Really need to get this sorted but DS needs to put on weight!

[drspouse]

For better or worse I end up doing a lot of the cooking but DS has ADHD and his meds reduce his appetite and he gets fussy so we've tended to eat main meals that are more calorific and/or kid friendly (he'd have sausages and wedges every day if he could).
DH is fine at good plain cooking (pasta, wedges plus something from the freezer).
And I get SO HUNGRY if I try to do without snacks. I try to make most of our own/get dried fruit and nuts/fresh fruit but I know some of that isn't always healthy.
But I would really like to fit into some of my trousers!
I tend to log most days on MFP and then despair after I've worked out the total.
What to do! DCs have school dinners but DS eats very little so we feed him up with toast/leftovers at supper time when his meds wear off. But he needs a substantial tea as well.

So just keep at it and tweak..If you put your cake in and it goes over try entering half the portion you were envisioning to see if that is more acceptable. And work out what macros still work for you, even if not a perfect ratio. Be responsive to what the logging is telling you.

Oh and have a rule. You log the food before you eat it.

I have a skinny child with issues around particular textures. I’m fed up of eating the same types of meal, (and need to shift some pounds) so I will often cook myself a piece of salmon Or fresh fish alongside their meal. It takes no effort, just wrap it in foil and bung in the oven.
If the kids query me having something different to them, I usually say that there wasn’t enough of what they were having For all of us. They are not keen on fish unless it’s the battered kind, so they are usually pleased.

I don’t think there are any magic answers if you need to cook same evening meal for everyone other than to make substitutions Of one of components or play around with the portions eg fill your plate with lots of veg/salad

Dinner is just one meal of the day however - make more conscious choices the rest of the day. Plan a Healthy and filling breakfast And lunch and snacks and you should be able to keep on track.

My fitness pal is well known to be quite restrictive, with calorie allowance being too low for most people, so work out your Daily calories And macros using the free trail on www.jamessmithacademy.com/

I think I do need to look more at my macros, you are right.
I think the DCs will happily eat the Christmas cake if we don't!

@Missreginafalange yep that's how it used to work for me but then came menopause/DS diet/hip injury.

It's quite simple be in a calorie deficit sounds like you just want to make excuses as plenty of people have given you sensible solutions.

@drspouse

I think I do need to look more at my macros, you are right. I think the DCs will happily eat the Christmas cake if we don't!

Many who are overweight make the mistake of using their current weight when calculating macros and not the adjusted weight.

For protein for example, you only need to eat 0.8 gr/kg of bodyweight, but you shouldn't use you current weight to calculate that amount but the adjusted weight x 0.8 .

The formula to calculate the adjusted weight is
IBW (ideal body weight) + 0.25 of excess body weight (excess weight = current weight - ideal weight ) .

Once you have your adjusted body weight you can calculate your nutritional and calorie needs.

I follow a plant based diet and eat foods that comes from a plant and not a factory plant , In that way, it is very hard to excess in anything.

Losing weight as we get older is harder and harder and what works for your friend might not work for you, there is not a golden rule for all.

The good news is a healthy low fat can be as good as a healthy low carb, the important part is the "healthy" specification. Some will lose weight on low carb other will gain and vice versa with the low fat diet.
There is a big difference between white toast and a cup of black rice.

A healthy low fat in which the carb are not processed and with no sugar might be something you should consider.

A big study tested it, two groups, one healthy low fat, one healthy low carb with he same rules for both : "Both diet groups were instructed to (1) maximize vegetable intake; (2) minimize intake of added sugars, refined flours, and trans fats; and (3) focus on whole foods that were minimally processed, nutrient dense, and prepared at home whenever possible. " there were no significant between-group differences observed for body mass index, body fat percentage, and waist circumference and 12 months later the results were identical : The mean 12-month weight change was −5.3 kg (95% CI, −5.9 kg to −4.7 kg) for the healthy low-fat diet group and −6.0 kg (95% CI, −6.6 kg to −5.4 kg) for the healthy low-carbohydrate diet group, which was not statistically different (Table 3). "

jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2673150

Most of the time, a study of a low cab will be tested agains a high crap (more than carb) diet, and of course any type of diet against a crap diet will be favourable, but bottom lime when you taste
healthy low carb vs healthy low fat, it comes to each individual.

