This might be revolutionary (for me!) Anyone on the same path?

[Goatygoaty]

So I have been working on my diet and nutrition for about 2 years. I am vegetarian. I have pretty much quit UPF, minimised dairy and ensure I eat at least 30 different plants a week and I feel great for it. But I have not lost weight at all - and I need to!

So after tracking what I ate for a week I decided that I just quite simply eat too much and I'm grazing ALL day! It's that simple! Then I listened to a Zoe podcast on snacking and decided to cut it out entirely. So now I eat 3 lovely meals a day and not a crumb in-between.

Week one has been quite hard. I have had to really listen to my body and think about what I eat so I don't get too hungry for 5-6 hours when I next eat. I've also had to really retrain my mindset on having larger and more filling meals and not feeling guilty about them. And I have had to move my evening meal forward by a couple of hours meaning I don't eat with my partner. But I've lost 4lbs (!) and I have been out for pizza, had cake (I just saved it when everyone else had it and ate it after my lunch as a pudding instead) etc.

I think for me one clear rule is easy to follow! I feel liberated from all the counting and weighing and guilt!

Has anyone else adopted this approach? Did it work for you in the long run?

Xx

I do think people have forgotten that it's entirely normal to feel hunger, and that it's fine to be hungry for a while (a few hours; and not harmful for longer than that).

And that you don't need to eat at the first signs of hunger. Nor do you need to stuff yourself because you've been hungry for a little while.

So if you eat so you never feel hungry (graze all the time) then yeah, plausible that would cause gain. Unless of course you adopt the full nomadic lifestyle and are in motion all day too!

Exactly! I think that's been the hardest thing - getting used to actually feeling hunger, embracing it and satisfying it with a nutritious meal! Sounds so simple when I write it like that! 🤦‍♀️

I have quite an active job but I am certainly not nomadic 🤣🤣

I am not vegetarian but I have cut out almost all UPF and also tend to only have two main meals maybe with a small ‘dessert’ a short while after each. I also aim for 30 + plants. I honesty think I was addicted to UPF- the podcasts on it are very very interesting.

I know -; it's horrifying! Have you read Ultra Processed People?

I don't know how old you are OP, but me pushing 50 remembers when this was the norm.

Breakfast, lunch then tea (or dinner!) . My belly used to rumble through the first periods of school. No snacks at break, then packed lunch or hot meal.
Home to cook tea, maybe a small pudding - instant whip 🤣 and that was that. For tea we'd often have pie and mash, something with chips - and bread and butter...

I'm guilty because I know this, but still snack during the day. It was looking back with my Mum that we agreed that we don't really feel hungry now, if we are, there's something to snack on.

We didn't even have snacks in the house. If there were crisps or chocolate, then they were for packed lunch!

We have an abundance of everything now compared with 30-40 years ago. If we told Mum we were hungry she'd tell us to have an apple. We decided we weren't that hungry 🤣

Well done on the loss. All day grazing will mean a lot more calories consumed usually. You will be losing weight because you've cut your calorie intake and were already trying to eat nutritious and filling food with your calories. Personally I couldn't lose weight by just cutting snacking, as there is no snacking to cut. Plus my hunger/fullness levels have not proved to be a reliable narrator in the past, as it isn't for many people who were brought up to clear their plates and were taught overeating rather than appetite regulation. So I have to log all my food and control calories.

I'm 48 and we usually had snacks in the house, and sugary cordial and fizzy drinks. I would come home from school, eat crisps and chocolate and all my dinner. Dinner which was often processed convenience food. I don't remember drinking tap water regularly until my 20s.

Still not out in paperback, so no

"We didn't even have snacks in the house. If there were crisps or chocolate, then they were for packed lunch it was Christmas!"

(fixed that for you )

I'd recommend it on Audible actually! He reads it himself and it's really engaging 😊

I've lost over 20kg over the last year. I have been going to the gym, but the only diet changes I've made have been:

No toast with breakfast
Only one slice of bread and butter at lunch
Pick one chocolate bar/ bag of sweets while shopping and that's it for the week - if I pig it all that evening, fine, but there's no more after till next time I go shopping. This isn't a drastic change - I wasn't eating loads of chocolate before.

Over Christmas I ate what I wanted. I'm still 3kg lighter than I was in November.

I think the thing with weight loss is to find what works for you, and this definitely works for me.

@Goatygoaty yes I have- it’s truly eye opening. As is his podcast with Dr Chatterjee.

@JanglingJack yeah I think we definitely ate fewer snacks as children. I am 41 but the processed food thing was already an issue I think.

My kids seem to be obsessed with snacks. What they eat is healthy and they are not at all overweight but I need to think about how to manage this long term as it's not a great habit.

@110APiccadilly that's amazing well done! I think you are completely right. We all eat differently and need to adjust different things. It wasn't until I tracked honestly for that week that I realised how much I was consuming between meals. Then when I investigated snacking more I realised that (as well as the extra calories obviously) it was also probably messing with my bloody sugar and metabolism etc. too!

It is so refreshing not to be obsessing over weighing and calories though. I'm beginning to sort of 'enjoy' the feeling of hunger for a bit now - it's nice to build up to really enjoying a meal and feeling how it elevates the hunger. It's like I am finally training myself to listen to my body in a really instinctive way. I hope this is something that I can sustain - it feels like it will be 🤞

@maybein2022 yes! I'd recommend Tim Spector's book Food for Life too if you haven't read that yet 😊

@shearwater2 yeah I definitely think childhood habits are a serious contributing factor to how we eat. I think it begins with infant feeding to be honest (but that's one for another thread! 🤣)