The agony of reducing portion sizes!

[ThisMustBeMyDream]

I am sat here, absolutely starving. I am following slimming world. Which is easy for me. Can follow it with no major problems. Except I can't lose weight unless I reduce portion sizes. I have attached some pictures to show my portion sizes prior to trying to reduce them little by little. I want to scream and punch walls!
I am at the end of 3 weeks and have lost 6lb. 4lb of that in the first week. So it is disheartening to have lost nothing this week. I'm 15st 7 so not exactly small with not much to lose.
Today I have had: Breakfast fibre one cereal bar, berries, banana. Lunch homemade spring veg soup (about 450ml. I'd usually have 600ml) and cheese portion (35g lower fat). Dinner Quorn stirfry with half the amount of noodles I would usually serve. Syns: 2x space raiders (6), sauce for stir fry (3), one flump (1.5)

This is fairly typical for me since starting SW.

It's the portion sizes I just want to cry over! If anyone else has had to do it, how long did it take to stop finding it so painful?

honestly, if you’re starving at midnight then... go to bed

I wish I could but...work and kids prevent any sort of decent bedtimes!

Not surprised you're starved, it's all carbs.

The sausage and mash dinner you showed : there's probably 150 cals per sausage in those. So in that entire meal, probably around 600 cals? Remove one sausage, that's 450, with the same amount of mash (unless the mash was made with double cream or something). So have the same dinner, one less sausage.

For breakfast I'd have two scrambled eggs and a bowl of fruit. Your homemade spring veg soup with maybe a side of cottage cheese for lunch. An apple as a snack.

You shouldn't be starving.

'Dinner Quorn stirfry with half the amount of noodles I would usually serve'

I don't know how you can feel full off this meal at all.

Really confused at your message. Which bit is all carbs?

The sausages are quorn low fat ones. I prefer a vegetarian diet. The mash is made with eggs to bind it.

Why shouldn't I be starving? I've overstretched my stomach through years of disordered eating. Of course I am starving going to half the amount of calories I was likely consuming before.

I've come to weight loss for support that it won't last forever and my stomach will get used to it soon.

My dietician said SW was a bad idea because it gives people the idea they can eat unlimited pasta etc and still lose weight.

I find calorie counting much better.

I find low carb eating leaves me feeling fuller for longer. There are some really great videos on YouTube that explain it better than I could. The Keto diet really helps people shift weight without feeling deprived all the time.

You need to know how many cals you need per day and then ensure you have a deficit, otherwise you wont lose weight.

It is if you don't use common sense - I don't eat endless muller lights or mugshots (insert whatever else people like to throw at sw!). I have already stated I am limiting portion sizes, as I am well aware of the basics of calories in vs energy expenditure.

It gives me a good guide to follow, in ways I feel are manageable right now.

Low carb is 100% not for me. I would never ever stick to it. It wouldn't work in any aspect of my busy life. I'd be even hungrier as I am not a protein fan. I already force myself to endure proteins for a balanced diet.

That's 2 decent plates full imo. However, if it's not enough for you then it's not enough. I didn't think SW was about portions though?

They are examples of portion size prior to reducing. They are seperate days evening meals.

Sorry I got that wrong!

I ate loads when I did SW last but it was a couple of years ago so it may have changed since.

Example day is a 3 egg omelette for breakfast with tomato and babybel cheese. Lunch was ham/chicken salad and for tea salmon and veggies with potato. Snacks always the full 15 syn

Have you tried drinking a glass of water BEFORE you eat?

It may go some way to making you feel fuller without adding any extra calories.

You're going to have to become a fan of protein somehow to be honest.

I lost 2 stone with ww a few years back.I don't believe in cutting out any food group and don't agree with low carbing, healthy carbs are just as essential to a healthy diet as any other food group. I'm also an ex nurse and I firmly believe the low carbing far will have widespread repercussions in the near future. BUT too much carbs are also bad for us, especially sugars.

Your "breakfast" is dreadful - basically just a sugar feast! Cereal bars are NOT real food. They are barely better than biscuits! High sugar fruits you chose there. Perfect recipe for a sugar slump mid morning. And yes precious little protein or even fat (fat is STILL essential even when losing weight) You should be covering all 4 food groups at every meal - vitamins & minerals (5 a day), proteins , fats and carbs.

Breakfast - better would be yogurt, less sweet fruit and/or not as much (given this thread is supposedly about portion sizes you don't actually GIVE the portion sizes of today's menu - a small handful of berries might be ok, a full 1lb punnet isnt ) and a HEALTHY carb portion like wholemeal toast or bagel.