So low carb doesn't work well for you, go for low fat @drspouse but you MUST stop the industrial snacking and processed food including white toast, white rice, white flour and so on.

[quote drspouse]@Username642243 that's actually helpful though I'd probably want the opposite i.e. cheese for me and no cheese for DS.

@fluro yes that is about what we do but DS does eat some tea (almost no lunch) so we try and make it as friendly to him and his diet as we can. It's the meals that I make for everyone that can't be low fat/low calorie. So I can't give everyone pasta with a fat free veggie sauce, or cauliflower cheese made with Philly light instead of butter and cheese, or a fat free veggie curry (all great swaps but not for DS).

@Missreginafalange yep that's how it used to work for me but then came menopause/DS diet/hip injury.

@SleepingStandingUp nope, DD not that daft! He doesn't get extra sweet stuff though, not to the extent that DD gets yoghurt and he gets chocolate anyway. She doesn't mind that he gets supper after she's in bed.

I'm not going to bother answering people who are saying yet again that fasting is normal and nobody will notice.[/quote]
I don’t think you are reading clearly and I also think you need to consider different kinds of food. I’m not swapping low fat versions for fatty food. If I make something like macaroni cheese I will have a smaller portion, and will try to have a lighter lunch. However, generally my ds doesn’t like ‘mixed up’ food and I find pasta bakes etc time consuming to make. Our dinner (my ds also doesn’t eat lunch) is usually a piece of chicken/salmon/lamb, with cous cous/rice/noodles and salad and some steamed vegetables, so it is easy to adjust for each person. Or I’ll make a stir fry and have to pick out just the bits ds will eat 🙄.

I focus on getting extra calories into ds at breakfast and supper, rather than making a dinner that can’t be adjusted for dd and me.

We also have an opportunity to get extra calories into DS at tea time and we need to take that. He does have some all-in-one or casserole type things that he eats so I want to sort those out too. That all right with you?

That all right with you?

Why are you so needlessly aggressive to posters with helpful suggestions?

The poster was offering you suggestions on how one meal can work for all.

In a casserole type situation, just eat less & balance with extra veg / salad, for weight loss. It's really not that hard.

What changes are you happy to make? You don’t want to reduce carbs, snacking, portion size or time you eat... would you consider reducing fat? Exercising a lot more?
If you don’t want to make changes, nothing will change unfortunately.

OP, I cut out my trigger foods (broadly: sugary/sweet/fatty/baked stuff) and now count calories but don't eat low fat. I eat at least 500 calories less than my daily calorie intake which I boost with long brisk walks and so far I have not been hungry
which is more than I can say for intermittent fasting or low carb, and have been able to eat full fat foods which is more than I can say for SW or WW. I've lost 3.5 stone since July and nearly 5 since my zenith a couple of years ago.

I normally have 44-50% of my calories as high fibre wholegrain carbs and that works really well for me. Every thread about weight loss attracts low carb evangelists who are obviously experiencing a lot of success but cannot imagine that what works for them won't work for everyone.

Basically I have the same meals as everyone else in my family, but I don't have cakes biscuits chocolates or sweets and I weigh my portions and usually my portion will be smaller than other people's.

I think I would be a bit wary of "snack hunger" because my hunger for sweet food wasn't about physical hunger, it was about comfort and anxiety and familiarity and associating those feelings with being over-full.

@Howmanysleepsnow

What changes are you happy to make? You don’t want to reduce carbs, snacking, portion size or time you eat... would you consider reducing fat? Exercising a lot more? If you don’t want to make changes, nothing will change unfortunately.

I do want to reduce snacking (see my second post? Guess not), portion size (but not eating the carbs with a meal will just leave me starving later), I see no positive points and lots of negatives in "changing the time I eat" aka "skipping meals" but the one thing I can't do is reduce fat in meals I share with DS. And that's what has worked in the past. I guess you haven't read any of my posts, then, eh?

@CarterBeatsTheDevil thanks, that is helpful. I'm trying to push the Christmas glut onto everyone else but they are willing recipients so that's all good!

