Taking a photo of everything I eat

[Friedbanana]

Hello! I started a thread like this a few years ago and I found it sooooo so so helpful and managed to lose a stone and keep it off, however recently that has crept back on so I thought I’d start another thread!

So starting tomorrow I’ll aim to post a photo of every single thing that passes my mouth except from tea!! I just think it helps keep me accountable. I have a really big appetite and find it very easy to be in a calorie surplus if I don’t log calories, even though I hardly eat any processed food anymore! But i do currently have a good relationship with food (used to be very much in the binge/restrict cycle but got over this by stopping restricting too much)

i tend to avoid gluten and processed foods due to a sensitivity to gluten, and also cut down on added sugars last year just trying to look after my health! I used to have the sweetest tooth but strangely don’t miss sugar that much! I mainly eat vegetarian but very occasionally eat meat/fish!

I’m about a size 10 now and 5 foot 6, so I know I’m not overweight but I just feel more comfortable with less body fat and about a stone lighter!

currently doing 1 PT session and 2 group gym classes a week, focused on strength training, I’m also trying to do 2/3 x 5k runs a week. Aiming for 20k steps a day. As I said I just find it sooo hard to restrict food much atm so I’d rather burn more calories through exercise and be able to eat more! I don’t currently have scales so I’m gonna go more off how clothes feel/fit than the weight!

I’m going to aim for a calorie deficit of 250-600 calories a day!

Today’s food (just screenshot of MFP as I didn’t take photos)!

Cals in: 2191
cals out: will be about 2500 by the end of the day
Steps: 21000 including a very slow 5k jog
Deficit: 309

Can I join? I don’t need to lose weight anymore, so mainly looking for meals inspiration and some accountability because there are days when I would just sit and eat.
I’m also gluten intolerant and I don’t eat meat every day (usually three times a week).

Amazing hello @CortieTat yes absolutely!! Congrats on getting to the maintenance stage!! And yes that’s what I love it for, I know there’s Instagram for inspiration but once I’m on there I just lose time so I really enjoyed this thread last time!! And I truly believe that the key to keeping in healthy habits is absolutely to enjoy what you eat and to not feel deprived!

Really enjoyed my breakfast today, 595 cals and 34g protein! (I read that it’s super important to have at least 20g protein in the first meal you eat in the day to reduce glucose spikes/cravings later on and this helped me loads!!) I spotted a dragonfruit in Barry’s fruit and veg this morning and had to buy as they always remind me of holidays as I never see them here in the UK 🤤 it was £3.50 so a bit of a treat 🤪

Thought I’d share the seed crunch I’ve started using- it’s ridiculous pricey, about £4/5 for 160g I think 😬😬😬however a little bit (like 15g) does really snazz up my yoghurt and make it much more enjoyable, it’s got like 10 different seeds in i think, and this really tasty crunchy buckwheat 🤤🤤I am someone who absolutely cannot have any type of cereal/granola in the house as it’s my absolute weakness and I will go back for more and more, so this satisfies my need for lovely crunchiness while being under 100 cals per serving! I absolutely promise this is not a paid ad hahaha just thought I’d share as I’m really glad I found it myself!

Also wanted to start sharing my sleep too as this is a massive goal for me that I’ve been wanting to improve for ages but just can’t seem to! So I thought sharing it would help keep me accountable! Last night I did manage 7.5 hours which is good for me however I really really want to start going to bed earlier and waking up earlier (as you can prob tell from this image I don’t yet have children 🤣🤣 so I’m fully aware that I’m incredibly lucky to be in control of my own sleep and I also run my own business so I have flexibility there too! Just a few disclaimers 😅)

Decaf coffee with collagen powder and 30ml oat milk

Weird snack I know but sauerkraut, olives and salad - 125 cals
tea with 30ml oat milk- 20cals

and 25g dark chocolate- 135 cals

if anyone is near a heron food these packs of 4 are £1!

The breakfast looks super tasty though!

It was @HAF1119 , I’ve been having variations of that breakfast for about 3 months now haha and not bored yet!!

