I am so overweight and I just don’t know where to start - please help!

[londonlif321]

I have about 4.5 - 5 stone to lose and I just don’t know where to start. I am so unhappy with the way I look - none of my clothes look nice anymore or fit, I feel sluggish, and I am so unhealthy. I want to date to try and meet a man but I am holding myself back because of how I look.

I feel so overwhelmed with where to begin though. My diet is so bad. Does anyone have any general good tips / motivation on how to start etc?

Thanks in advance. Not looking for any pity but more a bit of advice.

Hi, sorry you are struggling. Apparently a very good place to start is to write down everything you eat. It increases mindfulness and can help you pinpoint where improvements can be made.

Can I recommend the book 'Why we eat (too much)' by Andrew Jenkinson? I found it a real help, and have lost 4 stone since January 2021 following the principles in the book. Even if the way of eating isn't for you, the book is very helpful in explaining why some people gain weight more easily than others, and struggle to lose it.

There's a long-running thread on here for people following this way of eating.

Jenkinson thread which includes an overview of what you eat:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/weight_loss_chat/4452191-Why-We-Eat-Too-Much-Thread-5

I could have written this. I am holding myself back in so many areas because of my weight. Won’t go swimming, on holiday, go out in the evening because I have nothing to wear, won’t date at this weight. Life is passing me by and I know what I need to do but don’t want to.

I know how much better I felt a few stone lighter. I was more confident and had more energy. Following for advice about how to actually start again because healthy eating just isn’t happening.

If you can get an understanding of why you eat what you eat then that might help - links above are really helpful.

Op, you need to start by cutting back. It’s that hard and that simple.

Can you put an average days food and drink in and people can advise?

I was in your shoes last April. It was a health issue, possibly made worse by my weight but we'll never know for sure, that gave me the kick into action I needed. So whilst I wouldn't recommend that particular motivation for anyone else, it's been a blessing for me.

I started slowly. Just moving a bit more, longer walks and actually using the WW membership I had been paying for for months but had forgotten about . Keeping track of what I ate helped me stay focused and make better choices. (Disclaimer: better choices doesn't mean no fun. I still eat treats but more mindfully - I had burger and chips for lunch with a friend, and I don't feel guilty.)

Personally, I became obsessive about scales. This is really bad when it comes to the bathroom scales - once a week, max, and out of sight for the other days. But kitchen scales are essential. Understanding portion sizes and resetting my thinking around this, especially where carbs are concerned, has been a massive eye opener for me.

This might sound all very obvious and simple, but it's all I've done and it's worked. I'm now a few lbs off a 5 stone loss - 1 stone to go for a healthy BMI but I'm back in the same size jeans I was wearing at 18 which felt totally unachievable this time last year. If I can do it, I'm sure you can too.

But it's not just about the weight loss. I feel better in myself, I look better and feel more confident. Resetting my relationship with food from comfort and boredom to fuel and enjoyment has been really powerful thing too.

@Rosebuud

Op, you need to start by cutting back. It’s that hard and that simple.

Can you put an average days food and drink in and people can advise?

Breakfast: chocolate croissant with a Costa express latte.

Snacks: maybe a biscuit / chocolate bar.

Lunch: varies - I get hot lunch where I work so maybe chicken and rice, stew and rice, hot dog and wedges etc

Dinner: pasta with garlic bread. Pizza with a load of dips and mayonnaise. Or a take away: mainly wagamama or Nando’s. That’s literally all I eat 😳

Dessert: Cadbury’s chocolate yoghurt. Half a bag of Cadbury sharing bag chocolates e.g giant buttons, or half of a big bar of chocolate. I know that this where I probably massively go wrong.

It’s like I’ve got an obsession with having to have chocolate after my dinner.

Drinks: Diet Coke cans, maybe on average two per day. Maybe one cup of squash. And that is it. No water.

I think the best way to start is to fill your plate up with veg, lean meats and a plain jacket potato. Up your intake of fruit, eat as snacks in between meals. Don't get bombarded with complicated diets. Try to eat natural foods. Cut out as much bread as you can, or limit yourself to 2 slices. Don't replace your foods with diet crap. Buy a cookbook aimed at healthy eating. Take it one day at time. Each time you lose weight (7lbs?)treat yourself to a new lipstick, nail polish or book. Whatever will motivate you.

Also, is it psychological? Are you staying as you are because your scared to meet someone? Is it your excuse? I'm not mean, maybe dig about inside yourself to find the root of the problem!

It looks like you’re having two main meals a day. An easy swap would be to make one of them smaller. If you get a free lunch and don’t want to give that up, it could be dinner. Switch to having soup instead.

My instinct would be to ditch the canteen lunch and take something healthy that you’re in control of, like soup or some sort of substantial salad.

Do you cook at all? Fake away version of wagamama are brilliant and can be much healthier. They do cook books.

The first thing that sticks out is that there's an awful lot of processed/refined food in your diet.

Apart from the chicken/stew and rice, everything you've listed there is processed, and all the chocolate will mean a massive sugar intake.

The Diet Coke might seem a healthy choice, but you're ingesting rubbish chemicals and the artificial sweetener will encourage you to crave more sweet foods.

You need to start thinking how you can cook more foods from scratch. Ditch the pizzas and takeaways other than as a very occasional option. Stop eating chocolate every day - or if you must have a fix, limit this to a couple of squares of high quality dark chocolate.