I did the same. I had a wobble over Christmas thinking I could go back to eating the foods that I struggled to control and basically I had to accept that I can't. I haven't gained or lost over Christmas which I am happy with as an outcome and I ditched the trigger foods again from Boxing Day. I should probably add that when I cut trigger foods out last year I made a conscious decision not to introduce any further restrictions until that had become a habit, because I felt that if I also started limiting intake in some way at that point (other food groups or just quantity) it would be too much at once, so I cut out the trigger foods on Boxing Day and just tried to stick to 3 meals a day with no snacking apart from fruit and veg until July when I started tracking calories and exercise on my Fitbit (not dead accurate but it's worked for me so far). That stepped approach definitely worked for me.

It's tough balancing conflicting needs. I have a very slight and active 5 year old (slightly fussy), a much chunkier 2 year old and a tendency to "stress snack". I can usually (barring stress snacking) keep tasty stuff around and not devour too much but DH will just demolish tasty things on sight.

I found some of the recipes in the low carb section of the Joe Wicks cooking for family and friends book went down well with the kids, and just added a portion of "easy" carbs like pasta for those who don't need to lose weight. Cooking twice is not an option.

My plan for after New Year is pre preparing 'better' snacks so they're quick to grab if I need to fortify myself before cooking.

Stick to drinking water not 'convenient' tasty things.

Reduce carb portions for me except post workout.

Experiment with recipes once a week.

@drspouse

I have to be honest here and say if I had sausages or a fish bake with just veg and no potatoes I'd be running to the snack cupboard all evening (and I forgot to say, DH has diabetes so we always have sweet snacks in). I am not really into prepackaged snack bar type things but good call to pack up a snack portion. I think in the days when I went to the office I took that kind of thing with me weighed out, it seems so long ago but that must have helped!

This is your second post. No mention of wanting to reduce snacks. And in your first post you said you’d be too hungry if you didn’t have your snacks. I did read! But, if you’re happy to reduce portion sizes and snacks, maybe that’s your starting point?

It literally says "good call to weigh out a snack" and that this helped me in the past. So no, you didn't read where I said I wanted to reduce snacking.

@drspouse

It literally says "good call to weigh out a snack" and that this helped me in the past. So no, you didn't read where I said I wanted to reduce snacking.

You just keep arguing! I honestly don't know what you're looking for now. The answer is not complicated, you've been given positive suggestions, which you ignore, intentionally misunderstand, or deride.

If you reduce portion size, eliminate or alter snacks, you will lose weight. No need for the angst over different meals.

I'd quite like for people to actually read my posts where I say some suggestions are helpful rather than tell me I've rejected everything.

It's never possible for someone asking for advice to take all the suggestions given and yet posters get very snippy when the OP says that any one of a few dozen suggestions won't work.

I had this on a thread looking for a big present for my DM to buy my DD. There were lots of suggestions and clearly not all of them could be bought but though I said some were great ideas I was "rejecting everything" because I said why some of them weren't great.

Can people not accept that not all their ideas are what an OP is looking for?

My DD is on ADHD meds - are you able to a) pack in the food at breakfast and b) arrange a proper, real-food-not-snack supper for him around 8pm? Is it Ritalin or a long-acting one like Concerta?

@drspouse

It literally says "good call to weigh out a snack" and that this helped me in the past. So no, you didn't read where I said I wanted to reduce snacking.

No, it “literally” says “good call to pack up a snack” It also says you’ve already tried this. I’m fine with the fact that a lot of suggestions don’t suit you (or you don’t want to try). It doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Even your rude/ aggressive responses don’t bother me much. I’m not sure what it is about other people making potentially helpful suggestions that bothers you so much that you feel the need to be rude? Perhaps what you want to hear is that it’s absolutely not your fault and that no one else could manage in a similar situation? Sorry, but it seems plenty of us can and do.

How old is your ds? Have you tried drinks such as pediasure? They are helpful in assisting kids with putting on weight where they might need a little help due to medical/health issues.

My daughter is very fussy and underweight and this is one of the very few things she will have. They come in vanilla, strawberry and choc flavour.

He's just 9- he's on long acting - we have just tried adding hot chocolate to his evening snack so similar to the drinks in that it's easy to drink. He also likes some nuts/peanut butter.

I don't know about putting on weight on children.. I would have thought natural food route. Things like adding nut butters. But if more supplement type foods are ok you could add a protein powder milk shake to plain unsweetened cereal.

In terms of your Ds is he very underweight? . My Ds was on the borderline of underweight. I told the doctors who wanted him to gain weight . I would happily let him snack on nuts but I would not feed him a load of junk food to gain weight . He just burns off everything he eats.