Is this really too much food to loose weight on

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I'm sad haha I've recently started a new job which is very sedentary. All previous jobs I've had were very active.

I'm trying to lose some weight but I havnt really lost any in the past 3 weeks. Finding it hard to judge as if I ate like this in previous job weight would be falling off me!

General food is:

Breakfast - 2 weetabix, handful dried fruit and nuts.

Lunch tends to be dinner leftovers and an apple.

Tend to to have a snack on the way home, either an eat natural bar or carrots and hummus.

Dinner - really varies but trying to keep it healthy and I've made healthy 'swaps' I.e veg alongside pasta rather than garlic bread.

This week we've had:
Mon - roast (Defo my worst meal of the week as I had a pretty big portion and obv roasted stuff is not great)
Tues - hairy dieters beef, sausage and red wine 'pie'
Wed - stuffed pasta in tomato sauce with veg
Thurs - veggie burgers with salad and sweet potato fries (no bun)
Fri - veggie sausages, potato disks, yorkies and veg.

Sometimes I have a yoghurt after dinner, tends to be a muller corner type though. 3 times at work this week I've had something like an iced donut or a cupcake as I'm in training at the moment and it's been birthdays and our trainer made cakes yesterday (which were incredible so no regret haha!)

Exercise wise I'm struggling. I have horses so I have very limited time outside them and work. I'm averaging about 7000 steps and also ride the horse 6 times a week.

I'm getting up at 6am and getting home at 8.30pm so I could get up at 5 and do some extra exercise I supppse.

Thoughts on what I can change? My partner cooks dinner and she knows I'm trying to diet so she is trying to keep it healthy.

I suppose I could totally cut out the Work treats (I think this will reduce once I finish training as it's a totally different environment and eating at the desk isn't really doable due to the nature of the work), swap afternoon snack to a banana or something and swap muller corner yoghurts to a normal yoghurt which could save 200+ calories a day?

It's hard to judge as I'm used to being able to lose weight just by eating remotely healthy 😂

I'd say that sounds like a normal days food. There's no way I'd loose weight on that and I'm not small or light (5 foot 9 and 11 stone). If I want to loose weight I'd have:
Coffee
Soup and a hard boiled egg
Apple, pear or peach
Stir fry veget and protein, piece of cooked chicken and veg, pasta sauce with a pile of veg etc.

Hard to say without knowing more about you - height, weight, sex, are you muscular? I can't tell what the portion sizes are.

Honestly it's difficult to know without portion sizes - you could be eating tiny amounts of pasta / pie etc, but there's a lot of high calorie foods and snacks there. Is this a lot less than you used to eat?
Cutting out all the snacks / / breakfast fruit and nuts and maybe having a salad for lunch might be a good start. I have leftovers for lunch too - DH gets a big portion, I have half the amount and fill the rest up with salad which helps.

Looking at it properly, I'd say on days you have a work treat it's around 2000 calories, without around 1800. Obviously it's hard to say without portion sizes it could be a lot more or a little less, I was allowing 600 for dinner and 450 for lunch.

I'd ditch the fruit and nut, the work treat, the post work snack, the yoghurt after dinner. Eat less dinner and swap lunch to soup. I need around 1700 to maintain my weight, I'd personally be slowly putting on eating that, so at least that's not the case for you!

I'd gain weight if I ate that, but then I might be older and metabolism slows with age. Fruit and nuts can easily be a couple of hundred cals in a handful and so called 'healthy' bars are packed with fat and sugar per 100g. I'd reduce your carbs e.g. Bread, pasta and definitely cut the work cakes if you seriously want to lose weight good luck

I think that sounds a healthy diet although sausages perhaps less so. Maybe it just comes down to portion size?

I think you need to work out the calories for a day or two and it will give you more idea. If you look up a TDEE calculator online it will tell you how many calories you need. I'm not saying count calorie every day but just get a general idea of portions and things.
Rather than totally cutting out treats it might be better to do some healthy eating days where you cut right back then have a couple of days with a treat allowance.

