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.

And I realise that saying 'used to eat sugar' from the giddy heights of five days ago (just facing day 6 now!) is a bit silly!

My in laws are visiting next Sat - I'm wondering if I could have a tiny amount and see what happens - I think I'll play that one by ear!

Keep it up people - and keep posting - I'm really enjoying and learning from everyone's posts! :)

So those of you who are cutting out sugar, is that just the obvious sugar like in sweets, cakes, added to coffee etc? Or does it include sugar in stuff like bread, tomato sauce etc? What about fruit?

I thought that toby On BWIW bootcamp we didnt even eat fruit but i have to be honest i felt so ill.

Im still struggling with being "let of the leash" so to speak and am eating a lot but bh weekend is hardly the time to be dieting anyway.

Im going to carry on keping to small portions of brown pasta and rice though because i dont want to re start the habit of having platefulls again.

I bought some 85% chocolate and its really nice although you wouldnt want much at once but its a real choclate hit when you need one.

I'm not sure I could live in a world without sugar ; I like cakes too much!

Got some flaxseed yesterday - had it in a protein shake, but I only used one of those whizzer things for frothing your coffee to mix it - not good enough, it was a tad lumpy. Still, it tasted nice. I'm very glad I only had one level spoonful rather than two heaped - the, ahem, after effects were quite noticeable .

DS is even more of a fussy bugger than me (the other two are dustbins, so I don't know if it's genetics/not doing BLW/luck) so I might sneak some in his Weetabix

Oh, I also made a twat of myself in Holland and Barratt yesterday because I didn't know that linseed and flaxseed were the same thing . And they didn't have any chia seeds :(

I didn't know either Toby until I was looking at their website - I thought 'WHY is it coming up with linseed when I put in flaxseed FGS?!' And then I googled linseed and went 'oh'

Their pictures are annoyingly small on their website, and I'd also say there's not enough info when you click on something. Try Julian Graves instead - DH said they were really helpful when he went in.

Good morning!

Well, I'm hoping to get back to normal today after all the driving and shitof the last 3 days. I feel sluggish and tired after mainlining caffeine and sugar and alcohol and not having enough food.

So the plan for today is the gym and some good food and no alcohol or sweets or crap

Hello everyone.

I know i said i didnt want to weigh myself but thought i would this morning. and I'm down 2lbs. yihooooooo!!

Oh, the lady in H&B was very helpful. It was me who was an idiot!

I'm a bit headachy today, but the kids are off to the cinema, so DP and I are going straight to the gym while they're out. Nothing much else to do on this rainy Sunday :(

Mumat, are there any tips for depression in that book? DH suffers from it and is currently in the middle of a low and signed off work. I'm hoping this WOE will help him too.

Have just been brave or stupid and measured myself. My waist is actually not so giant as I thought, although my lower abdomen is bigger than it was post-DD1. Oh well, it's a base line. And I will start Shredding tomorrow once Mum has gone (it's too embarrassing to Shred in public).

Turtle, the basis of Potatoes not Prozac is pretty much achieving level moods - obviously it's one person's theory so it's up to you to decide whether or not you agree with it or want to subscribe to it.

I know it helped me when I'd been struggling with low moods/depression for a few years, although I did eventually take the ADs - 6 weeks pn with DS2 and crying in front of the doctor, who said 'well, it's not working, is it?' when I told her about my diet to control the depression.

Here's a link to the online support page giving a basic outline.'

Ooof. Think my body/digestion is, ahem, adjusting to the higher fibre/protein intake?

Evening all

Am not brave enough to tackle cutting sugar out just yet

I have also had a bad day today but I knew I would as we went to a Jubilee tea party (cue lots of cakes) and then we have just had a chinese takeaway and have a bottle of wine in the fridge for later.

However, I am not down on myself like I usually am when I have veered off track which is a major achievement. Also, I love how I have been feeling the last few days and am determined to carry on feeling like that so I will be back on track again tomorrow

Am not weighing myself (do not have a pair of scales) and I am not measuring myself either - just going to do it by how my clothes feel/look and then maybe step on the scales at the gym when I feel that I have shrunk a little (if that makes sense )

Me too, Minnie! Although I thought it might have been DH's mackerel and butter bean soup yesterday having a disastrous effect on me.

Turtle, sorry for not replying sooner.

I haven't started reading the book yet but will report back once I have.

I'm sorry to hear that you DH is going through a low patch. I have suffered with depression in the past and it can be debilitating. I didn't really have anyone to help me with it, so your DH is lucky that you're looking into options for him.

From what Shotgun has talked about in terms of baby steps and the site she has linked to, it all makes sense to me.

I was thinking of cutting back sugar in a cold turkey kind of way, but think I'll just follow the babysteps that Shotgun mentioned. Knowing me I'll be more likely to have success with it if I know it's not forbidden.

Take care and I hope your DH is feeling better soon.

Dd1 and I made a chocolate cake with cream and strawberries for a jubilee tea today. So I put it into mfp first and allowed for a small slice. Ate big bowl of ham (from yestetday's dinner) and veggie soup, also filled up with cottage cheese later.

I felt I was adjusting to fibre intake a few days ago, too. I have just realised how much more I eat at weekends, no wonder I couldn't lose anything. Starving during the week on low cal/low carb with occasional pig outs. I am a bit shocked at myself, I thought I was eating so much more healthily than that!

I am eating more carbs than I was, but I figure a little healthy, wholegrain carbs is bettet than none and then trying to keep going on chocolate and coffee. I think I might start cutting down to lower carbs when I have stabilised a bit more.

Well done kn1knack and your no sugar!

yesterday and better - silly phone!

Am hanging my head in shame ....have avoided coming on here as I lasted just 2.... yes.... a whopping 2 days (and not even that as only got til 7pm ha ha on the 2nd day) of this WOE before being allowed to up calories meant that I ahem significantly upped them aided and abetted by oatcakes and nutella...a pesky.....ahem ....whole packet of oatcakes!!!!

Tried to reset my self over the weekend...start again properly tomorrow!!! ( am blaming b feeding for the slip up...will prob still be bfeeding ds until he is 21 tho if I have to rely on that as an excuse for mischievousness!!!! ) (( on a more worrying note...last time I had these mad carb cravings I was pregnant early days with ds...........))

Hi debs39, I've been over a few times and don't have any valid reasons for doing so like you do.

I am also mostly eating carbs and at some point I will try and get more protein/fats into my diet. At the moment I'm just enjoying eating more than i was on the 1200 cals a day unsustainable diet I was on before.

I think someone asked about b/f and I think Shirley said that you need to add a few hundred calories.

Don't worry too much about going over. It's only a day and you can start each day afresh.

Also, try not to worry about the bit in brackets.

take care

mumat39 Which bit in brackets am I allowed not to worry about??? ha ha!!! As the latter bracket topic is the most concerning right now!!! Don't have any 'stix' in so will just have to wait until after Bank Hol before I face popping along to the gp surgery!!!

I looked at my weekly stats yesterday. It seems I am almost bang on with my carbs, but that protein was woefully low (just under 20% IIRC. Which obviously means that my fat is too high. So something to work on this week, I think.

Bugger. Forgot to close brackets. That will annoy me all day!

TobyLerone I have the same. Higher fats than protein. I eat lots of oily fish/nuts so I wonder if that makes a difference. Perhaps I need to look at protein shakes, I used to use them before dcs.

Yes, apart from this weekend it's been mostly good fats -- oily fish, avocado, olive oil etc.