I don't know where to start!!?

[togetherisbetter89]

Pleaseee help!! I have gone up 3 dress sizes over the last few years and I'm really ashamed of myself for my bad eating habits. I've had a baby in between then, but my diet is full of snacks and I barely exercise anymore as I can't find much time with work and looking after a little one.

I have no idea where to start with it, please can somebody help? Ideally I'd like to loose 3 stone. It all seems a bit overwhelming and then I just pretend like it's not an issue.

Feeling miserable 😖

3 stone is going to take a while realistically, so don’t rush, but make some small, sustainable changes.

Start with drinks. Do you have sugary coffees, or sodas, or juices or alcohol? Whichever it is, reduce it.

What kinds of snacks do you eat? Try to buy less when you food shop. If they’re not right there in the cupboard, you’re less likely to have them. Or see if you can make slightly healthier swaps. For example lighter crisps like quavers are less than 100 cals.

If you have time, keep a log of every single thing you eat and drink for a week. And be honest. When you look back at it, you might see patterns, like reaching for biscuits at certain times. Try and make your actual meals more filling - up the protein.

Start by writing an honest food and drink diary and include everything. This will help identify where you can easily swap. If you have a little one you can make healthily meals to share. And think about how you can exercise with your child like a fast walk or run round the park whilst they play or ride a bike?

Thank you. Crisps are my weakness, sometimes I have about 4 packs a day. It's awful! So that's definitely my starting point. I've seen a few people post about calorie counting; how do you work out how much calories a day you should be on?

My child is not walking yet, so I'm happy the weather is improving a little and we can begin to go for more walks.

Use a calculator to work out how many calories you should realistically be on a day.
It lets you put in your activity level and adjusts for that. Be honest with it though! (I was really bad for putting in my "ideal" activity level rather than what I actually did then wondered why I didn't lose any weight 😂)

www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html is a good one.

Then use an app like MyFitnessPal (free) or Nutracheck (costs but not sure how much) and log everything you eat/drink.
You can still enjoy your snacks while being in a calorie deficit - you could even cut down to 2 packets of crisps a day instead of 4? Swap to lower calorie ones? French Fries, Quavers, Skips are all less than 100 calories for example

Google BMR calculator (which is how many calories your body needs, even if you laid down all day). Or TDEE calculator, which includes how active you are, as an estimate. Both take into account gender, age, current weight and height.

If you have a husband/partner get him to help with the baby in the evenings so you can join the gym.
They should be supportive.

I would start very, very slowly so that the changes you make are sustainable.

Consistency is key.

Start making small changes and when you have stuck to them for a month then move on to the next.

You could start for example with:

• having an alternate glass of water with everything you drink
• go to bed earlier
• depending on how many steps you walk now, start by walking 5,000 -7,000 steps a day preferably outside x5 a week
• stick to three meals on a slightly smaller plate than usual of quarter protein, quarter carb, half veg plus two small snacks of nuts and seeds or fruit or small piece cheese with celery
• cook from scratch
• give up processed biscuits, sweets, cake, ice cream (allow yourself one treat a week)
• give up all sugary drinks and sugar in tea and coffee
• make soups or salads for lunch
• meal plan so you have a spread of nutrients across the week eg x 2 fish , x 2 veggie

And try and avoid the situations in which you used to overeat eg:

• coffee shop with muffins on way to work habit? Change the route.

-eat chocolate and biscuits in the evening watching tv? Only eat at the table and do something with your hands on sofa like colour or knit.

Just choose a few of the above and as the weeks go by, add in a few more.

Then when the habits above are established, start walking on circuits a bit faster trying to beat your own time. Maybe add in some fasting by eating your last meal three hours before you go to bed and have your breakfast later. Add in some gentle weights exercise 3 times a week. Then a yoga or Pilates class. Maybe some dancing or twist sports? And starting eating 30 different veg, fruit, plants, seeds, spices over the week. Batch cook?

If you have an off day, don’t despair and start again. It’s all about consistency.

@Onegingerhead my husband is extremely supportive and does help every evening :)

Thank you so much @Ryebreadandpickles654 - this is all super helpful information!

Thanks everyone!

Sorry I don't know how racquet sports became twist sports

I lost 3.5 stone in 2020 and I’ve lost 15 pounds in the last month. I use my fitness pal to count my calories and a Fitbit to keep track of exercise/increase steps.

You can get a Fitbit second hand and it’ll really help keep you motivated. Ignore everyone else’s fitness goals too, wear it for a week so you can get an idea of your current fitness levels (steps and active minutes) and then try and increase it in small increments.

