Don't Starve! The Eat More to Weigh Less Group

[ShirleyKnot]

Hello!

OK, stemming from this thread I promised to start a thread to explain a little bit more about eating well and still losing weight.

I'll start by telling you about me because I love to talk about me

About 5 years ago (when I was 34) I went back to work full time, this time locally, in a sedentiary desk job. I drive to work everyday and was often far too busy lazy to do any exercise at all. My weight remained fairly static (At about 11 stones, I'm 5ft 7.5 and fairly chunky) for a good couple of years and then it started creeping up.

For the past two years I have skipped on and off WW, SW and I have tried low calorie diets, the lot. My weight has gone up to 12 stone 11 lbs at it's highest and I'm carrying it pretty much all over. My gut though TERRIBLE - It hangs over my knickers and in January my size 16 clothes were starting to strain.

Miserable ain't the word. It has affected my confidence (yes, honestly) and I know that at my age (39) it is only going to get harder to lose.

So, in January I started back on WW. I watched everything I ate, I thought about food compulsively, I went for walks in my lunch hour, and every weekend I fell off the wagon and stuffed my face. WHY? It makes no sense! I gobbled bread and cakes and biscuits and sweets like mad.

In April, after having lost and gained the same 7lbs over and over again I joined BIWI's Low Carb Bootcamp, and started upping my exercise at the gym (Doing classes mainly and swimming and I also started the Couch 2 5K) this is where it got weird...I stuck to the diet, it was pretty easy! I loved the food and didn't feel hungry at all - my endurance during exercise was affected but I thought I'd break through that barrier sooner or later. I watched as people on the thread lost masses of weight and I was completely stalled out. What? WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? I believe that during this time I was eating a good couple of thousand calories per day, plus exercising almost every day.

I left the group as I felt so fed up with not losing and limped back to my fitness pal, but decided to stick with the no crap (no white bread/pasta/rice, easy on the white potatoes, easy on the fruit) WOE. MFP gave me a calorie limit of 1,200 cals per day and I did this for a a few days before starting to feel rotten. I started looking around the MFP community pages and found the Eat More To Weigh Less Group and read every link, and lots of the discussion boards.

It was a lightbulb moment - WHY was I expecting my body to cope on less calories than it needs just to exist? WHYYYYY?

I started EMTWL on 16th May and have lost 1 lb. That doesn't really mean very much though, as the scales are FILTHY liars - but I have eaten very well and am losing inches consistently. Since I started eating more calories (I include BIWI's brilliant Bootcamp in this calculation) I have lost 4.5 inches from my waist and a good couple of inches from my hips, arse and bust. I have dropped a dress size.

OK. I'm going to post this essay and then I'm going to talk a bit about metabolic rate calculations and the sciency bits.

Do we think that this sort of thing would work for a child?

DD is 11, and definitely overweight. She'll be starting secondary school in September and has already said a few things about being worried that she'll be bullied for being fat. This is obviously heartbreaking to hear.

She's set up a MFP account, with me as her only friend, so that she can log what she eats and perhaps make her more aware of the calories in everything. But TBH she eats healthily and from what I've seen so far, she tends to have very low calories. You can see the sort of things I eat from my MFP diary, and the DC eat the same. This is not a new thing. I'm eating the exact same sort of things as I always have -- I've just cut out the crap I sometimes eat at work (Magnums excepted!) and maybe cut the carbs a bit. It's not like we've gone from eating fry-ups and pizzas every night or anything.

I don't buy biscuits/crisps/sweets, and I'm pretty strict on when either of the DC may buy those things with their own money. I bake, but everything I bake is very worthy, made with fruit and wholemeal flour etc (making banana and blueberry muffins tonight). And even when I bake, she'll maybe take a muffin to school as part of her packed lunch. It's not like we sit and eat a whole giant cake between the 4 of us.

So anyway, any ideas?

I would be very, very wary actually Tobes. At 11 I'm presuming she is on the brink of starting her periods (if she hasn't already) and we all know the mess that hormones can make!

