I had no idea how many calories are in....

[lightand]

Glass of Ribena - 107 calories

I thick slice of brown bread and butter - 100

Even just 2fl of mead wine - 90

On the plus side
Cup of tea - 1

1 strawberry - 4

No wonder I have been struggling for months to lose up to 1 stone in weight.
I had decided today to start writing down everything I eat and drink.
It has already become a lot less of a mystery as to where the calories have been hiding themselves!
More strawberries and cups of tea for me, by the looks of things.

@Lougle. Yes, thanks.
I wouldnt go down the fad route.

Interesting what you said in your last post about same calories, but body takes longer to process some foods than others, so feel fuller for longer, with some foods rather than others.

Years ago I was trained to deliver a parenting programme about healthy eating. One session was about sugar in drinks. I was feeling smug as I don't drink fizzy drinks, just Ribena and squash. Ribena was as bad as Coke! I was quite taken aback. Since then I've had children and one likes squash but the poor kid thinks it is a treat food as I only ever serve it when we have guests or a heatwave!

If you enjoy a bit of food science, try why do we eat too much by Dr Andrew Jenkinson. There's a thread going by some of us trying to implement his ideas. And although it does involve reducing certain types of food, it doesn't involve being hungry, and the weight just falls off.

@lightand it's fascinating when you stop and consider what you're doing. I used to have at least 300g yoghurt, but then I realised that I was satisfied after 100g and the extra 200g was just eating for the sake of eating.

[quote Lougle]@lightand it's fascinating when you stop and consider what you're doing. I used to have at least 300g yoghurt, but then I realised that I was satisfied after 100g and the extra 200g was just eating for the sake of eating.[/quote]
Eating for the sake of eating basically was my whole adult life. I think so much of the western world is the same now.

Now I skip breakfast (never needed it as a teen, and don't miss it at all) and have stopped snacking. Just have lunch and dinner.

it's incredible the weight difference and how much better I feel.

Last year DH and I were having chocolate/cake/cookies and tea every night once DC were in bed.

Plus I'd have something awful with my coffee in the morning, maybe a pain au chocolate or belvita or something. Then of course be hungry an hour later.

Biscuit or soemthing with a tea later on in the morning (and who eats just one biscuit)

A snack with DC when they got in from school.

Then a crappy dinner.

And then the sugar once they were in bed.

I know I've gotten strict with my carbs and sugar (my blood glucose was the top end of pre-diabetic) but I do wonder even without restricting them too how much weight I'd have lost this year just eating lunch and dinner daily.

We live in a world where we can eat whatever we want whenever we want. And lockdowns 1&2 somehow seemed to make me feel that was justified.

Sausages
Cheese
Pork pies
The dieter nemeses! Delicious, but holy crap the calories...

@ADragonCalledKeith

Sausages Cheese Pork pies The dieter nemeses! Delicious, but holy crap the calories...

I have cheese daily, and sausages (high meat content, good quality) daily and have lost nearly 3 and a half stone since Christmas. :)

Sugar and carbs are the real nemeses.

Oh sorry - I don't have sausages daily - maybe weekly. But cheese pretty much daily. My lunch today contains both provolone and mozzarella.

@BagLadyy

Oh sorry - I don't have sausages daily - maybe weekly. But cheese pretty much daily. My lunch today contains both provolone and mozzarella.

Pretty much anything can be incorporated into a weight loss diet, as long as you are aware of the calories.

These foods are delicious but pack a lot more calories than expected. I was certainly surprised in my early dieting days to find that 2 sausages could be 400 calories! Wtf?!

@ADragonCalledKeith

Calories are a red herring. Sure, you need to be in a deficit to lose weight, but if your insulin is high then your body won't burn fat as efficiently.

If you avoid sugar and give your body time to burn fat (fasting) then you will reduce your insulin levels and your body will burn the stored fat.

Your body can only either be storing fat or burning it. And insulin is like a lock on your fat cells.

Low sugar/carb like cheese/meat/leafy green veg etc does not raise insulin.