Dieting isn’t always healthy, but for me I’d rather do what I have to do to get the weight off and stay on rather than fall off the wagon. (For instance I had a ham donut for brekkie the other day rather than overnight oats). If you’re on Instagram you can search lots of tags for people for food inspiration. I find it really encouraging seeing other people’s lifestyles and how far they’ve come. Good luck!

Omg ham donut 😆 obviously meant jam!!!

Start by increasing your consumption of water. It's easy to eat when you are thirsty. Dehydration can cause cravings for salt and the tiredness that it causes can trigger sugar cravings.

Then focus on healthy eating, not dieting. Focus on foods you love that are also good for you and work out as many quick and easy versions of them as you can. Keep a note of when you are hungriest during the day and try to have some substantial healthy food to hand so you don't reach for snacks.

Increase exercise in tiny amounts: do squats while you clean your teeth, high knees while the kettle boils or until microwave beeps. Get active with DC - walk to the park, play chase and hide and seek. Look up some fun online videos where you use your toddler as a weight in weightbearing exercises. Kids love them and they are good for you. Dance around the kitchen with them. Run upstairs to check on them, never call out up the stairs. Walk to school, nursery, the shops etc.

Make some easy changes that reduce calorie intake - I like black or white coffee and tea but out of habit drink them white. Ditching the milk saves about 150-200 cals a day. That adds up.

Play around with what weight loss ideas are easiest for you. If it's easy to skip breakfast, try intermittent fasting. If you love meat and cheese but aren't bothered by carbs, keto would be easiest. If you love carbs, then a low fat, high fibre diet might be the easiest.

Get rid of all or nothing mindset. A diet isn't 'ruined' if someone has a couple of glasses of wine and some birthday cake. It can be restarted at any time - straight after the last mouthful of cake, so you don't go down that road of 'Oh today is already ruined so may as well have fish and chips and quality street tonight.'

Keep a food diary. Record everything you eat for a week. Don't change anything for a week.
Use a calorie counter to add up daily calories.
Try to identify sugar, fat, protein, and fibre content of everything you eat. You're going to eat more protein and fibre and decrease fats and sugar.

Count your steps for a week too. Don't do anything extra.

You'll use those numbers as your base lines.

Weigh yourself every morning after you've used the loo.

Make a mood board. You can use Pinterest for this or use a cork board and pics from magazines.
On your mood board you can post images of future slimmed down you. You will see the clothes you'd like to wear, the habits you'd like to have. You can post motivational quotes for yourself. You can refer to it when you're hearing that packet of Oreos calling your name.

Don't be discouraged by slow loss.
Break your goal into chunks.
Five lbs at a time is doable, fourteen is not.

Aim to reduce sugar and fats first.
Identify current foods high in these and identify foods you can replace them with.
Crisps can change to rice cakes or light popcorn. You can gradually eliminate these too, over two or three weeks.

You should aim to build up fibre and vitamin rich foods at all meals.

Be disciplined about having veggies every day. Start with two servings. Veggies that can be incorporated into other foods are useful here - a big pile of spinach can be thrown into a lot of meals and sandwiches.
Carrots dipped in hummus are a crunchy and filling snack.
Add more beans and peas/ lentils to your meals. Five times a week is something you could aim for.
Don't forget that soups can be filling and healthy. Buy chicken stock (don't rely on stock cubes, which have no actual chicken in them) and make some soups with beans, veggies. There are lots of recipes online.

Switch to whole grain breads. Look at the packaging and don't buy breads with added sugar. Whole grains should be the first ingredient.

You will find yourself feeling full when you get more fibre rich veggies, whole grains, and beans daily.

Lean meats should replace a good deal of sausages, bacon, etc that you may currently eat.
Try to add more fish, lean meats, beans, and veggies to your dinners. For starch, look at quinoa, replace white rice with brown (a rice cooker or instant pot will help a lot to cook it properly), replace white pasta with whole grain pasta. Sweet potatoes offer carbs plus vitamin A and fibre. Your starch portion should be a quarter of your plate.

Try to eat a healthy lunch. If you normally have a bought lunch at work, look for healthy options. If possible, cook and slice your own meats for sandwiches. You can add lots of lettuce, tomatoes, spinach, pickle slice, low fat cheese, etc to a sandwich. Eggs are good too. Tuna is great.

Look for cheese with lower fat content - mozzarella, provolone, parmesan, Swiss are good choices. Avoid higher fat cheese except in small amounts.

Switch to skimmed milk.

