Please could someone have a look at my diet and see what they think

[BranchingOut]

I am 5'7 and weigh 12st, so would like to loose a bit of weight - but not too much.

Any views on whether my diet is giving me enough of everything I would need or where it could be improved - I tend towards wanting to cut my carbs down, but cant face the horror of low carb bootcamp! So small tweaks is what I am after...

Breakfast:
Dorset cereals museli smallish portion with full fat milk.

2-3 times a week I will have a piece of toast with lurpak and marmite or marmalade.
Mug of tea

Lunch:

Monday - pret salmon sandwich, crisps, apple or mango pot
Tuesday - pret salmon sandwich, crisps, apple, or mango pot
Wednesday - cafe aubergine dish and salad
Thursday - green salad with avocado, chicken, peppers, pine-nuts, tomato etc Fruit.
Friday - green salad with avocado, mozzarella, peppers, pine-nuts, tomato etc Fruit.
Sat - Cheese and chicken toastie, couscous, salad. Fruit.
Sun - green salad with avocado, halloumi, peppers, pine-nuts, tomato etc. Fruit.

snack
Office - occasional chocolate biscuit, maybe 3 per week?
Out: 1 - 2 times a week- latte and brownie or similar
Home - most days I might have a crumpet or bowl of cereal if hungry. Sometimes a glass of milk. Piece of fruit.

Supper

1 night - soup or eggs.
2 nights - home cooked asian food which is meat and rice based
1 night - fishcakes, salad etc
1 night - roast or sausage/mash with veg, including greens, spinach etc.
1 night - pasta with homemade bolognaise sauce
1 night - chicken stirfry with veg

Drinks - weak tea or water
2 glasses of wine per week.

Don't smoke or drink juice, squash or fizzy drinks. No other lattes etc.

Take a multivitamin and fish oil on an irregular basis.

Thanks.

Not qualified to comment but watching with interest as my diet is pretty similar and I am desperate to drop about a stone. I eat loads of fruit and am trying to cut down on crisps etc. chocolate isn't so much of an issue for me as I don't really have a sweet tooth but love savoury stuff and carbs! I also can't face the thought of low carbing so am just trying to increase healthy foods and just eat a bit less pasta, rice, potatoes etc and limiting wine to weekends. Need to start exercising more too!

Lose the crisps and replace full fat milk with semi skimmed or skimmed. Porridge instead of muesli.

No keep with the full fat milk. There is nothing wrong with it! There is nothing wrong with full fat anything, it sounds like you are having everything in moderation.

Maybe ditch the crisps one day?

See prawn that is my instinct too, I don't really buy in to the whole low fat culture

Actually you are probably right, and using semi skimmed milk is the only "low fat" part of my diet. I never choose low fat yoghurts or rubbish spread instead of butter. Ignore my previous milk advice! I do have half milk / half water in my porridge though but I like it like that.

I hate it. Butter and full fat everything never did our grandparents any harm! There were no obesity epidemics back then either.

People have well and truly bought in to the low fat market though and I think it's here to stay :(

I remember them muller lights! Yuck, you could taste the chemical crap they had put in. Bork

That's personal preference. I don't think semi/skimmed milk is the worst ever example of low fat

I eat a lot of pasta but hardly any bread. Also oatcakes are a good snack maybe instead of a crumpet?

Watching with interest.

I reduce bread as much as I can, and try and have carbs as my main evening meal, but can't cut out or do low carbing to the rule book!

Yes you are absolutely right. I refuse to buy margarine or spread, only proper butter. Same goes for yoghurt. Trouble is I take this one step further... Sadly there a few dishes which don't improve with a generous slosh of cream!

I would ditch the muesli, the crisps, the cheese, the avocado and the fruit 'pots' and replace them with porridge (made with water, the Scottish way), fresh fruit & veg, pulses, lentils and grilled or steamed fish. The rest looks fine to me.

If your supper is late try to eat before 7.30ish p.m. Also try eating your fruit before your sandwich that way it's better for digestion.

If you want to lose weight, a good way is not to mix protein and carbs at the same meal e.g. have a salmon or cheese salad on its own or a salad sandwich. So you can still have your carbs i don't eat wheat but i eat rye bread and whole rice, quinoa etc.

I lost 3 stone doing the above and dh does the opposite so has 6 stone to lose!!

Thanks. For clarification, the 'mango fruit pot' is just fresh mango in a pot.

I will look into oatcakes.

Will try to ditch crisps - am not usually a crisp eater but have got back into the habit recently. Would cashews be better?

Avocado - I want to keep it as I have heard it is v good for skin and it makes all the green leaves bearable for me!

I have lattes in place of a meal. Could you do this? Or maybe start the 5:2?

Have you tried myfitnesspal? Recording everything for a few weeks might give you some ideas what to cut down. I remember being quite surprised how calorific pret sandwiches were... I agree with the porridge suggestion too.

I decided that the 5:2 would not be for me as I lose my lovely personality and become snarly and irrational if I have to so much as eat a late lunch...

I think that I need to make more of an effort with taking lunch into work - skip Pret one day. They know me in there now!

Don't ditch the avocado!

I tried MFP for a while, but it was just keeping a record rather than making any better choices. My diet is actually better than it was as I used to have lots more cheese toasties where the green salads are now!

Will also look at portion control for evening meals.

'Low fat' stuff is bad because they add sugar etc to make things taste good. Skimmed milk just has fat skimmed off, nothing added, it's not a 'low fat' food. At least that's my understanding! You wouldn't say a cucumber is bad because it's low fat, would you?

I agree with Kelly about the avocado but half a day is better than a whole one

I think you need to up your protein levels and take out processed foods.
So breakfast, poached or boiled egg on toast instead of muesli.
Lunch, replace crisps with popcorn. Swop the sandwiches for soup and protein-rich salad
Have hummus and crudités or a small handful of nuts instead of biscuits or brownies if you can. Otherwise it's all good!

The simplest thing is to cut your portion sizes, loose one aspect of your meal ie crisps from lunch, cheese from your toastie. Or stick with the same but reduce how much you eat. Most effective way of doing this is to bin an aspect of shop bought lunch before you begin to eat. Cut a corner off your sarnie and bin a handful of crisps. Then tuck in

i'd say your lunches are fine if maintaining your weight but if you want to lose a bit you could:

take the crisps away or go for lower calorie crisps like quavers or something, or a handful of savoury popcorn.

have an open sandwich to cut the carbs a little.

try snacking on veg instead of fruit.

either chicken or cheese in your toastie, not both.

have either cous cous or your toastie, again both is uneccessary.

sounds like you eat healthily though in general though.

Good suggestions, taking.
I was doing the eggs for breakfast thing for a while, but then started to feel a bit 'egged out'. Will try to get back to it once or twice a week. Same thing with porridge, I ate it for years but then started to feel a bit fed up with it.

Will try to up the crudités, as I do enjoy carrot etc.

Technical question - is a latte with whipped cream on top and sugar in it better for you than a latte with a chocolate brownie on the side? :)