Louise Parker Method thread 2. All welcome

[HardRockOwl]

Precious thread is here ... Louise Parker method anyone? I know it's a bit old fashioned now .. http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/weightlosss_chat/4517125-louise-parker-method-anyone-i-know-it-s-a-bit-old-fashioned-now

Just a place to chat about the method, the ups and downs and how it works etc.

I personally have just completed the first 6 week Transform phase and have lost 18 lbs. Not quite 'transformed' yet but on my way

It's hard not to think about food though!

Today was-
B- bircher with fruit
S- cheese and cherries
L- mackerel salad with beetroot and an egg because the mackerel fillet left in the pack was tiny
S- almonds and apple
T- chicken tray bake from lfl cookbook.

Rollerskating for me today- I am now lusting after gold glitter skates.
Off to bed soon.

Hello everyone! First post on this thread. I have spent lots of time reading through and feel like this is definitely a plan I could and want to follow. I have recently lost 24lbs of post baby and lockdown weight by eating ‘cleaner’ and moving more. I’m now 10stone on the nose and looking to loose another 7lbs taking me back to my ‘ happy’ weight. I intend to do the 6 weeks as many times as necessary to get rid of the last pounds then hopefully use LP method to maintain and foster a more long term healthy eating approach.

I have ordered the 6 week book and the cook book which should be here by Saturday however was wondering if anyone could very kindly give me a heads up on storecupboard and fridge staples that I can add to my Friday food delivery shop so I’m poised and ready to get going straight away?! What are the ingredients you tend to need and use?

Thanks in advance!

I always have oatbran, 0% greek yogurt, frozen berries, eggs, cheddar, parmesan, green veg, peppers, veg for salad, chicken , nuts and nut butters now I can , apples and at the moment berries and cherries. A lot of recipes use citrus- lemons and limes. Tins of beans in water. Cherry tomatoes.

That's a phenomenal loss, well done. How old is your wee one? The 6 week plan is quite fun..its really 7 as there is a "prep week" where you chuck all the sugar out and tidy up if that's your bag.

Today I've had
B- bircher with a nectarine and rasps
S- 25g Wensleydale on an oat cakes 2 charcoal biscuits and 10 cherries
L- carrot soup with butter beans
S- cocoa almonds and more cherries
T- steak, caponata and broccoli.

Got a significant number of steps chasing my child round a shop trying to prise a
Chocolate lolly out of her hands.

Welcome @Justinkase - you'll have that half stone off in no time!

Stand by ingredients would be ...

Oats - you'll make a lot of birchers! (Potentially, if you like bircher!)

Truvia or stevia

Vanilla paste (not necessary but is a nice addition and used in a lot of recipes)

Frozen berries - nice to have a good stock of these

Peanut butter and apple - the BEST snack

Mixed nuts and seeds

The rest is just usual shopping tbh! Fresh veg, salads, feta, chicken. Think relatively unprocessed and think no sugar ... however it's just fine to eat plenty of fruit as part of snacks etc

The no nos on plan - (that you don't really see in any recipe) - are pasta, potatoes and rice. Wraps or a wholemeal roll are just fine so get some of those.

It's SUCH an easy way to eat. Ive been doing it since time began (well, 4 months) and I've lost 2 stone 3 lbs and I can sort of see the finish line but it's rather a way off in the distance tbh.

Best to have all 3 books if you can but 2 is a great start. 3 only because you get the whole range of her recipes and snacks. I know loads of people on thread one just had the one book

Any questions fire away! We are quiet now but that's normal when we've been going for 4 months so nice to see new people doing it as almost every poster to the threads enjoy the way of eating

I never thought I'd give up calorie counting .. but I have!

Food for today ...

Soya yogurt with nectarine and a teaspoon of peanut butter

4 lentil rice cakes with cottage cheese and cherry tomatoes

2 x babybels + cherries

Wrap with tofu and veg
Banana

To get things moving again, weight wise, I'm cutting out my mixed nuts for the week and halving my cheese. I've been eating rather a lot of nuts now I consider it.. 2 tablespoons a day but I'll cram them on as much as I can! And this will sometimes be on top of a tablespoon of peanut butter plus cheese

So that's all been fine up until now when I have less to lose but I'm beginning to realise I'm probably consuming a bit too much / despite it being healthy

So I'll tweak a bit all this week and see how I get on when I weigh next Monday. Yesterday was a maintain order

@Megasaur5keeper cherries are my total favourite!

