Don't know where to start! Help!

[ChocolateChipMuffin2016]

I need to lose some weight, probably around 4 stone, though I haven't weighed myself in a while! I want to lose weight, more than anything so I have more energy, get fitter, healthier, also hoping it will help me sleep, so it's not simply to get thinner (though that would be nice too!).

The problem is I just don't know where to start!! I know my diet is all wrong, but I love food and I have read so much conflicting information over time I just don't know which way is up!

I did Slimming world years ago, which I liked (some unlimited foods, so something always available if I get to the end of the day still hungry), but obviously didn't keep the weight off. I looked at weight watchers (I did that as a teenager) but doesn't really give you much info and seems quite expensive after the initial free period. I tried calorie counting for a really short period but found it time consuming, weighing and looking up everything.

A bit of background, I work full time hours over a compressed week (4 days). I have 2 kids, primary and pre-school aged. So time poor and although we try to cook from scratch the majority of the time we also look for convenience/quick meals. I'm not great at meal prep, though I'm pretty organised, so could try and make a new habit to do this.

Can anyone offer any advice as to where to start? Even if it's a book or website, diet plan etc? Anything that can tell me the sort of things I should be eating and should be avoiding!!

Ultimately you can eat whatever you like but 100g of dairy milk is 534 calories whereas 100g of carrots is only 45 calories.

My Fitness Pal has been life changing for me. Yes it initially starts off time consuming weighing and logging food but, once you have your usual food is all logged, then it’s just a click of a button to log calories and keep track. Without logging I had no clue of the calorific value of the food and drink I was consuming. I used to moan I was gaining weight and couldn’t understand how when I ate small portions. Obviously those small portions were of calorific food. I have now dropped down to a size 10 from a size 16 thanks to calorie counting. I still eat cake and chocolate if I want it, but I adjust what I eat later in the day to compensate for it.

Last night my very filling dinner was only 266 calories. I still had a big slice of chocolate and banana cake at lunch for 154 calories.

Calorie counting definitely sounds like it would be the way to go for you with your busy lifestyle, but keep it simple.

I occasionally make meals from scratch but find the weighing and measuring a bit annoying when I'm hungry so lunch is often just a pasta ready meal, the calories are written on the pack (usually around 445cals), no weighing required and having pasta makes me feel like I'm not restricting myself 😅
Infact for dinner this evening I had half a big bbq chicken pizza (a favourite of mine), the box had the calories for half a pizza on it (623) so again no calculations to do. Having something like pizza really disguises the fact I'm dieting and it's so quick to throw in the oven 😁
Normally I would eat a little healthier for my dinner meal and would have a chocolate or crisps snack at night to bring me up to my 1200calories but since I didn't really have much veg today (only peppers and onion on the pizza) I used my last few calories on a couple of Satsumas, not that I really needed them after eating pasta And pizza today I'm pretty full up.
I've lost 12lb since the first of January eating this way. It is far from the first time I've tried to diet but I found myself binging any other time and giving up after a week or two if I tried to over complicate it with spending ages cooking the healthiest possible meals from scratch 😅

I'm probably not the best example of how to eat/diet considering how much weight I have to loose but so far it's working 😁

Do you know where the extra calories are creeping in, is it from example snacks or from those convenience foods? I find logging calories in my fitness pal helpful for this, I often don't weight just guess e.g. if I have a second that's about average sized I find what seems like an average sized scone in their database and use that as a best guess. If all you are doing is trying to work out where the extra calories are coming in from, best guesses will do.

The Pinch of Nom website has lots of healthy recipes on it that include lots of family friendly meals. They have a section on quick meals. (I use various other recipe sites as well, but I think the Pinch of Nom one is best at flagging quick meals.) There's also a lady called the Batch Lady who has lots of ideas about how to create lots of home made freezer meals in advance for as little effort as possible that might work for you.

I alsi found the book 'why we eat too much' really good for helping me work through why it's so hard to keep the weight off and what long term changes I needed to make.

I calorie count and use my fitness pal but as you’ve said you find it too time consuming I’d simply alter your diet.

www.asweetpeachef.com/weight-loss-hacks/

Thanks everyone, lots of good ideas, I did think Calorie counting is probably the way to go, I think I'll just do a mix of what @Annonnn suggested about calories on food and just sucking it up (logging food) for now and hoping it gets easier as I build a bank of common foods.
@CrabbyCat I'm guessing it's probably snacking, which is something I am terrible with at work! I'm generally ok at home, mostly because I know if I eat something the kids will want something and I want them to have better habits. But at work I'll eat chocolate and buy crap for lunch! Also our portions are definitely too big.
Thanks for all your help!

I was wondering the same thing and I downloaded the nutracheck app earlier to get me started you get a free trial and then it's £23 for the year which is much better value than ww or sw

I have a young son as well so was worried that tracking calories would be too consuming but the list of foods on there database is based solely on UK food I found it quite easy to add all my meals today and I managed to link up my Fitbit

I always think starting is the hardest part but hopefully I can start making the changes I need and see some results

I've been getting HelloFresh meals delivered and they have been easy to find

Best of luck