What small every day tweaks for weight loss do you use?

[Hazel444]

I want to finally try and lose the 3 stone I put on over lockdown and since. It all seems quite overwhelming, I know I need to eat healthier, be more active etc, but what little things do people do to incorporate that into their day to day life?

I am sitting here WFH wondering how I can kick start my weight loss in any small way I can.

This is my meal plan for today which I am logging on MFP, and by the end of the day I will have walked around 12k steps:

Breakfast: 2 slices toast and an egg
Snack: 12 peanut m&ms
Lunch: sugar free nutty granola, plain greek yoghurt, mixed berries
Dinner: Paella, air fried kale and leeks
Evening: Herbal tea

I know the peanut m&ms are not the best choice for a snack, but I will still stay within my calorie limit, and they completely quench my craving for something sweet. I was planning to start couch 25k but it is pouring with rain, and I can't face it!

Any small tips or advice gratefully received :)

I'm eating nothing sweet at all unless I'm out for a meal if I've run for a pudding. I only eat between 9.30 and 17.30. I have breakfast, just a cuppa soup for lunch and then my evening meal at 5 pm. I try to stay under 1000 - 1200 calories, using MFP. I'm trying to walk more and do a few exercises to tone. I'm half a stone down in two weeks.

I cut out alcohol.
I only eat within an 8 hour window ( often 6 ).
Generally no snacking as it just makes me hungry!

You can go two ways

Calorie counting - not proven to work long term although if you're strict it will shift some weight.

Louise parker (if you google louise parker pdf you'll get a book with the jist of it). Louise parker is amazing - balancing your sugars and fat - which incidentally is very much what Tim Spector is saying. Google him, he's fab. Don't calorie count. Cut out sugar and starchy carbs, balance your fruit with protein.

Two boiled eggs for breakfast. No toast if you can manage it. Have 2 tomatoes instead. If you must have toast, just one slice, wholemeal. No butter

Ditching breakfast

The amount of contradicting advice on here is overwhelming, not saying any of it is wrong, just that there are so many people with different ideas of how things 'should' be done it can feel impossible to know what to do.

@strongallowed everyones bodies react differently. Some people can eat bread/croissants/porridge and be fine. Some people (me 😭😭😭) get sugar rushes and crashes from carbs like that and then eat more food in the slump.

I really do urge you to have a look at Tim Spector and Louise Parker. There was a Louise Parker thread on here a while ago - you eat 5 times a day and it does seem to fall off with no calorie counting.

All the people skipping breakfast. Are you having tea/coffee with milk first thing? Not sure I can survive without tea in the morning but Google tells me this is BAD and will ruin/negate the fasting state thing.

Protein with every meal- 115gr per day as per MFP.

No starchy food like rice, pasta, potatoes. Lots of veggies and 1500 cal per day. Not less as I don't want my hair to fall out!

So far this is working well for me and I've lost 1kg per week this year

Normal food, just less of it - buy smaller dinner plates & wait 20 minutes before you have seconds, you probably won't want it by then.

No unplanned snacking.

I eat breakfast, a little something about 11 (celery and houmous or nuts or yoghurt and fruit), a small lunch, fruit about 2pm, then dinner. Maybe a banana before gym if I'm going after work. A biscuit or two in the evening.

Track calories and exercise.

Is this really all you’re eating? I would absolutely lose weight if I only ate this, especially if also walking 12k steps.

Are your portion sizes too big? Are you very short? How old are you? Any underlying conditions e.g. thyroid? Just trying to understand.

I’ve stopped drinking but not lost any weight.

If you don't eat enough, you will lose weight at first but eventually your willpower will fail and you will win it all back. It's better to focus on upping your protein and getting rid of non-foods like the M&Ms.

I find the days I have steak (750cal) for lunch, I can hardly eat dinner. That's because it's nutritious. If I had the same 750 calories in the form of a pasta dish, I'd be starving by 7pm

Intermittent fasting. I have nothing but black coffee / green tea / water until I break my fast at 1pm (at the earliest). I stop eating by 9pm (at the latest). Most of the time, especially if I'm busy at work, I won't eat until 4pm or later. I also exercise fasted. Never any issues with feeling faint.

Weekends, I tend to be a bit more liberal and might eat brunch around 11ish. As long as I don't go overboard I'll still be in a significant overall calorie deficit across the week.

other tips: don't snack (no m&ms!), drink lots of water (it really does make a difference - I need to be better at this though) and strictly limit alcohol (I do have the odd glass of wine but have cut down massively).

People who say "cut carbs" only lose weight because they're cutting out the calories they would eat from carbs. It literally doesn't matter if you eat carbs, as long as you track it, weigh it, count it accurately.

Absolutely!

Agree also with downloading MFP. I track everything, including milk in drinks.

I remember the 80:20 rule that 80% of weight loss is from your diet and 20% from exercise. I know a few friends who go to the gym, but then eat what they want and wonder why they aren't losing weight.

Cutting carbs doesn't make you lose weight because of the loss of calories.

It's to do with the sugars they release in your body.

Calorie counting is outdated tbh, the companies that make ultra processed food LOVE it as they can make out that their food is healthy when it's not.

Ultra processed food has been found in various studies to put weight on when other test groups are eating the same amount of calories in non UPF.

Eat real food. Even your granola is ultra processed.

Maybe you are right about the calories but cutting carbs and sugar works really well for me - eating more fat and protein keeps me feeling fuller so that I don't snack. Michael Mosley was on the radio earlier this week saying he'd been suspicious of the keto diet but now he's a convert. I do it to lose weight, then I can maintain quite easily even eating the odd slice of bread and a bit of cake here and there. Not sure why/how it works but it does. I've lost 5lb over the last fortnight and haven't felt hungry once. It's quite a big change if you aren't used to it though. I'm older, 56, so not sure if the fact I'm post menopausal makes a difference to how I lose weight.

Something I have been toying with but I can't decide if it's realistic is rather than a "not eating XYZ" type diet, trying eating 10 fruit and veg a day as I can't imagine you would have space for much after that!

Carbs cause glycogen to be stored in muscles, along with an equal weight of water. So carb calories impact on body weight differently.

i track my measurements more closely than my body weight. It’s such an arbitrary measure.

my best friend weighs the same as she did on her wedding day but is 3 dress sizes smaller.

I sometimes wonder whether some people are wired differently. I hear the "protein is so filling" thing a lot but it really isn't for me - I find meals without any carbs (not necessarily white simple carbs but things like lentils or pearl barley or wholegrain bread) really unsatisfying and they almost make me hungrier. I find myself better off skipping meals, it's like eating perks up my appetite which I realise sounds counter intuitive!

Of course we are all wired differently!

@Everydayitsgettingcloser have a look at Tim Spector and the twin studies he did around how our bodies are all different. Porridge is a great example. It's made out to be a superfood in America. Some people it does indeed keep them full, others, it burns through quickly and they get a sugar crash.

His studies show that 30 different plants a week, fermented food and good fats like evo is optimal for heath.

Also calorie counting and exercise don't work. There is no long term study that evidences that it works long term. Our bodies always want to get back to the largest we have been. It's survival! It's not pseudo science, he's a very good dr.

I think your lunch is not a lunch, I would go for something protein heavy and healthy fats.
Maybe one slice of toast for breakfast and up the protein there too? A side of spinach for greens, with seeds sprinkled on

If I ate the menu in your OP I would pile weight on. Carbs,carbs,carbs and sugar.

750 calories - how big is your steak?? Are you eating half the cow?!