@Megasaur5keeper thank you so much for that. Really helpful! Lots of those are already staples in this house so shouldn’t feel like too much of the unknown!

having researched the plan it does look like it’s fairly similar to what I eat now, although I def eat more carbs at the moment!

i have been focusing on eating ‘better’ but want to try and sustain it longer term this time rather than fall into my usual binge/restrict cycle that I seem to have been in most of my adult life… hence being attracted to this method!

little one turned 2 last month. I admit I was riding off the back of calling it baby and lockdown weight for quite a while haha. About 4/5 months ago i was spurred on to try to loose it with a return to my workplace offices reopening and nothing ‘nice’ to wear. It was the heaviest I had been ever! I probably did my own version of the prep week back then to be honest!

it’s been a fairly steady 1-2lb a week loss since start of April. I have been using my Fitbit to track steps. Initially aiming for 10k and more recently 12k a day. And also using it to track food ensuring at least a 500cal deficit a day. Not drinking calories and trying on the whole to eat non processed home cooked foods with the bulk of my portion being fruit or veg.

i do need to start to incorporate ‘proper’ workouts like weights now though. Walking in the evening or my lunch hour is my ‘me’ time to listen to podcasts… workouts are a whole different kind of effort to find the time for though!

can I ask how long you have been doing the method and how you have found it?

Thanks also @HardRockOwl ( i think our posts must have crossed!) you have lost an incredible amount of weight!

The lack of rice and potato’s for sides in the evening is going to be the biggest adjustment for me I think. I mainly have overnight oats (I think that’s what Bircher is?!) at the moment for breakfast and salads for lunch so not too worried about those meals.

i really want to let go of the calorie counting but at the same time I am petrified of loosing track or portion control and overall deficient if that makes sense? I have been strictly sticking to 1200 calls a day at the moment and it’s obviously working but once this last half a stone is off I want freedom from the counting but at the same time don’t want to end up gaining! I genuinely only eat 3 meals a day plus a treat of 2 squares of dark chocolate with a de caff tea in the evening so the 2 seemingly substantial snacks a day is also ‘worrying’ me….

blimey reading that back sounds really disordered 🙈

Hey @Justinkase .

I am back in the office and walk about halfway there and back every day (use public transport for the but in the middle so I can get in and away in time for nursery pick up.

One of the prep week things which I skipped (this was a mistake) was thinking seriously about use of time to allow you to work in the 40mins of exercise from the 6 week plan. Felt too short on time to spend the time haha. I initially was trying to do in the evening or when my 4yo was in the bath (because that is daddy time). Didn't work, she ended up howling and coming to interrupt for hugs. She has severe FOMO and goes to sleep about 9 usually.

So now I get up at 620 , haul my arse out of bed and blast it then ( she tends to get up about 7). Top tip though- if you are really stuck, jojo and gran gran is 7 minutes per episode, a good watch and a few episodes works for me sometimes...

I spend a lot less time dicking about on my phone at night and go to bed earlier to achieve this.
Basically if you are wanting the workout time I'd really encourage not to skip the planning your day out and looking where it would fit realistically.

I like the workouts, they are mainly body weight only until (if you follow 6wp) wk5 when you add on hand weights to a lunge thing. They are referred to for progressions earlier but you don't need them.
You will likely be eating about 400 more calories a day than you are now. Probably a bit more protein- portions aren't huge and it's all quite precise I the books quantity wise. The pay off for the snacks is that the exercises build muscle and time you up pretty quickly.
The good news is you are over the suggested step goal already!!!

Sorry if that was a bit patronising! Just what has worked so far for me.

Morning all and welcome to the thread @Justinkase.

Well my erratic food week continues, we are not talking about yesterday, virtually impossible to eat on plan when you are in self catering and not the one in charge of the planning! Today is better so far, had fruit for breakfast and said no to the pain au chocolat the rest followed it up with. Then spent the morning paddle boarding and now having bacon, eggs and mushrooms for lunch. It should be spaghetti bolognese for tea (homeade with lots of veg in) so not too bad, I'll just not have much of the spaghetti I guess. Will be home from holiday Friday evening and everything should be more in my control again so think the weekend may well mark day 1 of a new 6 week stint!

@ElvenDreamer so hard to keep to plan when you're away. All you're doing is stepping outside of the circle for now! And that's allowed!

Food for today ..

Soya yogurt with nectarine and chopped banana with a teaspoon of peanut butter

4 rice cakes with cottage cheese and tomatoes

Cherries and a babybel

Slice of sour dough topped with halloumi

Ugh so tired. I am NOT fulfilling the early to bed pillar of the plan!!

Well I've managed to drop another couple of lbs amazingly. I felt I had to shake things up a bit so I've stopped eating mixed nuts for now, I've cut my cheese consumption down and I've double my water intake - this isn't as impressive as it sounds as I usually only drink about 800mls a day because I don't like it much!

I've also added in some boxing. My son is teaching me so I'm doing half an hour a day to get my heart rate up a bit as my swimming and walking just aren't doing that at all.