If you're used to being active and aren't now then I would say you need to reduce portion size and probably carbs. It's a lot of carbs considering you aren't active. Especially at night. Perhaps more veg and less pasta? Hard to tell without portion sizes though.

If you cut out the eat natural bars you will save 230 cals. Try alpen light for eg, only 70 cals. Swapping the dried fruit and nuts for a chopped apple or pear will probably save you 100 ish cals. Swap the Muller corners for mixed berries/fruit with a bit of natural Skyr yoghurt, probably save you 100 cals.

So saved you about 300 cals there with very little effort. Ditch the work cakes and you'll probably find that helps.

I think switching to a low calorie salad at lunch might be a good swap

Also look at your drinks if you drink a lot of drinks with calories in them they can add up.

-Swap the wheatabix for shredded wheat.
-Swap full fat foods for low fat. -Cut down (not completely) on carbs and limit your sugar intake.
-Add calcium (cheese/milk/low fat yoghurts) for healthy bones.
-Add water for hydration.
-Add iron rich foods for energy.
-Add fibre for your digestion.
-You need to get physical exercise (walking/running) especially when you are less active for most of the day (it's very important for your mental health, your heart and cholesterol levels). Cutting out food/calorie counting will only do so much.

I suppose I could totally cut out the Work treats (I think this will reduce once I finish training as it's a totally different environment and eating at the desk isn't really doable due to the nature of the work),

Be wary of this. I have worked in call centres for years. You would think eating at your desk would be easy. But most call centres do it. And theres always someines birthdays, team buffets, treats around.

Even when you think the job wouldnt work well with eating during work hours, you will find there is still loads of food on the go.

Tbh i couldnt lose weight on that. I have pcos and it would far to carb heavy for me. Plus the nightly yoghurt and snacks in the way home, would have me gaining weight.

Thanks guys. Very helpful advice! Like I said, previous job was 12 hours of pretty much manual labour (looking after horses!) so it's a huge lifestyle change. I really don't think I'll be eating much at the desk, I'll be in an emergency call centre so I can't really ignore the phone whilst I'm stuffing a muffin in my mouth 😂 But I also find concrete rules quite easy to follow so if I just don't let myself start doing it it won't be an issue. Re people bringing stuff in, I'll just be stricter with myself. Only yesterday's work treat was worth it, I only ate the others because I felt like I should which is stupid I know!

I'm 25, female, 5 foot 8 and about 11 stone 3. Don't need to lose masses but I feel more
comfortable around 10 stone.

Defo ate much worse before 😳 I'd gotten into terrible habits of just grazing on junk all niggg, followed by similar dinner then 100g of chocolate so by those standards I've been doing well 😂

Drinks I have a few coffees but use sweetners and a bit of semi skimmed milk. Easy swap is skimmed milk I suppose!

I should of said, I'm not going to count calories at all - I suffered badly from eating disorders in my teens and early 20s and find it hugely triggering, frankly I don't need to lose weight enough to want to try anything triggering! Same with cutting carbs, Defo going to reduce as I can see looking back, several of the dinners were double carbed but I'm not going to cut them out totally.

I do need an afternoon snack, I get home so late and I can't go from about 12.30-8.30 without anything. I went for eat natural bars as figured at least they aren't as full of crap as other cereal bars - but yes they are high calorie so thinking I'll swap them for naked bars? Saves 100 or so calories.

I've bought some normal yoghurts for nights I want something sweet after dinner so that's another 100 calories cut.

Portion sizes are a bit hit and miss - for example the stuffed pasta night I was good, I had the serving size and just padded it out with veg whereas previously I'd of had the whole pack plus garlic bread 😳 Other nights when my partner serves up it's quite a big portion although I often don't finish it. So I'll take a bit more responsibility there and serve up my own portions.

I will try those changes and possibly get
Myself up early and go for a run or something a few times a week before work as I feel a bit flumpy on the exercise I'm doing and hopefully I will see a bit of progress! If still not then I'll have to think about salads and soups for lunch

At least I have an idea of what maintence will be like for me and it's not too bad! Thanks all, very helpful!