Increase your fruit and vegetable intake - look at snacking on fruit instead of chocolate. If you reduce your sugar intake you will soon find fruit tastes much sweeter and satisfies the after-dinner craving for something sweet.

Drink more water. Replace lattes with ordinary coffee.

It sounds as though the issue is not the quantity you eat (unless your portions are enornous) but the fact you're eating all the wrong things.

You need to cut carbs. To lose fat you have to drop the insulin levels in your blood because insulin stores fat. While you have high insulin you cannot metabolically access your fat stores. No carbs and you use up muscle glucose then liver glucose and then stored fat. It's not a comfortable process but that is the only way to do it. The longer you go low to zero carb, the ore fat you use.

Watch Dr. Paul Mason. Low carb from a doctors point of view. He explains it very well.

Ok, that’s a lot of food. And not healthy either.

First off stop with the breakfast chocolate croissant, do you like porridge? Eggs? Something with protein will fill you up.

Then cut all your crap snacks out, move to fruit, an apple, pear or orange, or a yoghurt.

For your meals. Stop with the takeaways. Have one proper meal a day. If that’s lunch then in the evening you don’t need a big takeaway as well.

A light meal in the evening, If you don’t want to cook then a ready meal, weight watchers or something would do it.

You are going to have to make some drastic changes, or you’ll continue to gain. I’m sorry.

Can I suggest that you start with motivation.

So M Mosley's video about intermittent fasting plus so Jason Fung (I listened to the audiobook) and the Why we eat too much.

I find that any change I made in eating is massively helped by listening, watching, reading to get me in the right head space.

It sounds as though the issue is not the quantity you eat (unless your portions are enornous) but the fact you're eating all the wrong things

I was with you till this, it is quantity as well as quality, that’s a massive amount of food.

@Rosebuud

It sounds as though the issue is not the quantity you eat (unless your portions are enornous) but the fact you're eating all the wrong things

I was with you till this, it is quantity as well as quality, that’s a massive amount of food.

It depends on portions, of course, but if all the chocolate/biscuits were replaced with fruit and the evening meal and breakfast were protein-based, I think the OP would have the basis of a healthy diet.

Don't forget the OP has 4 stone to lose - restricting heavily at the outset will do her no favours.

She's better off changing her existing meals and snacks for healthy ones in the first instance. Once OP is in the habit of eating the right foods, she will start to lose weight - then she can look at quantity if her weight-loss stalls.

Looking at what you eat, I'd take a guess that part of the problem is that you're tired. I have a similar problem - I have a day that doesn't go to plan, end up eating chocolate or takeaway as a quick fix and then it becomes a circle of "eating crap = tired = eat crap cos it is easy"

If I was you (and it isn't easy!), I'd stick to a similar plan of breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, tea but try and make them healthier. So could you have scrambled egg for breakfast? Small handful of nuts or piece of fruit for snack? Batch cook soup for evening meal and still have main meal at work. That way its not a huge amount of extra work at first. I find that once I'm eating better, it's much easier to make healthier meals.

Also, what about exercise? I find 30 minutes of simple stretching/resistance band stuff makes me feel better.

The first week of changing things is the hardest I find. I find if I'm giving up chocolate it helps to have interesting fruit in... so mango and pineapple which I allow myself big portions of, to distract myself from the lack of chocolate.
Also recommend couch to 5k which I can see you rolling your eyes at but it starts really gently and it does work. I'm on week 3 and go at dusk when people can't see me!

I’m 67 and I’ve been fat for the last 20 years. I gave up smoking and replaced it with a heavy sugar addiction.

3 months ago I had a Stroke. I was also diagnosed with T2 diabetes, very high blood pressure, high cholesterol and (I’ve just been told) Ischaemic Heart Disease. Full house in fat persons life threatening bad health bingo!

I was (and still am) active. I walk an average of 5 miles a day. My weight was 15st 1lb on the day of the Stroke…had previously been 16st 8lbs at my heaviest.

I gave up sugar and joined an online Calorie counting site. Nothing goes in my mouth unless it’s been weighed and logged….it’s amazing how much you can eat when all your calories aren’t going on sugar!

I’ve lost over 2 stone in 3 months (at age 67!) and am currently 13st 0lbs and hoping to get in the 12s this week.

But mostly OP please don’t end up like me, in hospital with a Stroke and all this other crap to deal with. I always thought it would never happen to me…but here it all is, with me for the rest of my (almost certainly shortened) life.

@AnybodyAnywhere That's an inspiring story, well done on your weight loss!

I hope your life hasn't been shortened but it will undoubtedly be longer, healthier and happier for the changes you have made!

I'd make small changes, they'll soon add up and you're more likely to adopt it as a lifestyle rather than diet or wherever else. Try and get more steps in, drink more water, calculate your bmr and see how many you are actually eating, figure out your trigger points for chocolate etc, meal plan.

Start by logging all the reasons why you want to lose weight - from big ones like health and being around for your kids through to any other benefits. Log it somewhere you can access it quickly and regularly. Read it before meals. Read it before you eat anything. Read it first thing and regularly throughout the day.

See if that helps you make better choices.

Also, your fluid intake seems really low - drink more water

16:8 works really well for me.

It makes eating very black and white. You can vary your hours to suit - I tend to eat 8am to 4pm during the week, and then 10am to 6pm at the weekends.

It cuts out the boredom eating for me, and mindless grazing... so I lose weight well on it.