My plan to lose weight

[TimeToGetHealthy]

I currently weigh just under 18 stone 12 and I don’t want to be like this anymore. I used to weigh about 12 stone and then Covid and a baby and breastfeeding happened and I just ate more and more and got fatter and fatter. I am still breastfeeding now and won’t be stopping until my little one is ready so I won’t be able to diet restrictively but I don’t think I want to anyway as it doesn’t work long term.

My plan is to just eat less rubbish and have more normal portion sizes to start with and see how it goes as counting calories doesn’t go well for me as I obsess over them.

I am going to:
Drink more water
Limit juice/fizzy drinks to one a day
Have takeaways/fast food no more than once a month
Have one sandwich instead of two, have a normal portion of cereal/pasta rather than an overflowing bowl ect.
Stop eating for something to do

That sounds like a great plan to begin on.

How about a couple of things to add to your days?

Add a fruit with breakfast whilst cutting that cereal down.
Add a salad vegetable with the one sandwich.
Go for a 15 minute walk, the air always refreshes!

Good starting point!

Consider also swopping white to wholemeal (bread, pasta, rice)

All of these things sound great. They're all going to help!

My advice, from someone who has lost a significant amount of weight, is to pick your battles carefully and just start one of these things at a time. Don't start the next until the first is a real habit.

You don't need to do everything all at once to see a change, and willpower is a finite resource - you need habit to carry you through the times when it's in short supply.

I lost a couple of stone by skipping breakfast (16/8) and not eating biscuits/cake/sweets/chocolate. I’m still doing it to be honest because my ideal weight is around 9st and I’m a few pounds over that, still.

I breastfed DS2 until he was 4, but it had minimal calorie burning impact!

Which order do you think would be best/which one would be best to start with? 🤔

Whatever you think is going to be the easiest. Start with the low-hanging fruit because it's going to be the easiest to maintain going forward. Just because it's easy doesn't mean it isn't a positive action! You just need to pick any one of these excellent ideas and stick with it.

Once you can do that thing consistently for two weeks or more, then start thinking about what the next thing you pick will be.

If you find that you add your next step and you're starting to falter a bit, go back to whatever the previous habit was and re-solidify that one before trying again. It's OK to have those moments where things get derailed, the key is to just simplify it all as much as possible and get through them, then try to move on.

I think most people in healt care and diet would say the biggets impact is cutting out sweetened/ sweet beverages totally. This includes juise and smoothies.

Take a look at Jason Fung on Youtube, he advocates intermittent fasting as a good place to start weight loss. This really helps.

Also, reducing carbs is really hard. It is very hard to stop eating carbs when they are there. If there is extra pasta in the pot, it is too easy to go back for more.
Better to over fill a plate with steak, or chicken cooked in butter with a massive side of brocolli or salad, you will stop eating when you are full. It is very hard to over eat protein and non starchy veg!

Best of luck!