@lightand have you got a food scales? I find them very helpful.

weigh your slice of bread.
Zero the scales with the butter on, and remove what you use to spread your bread. That's the easiest for me, with small amounts.

Google calories in x grams of whole meal bread, x grams of butter.

It comes up like this: (80g)

Malteaser truffles are 102kcal per one!! This blew my mind, I could easily eat 10 on the trot.

[quote picklemewalnuts]@lightand have you got a food scales? I find them very helpful.

weigh your slice of bread.
Zero the scales with the butter on, and remove what you use to spread your bread. That's the easiest for me, with small amounts.

Google calories in x grams of whole meal bread, x grams of butter.[/quote]
This with bells on. Your slice of bread could be far thicker/heavier than say, a store bought loaf.

You are WAY out for your bread and butter. It’s closer to double. Trust me. My Fitness Pal, weigh EVERYTHING.

Used to make a healthy breakfast smoothie - banana, oats, flax, avocado, honey and almond milk. It was about 600 calories per glass an id have 2! No wonder I wasn’t losing weight

MFP is a ball ache to add everything to in the beginning, but my god it’s an eye opener.

[quote picklemewalnuts]@lightand have you got a food scales? I find them very helpful.

weigh your slice of bread.
Zero the scales with the butter on, and remove what you use to spread your bread. That's the easiest for me, with small amounts.

Google calories in x grams of whole meal bread, x grams of butter.[/quote]
Have just been having a look at them!
I have put one into my "basket".

I have started weighing everything, and decided I needed one which weighs up to 450g.

I am measuring liquids too.
This morning I went for my orange juice[have it some days and not others], and thought " I dont need to weigh that, orange juice does not have that many calories"!
Then realised I actually dont really know, I have been just assuming I know. So measured it, and it added up to 40cal.

Agree with weighing everything, estimating is your undoing

Even weigh your butter and oils, track every single thing

This is so interesting x

Home made bread tends to be denser than mass produced, so it weighs more and has more calories. And it's hard to cut it as thin as machine slicing. The best thing to do is weigh it.

I will weigh it at some point.
Yes, I dont generally cut it. I leave it to my husband, as I cut wonky!

To those of you who warned about oils. Thank you.
I make a pasta recipe with caramelised onions[well onion with olive oil and caster sugar.], and some veg and tuna.
My 1 portion of caramelised onions - onions [yet to look up]
caster sugar[which ironically I cut down on as thought it was wise to do that] - 10 cals!
olive oil [1 tablespoon] - 135 cals!!
So the olive oil alone, has more calories than the actual pasta[100 cals]

Onions are only about 40 Cal/100g

I've been miffed this week to realise that the Muller Custard Rice isn't roughly 111 calories as MyFitness Pal was telling me, but more like 185 per pot. They've got the per 100g reading instead of per pot.

Probably doesn't happen much, but that can make a difference. Also, it's another bugbear of mine. Just tell me clearly how many calories are in the whole thing, not per 100g. It feels like such a con.

Sorry if this annoyance is repeated elsewhere, I haven't read the whole thing yet.

So the olive oil alone, has more calories than the actual pasta[100 cals] shock

This doesn’t sound right at all. Not the Olive Oil part, that’s right, but the pasta part. Are you only having 28g of pasta? That’s how much on average you get for 100 cals. That’s seems very low. 75g is a “normal” sized portion of pasta (dried weight always). 28g would be about 10 pieces of small fusilli or penne.

@NameChangedForThisFeb21

So the olive oil alone, has more calories than the actual pasta[100 cals] shock

This doesn’t sound right at all. Not the Olive Oil part, that’s right, but the pasta part. Are you only having 28g of pasta? That’s how much on average you get for 100 cals. That’s seems very low. 75g is a “normal” sized portion of pasta (dried weight always). 28g would be about 10 pieces of small fusilli or penne.

I agree. 75g uncooked pasta is equivalent to 170g cooked and is 300 cals. So 100 calories would be about 25g uncooked pasta (55g cooked).