Avoid sugar laden breakfast cereals. Aim for a filling breakfast. Scrambled egg on whole grain toast will set you up for the morning. Same goes for low fat Greek yogurt and whole grain toast. Porridge made with skimmed milk is another filling breakfast that's good for you. You could add a little sugar and a shake of cinnamon or some stewed apple.

Eliminate sweet drinks (squash). Eliminate fruit juices. Eliminate soda. Replace with fizzy water if you like the fizz. Eliminate coffees that are loaded with sugar and fats - all those Starbucks style fat bombs..
Decrease alcohol.

Eliminate sweets, cakes, cookies. There's no way around that. You can have a small amount of dark chocolate once a day. No raisins or other dried fruits that are very sugary, sometimes with added sugar.

If you normally have dessert, make sure it's a home made one. You can usually decrease the sugar in any given recipe by one third without noticing a difference. Try to cut down desserts all the same. Fruit can substitute.

Stop buying biscuits and crisps. Jf you don't have them to ha d they're easier to avoid.

Increase your walking. Do you have stairs at work?
Lift hand weights when you're sitting on the couch in the evening. Start light and increase.

Get to bed half an hour earlier.

@mathanxiety thank you so much for taking the time to post such a detailed response. I will have a good read of this tonight once little one goes down.

I am in the middle of a journey very similar to yours. I am 2 stone down and 2 more to go! I am doing it in two steps. Two stones and a bit down, then a rest- I put some back, then down again and I have kept this weight for months. Now time to do -2 stones more! So, it is a long term goal. Keep that in mind, because many people rush it, loose a lot and then put it back again. Better to get there slowly, but surely. You will change many old habits in the meantime.

1. Get yourself a calorie counter app. NHS one, Nutracheck. I do recommend Nutracheck it shows you calories and nutrients too, it keeps a graph for the week/month, you can add activities/ water, you can choose several type of diet: high protein, fasting, low calorie... It also gives you great healthy meals suggestions.
2. Input your weight, age, height and activity level (use low activity if you do not exercise) in the NHS BMI calculator. This will give you your ideal weight (it will be a range, better to choose the highest value for the first stage of dieting)
3. If you put that data in your app, NHS or Nutracheck or similar, it will calculate for you your daily calories so that you lose around 2 pounds per week (aiming to lose more is not recommended). It should be somewhere between 1200 and 1500 cal per day.
4. Then you start introducing meals into your app. Everything! Including drinks. Juices and pop have lots of calories. You will soon learn that. Water and lemon juice are your best friend. For ideas, you can use the app itself, google will show you bbc meals with 400 cal or so each. Weighwatchers make ready made meals with calorie counting.
5. Always, always, always keep a close eye on nutrients. Check that they are balanced, do not give up particular groups of food (so, no icecreams, but do not give up dairy. No cakes, but do not gice up carbs like pasta or a bit of bread). You will learn that you need smaller portions, regain the idea of a healthy portion (I surely had lost mine!). You will not have space in your diary for cakes, ice cream, crisps.... in excess. So you will learn to have them only as a rare treat or replace with healthy options. I do take vitamins when I am dieting so not to lack of any. I do not eat fat free versions of food either, just reduce the portion. I would advice you to choose a high protein type of diet (if you use nutracheck, it is one of the options and it tracks your protein levels for you)
6. Stick to your diary. You can swap things or change a bit if things pop up, but correct the diary, keep it up to date abd if you overdo it today, you will have less tomorrow.
7. Go for walks with your little one whenever you can. It is a great exercise for both of you.
8. Consider having some breaks when your aim is to maintain your weight rather than lose.

Best luck OP.
You can do it!
(Ps, things that help are lemon juice, ginger, celery, bulk your meal with lots of greens like spinach, salad leaves, kale... )

Thank you @MushMonster - I will download that app this morning. And well done on your weight loss, that's amazing. Have you been doing exercise as well?

You've had lots of advice already but I wanted to post this recommendation that might feel very achievable. I found this woman on Facebook (haven't spent any money, though of course there is that option) and I have found her method really effective so far. If you Google Corinne Crabtree she has a series of 4 short videos (about 10 minutes each) that just outline her strategy. There's no counting or anything involved.

Hi together.
Yes, I started dieting, then doing some youtube exercises at home in front of the TV, then started in the gym.
Now I walk between 60 and 90 minutes each day, on commute to work. Trying to get more hours of gym in my timetable.
For me, I feel like eating healthier when exercising and it makes me happy. You will find what ticks you as you go along.
Controlling what we eat is the main way to lose weight. But to be properly healthy you need to be active.