Oooh well done @HardRockOwl , that's great. Boxing sounds fun too.

Yesterday was
B- bircher
With berries and nectarines
S- aubergine and ricotta dip and tortilla chips
l- slinky nicoise salad with salmon not tuna
S- cherries and almonds
T- chili with yogurt cheese, guacamole and a couple of tortilla chips.

Today has been similar but with bean and feta salad for lunch and curry for dinner. With cauliflower rice

Heading home today so can crack back on it tomorrow. Have just ordered myself some jazzy new leggings as an incentive to myself to up the exercise a bit, we'll call that one of LPs pleasure pops!

Oooh new leggings - I'm needing new sports bras in a similar vein but am finding myself quite reluctant to commit!

Sounds like you had a lovely active holiday anyway @ElvenDreamer , hope you enjoyed it all!

I'm food planning today pre shoppingtomorrow- least favourite part of the week.

New leggings sounds good. I quite fancy some sweaty Betty ones

I treated myself to a finger tattoo today. Always makes me lol to myself as I'm the least likely person to get a finger tattoo

Food for today ..

Kefir yogurt with nectarine and mango + pumpkin seeds

4 rice cakes with hummus and light cream cheese with salad and quorn

Cherries

Veg stir fry

Hmm, looks a bit light!

Very pretty nails and finger tattoo @HardRockOwl ! I love a bit of Sweaty Betty - can really only bear to buy in the sale though, which I think is perhaps a wrong attitude in relation to self worth - often end up with not quite what I really wanted.

I am exhausted. I very much want to go back to bed but small one is up so that's me. She was not Well yesterday so there was an unexpected day off - and a very long midday nap for her which then messed us all up.

Food yesterday was:-
B- bircher with frozen berries and nectarine
L- slinky nicoise salad
S- aubergine ricotta dip and tortillas
T- cod and cannellini stew (6 week plan)

All very tasty but I missed morning snack and while I wasn't hungry, I was feeling more than normally worn out after a very light day of activity based on hey duggee watching.

Also nabbed a couple of chicken popcorn bites.

Today I am mindfully having a pain au chocolat for breakfast. I'll get an egg or something too to have a tad of protein. Then my 10 year old reduced Sweaty Betty leggings and I will go to zumba.
Happy Saturday all!

Lovely nails and coordinating tattoo @HardRockOwl. I know what you mean about valuing selfworth enough for non sale leggings @Megasaur5keeper ! I love the ones from Rainbows and Sprinkles and Lucy Locket loves. Can honestly say it helps me though having some nice pairs as the bright colours make me smile when I put them on.

Things I have learned this last week:
-Self catering holidays need a lot more forethought to stay on method.
-When going for a strenuous afternoon hike, lunch is NOT the meal to skip carbs at or you will want to faint half way round.

Today I have had eggs and avocado on homeade wholegrain for breakfast.
Lunch will be bacon with scallops and salad .
Dinner is BBQ, I'm planning to forgo the sausages, buns etc and just have the veg kebab skewers (peppers, red onion, mushrooms, corgette, halloumi) and corn on the cob.

Those are both good things to learn though probably the second one better not to learn through personal experience.

So- b was the pain au chocolate, an egg and a nectarine
S- remaining tortilla chips and aubergine dip

L- antipasti salad and a bit of cheddar and 2 crackers
S- cherries and cheese
T- steak, fennel cauliflower mash and beans. Very tasty but 2x as much steak as I should have had..oh well.

Fell asleep on couch this afternoon and did not zumba at all.

What I have learned is that I like pain au chocolat and it was nice enough but I much prefer either a bircher or something eggy and savoury for breakfast. And I need to go to bed earlier.

Decided to do a comparison pic. Image one is from 2 years ago and then today. I've heavily disguised this pic of course but I think there's a relatively noticeable difference in my jawline - had a right old melon face before. Slightly less of a melon face now but still work to do

Very marked difference there @HardRockOwl . Well done.

Weigh-in today was a good laugh. Depending on the scales I've either remained the same, lost a kilo or gained either 1 or 3 kilos (used one set of scales which I wS struggling to read, tried the digital display ones which were in kilos, tried to change them to lbs, thought I had, hadn't and somehow increased by 2 kg in between).
Inch off my waist though, so I'm going with maintain to kg down. All very confusing.

Sort of feeling untethered and like I might need to go back to basics of getting sleep and organising in. I'd really got into the habit of buying lunches everyday so I think being prepped is better but it's bloody hard going right now.

@Megasaur5keeper it's certainly a slog that's for sure. I've had to go back to basics as much as possible and I intend to re read my books this week. My sleeping also isn't very good tbh so need to get a handle on that