How do you go about starting a (simple) diet?

[OutOfTrousers]

It all sounds so complicated. But I need to do something. The local sports shop no longer stock trousers in my size. Weight has been creeping up these last few years and I’m over 40.
But all these “cut out that” “eat lots of this” “try fasting” diets. How do you work it when you are feeding the other members of the family at the same time? DH is mostly working from home, the (primary aged) DC eat all their meals at home and we all sit down together to eat together.

Today was a bad food day:
Cup of tea
B: Two croissants
L: tomato mozzarella bap, one large biscuit. Water.
Cup of tea, small bowl of crisps (craving salt!)
D: pasta& pesto, 1 apricot, glass of wine.
2 squares dark choc.
Also a 4.6km hike (550m ascent and then descent) and early start was reason for bakery breakfast and lunch.

Tomorrow we will go swimming and I’ll have
Cup of tea
Bowl of high protein cereal, 1 portion, measured plus milk.
Steak, 1 Med size jacket potato plus a spoon of herbs/sour cream, peppers and aubergine.
Cup of tea or two.
Salad (lettuce, tomato, avocado), one or two slices of brown bread, couple of slices of cheese, yoghurt and a piece of fruit.
Cup of tea.

Any tips on how to incorporate more healthy eating into family life welcome!

Eat less, move more.
It’s not about what you eat, it’s how much. Stay in a caloric deficit and it will shift

It’s all down to portion sizes. It doesn’t really matter what you actually eat (weight wise) as long as you stick to a calorie allowance.

I weight then log everything I consume on My Fitness Pal. It’s been eye opening to see where calories are hidden and I’ve been able to make better choices resulting in 3 stone weight loss.
Some sandwiches can have more calories in than a well portioned roast dinner! If I want a glass of wine I will have less roast potatoes but more veg -it’s a balancing act. For example, I will have lean protein, lots of veg & a small 100g jacket potato for dinner as I’d rather have a tub of kvarg for pudding than a bigger potato.
groceries.asda.com/product/high-in-protein/lindahls-pro-kvarg-lemon-cheesecake/1000211461233
I still eat chocolate & crisps but my lunchtime sandwich is smaller bread & I weigh the cheese or ham or whatever so I don’t eat too many calories. I wish I had understood about calories in my 20’s & 30’s
Work out your tdee here, the amount of calories to maintain current weight, then reduce that total by 20% to get the amount of calories to aim for, recheck TDEE as weight is lost
tdeecalculator.net/

I've lost a lot of weight on slimming world. I'm sure it's not the only way.
What I've learned that's made the difference-

Eat less bread/cereal. Bread/cereal is once a day, at most, and a small serving. Must be whole grain.

Eat less (I know!). I don't eat breakfast anymore, so that's one less meal a day.

Eat protein if you are hungry- hard boiled egg.
Eat fruit for a snack.

Just because someone else is eating treat food, doesn't mean you have to or that it's unfair if you don't.

What prison break said..

Use my fitness pal and log every calorie, including salads and every smudge of ketchup or handg of crisps.
Its worked brilliany for me

I wasn’t able to do any exercise when I was losing weight due to health issues & waiting for an op.
If you move more the weight will drop quicker but don’t log exercise on My Fitness Pal because it gives you extra calories to eat back & can stall weight loss!

I like to ease myself in before starting any kind of rigid eating plan. For the first month I will simply cut out eating between meals, puddings and foods with added sugar. That gets me 'into the zone' so I can move onto a more specific healthy eating plan.

move more.
Not sure I‘ll be able to move tomorrow!

I got confused with My Fitness Pal. If you’re cooking for 4, how do you figure out the dry weight that you’re supposed to put in for your portion?

cut out eating between meals, puddings and foods with added sugar.
I have tried to do this. I go for water or tea between meals. By puddings, do you mean fruit after a meal? I thought you were supposed to eat 5 fruit and veg a day!

I used mfp and still do now I'm where I should be, I count everything and at first it was a pain but for Sunday lunch for example I put my plate in my scales and measure my food then it goes to the table for everyone else to serve.

Agree with the others - calorie deficit is the way to go.

I do SlimmingWorld - it's not perfect and has its critics, however for me it's about going back to basics and eating healthily which does mean a calorie deficit generally and I've lost 5 stone with it. It's not for everyone but it helps to keep me focused.

How much do you need to lose?

It could genuinely be as simple as giving yourself 1/4 smaller portion than you have now and swap some sweet like 1 of the croissants for something lighter and less sugary. Even apple would do tbh.

That way you don't have to count anything. I used calories mainly for portion conyrol because I am a greedy bastard🤦 It really helped me. But if it's too much hassle to count, just take off quarter

9 kg.

I count everything and at first it was a pain but for Sunday lunch for example I put my plate in my scales and measure my food then it goes to the table for everyone else to serve.
Do the DC notice this and comment?

Use my fitness pal and log every calorie, including salads and every smudge of ketchup
How do you do this for a salad? Say prepare a lettuce, tomatoes, whatever, then make the salad dressing. How do you know how many calories are in the part of the salad that ends up on your plate? It won't be the same every night depending on size or type of lettuce or how much of it the DC eat that day.

