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.

Today was the worst - I'm only having one shake a day, with 1% milk. But I upped to 10g of flax yesterday so I thought that was perhaps more likely. The first day I had flax I think I had 10-15g and that was unpleasant so I dropped down to 5g for a few days and was ok.

Hmmm

Drop the flax back down. It's fine! The 'dose' might be 30g but I don't think it matters if you're only having 5g. There's still health benefits in even that much.

You know it says on the packet that 30g = 2 x dessert spoons? It so does not! I actually weighed it out the other day and it's only about 17g so that's all I've been having.

Don't forget that the flax is very high in Omega 3 FATS! This may very well be causing the looseness.

Dont give up the shakes yet - they're so handy, but deffo drop the flax back down.

Ah, no, it needs to be proper butcher's scratchings for me. I daren't even think about what might be in the magic powdery stuff on the outside

I've been having linseeds in my muesli for some months, and don't believe I've ever had any similar trouble. I just have them whole and raw though. Are you doing grinding/ soaking? Perhaps more active ingredients (I want to say lignins, but not sure why) made available to your gut when treated like this.

Re. salt: I'm not a great salt lover, but was told a few years ago about the benefits of grey sea salt by a healthy living guru type.

Most salt these days calls itself seasalt, but if it's white in colour then it's just as processed as the old Saxa.

Bit of info here. this guy reckoned you could pretty much use it without restriction - people even drink salted water as a regular thing, for the health benefits.

I haven't looked into it enough to go to that extent, but I feel happy to have it on the table and add it to the family meals I cook.

And the theory goes well with the 'eating clean' concept, no?

Minnie, I very much suspect the shakes are the cause of your digestion ishoos. Flax seeds are known to be gentle and soothing, and people use them to help with IBS and the like. One thing I would say: try soaking them, as they do absorb a lot of water so that might make a difference. Plus they don't release their omega watsits unless they're ground or soaked - they just pass through otherwise. I soak 2 tbls overnight to have in the morning, then do the same to have late in the day.

Shotgun, I didn't realise you didn't get the omegawhatsits if you leave the flax seed whole. I'll try putting them in with the oats to soak overnight tonight. I'll be sad if I have gelatinous muesli though.

Tis ground flax I'm having, like what Sensei Shirley suggested

Extra fibre does have this effect on me - I used to eat bran flakes for breakfast and although I didn't get the cramping, things would be, ahem, loose.

(so, so, very sorry for unintentionally lowering the tone of the thread?!)

Ahahahaha! No bloody sensei more like!

Best thing would be an experiment then. Leave off the flax tomorrow and see what happens, then if you're still having the problem then leave out the shakes.

Loving the science! Hope you get to the (ahem) bottom of the problem, Minnie.

Bloody sausages are really fatty! Still, they were in the freezer so I had to eat them some time. Tesco Finest my arse. Way over on fat as a result, but have done probably an hour of cleaning with 13lb baby attached to front, so I think I've burned a bit extra. Still got enough calories left for some fruit and a cup of tea, mmm.

Couldn't be bothered counting calories yesterday as it would have involved quizzing DH on the exact ingredients of his Jamie Oliver-esque lamb shank thing. Still, it was definitely not too low!

I am disregarding the milky calories in tea. They Do Not Count.

I just checked my stats. I'm always under 20% protein :(

And my calcium is super low, like under 20%. So more Greek yogurt and cheese, then.

I'm not convinced by the stats. I've said before, I often come up as having zero iron or vits - which has to be nonsense - how can there be no iron in red meat or spinach?
There's one day where I've supposedly had too much protein - shows as 33g extra. Yet the macros show only 26% protein for that day.
Same day I had a scone with clotted cream - no calcium appears.

I say ignore the stats!

The stats on MyFitnessPal will depend on who entered the food that you chose. If it was user-entered then they might not have put in all of the details. My wine has calories but nothing else, when it should definitely have some carbs in.

Yeah, true. When there's more than one option for the same food, I always try to choose the one with all the stats filled in. But I suppose it's not always possible to get an accurate one.

I didn't realise there was a distinction - must pay more attention in future. Did I say I thought some of my figures were odd?

Good Morning Chompers!

Well, I was under my calorie goal yesterday. I just wasn't hungry at all after all the stuffing of cheese over the weekendI've got to go stupid out for stupid dinner tonight, AND Saturday night. I'll be so glad when our houseguests leave on Sunday and I can get back to normal. Isn't that awful?

I'm having the blueberry/maple refrigerator oatmeal for breakfast this morning. SO DELISH! If you haven't tried them yet, please have a bash, I can't recommend them highly enough.

A word about the macros and nutritional info on MFP. Before you add whatever it is there is a little link on the box that says "Nutritional info" if you click on that you'll be able to see whether it's been filled out or not. I find this quite handy.

Hmm...slight 'chocolate instead of healthy snacks' incident yesterday, but actually still under calories and macros not too bad.

Apple and cinnamon refridgerator oatmeal for breakfast. I am spending lots of time playing with recipes on Pinterest.

Measured myself last night and have lost an inch from my waist and two off my hips!

People, I have been to the gym already this morning. And I'm going again later. Do I get the gold star?

Only as long as your clas don't drop below your BMR Toby.

I'll just eat shitloads to make up for it :o

This morning was only some light cardio. I was killing time before work more than anything.

I planned on going this morning and then did a BIG FAT FAIL and didn't go at all.

Oh God, I can't wait to get back to normal. I can't bear all this not being able to do what I want, when I want.

ANd then next week I've got the dentist and valiumy stuff again so that'll be another couple of days of not normalness.

I haven't started doing much exercise yet, I walk a lot already, kids school is a mile away and I usually walk wherever I'm going rather than get the bus if I can. We live in a valley so lots of uphill walking!

After half term I plan to dust off the shred DVD when I remember where I put it

I lost another 1.5lbs today and feeling great. I'm not a big fan of yogurt but tried some plain yogurt on my breakfast this morning, it's ok once it's mixed with other stuff. I also tried tried some 85% cocoa dark chocolate, truly the foulest thing I've ever tasted, will go back down to 70%!

I made some fridge porridge last night (without fruit, as I don't do fruit).

I won't be having it again

I'm with you Minnie, I didn't like the fridge oatmeal much. You wouldn't like my usual breakfast though, I love fruit.

Looking at my eating and my plan for the week, I appear to have gone wheat free. The only carbs I am really eating are oatcakes and brown rice. It wasn't intentional!