Failing at weight loss

[Pinkroseuk]

6 weeks ago I was given 4 months to loose 20-30kg by my gynaecologist.
I have lost 5kg but really struggling to get below this-
What am I doing wrong?!

Have cut out all snacks-
Lunch gone from roll, crisps, chocolate bar, fruit and yogurt to just the last two and have halved evening meals and cut out dessert in evenings

Any ideas what else I can try?!
Desperate to make her deadline of August and loose it other wise means waiting another 6 months for an appointment!

Any help greatly appreciated! Thanks

Boringly, weight loss comes down to calories in and out. Except that not all calories are made the same.

Start logging every single thing on to my fitness pal.

What are you actually eating for meals? Fruit and yoghurt are v high in sugar so if you’ve replaced snacks with 3 bananas, 2 mangoes and 2 full fat yoghurts that’s over 1000 calories right there

Are you exercising?

If you drink alcohol at all, quit for a while. It helps! Also watch your soft drinks including squash. Unsweetened iced tea is better if like me you get bored with water. My fitness Pal is a bit tedious at first, you have to input a lot of information, but it's good at tracking your food patterns. It helped me so I'd second that suggestion. From what you say above, it's also possible you're not getting enough protein at lunch. A sandwich and a yogurt OR a piece of fruit might bring down your sugar intake and up your nutrition. Good luck

Download the Paul McKenna I can make you thin app. It really helps to reprogram your thoughts with regards to food and teach you to eat normally again.

Thanks

I have cut all snacks out and having one fat free yoghurt and typically one of melon, raspberries, strawberries banana for lunch.
Dinners we have things like spaghetti Bol, burgers (no buns) with salad, curry but I have been reducing the amount of carbs I have with it.

Thanks I have been using the app but haven't found it much help- will keep persevering.

I generally have water all day and maybe one glass juice. (No tea coffee or alcohol)

Walking a mile or so during week when at work and about 6-10 miles at weekends

My patients would often complain of this and basically if you eat too little your body goes into starvation mode and will hoard whatever calories it gets. Try increasing your intake slightly and upping the exercise to give your system a boost. Make sure you have a healthy breakfast such as porridge. Porridge helps lower cholesterol and I've known patients significantly lower theirs by swapping their usual cereal (or nothing) to porridge every day. Good luck!

Thanks @PerverseConverse- I will give that a try-
Willing to give anything a go but have had no help from hospital or a dietician so looking for advice thanks :)

When are you supposed to lose it by? That's a lot to lose without help from anyone.

if you eat too little your body goes into starvation mode

I thought that was a fairly popular myth and only really counted if you were on a few hundred calories per day.

I can’t really see that OP, eating things like spag Bol and curry etc is likely to be suffering from that?

Firstly, you've lost 11lbs in 6 weeks, which is really good! Please don't think that's not enough or not a good enough rate of loss.

Second, looking at what you're eating:

I have cut all snacks out and having one fat free yoghurt and typically one of melon, raspberries, strawberries banana for lunch.

Way, way, way too many carbs. And no protein or fat, which is what will keep you feeling full.

Dinners we have things like spaghetti Bol, burgers (no buns) with salad, curry but I have been reducing the amount of carbs I have with it.

Great to keep the carbs low, but you need to up your protein and also the fat content here.

I generally have water all day and maybe one glass juice. (No tea coffee or alcohol)

Avoid juice - again, way too high in carbs.

You should be aiming to eat protein (meat/fish/eggs) with salad and low carb veg, (i.e. no potatoes, sweetcorn, sweet potatoes, beetroot) with plenty of fat

Have a look at the Low Carb Bootcamp recipe threads for some inspiration.

@PerverseConverse October is my next appointment so by then-
Haven't had the letter come through yet so not sure if it's beginning or end of the month.

Thanks @BIWI - I have already cut a lot of carbs out so was trying to do this gradually-
I generally always feel full so not starving at all yet!
Can I ask why I would need to get a high amount of fat? Thanks

Walking a mile or so during week when at work

That's about 3000-4000 steps. It would indicate a very sedatory life. For comparison, I've usually done 5000 steps by 10am every day. I generally do around 20,000(+/-5000) steps a day.

Not doing much exercise, while not healthy, won't much affect your weight loss in any meaningful way. But what it does affect is how many calories your body needs.

You don't mention your height, but you will need to eat significantly fewer calories than someone else the same size as you, if you don't exercise. Plus if you are looking to lose weight, you need a calorie deficit on already low calorie needs.

I suspect you are used to consuming far more calories than you need (so put weight on). You need to re-teach yourself not only that you need fewer calories day-to-day, but that you need even fewer than that to lose weight.

You need to get your calorie intake way down. Do that my thinking about what you eat so that every calorie is as filling as possible.

I have been using the app but haven't found it much help

In what way is logging your calories mutual helpful?