Yes and I tell them the truth that I'm trying to make sure I have a good ratio of vegetables and a balanced meal, interestingly they now eat more veg 😂

Basically I count the total calories for the meal... So for example last night I made lasagne.
Then I divide that by total portions. So I ate 1/5..of total lasagne.
With things like salad, I give an approximate amount. Mfp often does cup servings, so I reckon one cup of lettuce, half cup of tomatoes etc is about a serving of salad.
With salad dressing like main meals, I calculate the total calories in the jig of dressing then give myself approx 1/8 th or whatever and count 1/8 th of the calories.
It was a fiddle to start with but you can log your own recipes so I now have a bank of stored favourites.
Its amazing when you start counting how even the lower cal foods like salads etc mount up.
It does work though, I had 8kg to lose, set it to lose 1kg a week and infact lost it in 5 weeks.

Oh and I am 53 and very perimenopausal and thought the weight gain and middle and back fat was inevitable.... Its so not!

I recommend Second Nature, especially if you want to learn more about sensible weight loss.. I found it very helpful and no I don't work for them. It's about £10 a week I think. And it helps you to develop good, sensible, sustainable habits.

Its amazing when you start counting how even the lower cal foods like salads etc mount up
I counted (as best as I could) yesterday’s and put in a packaged salad as we ate one the other day. Seems salad is a very likely culprit I’m going to have to calculate our salad dressing I think and reassess.

So for example last night I made lasagne.
Then I divide that by total portions. So I ate 1/5..of total lasagne.
What’s the best way of doing this? Do you make a spreadsheet of recipes with your ingredients and quantities and then enter it as a Own Lasagne in mfp?

Download the Paul McKenna book (might be called Thin). His way is to forget about dieting. There is a really good easy to read book and also an app thing to listen to whilst you go to sleep. The rules are you eat exactly what you fancy, you eat slowly putting your fork down between each mouthful, you ONLY eat when you’re actually hungry (hungry in your tummy not just fancying something) and you stop as soon as you think you might be satisfied (if 10 minutes later you realise you weren’t quite full then you eat some more). That’s it! I lost weight really quickly but then stopped doing it as it’s hard when at work as I have to have breakfast at 6.30 or I’ve missed my chance and have to have lunch at 12 hungry or not really as I’m a teacher so can’t just eat when I feel hungry.

Broke up from school yesterday so back on it today.

For lasagne you can enter each ingredient under my recipes and then select serves 5 (best if its a recipe you always use) or if it is a recipe you've found online you can copy the URL into recipes and it will find ingredients for you.
Alternatively do a search for lasagne, there will be many listed but calories will be different on each, this option might be best while you get your head around logging food.
For pasta weigh the dry portion you are cooking for the family and divide it to give a single portion, or you can scan the barcode of the packet if you have the app (although they have started bombing you with adverts on the app now).
Avocado, nuts and creamy salad dressings can blow your calories up on a salad so be careful with these.

If you cut out ultra processed foods you'll find a huge difference. I've lost half a stone by cutting out crap and doing a 30 minute power walk a day.

Very simply - cut you usual portions down by a half.

Paying attention to nutrition? Add in more fresh non starchy veg and salad. Cut down processed and sugary foods. Reduce starchy foods.

More individually tailored? Get a fitness tracker and track what you eat against the exercise you do to ensure deficit and even track nutritional content to tailor it to specific needs.

I personally find the FitBit app and trackers very good. The app has a huge data base and it is very simple to track what you have eaten. This is also useful to work out the calorie count of home recipes.

www.verywellfit.com/recipe-nutrition-analyzer-4157076

Fasting is the absolute best way to do this without counting calories or eating different food to your family.
Skip breakfast and have a cup of herbal or black tea. Eat an early lunch (11.30-12) - keep it light, hummus and veg, soup, salad and have some fruit with it. Avoid snacking - don't eat crisps, biscuits or chocolate but have more fruit if you feel you need to.
At dinner have the same as your family - a reasonable portion that will fill you up. More fruit after dinner. Don't snack after dinner, turn to herbal teas. It takes a lot of will power to drop the snacks and treats but that's where your extra calories are coming from. Fasting is a good way to eat less.

Don't snack after dinner,
I don't.

I can't eat an early lunch as I have the DC to feed too (holidays at the moment, but when at school, they come home for lunch).
The crisps I had this week are the first I've had since jan went shopping under the influence of period cramps!

What counts as ultra processed foods? We cook mainly from fresh.

What counts as ultra processed foods? We cook mainly from fresh.

Stuff you could make from scratch already made for you. Like ready meals. It is possible to be overweight though even on healthy food if you eat too much of it. I was. I've lost 4 stone over the last 3 years. I cut my portions down by half added in salad / non starch veg to fill the rest of my plate up and started running and going walking regularly. All logged on FitBit to ensure a deficit. Went from over 40 % body fat to 22% body fat.

I'm nearly 50.