Please help me lose 10 kgs by end of spring/early summer?

[Onatree]

Not sure if this will get seen but can someone please help me shift the last 10 kilos I want to shift ever since baby 2 born at start of COVID?

The key hindrances as I see it -

1. Full-on FT work for both me and spouse + 1 in nursery + 1 in infant school = permanent exhaustion from just keeping things running. Needless to say cycle of isolations/closures alongside work has only helped exhaustion rise and rise.

1. This leads to hindrance 2: comfort eating. I’m an adventurous and great cook. I look at ingredients hanging around and whizz up all sorts. I have a packed larder. We are foodies. Rice, potatoes and exotic curries bring us too much comfort in the evenings. The mental exhaustion means that post dinner nibbles “feel” good.

This means we just can’t do much about the weight. Personally the appetite/hunger/fancying of salty-carby stuff is too high. And the energy levels to fix up large salads is too low.

I’ve tried low carb for a few weeks. Nothing much occured. Also super hard to sustain as the thought of “I cannot be allowed to eat rice or potatoes” made me so miserable.

I have the distinct feeling that saying “I cannot must not ever have X food group” makes me then crave X food group to a degree of resentment.

But most importantly it is how tired we are after battling a screaming DD at bedtime for an hour, working all day, dealing with DS homework and activities - and believe me - after they’ve gone to bed - the “feeling” of sitting down to a lovely home cooked comfort dinner is so good.

And there lies the problem. I am absolutely confident that the 1) calories in and 2) volume of carbs in is what is resulting in this.

I just don’t know where to start. I’ve read the books about “why we eat”, and tried the virtual apps and I have a clear understanding that this is occurring emotionally.

But I just don’t know what to do next that won’t let me feel ravenously hungry, won’t need me to plan to eat separate meals to my family and won’t cause this resentment of “I must never be allowed to eat X”.

It’s just 10 kgs I need to lose. Any advice anyone?

Accept that to lose weight you need to feel hungry at times. Weight loss plans are simply ways of managing the hunger.
Personally I find it easiest to skip breakfast and push lunch back so do a 8:16 type of thing.
Not drinking is helpful too.

Weigh out your carbs before cooking them so you know you're cooking a portion per person, and stick to it.
It's easy to say, I'm eating low carb so why am I not losing weight, but the simple fact is, you are eating too much. Just eating less carbs and then eating more of something else isn't going to work.
Maybe try the My Fitness Pal app to log what you are eating and then you can see where your calorie intake is and where you can make changes. It is time consuming at first, so do it when you know you have some less busy days.
You don't need to cut anything out in order to lose weight, just everything in moderation.
The Pinch of Nom recipe books are good. Meals can be adapted so they feed the whole family but you just have less. You are going to have to start weighing your food though, it's the only way to learn portion size.

Working out what calories I need based on my BMR and sticking to it worked for me (lost 8kg in a similar timeframe) combined with walking every lunch hour. Plenty of veg and fruit, white meat, fish. Very little processed food. High fibre and protein suits me.

I also find not being of a mindset that it's going to be difficult helps (so Im talking myself out of progress before its made), and also not actually buying nibbles/snacks eg crisps and choc so they're not around to tempt me because therwise I'll eat a whole sharing bag of anything myself in one go 😳

Personally I hate following any diets especially the ones that force you to limit or remover certain foods and life gets in my way of the fasting ones.

I therefore look to eat what I want but less of it. My DH eats from a massive plate whereas I use a smaller one and just put less of it on the plate when I need to lose weight. If you can't stop cooking large portions then look to freeze some of them.

I did fast 800 for the recommended 12 weeks and I lost 21lbs. I can tell myself I can't have something if its just for a few weeks.
I have no idea how much 10kgs is.

@Unescorted

Accept that to lose weight you need to feel hungry at times. Weight loss plans are simply ways of managing the hunger. Personally I find it easiest to skip breakfast and push lunch back so do a 8:16 type of thing. Not drinking is helpful too.

Totally forgot to say - I haven’t had breakfast in years or rather don’t get hungry till 1 pm. It’s between 1-10 pm that the problems occur :/

@delilahbucket

Weigh out your carbs before cooking them so you know you're cooking a portion per person, and stick to it. It's easy to say, I'm eating low carb so why am I not losing weight, but the simple fact is, you are eating too much. Just eating less carbs and then eating more of something else isn't going to work. Maybe try the My Fitness Pal app to log what you are eating and then you can see where your calorie intake is and where you can make changes. It is time consuming at first, so do it when you know you have some less busy days. You don't need to cut anything out in order to lose weight, just everything in moderation. The Pinch of Nom recipe books are good. Meals can be adapted so they feed the whole family but you just have less. You are going to have to start weighing your food though, it's the only way to learn portion size.

So the only thing I have never tried is using devices to portion control. For example - weighing scales, or portion cups and plates.

I will be super happy to give that a go if it avoids me feeling resentment at not being able to ever eat X or Y. Are there particular portion plates or cups or scales or all of these you’d recommend? I will buy some today if need be!

Have you considered doing 16/8 where you eat during an 8 hour window? Works wonders for me. I lost weight and kept it off for years. I still do it for the health benefits and because it makes me feel good. You can pick any 8 hours to eat. I do 10am to 6pm but you could do 12noon to 8pm or whatever. I used to snack at night but having this firm rule of no food or calorific drinks after 6pm (or whatever time you choose) has helped me. It's a psychological thing - I need things to be black or white. Before I could justify late night snacking "oh my dinner was fairly light" etc but now I know I just don't eat after 6pm and that's that.

