Please criticise my diet!

[Blueskydrink]

Since March 20 I have put on 10kgs! Tried so hard to cut calories to compensate for my now sedentary life but the weight keeps piling on! So please advise where I am going wrong! Be brutal!!

Breakfast- small bowl Greek yoghurt, pear, cup of tea

Snack - coffee, two chocolate digestive biscuits

Lunch- two crumpets with butter (scrape!) and marmite, tea, pear

Snack - cup of tea

Dinner - lasagne plus salad, glass of red wine, mini magnum

This is typical and the same as my family but they don't put on an ounce. Thanks.

I won't work for ice cream but I have portioned and frozen other treat foods so I can only eat them in a planned way.

It’s probably the cumulative effect of eating a little bit more and moving a little bit less.

On a weight documentary eons ago they said that if you keep your diet and activity the same but eat one extra chocolate digestive a day (about 80 calls), at the end of the year you’d have gained around half a stone.

The biscuits, wine and mini magnum probably amount to around 400 calories. It might be worth looking at one of the online TDEE calculators and putting your numbers in. Mine is really low, only about 1500 calories at 5’4”.

Protein is good for keeping you feeling full and an egg doesn’t have many more calories than a chocolate digestive.

I have an icecream maker and have made a few lower-calorie treats with it - a bag of frozen raspberries, a glass of sloe gin and a pot of half fat creme fraiche with a restrained amount of icing sugar has made a fantastic sorbet that hardly counts as calories as it's one of my "five a day"

@beckyyl

Weight loss is purely calories in vs calories out. If your gaining weight then your eating more calories a day than your body is burning.

If you eat 1200cals of chocolate vs 1200 of veggies it is still 1200cals.

Obviously veggies are a lot more nutritious however at the end of the day weight loss is simply calories no matter what kind of food it is.

So please do not listen to those who will say 'it's your carbs' and rubbish like that. If you eat an apple at 100cals or a biscuit at 100cals it's the same amount of calories.

It isn't a question of calories in, calories out. If you eat 100g of almonds your body will use more calories to absorb the nutrients and they are full of fibre so a lot won't be absorbed and will be evacuated. The satiety is high for fibre rich foods so you feel more full up. If you eat 100g of cake it will be quickly absorbed by the body, also give a sugar spike so you will feel hungry more quickly and therefore eat more. The net calorie effect is NOT the same for all foods. Calories in vs calories out gives a rough idea of what is required but that's it.

Do people who believe that 'calories in v calories out' is a good way of calculating what to eat to lose weight think that the body does nothing at all with calories except gain and lose fat?

And if they accept that the body does other stuff with calories than gaining and losing fat, do they not think that more/less calories could be given to these processes, instead of losing fat, when there is a deficit?

Eckhart I'm not sure whether I fit into your description or not. I think the body uses or burns calories, and it does that in all its processes, including losing fat. Overall, if you burn more than you eat, you will lose weight. That's what happens. The rest is finding ways to fool yourself into eating less, and I'm not knocking that, that's what I do.

If you burn more than you eat, you can create a situation where the processes suffer but fat isn't lost. Or the processes suffer, AND fat is lost. Do people really want to be lighter, but miserable/have poor skin/poorly regulated hormones/muscle weakness/sweats/greasy hair/depression etc?

I would bin the biscuits, and the Magnum, and have those at the weekend! See if that helps. Not sure what you have in your tea, but I would have semiskimmed milk not four cream, and try to cut out sugar there too. Also you don't mention other drinks, I would cut any sweet drinks back to just water.

The problem with calories in calories out is that some calories keep you full much longer (eg protein, healthy fats) and others cause a sugar spike which just leads to you feeling hungry again or craving something sweet for fast energy.

I’ve lost 2 stone recently and this is how I did it without ever really feeling hungry. Some people won’t agree with the fact I use processed protein powder but it works for me.

Breakfast, either whole grain oats (22g) cooked with unsweetened almond milk, chia seeds and flaxseeds to bulk it out, with cacao (healthy chocolate, it’s in Tesco) with some strawberries.
Or
Two/three eggs scrambled with some bacon
Or
Protein shake made with frozen courgette pieces added (makes it creamy and cold, extra portion of veg)
Or
Heck chicken sausages and an egg on a slice of wholemeal bread

Lunches I’m mostly still full from breakfast so I have a picky plate of chopped veg sticks, cherry tomatoes, cheese (babybell lights are handy), pickled onions, occasionally I’ll have a wholemeal wrap with salad, or a chicken salad. Baked sweet potato is good too. Sometimes I get sliced cooked chicken, cover it in chopped Tom/purée and some cheese and grill it so it’s like a pizza slice.

For tea I have things like -
Lasagne (but a small portion and lots of veg, see photo, I make the cheese sauce using cream cheese and melted cheese so no flour)
Pasta bake using whole wheat pasta and a homemade 6-veg sauce, again half my plate is green veg.
Pitta pizzas with Broccoli and sweet potato fries cooked in the air fryer
Chicken and egg-fried cauliflower rice
Omelettes with veg and air fried chips
Home made burgers with shredded veg in it, I have them bunless again with air fryer sweet potato fries and green veg
Fajitas - I sometimes have one wholemeal wrap and then eat the rest of the fajita chicken with salad on the side
Sausage and mash - I use chipolaras or chicken sausages with mash, peas and gravy

If I get hungry and want a snack I’ll have something high protein like cooked chicken, a Kvarg yoghurt or sometimes a protein bar (the Fulfil salted caramel one tastes like an actual treat). At night you could swap your magnums to low cal icecrenas - aldi have some that are 70 cal salted caramel ones which are soooo nice, really creamy like magnums and not too much sugar.

If you eat a protein full breakfast you won’t crave snacks before lunch.

These are the aldi ice creams

Oh I also try and average 10k step a day and do three home workouts a week, but I have a bar of choc at the weekends (the £1 size)

Try a more filling breakfast, like porridge, and don't snack between b-fast and lunch.

Then dessert can be plain yoghurt and fruit instead of ice cream.

When you crave a treat, brush your teeth!

Skip breakfast, try 18:6 fasting. It's easy.

Wow thank you all for the advice. Apologies work has been hectic this week so just catching up.

I do think WFH has impacted a lot. I used to walk to work four days a week which was 5 miles a day in total. I also did a boot camp twice a week which is currently suspended.

But I evidently eat too much sugar and carbs from all your comments. This week I have cut the after dinner treat and switched to a plant based lunch (I made a vat of spicy aubergine and bean stew on Sunday and split into 5 portions). No biscuits with my coffee and having carrot sticks as a snack. Easy changes and fine so far!

Portion size is a battle as my teens / DH make dinner and pile it on the plate...I mentioned today I was perimenopausal and they needed to cut my portion size. Cue lots of blushing and awkwardness 😂

If you have put on 10kg since March due to becoming more sedentary. Surely the obvious answer to get moving a bit.

Fixing your nutrition will do nothing for your cardiovascular health.

Nutrition plan has a lot of junk in all honesty. Swap the biscuits for seeds or nuts and cut out the magnum and glass of wine.

Im new to this weightloss.But the thing i have noticed is portion size.And how much i was actually eating.

I bought a portion plate and it really opened my eyes to how much i was decieving myself.

I knocked takeaways and alcohol on the head.Cause if i drink i eat crap.

I have to say apart from 1 time im not missing the crisps,chocolate or wine.