Have you tried weighing out the food you eat to check your portion size?

Are you making these evening meals you mention from scratch? Or eating ready meals?

What is a typical daily calorie count?

Do you look for low fat meats? High protein yoghurt?

How many vegetable portions do you have per day? Is there any reason you can't have vegetables at lunchtime? They are more filling and less sugar than fruit and sweetened yoghurt.

@Pinkroseuk I've PM'd you.

Thanks @FATEdestiny.
I will take those points into consideration.
There's lots of factors and my work does restrict what I can eat and the amount of exercise I get time for in the day unfortunately.

An easy, low calorie lunch example:

● 1 can of chickpeas, whizzed up and divided between two containers for two lunches. Use as a dip
(1 veg portion each)
● 1 whole pepper, sliced up in a lunchbox
(half pepper is 1 recognised portion, so 2 veg portions)
● 3 full celery stalks, sliced in your lunchbox
(1.5 full stalks is 1 recognised portion, so 2 veg portions)

About 135 calories

That will be much more filling than fruit and yoghurt. Less calories too. Plus it gives you 5 full veg portions in one meal.

I suspect most of your calories go on the evening meal though. Make sure half of the plate is filled with above-gtound veg. Then on the other half of the plate have your spag bol or whatever.

If you make your dinners from scratch, pack them full of vegetables. Bolognese made at home, for example, can be made entirely from low-cal vegetables. It can do so be packed out with tons of 'hidden' veg, to increase nuritients.

Also worth looking at what you put with bolognese. For example you could use low fat (

Thanks -
When I make spaghetti Bol- we generally have can tinned tomatoes as source wth fresh herbs in, two peppers, onion and two courgettes - sometimes mushrooms too, then 5% fat meat and small quantity of pasta.

I have tried raw veg and houmous and have found this less filling than the yoghurt and fruit but can always try again.
Thanks

High fat, plus protein is really filling, that's why I recommended it. But only if you're cutting your carbs, which you're clearly not doing!

No, OP isn't cutting carbs to ridiculous levels. She's sensibly cutting down on them, having smaller portions, including more fruit and veg, low fat protein and is trying to up her exercise.

Essentially she is doing what health care professionals advise and is taking a balanced approach that will benefit her health as well as her waistline and be easier to maintain than a drastic diet.

OP is playing the long game and in doing so will be far more likely to lose weight steadily and healthily and maintain that weight loss as there'll be no rebound wright gain.

I'm a HCP and patients come to me for diet and weight loss advice is addressing issues such as diabetes, heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure etc.

Even patients in hospital on strict consultant led diets get more than 135 calories for lunch Hell, I've known anorexia who have more than that for lunch.

Well done OP on being sensible and on your fantastic loss so far

And nor was I suggesting that she should cut her carbs to 'ridiculous levels'

I agreed with a Consultant that I would lose weight to have my gallbladder removed, my target wa lower than yours though, 2lbs a week for 14 weeks. Assuming you go at the end of October and meet the lower end of the target I think yours is about 3lb a week which equates to about 1500 cals a Day deficit.

What worked for me was getting a Fitbit and eating on average 7000 cals less than I burned off (equivalent to 2lb) loss a week. I used the Nutracheck app to record calories and found it heloful for position size as it gives suggestions for a small, mediukm or large portion so would chose which I wanted.

I worked it out on a weekly basis which gave me flexibility to work around social situations etc and has been very helpful in working towards maintenance which I”m not at yet but getting much nearer, I Found to start with I reached about 7k steps a day including my dog walk but then increased that up about 12k a day average. Eventually I went into C25K but that wasn’t really I
Until,after gallbladder came out so at that point the bulk of my exercise was lots of brisk walking which helped a fair bit.

Food wise I aimed for sensible eating 80% of the time which again built in flexibility and stopped me feeling too deprived and the fuck it button triggering. It worked really well for me and although my loss wasn’t linear and varied a bit weekly it did equate to about 2lb a week and I met my target with a week or two to spare.

I’ve carried on though found once I started running I needed to significantly up my calorie intake to sustain it and have gone firva much lower deficit and fairly long periods of eating at maintenance along the way. Started in November 2016 and have now lost about 7.5 stone with just a few more pounds to hit a healthy BMI. I’m confident I now have the tools I need not to regain the weight, it’s been a total lifestyle change for me and I work exercise into my social life so instead of going out at night with old school friend we’kk generally catch up on a dog walk. Will go swimming within another friend and catch up with another after Park run in a Saturday. It has been pretty life changing for me as am the fittest I’ve been since I was 21. Best purchase was my Fitbitbas it helped me to understand my energy requirements , knowing my outs helps me regulate the ins. But the most important thing was to learn to KOKO (keep on keeping on) and stop looking at being on/off ‘the wagon ’ and having ‘good or bad’ foods, Hope there’s something in there that might strike a chord with you, good luck and well done on loss so far.