"You don't have to cut out carbs -or any food groups for that matter -to achieve your goal - it's all about moderation - the most important thing is that you're in a calorie deficit." This. I don't believe in cutting out food groups. All the different foods we have generally work together to aid absorption and use of the nutrients
"An observation - you didn't mention fruit with breakfast in your original post ….makes me wonder what else you are having but didn't note above....e.g. butter in your sandwich, are you having dressing on your salad?" Exactly what I thought on reading op.
Op I've lost weight with ww but I've also attended other groups and have since leaving ww continued to lose
It's simple but not easy.
You need to be eating fewer calories than you use but to do that you first need to work out how many you use and how many you eat.
One persons "just a spag Bol" can be 50-75g (177 - 266 cals) pasta, 150g lean mince (186 cals), diced veg (veg has minimal calories) , sauce made fresh with tinned toms/passata, onions, garlic, herbs, (again minimal cals) all made with no or a very small amount of oil and no cheese on top - so prob around 500-600 cals total.
Another's can be 200g pasta (710 cals) 300g non lean meat (876 cals) high cal jarred sauce (480 in half jar dolmio) or a fresh made one but made with lots of oil, 100g cheddar grated over (402 cals) = 2468 cals!
One is 5 times more cals than the other yet both people would say they "just had a spag Bol"
That's a LOT of full fat milk on the porridge! 186 cals right there. Plus fruit can be quite high cal so you need to track that
I'm definitely in ww mindset but honestly all ww, slimming world and others who use "points" systems are doing is make it easier to count cals as their "point" will roughly equate to X amount of cals, and as you can see cals numbers are in hundreds/thousands for relatively small amounts of food so it's quicker and easier on a daily basis to go say
2 slices bread = 2 points
Slice ham = 1 point
15g butter = 2 points
Tomatoes = ww & most slimming clubs say most low cal veg are "free" and aren't given points values. This is because they tend to be v low cal anyway and to encourage members to eat more veg which is healthier and fills you up without you consuming loads of cals.
So a ham & tomato sandwich is easily calculated to be 5 points, easy to work out easy to remember and/or note down.
You're allotted a set amount of points according to height, weight, sex to be able to use each day and it's also easier if working in low simple numbers to deduct from your allowance. So if you've 25 points a day, deducting 5 for that sandwich means you know you have 20 points left and that's easy to remember.
But yes I learnt from ww and others that:
Potatoes are not the only calorific veg! Peas, beans, sweetcorn and others are also shockingly high.
Portion creep (gradually inc portion size without realising) is a bugger to avoid
That every little thing DOES count (I mean I knew this really I just had it drummed into me!)
That being overly strict is self defeating and unsustainable. We need a certain amount of cals not only to function but also to avoid cravings hitting!
Looking at yours (and I'm no expert) I'd suggest
Properly tracking everything you eat and drink (lots of ww members drank a lot of their calories and I don't mean alcohol, quite often new members were shocked how many cals in fresh juice, milk, takeaway coffees etc it'd often be a lightbulb moment "ohhhhhh my god! I've been DRINKING 40 points a week just in juice!")
Reducing the milk in your porridge and perhaps switching to semi skimmed
Depending how much and what fruit you're having in it you could switch to lower cal options and less of.
369 cals per 100g in the sugar free Alpen is still pretty high! 2 weetabix is only 136 cals. It's one of those foods marketed as "healthy" which really isn't.
Lunch - depends on how much sweet potato, what bread, is there butter/mayo on the sandwich? Most people don't have them "dry" and lots of people use more "spread" than they think they are. How much and what kind of ham.
Spag bol already covered but similar applies to chicken/fish with veg - how much of each item? What veg? Sauce? Seasoning? How are you cooking?
Pizza - how much of base? Cheese? Any oil used?
Sunday roast - like the spag Bol can vary greatly in cals! You could have a healthy one with small amounts of the high cal items, cooked healthily, lots of low cal veg like carrots and broccoli, not swimming in gravy or could be an unhealthy one loaded with high cal meat, loads of roast potatoes, roast parsnips, yorkshire puds made with loads of oil or even goose fat or lard, large portion stuffing, chutneys or high cal sauces like cranberry sauce and similar to the spag Bol example the calories difference can be huge.
Drinks exactly what's in the cocoa? Made with milk makes it probably quite high cal too, wine - how big are the glasses?! I have wine glasses (Bordeaux) that can hold up to half a bottle!
Snacks - fruit is quite high cal, I like carrot sticks, celery, pepper sticks, raw mushrooms, sugar free ice poles (the joys of hormones), low fat yogurts, nuts and seeds occasionally
Meals - veg is the biggest part (I'm veggie though so this may be easier for me) sensible portion of carbs and protein, mostly home made sauces like yourself.
Breakfasts - weetabix with skimmed milk or small bowl shreddies or toast with a little butter and marmite or a little bit of jam or marmalade (you can have high cal things and lose weight just not often and not big portions)
Drinks - mostly water, I like sparkling gives it a bit of taste and very refreshing, sugar free fizzy (but not often and no caffeine), sugar free squash, occasionally in winter a hot choc (I like options which I make up with water and a splash of milk) or a black coffee, very rarely (as on my meds I'm not supposed to - not harmful just I feel the effects much quicker) special occasions a wee glass wine or rum & Ginger.
I'm still overweight but I'm also still losing - and that's even with being housebound and unable to exercise.