Soup and cheese for lunch - again inadequate and likely to lead to a mid afternoon energy slump. I'd recommend adding some carrot batons or celery sticks (the physical act of crunching or chewing tells our brain we are filling our stomach) and a wholemeal till or some high fibre crackers or crisp breads (crackers dipped in soup is lush)

Dinner - quorn stir fry. You say half YOUR usual portion of noodles but we don't know how much that is ànd therefore don't know how much half that portion is. If you were having 2.5 adults portion size before (not uncommon in overweight people that over the years portion creep leads to such habits, was guilty of it myself) then a half portion is still. 1.25 of an appropriate healthy adult portion. Also was the stir fry literally quorn pieces noodles and sauce? If so where was your veg portion? I'm veggie when I do a quorn stir fry it's à couple handfuls of quorn pieces, peppers, mushrooms, baby corn, maybe thinly sliced carrot strips, celery, diced onion, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, depends what veg I have in. Also are you using a ready made sauce? They're very high in sugar. It's dead easy and quick to make your own there are tons of recipes online and as there was with ww, I'm sure sw have many recipes online I bet there's even syn free ones. Also were the noodles whokemael? More fibre fills you up and wholemeal products are more nutritious.

Your snacks aren't filling either, you seem to be making the classic dieters mistake of thinking snacks HAVE to be "treat foods" which they don't and bluntly that kind of thinking is how you ended up overweight (meant kindly, again used to do it myself)

Alternatives to crisps - crudites (with or without a LITTLE dip), or a trick I learned crudites seasoned with salt n pepper or other herbs and spices to your taste, you get the crunch and umami kick you're craving.

Sweet snacks - fruit, yogurt, small portion of sorbet, grapes and bananas freeze well and frozen take longer to eat.

You also don't mention drinks AT ALL

1 a very common issue is thirst being mistaken for hunger. Always have a drink of water before eating certainly before giving into a craving

2 also a common issue - not knowing cals/points/syns in a drink - I well remember years later a ww member at my group going upon realising her regular morning latte order from a chain coffee shop had enough points for 2 meals!

3 yet another is forgetting to include all counted drinks in diary, another fellow ww member THOUGHT she was having "2 or 3" cups of tea at her office job, full fat milk and 2 sugars in each one ww leader told her to keep an actual tally rather than estimating turned out to be more like 6 or 7.

So, take all that into account maybe it helps?

Low carbing fad

Wholemeal roll with the soup

Noodles wholemeal

Bloody autocorrect!

I think if you counted calories instead of what you're currently doing the portion sizes issue would sort itself out.

Give yourself 1200 to play with and download MFP.

And cut those portions in half. I'd say there's 600/700 calories in each of those meals imho.

How about using a week to easier and properly record everything you eat?

'Half the amount of noodles" is meaningless, but actual figures, specifying whether it's dry or cooked weight, will give a much better idea of how much you typically consume now, and how much you will need to reduce to lose weight.

The food cravings do diminish, in just a few days when you do cut down.

That still sounds like too many calories, and the wrong, unfilling kind.

A cereal bar, 2 packets of crisps, cheese and noodles in 1 day is not good. Can you try scrapping SW and attempt MFP instead?

Apart from the soup and stir fry that's mostly processed foods.

Also I've never heard of putting egg in mash - why does it need "binding"?

I understand OP

I wouldn't low carb either and am mostly veggie

I joined the 5:2 board for a while but it was too much so back to calories counting with a small breakfast, as late as possible, small lunch and reasonable dinner.

I just follow along with what makes me feel full, repeat meals don't matter.

I think it took about a month to stop noticing the hunger, though I did feel very tired I'm used to it now and don't notice hunger, so my stomach must be adjusting, as will yours. We will get there!

PS I don't know how SW works exactly and had to google space raiders and flumps

I would ditch that kind of thing completely

I'm on meds so managed to get fat even without using calories on junk

But the whole Syn thing makes no sense. You'd be better with calories and try to get as much out of them as you can, because hunger is going to get you otherwise.

A cereal bar, 2 packets of crisps, cheese and noodles in 1 day is not good. Can you try scrapping SW and attempt MFP instead?

Or continue with SW but eat better food? SW gets a bad rep for things like this, but actually if you stick with your basics and don't try to fill up on absolute shite, it works just fine. That said I really don't think anything works more than the basic calorie counting.

Fill up on bulky low cal foods like lettuce, cucumber, grated carrot in salads, apples, any form of veg really except the obviously high cal ones

I'm a SW follower but I would be hungry on that! As @Graphista said, you need to explore different choices to get more fullness for your portions/points. I'm no expert, and often struggle to get it right, but when I stick to something similar to the below, that's when things go well. It is a long haul though and if you said you were only 3 weeks in, I can understand feeling a bit overwhelmed. Every good choice counts, and gets you nearer where you want to be. My meals that fill me up:

Breakfast - porridge made with water, chopped apple, cinnamon and a teaspoon of honey; or high protein yoghurt with fresh or frozen fruit; or wholemeal bread and scrambled eggs and mushrooms?

Lunch can be trickier depending on where you are / facilities at work, but soup, omelettes, jacket potato etc all with roasted veg or salad.

I try and stick to one snack a day and know I get grumpy by around 4pm so then have banana, or yoghurt, or cheese and crackers if I've not already had cheese that day.

Supper I do have really big portions still, but the plate is 60-70% veg. I feel full, and I still have pasta or rice or whatever, just different ratios. I like a big supper to try and stave off the evening snack urge!