See, it's terrible, it used to be accepted for pre-pubescent (and those just hitting puberty) kids to have a bit of puppy fat - I think it's an entirely natural state of affairs. After all when women lose too much weight and become too thin (or even, as I've been reading, just cut their calories to a too low threshold! ) their periods stop - this indicates to me that there is some relationship between body fat, hormones and menstrual cycles.

I think it is absolutely fine to focus on healthy eating - saying stuff like "I have been feeling tired and fed up lately and have been eating TOO MANY treats and I've decided to stop doing that and to start eating some great, natural foods" (this is if you feel the need to say anything) and then just carry on doing what you're doing WRT to the way your family eats.

It all sounds very healthy and good, and honestly? I would definitely focus on ensuring DD feels confident and understands that her weight is not an issue (Unless she's getting very big though, love, in which case I'd recommend the GP) as she's stepping into womanhood.

DYKWIM?

Er, but wait: "she tends to have very low calories". Well, you know how I feel about THAT! She might well be undereating, or just not achieving a healthy calorie goal - does she play out much? Do much exercise?

I think i agree with maryz that 16 might be ok but 11 could be a little too young. My dd is 9 and i cannot imagine her coping with the awareness of what she eats etc in 2 years time. It scares me a bit that she might - but maybe I am over thinking this.

Righto - i have changed my "stuff" on mfp. As a result I am consistently over on my carbs - but i can see where that is. The last 2 weeks I have been having a wrap for lunch - and have roasted a loads of veggies for a few days... it will be hard to implement changes over half term but after that I will go onto salads/soups as the big part of my lunch and see how that goes...

shirley i don't think my fears are to do with ED stuff per se. I think I lost the knowledge of how to eat normally without thinking about it a long time ago - and my bit problem is that i love crap. Dh and i will happily eat well all day then eat too much chocolate in the evenings. In fact evenings are my downfall - we eats with the children at about 5.30-6pm so are hungry in the evening and it is too easy to reach for the wrong stuff.

Gosh, 11's awfully young to be eating low-cal or worrying about weight. Well, I suppose starting secondary school is when a lot of girls start to think about their weight/looks etc. I have no idea what portion size or calorie intake is right for an 11 year old, though. Could your GP help with that? Good calories, good food can't be bad for her, but maybe as Shirl says she just isn't eating enough.

I think my baby is happier since I started eating this way. or it could just be that she's starting to laugh so I notice more Anyway, she seems to be smiling and trying to giggle more. Maybe she prefers bm made from nice healthy food and not from a diet of chocolate, cake, McD's and chip steaks.

You know what? Although mfp had me on crazy low cals - since eating "better" I am feeling more energised and sleeping well (apart from poorly dh snorting, coughing and leaping around in bed )

I wondered that Shirley because milk also makes me really phlegmy (tmi) but I don't get the same from yoghurt or cheese, just raw milk.

I am really struggling with my protein ATM, does anyone have any high protein snack ideas? I am getting DH to interrogate his workmates tonight, he's a fireman and there are a few bodybuilders on his shift so am hoping for some top tips!

Toby I would be very very wary of having your DD counting cals and worrying about what she eats. If she is eating decent meals and not too much junk then she will be fine.

My mum pointed out to me that I was getting a bit chubby around 11- 12 (puberty related I think) but I got it into my head from that moment on that I was fat. So at every weight I've been I've felt fat and critical of my poor body, even when it was at its best. It's sad. I did all kind of fad diets from being 15, I was a size 8-10 fgs.

I'm sure you're doing all the right things to influence her towards a healthy, nutritious diet without having to log exactly what she eats. It could well be that she shoots up over the summer and goes back to being in proportion.

Sorry if that was a bit voice of doom!

toby I would be wary too. Does she get much exercise cos that would be more fun than counting cals. Also id work on building up her self confidence and hopefully the eating better will come naturally.

I also speak as someone who thought they were fat all their lives even when was actually 9 stone.

Ive finished work for over a week now so can really get into the mfp habit.
Im so tired,i really need this break from work.

