Don't be an April Fool! Join the Slenderistas. We are supper busy losing 7lbs in a month

[BitOutOfPractice]

Welcome to the brand new shiny daffodil-strewn April thread for annihilation of the Lindas.

Here's a link to the old thread

And happy Easter today

You’re very welcome dont. Start with small steps, increase your water intake, start tracking your calories, be as active as your life will allow - you absolutely don’t have to run, walking is great exercise. Aim for 80% decent food, 20% junk. It didn’t go on overnight so it’ll take a bit of time to get it off, patience & perseverance & consistency.
I’m glad you’re feeling a bit brighter ofthread - I missed your post but hope whatever’s going on resolves soon
Scales is down another couple of pound, only 3’ish pound up on my average now. If I can keep to the straight & narrow I could be back to losing weight soon. I’ve around 10 weeks to my summer hols so I need to stopping faffing about!

Not I am the queen of faffing! I do it in a daily basis.

Hello dont! Nice to meet you. I'm also in denial my 50s and it is much harder to lose it now. But if you stick with it, it does work. You're in the right place now anyway.

I'm just about to step on the scales

Glad you're having a better day ofthread. Look after yourself.

Welcome don't. I know what you mean about the junk creeping in. It's hard to change your habits. I started with a no snacking after dinner rule. It's good to identify your danger zones.

Yesterday's promise of spring sunshine meant I went and got my first ice cream of the year. Dark chocolate - worth every calorie.... Today is a new day everyone.

I'm on my 4th day in a row weighing in at 10-4, which is getting a bit boring now. Bar the ice cream think I'm overdue a woosh. C'mon 10-3!

Welcome don't. Well done on the post easter losses Slenderistas.

Woo hoo I lost 1.6lbs since 1 April. Pleased with that as there was still a couple of days of Easter weekend indulgence in there

Brilliant news BOOP

I've had a good start to the day too. I did my first day of C25K. I did start it last year and got to w5 r1 but then went on holiday and it fell apart. From memory it was much easier this morning than last time, probably because I'm carrying nearly 3 stone less and also because I joined the gym towards the end of February too so have been doing some exercise. I'm enjoying going to the gym but some days I want to be able to just get out of bed and do something rather than have to trek to the gym, especially as I don't drive.

I'll have some breakfast soon either porridge or weetabix. Then I'll have to plan my other meals. That's the biggest problem with dieting. I find it much easier to resist if I'm not thinking about food but in order to plan healthy meals you have to think about food

Ofthread glad to hear you're feeling better.

Well done on getting our panda. Great start to the day! You'll be addicted to the running in no time I bet. I am.

I find planning is absolutely key to success. If I don't have a plan I'm much more likely To think "ah, sod it" and pig out.

Well, humph humph and humph. I'm apparently a KILO heavier than I was last week, which was a kilo lighter than I was the week before that. Talk about yo yo dieting! I do have these blippy weeks sometimes (in fact the week before last was one of them...) but after three platinum days I don't deserve this! I wasn't even hoping for a loss given Easter Monday, just a negligible gain. Wonder what the bouncing's about? Dehydration maybe? I was so golden yesterday, that when I got in absolutely RAVENOUS, and I saw a bowl of Mini Cheddars on the side and I ate one. Then I did an hour's hula hooping before making dinner. Get that self-control.

(Just scoffed the rest of them for breakfast in protest at the arsehole scale. That'll teach it )

Brilliant stuff BOOP, the gym is paying dividends! But yes, oh my GOD it is SO bloody boring.

Welcome Dont to The Best Thread on Mumsnet™! I honestly think that making the little changes at the start, like cutting out chocolate, can sometimes be the biggest wrench as you just feel deprived and cross. Once you start seeing results and feeling all motivated it's much easier to make other changes. Also I am a huge advocate of cutting out bread - I still have it here and there, in restaurants etc. and the odd slice of drunk toast on weekends, but just cutting it dead for the most part really forced me out of the habit of mindlessly trammelling it and basing meals around it. (I actually cut out all carbs for a bit, and then kept that habit for weekday meals, but bread was the start!) I also credit walking with having contributed hugely - I was so sluggish and sedentary before, and now I need to get my daily walk in or I go batty. So thumbs up all round from me

Morning all! And welcome, Don't and Panda!

I'm mildly hungover this morning after a lovely night out with my local mummy friends, and about 1.5lb up as a result. I now have 8 days before my holiday, so I'm going to make have them good ones, within calories and no more alcohol until we're on holiday when I will drink all the wine. We're having massive grilled tuna steaks for dinner, which practically bankrupted us will be a great way to get started - I'm looking forward to it already!

I haven't got another full Fitbit week to average, so my goal is just to get the running average back down into the 12st 7 range before we go - and I'd love to see 12st 6 again. I reckon that's reasonable in 8 days.

I wanted to share one of the things that is really helping me at the moment, which is meal planning building up a list of meals that are tasty and filling and come in at around 600-750 calories, which is about right for my evening meal. I then make sure I've got them all entered in MFP. Now, when I do my shopping, it is so much easier as I just pick 7 meals off the list and I've got enough on there to make sure we have lots of variety. Before, I used to find working out calories for everything and thinking of lower cal options really time consuming and dull, so I did it for a while and then I'd have a busy week and slip into old, high cal favourites or takeaways. It really is making such a difference and knowing I've got it has helped me get my head around a bit of holiday gain knocking me off course - because I've got my list and I can easily get back into the swing. It might not work for everyone, but for such a simple thing, it's been a real game changer for me.

