Am I eating too much?

[Curlywurlybars]

Just wanted to get others perspectives as I just don’t seem to be losing any weight! I am in healthy weight range but have 6 ‘vanity lbs’ I would like to lose ahead of summer. I’m only 5ft5 if that helps in assessing my intake.

Typical day:

5km run in approx. 25-30mins and a short 30min walk

Breakfast:
small glass fruit smoothie (few strawbs, few raspberries, 1/2 banana, half small glass of apple juice)
Half pita bread with light covering peanut butter

Lunch:
Either tomato and red pepper soup with a pita bread or
Small (single serving) potion of humous, carrot sticks, cucumber, pepper and a pita bread

Snack: 10 grapes, 1 digestive, couple of slices Serrano ham, 50 cal fruit ice lolly

Dinner:
Always eat a moderate size portion (don’t do crazy) and something like either
brown rice, teriyaki chicken, green beans
Or stir fry with rice noodles, veg, beef strips with black bean/hoisin sauce
Maybe once a week I have a big potion of takeaway, burger or homemade pasta and garlic bread 😍

Drinks: most days only water- I probably have 3 glasses white wine a week.

Bump- would love mumsnet’s expertise!

Log all your calories in My Fitness Pal. Without knowing the weights (& so actual calories) it’s hard to say.

I know the smoothies I make have 88 calories in a portion and that’s Mostly veg. Bananas can be quite high in calories. Peanut butter is high calorie, pita bread can be too. Hummus can also be calorific.

Hoisin sauce is quite calorific. As is pasta and garlic bread -even for very small portions. You would really need to weigh and log everything and don’t eat back the exercise calories as MFP tends to over calculate the calorie burn.

I’m a calorie bore -sorry but MFP has helped me lose 2 stone. Before logging everything I was cluelessly thinking that what I was eating was healthy, normal size portion and pretty low calorie, it’s an eye opener to realise how calorific some things actually are.

All looks brilliantly healthy to me, do you really need to lose weight?
Maybe check how much oil you cook your dinner with? I found switching to olive oil spray helped a bit

Looks a bit carb heavy but really can't know if it's too much without properly weighing and putting into something like MyFitnessPal

How much are you trying to lose? Do you so any strength work or only cardio?

It's no good listing the foods. Everybody's body is different. Keep a not of what you've eaten and your portion sizes. If it's enough to maintain your current weight, it will. If it's more than enough, you'll put weight on. If it's less than enough, you'll lose weight. Log your exercise too, because that will have an effect. But totting up calories on MFP is only half the job; you have to observe your body for a bit to get the hang of what it needs, rather than relying on calculations on apps. Apps do their best, but they don't know you, so they have to work on averages.

How many cals do you actually eat? You need to know this

if your first thing you have in the morning to break fast (for breakfast) is a smoothie including apple juice it is going to send your blood sugar sky high and tell your body to store fat! You want to keep your insulin down. For your first meal have something with minimal sugars or carbs - e.g. protein or similar. Avoid sugars first thing if poss. This will really help weight loss. No apple juice. No snacking between meals if you can avoid it - more water / green tea / black coffee / black tea instead. Stick to just meals. And try to go a bit longer before your first meal of the day!

I’m a little taller than you - what you describe sounds great for a normal day, maintaining weight (for me anyway). But if I needed to lose weight then there’s quite a few things I would not have that are on your list... smoothie, peanut butter and no surprise the biscuits. Probably not the hummus either. No garlic bread. No wine (sorry!) They all pack quite a few calories in a fairly small portion.

Thanks all- seems I will have to reassess! I thought I was doing so well (as usually eat a crazy amount of chocolate/carbs 🙈).

Will remove humous and peanut butter and garlic bread. Do I really have to take the smoothie out @magicmallow ? It’s the highlight of my morning 😢🙈

It’s not about calories. It’s about health. Your diet is sending your blood sugar soaring and then crashing all day.

You eat a lot of pita bread!

Look into low GL food, don’t count calories and you will lose.

A calorie is not a calorie

I would actually keep the peanut butter and hummous. Fat is good. Hummous better if homemade with olive oil

Bin the refined carbs - so the pitta, the biscuit and the smoothie. You can have a lower carb smoothie is smoothies are your thing

Even sensible amounts of your diet will be your weekly maintenance calories because you have wine and takeaway.
I think to lose yes to tracking calories and ditch the take away and or wine and reduce your daily cals and or double the work out

Your breakfast is plagued with empty calories. If you ate what you put in the smoothie I bet you'd eat less for lunch and feel fuller!

I would actually keep the peanut butter and hummous. Fat is good.