Oh I'm having a bit of a wobble, please reassure me I'm not going to turn even more enormous from eating so many cals a day. It's feeling a bit scary! My food diary looks like I've eaten tons but still under my allowance.

Ledkr, have you got much planned for your week off or will you be catching up on some much needed rest?

AllMuddled I have literally never hit my protein target (I've set mine at 30% protein). I have eggs/greek yoghurt for breakfast most days, sardines/halloumi/other protein source for lunch (with salad etc, obviously) and meat/fish/eggs for dinner, and occasionally a protein shake (although I try to get virtually all my protein from actual food). I can just about manage to hit the recommended 1g of protein per lb of lean body mass (something like 100-110lbs for me), but when I exercise and my 30% protein goes up to something like 150 grams of protein, I give up trying to reach it! I hate nuts, which doesn't help.

Alittlebitshy I have so much more energy eating like this. The main reason I gave up on having a big calorie deficit was because back in February (when I was surviving on more or less 1,200 cals a day) I got a cold, and I just couldn't recover, and then I was anaemic, and I just felt rough for about a month, no energy, kept getting passing bugs, absolutely no energy for rushing round with the DCs all day. I decided to start being a bit more careful with my diet rather than just trying to cut cals, and within about a week I felt a million times better, and I haven't looked back since!

Allmuddledup! you will not become enormous.

I haven't become enormous!

I just did a run and am really hungry. I have 128 callories left and am over on fat, but under on everything else. We don't have much in the house. What can I eat?

muddledup I feel the same.Im finally getting into my pre baby clothes apparently from eating low cal and now im risking it all.

I will be resting as much as one can with a baby. We are going off in our new camper the latter part of the week and im really excited.

Question for shirl? Are we doing tdee minus 15% I cant remember what i did? Is that met reset or just for weight loss.

Actually looking I need some generally foods low in fat and high in protein.

Have been having porridge for brekkie a fair amount - have noticed people eating oatcakes as a breakfast food. Would that fill me up ok? Am going to experiment tomorrow with oatcakes and fruit.... hmmm

Toby I would be very very wary of having your DD counting cals and worrying about what she eats. If she is eating decent meals and not too much junk then she will be fine.

Yeah, the fact is that she's not fine. She's definitely overweight. I know that and she knows that, although she's the only one who ever says it out loud. She's been overweight since she was about 5.

I know all the psychological stuff. I had an eating disorder at her age. I'm more careful than you could ever believe! But I also understand the psychological issues surrounding her weight. She is upset about being 'fat', she can't wear the clothes her friends wear and she is sometimes called fat at school. She has fairly low confidence anyway and is really worried about starting secondary school because she's afraid she'll be bullied. So I really do think she needs to lose weight. And I can't think of a more sensible way for her to do it.

The thing is that she wants to do something about it. This seems like the healthiest way of allowing her some control over it. She enjoys putting in what she's eaten that day and it's like a game to her. I was actually wondering whether she's eating too few calories, which is why I asked about this way of eating. I am in no way suggesting to her that she go on a low-calorie diet!

I suppose my question was: "Is it likely that a child's metabolism would work in a similar way to an adult's, where they need to ensure they're eating enough to cover their BMR? And would this be likely to facilitate safe, healthy and sustainable weight loss?"

She eats a good diet with very little junk and does a moderate amount of exercise, but a structured plan with a goal of 30 minutes per day or so can only be a good thing.

BTW, I never mention weight to her. I talk about us all eating more healthily and taking more exercise.

And I try so hard to build up her self-confidence. When she moans about being fat, though, I'm not going to lie to her and tell her she's not. It's not just 'a bit of puppy fat'. So I tell her that if she wants to do something about it, I can help her.

Seventh, I don't have any :( I need to go shopping, but have to wait for dh to do it. Argh I hate not being allowed to drive :(

toby how about c25k together? I used to dance and have always had an active lifestyle but could never run. Im on week 3 and im running.Its not far but i love the challenge and the fact im getting better at it everytime.

You down load the podcast and off you go,dd is 10 and she comes with me sometimes.