far more nutritious day.
Because of the lack of calcium I take a daily calcium with vit d, multi vitamin and cod liver oil supplements. The calcium is 100mgs.

That’s a really good little read jingle on how to get fibre into the diet and quite reassuring as I do only eat whole meal pasta and bread but very limited.
I love raw foods too so that gets fibre in, humour and carrot/celery/ wholemeal pitta breads are good too.
Beans I love, all kinds and often bung them into the slow cooker with bottom of fridge/cupboard items at the end of the week.
Michael mossley is a good read too, thanks. I’ve seen him on loads of stuff on telly, might see if my library has any of his books and have a read.

Sounds miserable as sin OP.

Calcium is 1000mgs

It is miserable.
But it’s controlling.
I would honestly be 20 stone if I let go of this.

I would add protein in if you're not vegan for ethical reasons. I also had a vegan diet and found I couldn't go below a level then added in meat again and found it far easier to lose weight. So my meal plan was something like this

Breakfast - 10% fat Greek yoghurt (higher protein and lower carbs) with cut up strawberries

Snack - handful of nuts

Lunch - chicken or fish (grilled), with loads of green veg (brocolli, cavalo Nero, carrots) and boiled baby potatoes or lentils

Dinner - big salad with a protein (tuna/chicken/fish) (no carbs for dinner) (earlyish)

Snack - small spoon of yoghurt with a stewed apple

The weight fell off me when I changed what I ate (even though my exercise stayed the same)

I put everything onto mfp and it counts it for me.
Don’t weigh anything, portion sizes are probably bigger though, not huge.

You really do need to weigh. A teaspoon of peanut butter is calorific. A thin spread of veg spread can be 5 grams each slice so that adds up, and the jam.

Orange juice is more calorific than you imagine.

The curry sounds healthy but if you are having too much of it it will still add up. You can add recipes on MyFitnessPal and say how many portions those ingredients make and it will calculate for you.

Also some calorie totals in MFP aren’t at all accurate. I was eating something and continuing to log it as the 88calories someone had saved it as. When I looked into it it was actually 277 calories!

I have lost 1 & 1/2 stone but my weight loss really slowed after the first few months until I was ruthlessly weighing and paying attention to portion sizes, I was horrified to find I was eating 400 calories in fruit alone -you could have a sandwich for less!

@crosser62
I'd find it hard to lose weight on what you eat- in fact I'd put it on!
I'm older than you (post meno too) and have a small frame.

My daily food is like @DaffoDeffo .

Breakfast is either portion 5% (full fat) Greek yogurt with berries, OR 30gms (dry weight) porridge with almond milk and berries, or a boiled egg & 1 slice toast or 2 oat cakes.

Lunch is usually homemade or good quality fresh soup (300 mls portion), a portion of fruit , sometimes a small portion of plain yoghurt. OR a salad with a portion of canned fish/ eggs/ cheese.

Dinner is a portion of lean protein- salmon fillet, chicken, white fish, loads of veg and or salad (at least 3) and a portion of fruit and / or yoghurt (depends if I've had any during the day.)

I snack on oat cakes with a bit of almond butter, or some walnuts.

This is my daily intake. It's not a diet. Sometimes I have a roast, stir fry, shepherds pie, fish pie, lentil based main meals, pasta etc.

I'm not fanatical and enjoy food.

What I couldn't do and stay this size is eat grain-based or pulse-based meals 3 x a day. I try to limit true carbs to once a day.

Are you determined to stay vegetarian because if so, it's very hard to get enough protein without eating pulses, nuts and grains which are carb-loaded.

Your diet is very carb heavy even though not particularly high in calories. It seems like the slimming world diet which I have followed in the past. I normally lose weight for the first three weeks and then it stops. Many of the ex members around here have put all the weight back on and more. Many people do not respond well to carby diets and I’m one of them. When I add in a fasting interlude and reduce my carbs then I lose weight. Your diet is also very low in protein so you must be feeling hungry all the time. You would be better eating eggs for breakfast or home made Bircher muesli with coconut yoghurt and fruit and nuts. You should also be incorporating more nuts generally into your diet or Tofu if you like it. I second getting a Michael Moseley book. I bought the Hsppy Gut diet last year and I still use many of the recipes. I’ve also just bought the fast 800 book and that’s a very interesting read.

No, I’m not about to start eating any meat.
I’d consider a bit of fish though.
It seems to be that I need to do a load of reading around nutrition.
Funny enough I’m not always hungry, don’t know if it’s because I’ve been doing this for a year now so have got used to it.

Yes, you need to read around about it all.

as teta says, you need more variety and using calcium supplements is a bit controversial; I take them because I had osteopenia (maybe down to being dairy-free for years ) but there is some research showing calcium as a supplement can block arteries and contribute to heart disease. I try now to get most calcium from my food and just top-up with a small amount as a supplement.

Unless you are doing it for ethical reasons, you really need to add in dairy and eggs. You aren't vegan, so these are allowed for vegetarians. This would give you far more variety-omelettes, eggs for breakfast, eggs in salads, cheese in small amounts ( ie cottage cheese and fruit would make a lunch...)

It's all about balance and your diet is not balanced. Carb-heavy, lacking protein and calcium. Once you lose weight, you can be less obsessed with eating and have the odd treat. I follow a 80-20 rule; I eat very carefully for most of the time, still allow myself a piece of cake or a small pudding now and then (that means around once a week.)

That’s interesting about calcium supplements jingly, I wasn’t aware of that and it seems counterproductive as my aim is to avoid heart disease and diabetes.
I am aware that osteoporosis is around the corner too.

It’s such a mine field isn’t it.
You feel really pleased when your bloods are all within the healthy range and you feel in control of a lifetime issue at long last after every diet in the book and it’s still inadequate.
From what you are all saying though, it’s about tweaking and just adding in bits that can have a health impact.
I’m really glad I posted as I’ve got some fab advice and learned loads.
Thanks every one for taking the time, it’s really kind and very much appreciated

If I were you, I'd try to work on the basis of 3 meals of around 350 cals.

Ideally, you need 30gms protein a day minimum

There are some ideas here plus cals per portion.

www.healthline.com/nutrition/20-delicious-high-protein-foods#section19

ps the author of the link says 46 gms for women but I've read it's less than that. You can see though that you've got to get some protein in you from things other than carbs (grains and pulses) which is what you relied on for a long time.