Keep breakfast as it is if it keeps you full till lunch.

If you're wanting to lose weight, then saying no to cakes will help. And probably now nothing will match up to those lovely ones from your trainer, so that'll be easy!

Swap the Muller Corners for Total Greek (full-fat not 0%) and frozen raspberries/blueberries (defrosted first, I mean!) That will cut out a lot of sugar and be more filling, so just a little, or cut down carbs in your main course.

Are your pasta, rice etc wholegrain?

Oops, x-post.

It's a great idea to never have the work treats once you finish your course. Much easier to have a clear rule in your head. But allow yourself a treat somewhere as it is hard to stick to something with no treats at all. Maybe a dessert on your days off? Balance it out with a low calorie swap elsewhere.

As someone who used to be active I think you should fit in a short but high intensity workout (most are around 20 mins or less) either early or late 3-5 days a week. Not so much losing weight even (although it will help if you watch what you eat) as about preserving your fitness. I know you have a really long day but sometimes this sort of exercise can actually help as it energises you and long term keeps your fitness levels up.

Oops sorry I missed reading a couple of posts before I replied!

I'm struggling with breakfast ideas as tend to eat it when I get to work before I start - with a commute and horses to do, I get up about 3 hours before I start and I'm not hungry that early (plus then I find I want another breakfast before I start 😂😂) although could swap for Greek yoghurt and berries then have fruit for pud instead? Or a low cal chocolate mousse or something (obv choc mousse isn't the healthiest but I do sometimes like a sweet fix after dinner and that's only about 100 cal). I don't think I'd make many friends microwaving eggs before I start or is this a done thing?

I do get about 3 hours of light exercise a day with caring for and riding the horses so I'm not entirely sat on my bum all day but it's still an extra 10 hours or so of sitting that I spent moving before!

Thanks again everyone, super helpful! Defo plus of my old job was never really having to think about this stuff too much 😳

Where I used to work was a nightmare for cakes, biscuits etc being brought in. Some people never had any and this was just accepted and they were never pestered to "try just a bit" or "one slice won't hurt" etc; others always had some; then there were some like me who meant not to but ended up being talked into it. When I changed jobs, I became a "don't eat cake at work" person and now I am never offered any which means I don't have to refuse it. Much easier!

Try myfitnesspal app, track everything that passes your lips and that will help you to keep track.... I think you should be eating a max of 1400-1500 calories a day to lose and it sounds like you are probably exceeding that by about 3-400 calories per day.

I am on a 1200 calorie a day diet, but I am eating 95% plant based, so it is relatively easy to keep to that level from my perspective. I am losing 2lb a week on average.

Your diet does sound healthy and well balanced and carbs dont have to be bad, but, try not to double carb... example being yorkies AND potato discs, that is just too much, also, if you are going to have red meat, try to have it in ways other than pies, as they are pretty heavy on the calories, perhaps a beef thai stir fry (heavy on the veg) would be a better choice for example.
Also, nuts are amazingfor good health, but they are FULL of calories, weigh and measure the nuts as this could be another area that you are overdoing it.

Also watch out for low calorie/fat yoghurts and stuff, they are actually pretty crap, often full of sugar and sweetners, which can make you store fat and confuse your brain into feeling hungrier. Better to have a small dollop of full fat greek yoghurt with breakfast as it will help to keep you full and reduce sugar and cravings for sugar. IMHO, reduced fat foods are a con, they are just adulterated crap, eat more whole foods, but less of them and just watch your calorie intake.

Remember, you are trying to LOSE weight not maintain. So in order to do this you must create a calorie deficit. Calories in vs calories out. It is a simple equation, but it is important to ensure that the calories you do have are the best for providing your body with the correct fuel and nutrition to get through each day.

I wouldn't lose weight on that, but you have basically the diet I have when on horse duty! #NotHelpful

Are you walking to and from work? Could you squeeze in some extra calorie burn somewhere?