Tell me foods that helped, made a difference!

[gerbilfur]

Hello!

I started lockdown weighing 11st which was already about a stone overweight for my height. I'm now 12st 3!!!

I have decided to take my head out of the sand and start addressing it.

I am counting calories on my fitness pal , 1200 a day, but I'm really struggling to find nice yet healthy things to eat.

For context, I have a really sweet tooth (it's a problem!!) and I tend to struggle with feeling hungry at bed time when I'm on 1200 calories a day.

Please hit me with any foods or recipes you had when losing weight that you really felt helped. I seem to live on ham, egg whites and alpen bars when I'm losing weight and I'm bored and hungry!

Thank you!

No wonder you feel hungry! I just eat normally but focus on portion sizes / overall cals so I don’t get hungry or feel bored & miserable. I found that too low to sustain so focused on around 1,300-1,400 cals. and didn’t log any exercise on MFP otherwise it gives you exercise calories back which resulted in a stall in weight loss or even a gain! (Over 2.5 stone lost & maintained)

Work out your tdee here, which is your maintenance cals, then reduce by 15-20% to find your weight loss target. You may be able to up your amount so you don’t get bored and go off the rails.
tdeecalculator.net/

I have Greek yogurt with nuts/seeds for breakfast

Homemade oat flapjack made with mashed bananas, oats, choc chips for snack

Lunch is a small sandwich or salad. Sometimes with a packet of crisps or if I fancy something sweet I will have a freddo

Dinner of lean protein with a baked sweet pot or 100g baked jacket (no butter) with lots of veg or lean Bol/curry filled with veg but served with baked sweet pot instead of pasta/rice. I always have a Kvarg protein yogurt for pudding.

Proper corn salted popcorn from a multi pack is only 44 cals so I always have those in in case I want a savoury snack.

3 egg omelette for breakfast.

Pot of soup for lunch.

600 calorie dinner.

Lots of tofu

Protein is key to staying full! I’m really short so have a low TDEE so tend to eat 1000cal a day and I’m rarely hungry. I think it’s 0.75g of protein per kg of body weight (Someone feel free to correct me if I’m wrong). I eat veggie but no pulses so getting enough protein can be hard. Also intermittent fast so only eat between 12-7

Cauliflower rice is great with any saucy dishes and the Tesco frozen bags are 33cal each. Ryvita with marmite reminds me of toast with marmite and it much lower in cal. I’ve recently found eatlean protein cheese in Tesco (30cal for 20g off the soft cheese and it’s so nice). I eat 2 eggs most days, babybels are good and hummus works it way in a lot. No snacks, one of fruit a day. I eat a lot of soup but add spoonful of nutritional yeast adds some extra protein.

I also have a sweet tooth but no self control so avoid most sweet stuff. Alpen bars always leave me more hungry than beforehand. Fibre one bars are nice but small and Ben and Jerry’s moophoria ice cream is amazing for the occasional sweet treat. I also like to slice a line down a bananna (Keep the skin on), add a few chocolate buttons and wrap in tinfoil and put in the oven to melt the chocolate.

The trick is veggies. You can have a big plate of veggies for relatively low calories. They fill you up but also give you time to process being full.

Thank you everyone this is all great stuff. I am not very good with vegetables, I like salad stuff and carrot, parsnips. I love stir-fry veg. But I'm really bad with things like cauliflower, cabbage, mushrooms etc. Need to work on that!

I will get some Greek yogurt that's a really good idea. Just trial and error I guess! I do like my drink too but I know it won't help a bit so I'm drinking sodawater with a bit of lime cordial instead.

I really hope I can do this as I have noticed my health suffering - nothing major just lethargy, feeling down. I used to love wearing pretty dresses, now it's joggers and a baggy t shirt. I think I've just lost myself a bit!

I'll probably get slated for this as it is not really healthy but I bought skinny sprinkles on amazon and they help fill me up.