Fat is good in general - but fat is also high in calories and that’s no good for when you want to lose 6lb. OP wants to lose some vanity pounds, not change to a new healthy lifestyle. Peanut butter and hummus is puréed - all the fat is ready released like sugar in a juice or smoothie and your body will lap it up.

@Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow - what could I have the peanut butter on instead of pita? Could I have half a banana with peanut butter? Unhelpfully I am gluten free so can’t eat a wide range of things (all above listed are ‘GF’ versions of the real thing). Also now dairy free too so cream/yoghurt etc. is a no go :-(.

I do find healthy eating so hard as I struggle to understand what is ‘good’ and there is so much conflicting advice. As long as I’ve cut down chocolate, biscuits, crisps, chips, pizza etc. and eat at least my ‘5 a day’, I tend to think I’m doing really well (when really I’m making so many mistakes like above).

@Pinkblueberry your post cements it- I’ll have to give up the smoothie.

Any quick and easy breakfast suggestions from mumsnetters (that are also GF and DF 😒) greatly appreciated!

I think if you want to lose the vanity lbs you’re going to need to track everything on MFP. Download and do it tomorrow for a normal day and I reckon you’ll find, like the pp said, you’re eating to maintain rather than lose. Guessing that you’re eating around 1700-1800 cals a day (more when drinking/takeaway) which is about right to maintain.

I say this as someone who lost 10lbs of vanity weight (I’m now 19 BMI as 5ft 10) last summer and has kept it off for 12 months next week. MFP works and really makes you think about nutrition (I’m obsessed with the nutritional breakdown now!)

As long as I’ve cut down chocolate, biscuits, crisps, chips, pizza etc. and eat at least my ‘5 a day’, I tend to think I’m doing really well (when really I’m making so many mistakes like above).

I would definitely call that healthy. But eating to be healthy doesn’t automatically mean you lose weight, unless you were incredibly overweight and unhealthy to start with - with a healthy diet you maintain weight. To lose weight you need a calorie deficit, which you could technically achieve by eating unhealthily (if you eat just a bag of crisps a day and nothing else you will lose weight...) You can lose weight and still eat things like biscuits - but in my experience you will lose it quicker if you cut out some of the high calorie foods. Why draw it out? If it’s just a few pounds and you’re exercising get it out the way quickly and you can go back to eating what you were before - if you start putting pounds on again you’ll know it’s too much.

Keep the pitta and peanut butter for breakfast if you’re really struggling for an alternative, especially if it’s just a ‘light covering’ as you say. Cutting out the smoothie will already make a difference - eat a whole piece of fruit instead and it will fill you up more. Save the rest for alternative snacks throughout the day.

if your first thing you have in the morning to break fast (for breakfast) is a smoothie including apple juice it is going to send your blood sugar sky high and tell your body to store fat

This is tosh. Your body stores fat if you give it too many calories. You could have your breakfast smoothie and then eat only lard for the rest of the day. If you kept within your calorie requirement, not even lard would be stored as fat.

You will not store additional fat if you do not eat too many calories. It's that simple, despite the stories we get told. Fruit juice is very high in sugar though. I make my smoothies with water. If you've got plenty of tasty stuff in there, and perhaps something frozen (half a banana?) you don't need the fruit juice. I do the same with porridge. Water not milk.

Your breakfast is plagued with empty calories. If you ate what you put in the smoothie I bet you'd eat less for lunch and feel fuller

This is balderdash too. This comment is about juice, where you don't eat the pulp. A fruit smoothie is neither calorie dense, nor full of empty calories. It's just fruit (and a bit of unnecessary juice, in OP's case)

@PicklePig31
your post is really interesting to me as I only have 6 vanity pounds to lose and I did wonder if it was maybe impossible to get them off.

Can I ask what you set MFP at calorie wise and how did you come up with that number? And did you then increase to maintain?

Thank you @Pinkblueberry that is really helpful- I think that was my error- equating ‘healthy’ foods with weight loss when it isn’t that simple.

@Eckhart very helpful and I’m glad my smoothie isn’t full of empty calories! I will switch to water instead of apple juice OR have pita bread with small amount of peanut butter (not both!).

Can you up each run by 10 minutes? That'd get rid of an extra 100 calorie per run, roughly. Quite possibly a bit more. That might tip you over the balance from maintaining to calorie deficit. Your CV health will be better too, and it's not too big a change to make, unlike overhauling your entire diet.

You could also consider a long run at the weekends. Nothing too serious, just perhaps add 5 minutes on per week for a few weeks until you're ok to run for 50 mins or an hour. That's another 500 - 600 calories.

Once you've got your shoes laced up, might as well make it as worthwhile as you can!

I would definitely cut out the apple juice from your smoothie and reduce the frequency of takeaways (ideally none at all). You should also cut out the digestive biscuit and fruit lolly.

Also could maybe reduce wine to one glass per week