Weight loss help please!

[SuperFlyHigh]

I'm posting here because it is getting out of hand!

In past 4 months I have put on almost a stone going from 10 stone to almost 11 stone. I'm 5 ft 5.

I started a new job where food is very much discussed (we have a lunch room) and I find it easy to buy food and eat it.

I have a longer and more active commute but do no exercise apart from walk up and down steep hills twice a day for about 13 minutes each way and a 5 minute walk in the morning.

So.... I used to do yoga (ashtanga and detox) and thinking of starting again as friend of a friend teaches yoga. There's an offer she has, 10 classes price of 5.

I've also cut caffeine right back this week, halved it, fruit teas now, tea with semi skimmed or skimmed milk now.

I plan to gym (probably classes) or run soon, I have slight asthma though.

Is Myfitnesspal any good?

When I do about 4 (2 classes twice a week) that really works for me, but I need an incentive. I'm basically lazy. I do like swimming and aqua aerobics though also salsa/Latin American dancing. I tend to get bored I think with exercise.

Any advice would be great as this gain is really getting me down! Ideally I'd like to be 9 and a half stone but will take 10! Thanks!

Diet is much more important than exercise - it's in a ratio of around 80:20.

What are you eating, typically, on a daily basis?

Hmmmm

Right now, tea twice in morning with 1 slice Vogel soya and oatmeal toast with flora pro active and marmite or honey. Lunch can be anything from sandwich to scotch egg with a baby potato salad, muller light yogurt and ryvita minis.

Dinner can be anything from tuna fish pie to pasta bake to fish cake but if not pasta always with veggies and or rice/potatoes.

I do snack - crisps and or dips or cake/biscuits. but I used to be able to eat those no problem and not gain weight. I do have an orange every evening.

That looks rubbish straight there! Hardly any fruit and veg! Sob!

Not so much that, but it's really heavy on the carbs.

Get organised... Plan ahead and take food to work. Do not take money! I didn't get on with MFP, but I love NutraCheck, which is the same idea... There's a monthly subscription, whereas MFP is free, but the database is a zillion times better, and I much prefer the interface too. You could try MFP first, but if that grates on you, think about trying NC for a month. Counting calories may not be the most glamorous strategy, but by god it works.

What or how should I cut down on the carbs then?

I did used to eat granola and yogurt but too sugary right? Berries and yogurt make me cry.

I did think of apples with peanut butter as a snack. Is that bad?

OK - for breakfast, try having a boiled egg, or bacon and eggs, or something that's protein-based rather than carbs.

For lunch - obviously this depends on what shops/cooking facilities/canteen is available to you! - try going for protein + veg/salad, so something like tuna mayo with salad (with a vinaigrette dressing).

And then for dinner, instead of cooking food based around pasta, aim for meat/fish plus veg/salad - so roast chicken with veg.

MrAliBongo you're so right..

I used to make salads and my hardcore way was oatcakes, crudités and cottage cheese for lunch, by buggery it worked though and lost weight...

Also in an old job I walked 10 minutes or more extra every day (post delivery) which I don't do now, if I add that up it was an almost an hour extra a week walking and also I was tasked with buying milk etc before work.... So quite active. Now my work has a lift which I love.

MFP is great! I went from 14 stone 10lbs to 9 stone 5 with it. I still use it now to maintain. Typical menu for me would be weetabix and banana for breakfast and then protein and vegetables for lunch and dinner. Fruit and a daily small chocolate bar for snacks. I also make sure I drink about 3 litres of water a day. Added more carbs now as I'm maintaining but if I overindulge I find lower carbs helps to reduce any bloat. Good luck!

BIWI I noticed when I had eg egg mayo and cress sandwiches (homemade) plus fruit, I could get away with ryvita minis.

I could alternate that with salads.

i do think i could cut portion sizes, I tend to eat probably twice what I could, because I want to. Doesn't help flatmate and intern who's staying are here so I tend to cook for them sometimes. My cat has the healthiest diet of the lot of us!

Thanks Emz I did try MFP found it a bit hard but will try it again... I seriously cannot be 11 stone!

I do know that i do need to exercise too as I'm a lazy cow, no excuse there.

Ah, OP... Another old cliche that really works: build little bits of activity into your day. Since starting to lose weight, I have literally started getting off the bus a stop early. Yes, I may be the only person I know of who actually does that, but it adds about 2000 steps to my daily total. And I take the stairs at work (I'm on the third floor). I still loathe and despise them, and sometimes I feel like a bit of a knob when the lift is right there and my colleagues are using it, but I have thighs of steel these days, so it's probably worth the price.

Honestly though, I'm with the others... It's diet, not exercise that makes the major difference. Just start weighing/measuring and logging what you normally eat for a week, and you'll see where it adds up, and where you might be able to trim it down.

