a challenge

[everyonesmama]

DH and I are in our 50's. 40 odd years ago he was skinny and I was girl shaped. Now we are both sizeably overweight. I have dabbled in slimming world previously and had some success but nothing extreme. Lockdown came and did me no favours, I had more time for baking and cooking and we are big lovers of food.

DH has some health issues and yesterday was weighed at the GP. We both have reasonably sedentary jobs and very little spare time as we work long hours.

We now have to accept that some weightloss action is well overdue. Can't currently afford slimming clubs or fit them in timewise but do know the basics.

I am hoping for some meal ideas if possible. I am not terribly fussy however not a huge fish eater. DH is fussier by far and will not entertain fish of any kind. He does love a salad but is a big 'smotherer' of all meals with any number and variety of sauces. He has an adversity to rice of any sort and in a perfect world he would live on burgers/sausages/egg and chips!

Help!

I've recently lost 2 stone by calorie counting which I never wanted to do but it's actually been the most effective thing for me. I've eaten a lot of roasted vegetables in place of things like pasta or potatoes with my usual meals. Also made homemade soups and cooked more vegetarian options of things like Chilli but with lentils instead of mince. I used an app to log my daily calorie intake. The first 2 weeks were the hardest but then I got into the swing of things

I’d get the ‘My Fitness Plan’ app for each of you. The standard one is free. Log exactly what you’re eating (weigh everything). You can input current weight and target and it will chart your progress. I’d also start doing some gentle exercise such as walking or swimming.

Good luck!

If he can live without the chips maybe it would suit you both to join the low carb boot camp starting on the 12th. My other half was dubious thinking he was going to miss pasta, bread etc, but he’s enjoying eating that way, and the boot camp is a nice way to get support from others. There’s lots of recipes on that section too.

Rather than try to make big changes, I would echo the pp recommendation to use My Fitness pal to log everything you are currently eating. Do that for at least 2 weeks, without trying to cut down, and then go back and review.

Identify 1 or 2 things you woud be happy to cut out, cut down or replace.

For example, many moons ago I identified that I was eating a fair amount of chocolate almost every night. It felt like a treat I had a few times a week but the reality was it was almost every night.

I am not willing to cut out chocolate, but I was willing to:

• replace it on week nights with something else to munch in front of the telly. Some really good, sweet dark grapes became my thing.
• replace it on another night with just a few squares of dark chocolate
• cut it down on the remaining night to about 50g worth of milk chocolate, e.g. 1 bar or a small bowl of buttons or similar

Once those first changes have 'stuck' then review their impact on your weight. Still gaining or staying the same? Review again and see what else you are willing to change.

I was then shocked by how many calories I was consuming just in mayonnaise. I love mayo and dislike the low cal stuff, so instead I made efforts to properly measure my mayo serving so that I wasn't just spooning it on.

Make those changes, check weight and review again, if further changes are needed.

Sooner or later you are going to hit a sweet spot, where you have only made changes you are happy to make but have started to see slow weight loss. This way, you discover how to change your weight in ways that you know you can live with - rather than drastic changes you will not be able to keep up for life.

Examples, specific to your OP might be:

• smaller burgers without the buns
• measured portion of chips
• bigger salad but with measured portions of sauce

2 burgers, 160g sweet potato chips, 1 salad and a single portion of full fat mayo would come to around 800kcal. That is perfectly do-able as part of a daily diet. No need to force anyone to eat fish if that's not what they actively enjoy - because you won't be able to do it forever and won't learn any good habits. Instead you will revert back to your preferences sooner or later and the weight will come back.

Absolutely agree with everything @TwentySixPointTwo has said! It needs to be a sustainable lifestyle change rather than a quick fix diet.

I'd also recommend carefully measuring portion sizes, it can be so easy to overeat without realising it e.g. I recently discovered a portion of oven chips is 14 chips! I was easily doubling this as 14 chips really doesn't look like a lot but it does fill you up. Apps such as MyFitnessPal can really help with this.

If you'd like to go down the calorie counting route, it's important to know how many calories you should be consuming a day. You need to calculate your TDEE (here tdeecalculator.net/) and your BMR ( here www.calculator.net/bmr-calculator.html) you should never consumer below your BMR as that is what you need to survive, ideally the sweet spot is somewhere in between the two