So I don’t drink at home. I also hate sweets. My downfall is carby savoury food. I could demolish a pile of chips with a salty garlicky dip at any time. Sweets chocolates etc are never the problem and are never at home.

It’s just the amount I think of delicious home cooked curries rice and potatoes.

:/

It sounds as though it is all in portion control and listening to your body and acknowledging it is full.

I see you don't eat breakfast so 16/8 would be easy for you. Start eating at your normal time. Stop eating at 7pm or 8pm. Eat sensibly and the weight will falll off.

There’s also a sinking feeling that I can’t do it. I come from a cultural context where obesity is a norm and the entire delicious local diet is based on no portion control at all, and endless eating of yummy delicious food that I unfortunately know how to cook to a restaurant standard. Sure my versions don’t involve litres of oil but if the sheer amounts have gone out of hand then….

I am seriously thinking portion plates cups scales might help just to re orient myself. I am mid 30s now and losing these 20 lbs isn’t going to get easier as I get older.

I'm the same op.
But the no energy to make big salads is just an excuse as you still have the energy to make exotic curries.
Smaller portions with some portioned straight up to reheat tomorrow ? (Will help with exhaustion)
Brush teeth after eating to prevent snacking
You need to feel ok with being hungry sometimes

So perhaps I could try

Finding out what portions I need (how do I find out?)
Getting some kitchen scales
Perhaps getting those Portion plates
Portion cups/containers
Keeping a toothbrush and paste in the downstairs loo off the utility room so can brush teeth straight after dinner without excuse of “don’t want to traipse upstairs now/wake kids”

Personally I’d use my fitness pal to calculate the calories in an average curry that you make and decide on a portion size from that. Then you don’t have to calculate every meal but you’ll always know roughly what an appropriate amount is.

Curry doesn’t have to be too bank blowing either - I make some lovely tomato based ones, lots of veg/lentils/lean chicken. Move away from coconut milk if that’s what you’re doing.

You sound like me. Foodie, comfort eater, busy. I also need to loose about 15kg after baby no 2 who came along at the start of the pandemic. I lost 10kg after baby no 1 (I've just been a lot less active this time round - thanks pandemic).

The first thing you need to get your head round is the tiredness. You need some strategy in place to allow you to make the change you need while being tired. This is the worst bit for me.

Meal planning and low fat worked for me. I joined slimming world as I was clueless but found I could adapt the principles and then ignored a lot of the recipes (quark is an offence against humanity as far as I'm concerned). Loads of my regular meals could be adapted and nothing was totally 'off the table'. I used the syn system to limit my snacks to an acceptable level and work out how much of what I really fancied I could have and still lose weight. Obviously I did have to make changes so it wasn't easy but it did work.

But the most important thing was meal planning once a week (it literally took me hours at first) and the weigh in. Apparently I am the type that doesn't like to 'fail' in public, so it kept me on track in a way doing it on my own wouldn't. A bit annoying as by the end I was literally ignoring most of the advice and paying for a weigh in, but my weight did stay down till baby 2 came along.

Yeah I wouldn’t focus on ‘portion cups or plates’ - I don’t even know what you mean by that, but if you look on the side of a packet of rice, for example, it will tell you a recommended portion, so yes a pair of kitchen scales will help you. I think it’s usually recommended to just fill your plate with 1/4 protein, 1/4 carbs and 2/4 vegetables. Or a fist size of each. Logging everything on an app like My Fitness Pal will help a lot, as long as you log absolutely everything. It might be that you’re using a lot of salt, for example. When I log a roast dinner, I make sure I include the gravy, because drowning the plate in it can add a lot of calories. Also, just trying to fill the plate sensibly rather than piling it up.

Going the opposite route from portion control, a simple initial option would be upping the veg content in everything. So, bulk up those curries with cauliflower/broccoli/red peppers and the like. Speaking as somebody with similar issues and this is what I'm trying to do for now.

I would really recommend my fitness pal which I can see that others have also recommended. Using this will just give you the knowledge about where most of your calories are going.

You can then work out how to just take small changes that might make a difference. Even if you are not ready to make big changes knowledge is power and for me knowing that if I make a few small substitutions or reduce the quantities of one or two things actually it makes a difference.

However you have to track accurately! That's weighing everything you eat because otherwise you will underestimate! Good luck.

Literally a bog standard set of kitchen scales is all you need. My Fitness Pal allows you to put your recipe ingredients in as a whole and then portion it out, so if it says to serve 4, you serve yourself first and a quarter (it isn't an exact science but always worked for me). I haven't used a smaller plate, but planning meals in advance helps, with lots of protein and veg and less carbs, not none at all.
I'm a terrible evening snacker, so I buy baked crisps or lightly sweetened/salted popcorn and just have one small packet, or if I'm having something from a larger portion, for example a chocolate bar, I will serve up my portion into a bowl and leave the kitchen, not take the whole bar to the sofa .
It does require discipline, but you don't have to be miserable or deny foods. Otherwise you go straight back to it and put weight back on.

Don't eat after 6 pm. A skimmed milk drink before bed helps with hunger. No alcohol, just empty calories.

Look up the Precision Nutrition portion guides. You use your hand to work out portions. My local dieticians are now advocating this. I also eat well, I've now had to do portion control. I also weigh things like porridge.

Spent a while today looking up portion sizes and my jaw is on the floor.

Particularly - the difference between what is an actual portion of rice/pasta as per the calorific needs of an adult woman - versus - the portion we dish up.

That’s what has worked for me in the past - 60g pasta or rice and more veg and stuff in the curry to bulk it up. You do get used to it but you need to also get used to not being full/stuffed after dinner!

I don’t mean still hungry after dinner but I usually feel like I could eat more (but don’t).