Dinner was chickpea and paneer curry with brown rice and spinach and Greek yoghurt! (Made pancakes for my partner to have with it! The recipe is here and it’s an absolute go to in our house, very easy and quick! https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/paneer-stuffed-pancakes)

944 cals for this portion which seems crazy but it was a HUGE portion piled much higher than it looks 🤣

I’ve not quite reached my activity goal yet- even though I did walk my dog and do a PT class 😅 but it turns out I have to exercise A LOT while WFH in order to be in a deficit without feeling too deprived/be thinking about food literally 24/7, so I’m gonna head out on a 20/30 min jog this evening to try and burn 2400 in total today and be in a 500 calorie deficit for the day!

@Friedbanana your food looks delicious, breakfast is fantastic, I love well-presented food, it helps me enjoy food without overeating.
It’s a holiday today in Sweden (National Day) so kids wanted köttbullar (meatballs) for every meal. Yeah, right. We headed out to Ikea to buy some hangers and get them some köttbullar for lunch. So I had lunch at Ikea (salad) and guesstimated the weight of different ingredients. We had beans tex-mex style for dinner, it’s something the kids like as well. The recipe is from BBC Food but I adapt it to whatever pulses I have at home atm.

It was my running day today, I do a shorter run with interval training once a week and a longer one on Sundays. So today it was 6K with 6 intervals right in the middle.
I don’t have my app connected to my sport watch, I only enter food and training manually but don’t track the so called active calories in Yazio. We also went to a museum after ikea so I had a large oat cookie in their cafe.
My food entries are mainly in Swedish so not sure if that adds any value?

This is quite a challenge I have to say 😅. I wouldn’t be able to eat sauerkraut with any kind of milk on the side!

I'm so envious of the amount of calories you can have! I'd love that. Sadly, I'm 5ft2 so I'm stuck on 1290 cals. I don't eat my exercise cals as I started exercise when the weight loss started tailing off. So if I eat them, I'd be back to square one with stalled weight loss.
I'm 5st 2lb in to my journey. I haven't photographed my meals, but I've attached my MFP for today.
Today I have done 22k steps as I've been off work. I walked the 2 miles to school and on to the gym. Then did 2 hrs in the gym, mix of cardio and weights. Then did a 45 min circuit class. Then walked to the library and a shop, then the 2 miles home. After a late lunch I walked to get the kids from school. On a work day I struggle to get in 2k steps!! 22k steps for me has been 10 miles of walking! And over 3 hours! I just don't have that kind of time on my working days. I'm currently doing 3 gym days and trying to do more walks as much as I can to get to 10k steps. My 3 work days I generally don't accomplish it though unless I've hit the treadmill at the gym on one of my late night sessions after the kids are in bed.
I also eat mostly veggie, occasional chicken, ham, or bacon. Never eat red meat or fish. No burgers or sausages either. So I'm interested in some more recipes to add to my repertoire!
Today was a chicken and bacon salad for lunch with a bag of pom bears for after 🙈. Dinner was a pizza made from a low cal wrap along with air fryer home made chips. I don't do low carb as me and protein don't really get on. So I stick with what I enjoy!
I've still got some cals left so will have an ice cream I think.
I also don't eat breakfast - never been a fan, but once I started this journey I realised I didn't need it. Disclaimer: I am on Saxenda, and have been for a year, but this is something I'd naturally do anyway, almost intermittent fasting. Also, Saxenda doesn't make you lose weight. Lots of people for some unknown reason think that weight loss drugs do the work for you. They don't. They just make it easier to be in calorie deficit by delaying the food empying the gut, stabilising blood sugar, and making you feel fuller for longer. Just wanted to clarify that as I've seen some horrible comments in the past that simply aren't true. As you can see, I'm working bloody hard to lose it!

I’m interested in this - have just started with mfp! Will aim to update tomorrow

I’d like to join too. Will post tomorrow. Doing 16:8 as well at the moment. So finishing eating about 4pm and then fast till about 8am. On day 3 of that.

Okay, here we go. Overnight oats for breakfast so nothing exciting but it’s been my breakfast for over two or so years. I buy all the seeds separately, and mix and match, also depending on what micronutrients I need more of at the moment. Today it’s poppyseed heavy.