MrAli for me it definitely is laziness, I love our lift at work, when it broke down it was awful!

I did like I said, walk about an extra hour and a half in a old job (a week) fairly brisk too, which I don't do at all now.

Menu yesterday was:-

Digestive biscuit
Porridge with milk (skimmed) honey (small bit) and large pear
Lunch was fry up - 2 rashers bacon, 2 sausages, mushrooms, baked bean, halloumi cheese and 2 slices white toast
1 x G&T plus about 10 Mistrels at cinema
Turkish chicken pilau (add aubergine, raisins, parsley and 0% fat Greek yogurt as garnish) plus rice and chicken and tomatoes.
About 4 cups tea skimmed milk, 1 camomile tea in evening. 5 large glasses water.

The above was "treat" re fry up and the minstrels were extras.

I also walked 6 miles (with friend scenic route) to the destinations (East dulwich) and really felt the benefit of that.

mrali I'm not a morning person and would be really late (long and route requires lots of changes) so in evening I can walk to the tube/overground which is approx 13-15 minutes so. 1.5 hours a week plus . Also add in a half an hour walk at lunch so 2.5 hours a week.

I am also planning on looking at running pages here... I can and did do it. I just hate people looking at me (park with nice road running all way round all 4 corners of it).

If you really want to lose weight you'll have to do something about your diet! Whatever diet you end up following, what you're eating isn't right. It's high carb, high calorie and high fat.

From a carb perspective:

Digestive biscuit

In one McVities digestive biscuit there are 9.3g carbs. If you consider that in the induction phase of the Atkins diet you're only allowed 20g carbs per day, you can see that this is adding a lot of carbs to your day!

Porridge with milk (skimmed) honey (small bit) and large pear

Obviously I don't know what brand or type of porridge you're eating, but to give you an idea, a ready made pot of Quaker Oat So Simple (to which you just add water) contains 31.2g carbs. And that's before you add honey - Sainsbury's Runny Honey is 12.2g carbs per serving - and the pear, which will add 35g carbs.

So that's around 80g carbs before you even get to your lunch!

Lunch was fry up - 2 rashers bacon, 2 sausages, mushrooms, baked bean, halloumi cheese and 2 slices white toast

The bacon is fine, from a carb point of view, but the sausages could be very carby, depending on the brand/type you chose. Mushrooms are brilliant for low carbing, as is the halloumi, but the baked beans and white bread aren't. 1/4 can of beans is around 13g carbs and 2 slices of white Kingsmill, medium slice, will add another 37g carbs.

1 x G&T plus about 10 Mistrels at cinema

The Minstrels will be around 18g, and if you had a full sugar tonic with your gin, a 150ml serving would add another 7.7g

Turkish chicken pilau (add aubergine, raisins, parsley and 0% fat Greek yogurt as garnish) plus rice and chicken and tomatoes.

This is harder to work out, but to give you an idea - aubergines are great for low carbing, at only 2.2g carbs per 100. However, raisins are 69.3g carbs per 100g and rice is 46g carbs per serving.

About 4 cups tea skimmed milk, 1 camomile tea in evening. 5 large glasses water.

Depends on how much milk you have in your tea, but let's say it's half a serving, which is 200ml, this will have added around another 5g carbs.

So well over 200g carbs, based on these estimates. A rough rule of thumb from Dr John Briffa, who wrote "Escape the Diet Trap" is that we should aim to have around 100g carbs per day, to not gain weight.

If I were you, this is how I would have had my day:

Breakfast - full fat Greek yoghurt, with vanilla extract or a (small) handful of berries. No biscuits!
Lunch - the fry up, but with low carb sausages (The Black Farmer ones are lovely), eggs, bacon, halloumi and mushroom only. Possibly some tomato.
Dinner - something like a chicken kebab, with some kind of spinach side dish, the aubergines, tomatoes and the yoghurt, but not the rice.

With your tea, use full fat rather than skimmed milk - or have the tea black.

So you could have eaten just as satisfying an amount of food, but without the high level of carbs.

BIWI interesting but I couldn't no carb forever just not my scene.

I personally don't believe that cutting out rice etc forever is any good or doable for me. but have read somewhere about low carbs with brown rice, etc which seems more doable to me. A colleague at work (male) low carbs, I think I may quiz him, he does hard boiled eggs, yogurt and berries for breakfast, low carb lunch etc.

I will try what you say though. I'm considering slimming world or something along those lines. I know a few here have said its not exercise more diet but I feel it's both with me but am in a new job which cuts way down on exercise.

But it's not no carb - it's low carb. You will get your carbs from veg and salad (and a small amount of fruit).

And although exercise is much less important for weight loss, I get what you say about changing your job, and so doing less of it - if you can find a way to add exercise in, that can only help.

Good luck with whatever way you choose to go though!