Thanks for the lovely welcome! You all sound so positive and are so friendly

I'm definitely going to cut down on carbs, they make my ibs worse. I love bread and have been living off it nearly.

Good to know I'm not the only fifty something here!

One big problem for me is that my dp needs to eat lots of carbs to put on weight. Also I'm not a big meat eater, we have a lot of fish or chicken in breadcrumbs because I don't like it any other way really. I don't mind eating salad and soup instead though (for now anyway). It's the mindless snacking when I'm bored or unhappy that's a huge problem.

Ooo dont we had a lovely Hairy Dieters chicken bread crumb thing this week (you will soon come to accept my total devotion to the Hairy Dieters!). It was lemon and Parmesan chicken and it was lush.

dont Tip on the breadcrumbed chicken/fish, scrape either the top of bottom layer off, that’ll knock a few cals off😉 You’ll realise how many of the calories are in the breadcrumbs when you see the size of the fillet underneath.
I very often eat different meals to the rest of the family. If they have oven chips, I chop a 200gr potato, skin on, into chunks. I parboil, drain/season, bake in the over until crispy. Only “costs” 180 cals, very tasty. Sometimes it’s too much so I have a leftovers for breakfast with a poached egg. If they have breaded chicken, I marinate a chicken breast & griddle it. Yes it’s a bit of work but I want to lose weight so it’s necessary (and I want to save calories for 🍷)
Great idea on the meals fizz! Key to success is prep. I’m sure you’ll get to your mini goal by your holiday, no bother to you😉

One big problem for me is that my dp needs to eat lots of carbs to put on weight

I could weep with envy when I hear this! Hope it's because he has some kind of extreme hobby and not for some serious medical reason.

I've now got about 4 years' experience of meals which have a removable carb component for DH if you want any tips! Most of them are fish or chicken based though... When you have salads, what do you tend to use for the "protein" / bulk element if you're not a fish or chicken fan?

Are meat and fish any better for you if they're in a soup / stew rather than just a hunk of flesh?

Hi all,

Just catching up and it's nice to see so much positivity around :)

I fell off a bit last night but wrote everything on MFP rather than writing it off and pretending it didn't happen and then repeating tonight.

No lunch for me today due to bad planing so off to sainsbury for something tasty and hopefully low cal.

Planning is my downfall, when I'm good in free but when I'm bad I'm bloody awful!

Unfortunately its due to a medical problem, he's very underweight and I try to help him eat as much as possible. This has led to me eating too much though!

I don't like the taste of chicken without breadcrumbs. In fact not a big meat fan at all, it gets stuck in my teeth, I hate the smell. I'm not keen on fish unless in breadcrumbs or batter too. We eat a lot of rice as well as when my dp doesn't feel well it's easy to eat. I love rice! So lots to cut out.

I weighed in at 13 stone this morning so need to lose 2.5 stone.

I'll keep reading all your helpful messages for encouragement. I don't feel great today (it was dds birthday yesterday and I had pizza and chips, ice cream and cheesecake so I'm not surprised!) so will stick to soup and bananas maybe.

Sorry, forgot to answer ...

I eat a lot of tuna with mayonnaise and salad. Or smoked salmon if I can cope with the smell. I don't mind plaice. Mince is ok. Not keen on stew really.

Very grateful for any tips though!

It mightn’t be that you need to cut things out dont, just cut down. Weight gain is too many calories, weight loss is calorie deficit so where you feed DH up, you need to cut back a bit. Anyway I’m sure you know your own likes/dislikes, there really is no magic food. Yes it’s better for your body to eat a majority of nutrient dense food (nice amount of protein, fibre, decent vitamins, decent fat) but as long as you’re eating less than you burn you’ll lose.

@Ofthread I hope you're feeling a lot better

I am feeling motivated today and I'm going to set a meal plan for myself for each week. Absolutely zero snacking allowed. Plenty of green tea and water. I always skip breakfast so I'm going to force myself to eat at around 11am. Then dinner at 1 and tea at 5. Nothing afterwards or else I will snack ALL evening.

Im currently completely off the wagon, in fact I dived off and sat on a bench eating biscuits while you lot drifted away , however I am back tomorrow morning and I will be in the drivers seat!!

Can I join too please? Have lost a stone since Xmas but losing my mojo a bit. Have lost and gained same two pounds for the last month.
Also keen to get back into running. Have done half marathons in the past but need to work on all over fitness now - too many little and not so little niggles in back and legs. Another one who won't see 49 again. So I need to be bendier and more toned and not just go for the burn!

Forgot to say that I'll be doing mfp set to 1400 calories and aiming for lowish carbs

Running the Manchester marathon this weekend and trying to get the balance between fuelling appropriatly and just being a greedy cunt

It is very hard to stick to no alcohol when your DH literally presses a glass of wine into your hand whilst telling you you really, really deserve it!

I didn't even want it but I still drank it. FFS. Oh well. I'll still end today roughly on goal calories. Ish.

If anyone wants to walk more I suggest you adopt these two little buggers. They’ve had me walking between 3 and 4 hours every day this week 🙄😇