AAAaaaarrrrrggggghhhh!

[PercyPigPie]

Can someone please help me?

I liked it in the old days when you counted calories and lost weight. I haven't really had to diet for a decade as I have been pushing a single or double buggy up long hills. Now my youngest is at school I find myself 1 stone over my ideal weight and calories no longer seem to be what I thought they were (a measure of how a food is burnt by your body) and it seems to matter what it is a calorie of.

I am not fat enough for Weight Watchers (currently 10.5 stone at 5 feet 9 inches, but would like to be 9.5-10 stone) and just want something that is really easy to prepare, cheapish and that works. I need some carbs - I tried atkins for one and a half days and felt like a cat on a hot tin roof. I want something that will be a way of life and will combine with exercise when I can (but often can't).

I find that any "diet" just results in me obsessing about food 24/7. Plus there's the ever present question of what happens when the diet ends. If you want to have any chance of keeping the weight off, it's got to be a lifestyle change that you can live with for ever.

What worked for me was cutting out the crap - I don't even have it in the house any more, and reducing portion sizes. I also made sure I ate plenty of protein, and cut out carbs with my main meal.

I also found that running helped the weight just fall off. Not only did it burn the calories, it also took the edge off my appetite.

I lost 2.5 stone in 3.5 months, and didn't even put any on permanently over Xmas.

Thanks Butterbur - and well done!

The problem is I am in that I need rules at the moment so that I feel like I am sticking to something. I have been eating sensibly for a week and a bit (bar one bad day) and walking nearly 2 hours a day - and have lost ... nothing. Can't run as have dodgy knees (from too much running in the past) and back - but would love to. Can swim - but swimming makes me put on weight!

"...Swimming makes me put on weight..."

If that's because you are building muscle, and not because swimming makes you eat too much, then that is a good thing. More muscle equals a higher base metabolic rate.

Sorry to hear about your knees. Two hours of walking a day sounds great though.

Also, a week and a half is nothing. I often find my weight varies by up to 5lb in a week for no apparent reason, and am past the menopause, so not even due to monthly cycle. Maybe weigh yourself less often - or even not at all. Just wait until the clothes get looser.

Try tescodiets? I am doing the totals plan which is like weightwatchers - you eat what you want, and input the food into the website - they give you a totals limit and calculate how much everything is. Any exercise earns extra totals but if you don't exercise it doesn't matter.

Unlike weightwatchers, I don't think it would matter that you don't have much to loose. There is a weekly weigh-in and you input your comments they send you an email in response.

Yes buttebur - swimming seems to make me absolutely starving, in a way going to the gym/walking doesn't.

I should stop the weighing it's true. If the scales show good news I usually celebrate with a treat, if they show bad news I finish off the biscuits!!

Foreverondiet -thanks, will look at Tescodiets. Sounds good.

I guess I dont't know what good calories are anymore. I tried low GI before Christmas and actually put on weight snacking on peanuts and eating pulses.

Yes, tescodiets total plan encourages you to make good calorie choices as healthy foods get lower totals for the same calories than unhealthy.

Mudandmayhem have you looked on the Paul Mckenna thread on here? It's not a diet; it re educates yr attitude to food and it works!!

You don't have to buy the books new, if you google P.M. I Can Make You Thin it explains everything. I do it without books and C.D.s.

Will do ppeatfruit-thanks