Katsuobushi is tuna flakes, I used them to cook dashi for later and I just ate them, it would be a shame to throw good tuna flakes away. 2g is probably heavily exaggerated but I would need scales to measure drugs to weigh this accurately.

I’m so so glad everyone is joining!!! ❤️❤️❤️ I love it when there’s a little community! 🥰🥰

@CortieTat you’re so right, I think food presentation makes such a difference mentally!! I always find when I’m taking photos to share I make more of an effort with presentation too 🤣 genuinely so grateful for this thread already- I’ve got into the habit of snacking on unknown amounts of cashew nuts straight from the cupboard but now I’m like ‘cba to take a photo of these and post ‘ 🤣 so yesterday I resisted the extra snacks completely!

@CortieTat your IKEA salad looks lovely!! So much nicer than our local IKEA haha!!

@ThisMustBeMyDream you’ve done so well already that’s incredible! But your cals do seem really low especially with that amount of exercise, have you tried a diet break at all? Think they’re good at resetting your metabolism and help mentally with long term dieting too.. cause I’m sure you should be able to still lose while eating more cals despite your height! please don’t take that as patronising or anything just I also used to think you had to be on really low cals to lose anything before I learnt more about it all, so just in case it’s helpful I wanted to share!

Breakfast very similar to yesterday- 585 cals
decaf oat latte on my dog walk- 130 cals guestimate!

Sleep- 7hr 15 mins, not too bad but not much rem/deep so I’m feeling tired today! Does anyone have any experience on increasing rem/deep sleep? I keep meaning to buy magnesium supplements but forget 😅

Oky. Was pretty hungry after the 16 hour fast so have breakfast and lunch. That’s me till dinner. Aiming to eat before 4 then fast. Hopefully go for a walk this evening.

@Friedbanana oh yep, I've tried lots of things! Unfortunately this is the only way I can lose 1lb a week. At the amount of weight I had to lose, 1/2lb a week loss doesn't cut it for me! Which is all I had in Jan and Feb this year. Even in mid March when I joined the gym and upped my excercise, it took another month to start seeing the losses! I've screen shot my weight chart so you can see what I mean!

I've done this before, and had the same issue. I have to keep cals low to get the losses.

Fortunately the Saxenda makes this very easy. I'm just grumpy because I know I'll have to come off it, and my maintenance won't be much more than 1800 most likely. We will see with excercise etc, those days will give me an increase. I'm going to aim for 1700, allowing for an extra 500 on the weekend. It will be trial and error. Last time I lost weight and kept it off for 3 years, I didn't do calorie counting or anything to maintain, which was foolish. I rested on my laurels so when a life change came upon me I was thrown, and boom here we were back with the weight on (and an extra 10lb to boot).

I daily weigh to see the trends, and today I hit a new low of 11st 10 which puts me at BMI 29.8! I'm finally not obese! Not that I overly care for BMI, my frame and shape means that BMI of 25 looks incredibly slim on me. I still look good around a BMI of 27 so 🤷‍♀️. But it was a nice feeling nonetheless.

I've not made lunch yet. I'm just having a quick cold drink in the middle of my house cleaning. I'm going to do a 3 egg omelette with cheese and tomato though once I'm ready. I'll post a pic, but it won't look very exciting unfortunately 🤣. I'm trying to think of ways to zhuzh it up and failing miserably 🙈.

Forgot the images!

Please could I join you all? 😊

I've been really lazy with diet and exercise recently and have become a little softer around the edges than I'd like!

Am planning to start with better eating and more exercise again from Monday!

We have a day off today so we went to the swimming pool in the morning. It was fantastic, they open at 8 but early in the morning it’s empty. I couldn’t do many timed laps with kids and I hate swimming anyway, but had a lot of fun playing tag and doing silly jumps. Sauna afterwards, I feel great.

Lunch was a salad from the salad bar at the local supermarket, I only weighed mozzarella and guesstimated the rest, life is too short to run back and forth between the counter and the scales!

Ooh I'll join! Currently 11st 8 and lost half a stone so far, want to lose at least 2 stone.
Your breakfast looks amazing! But unfortunately I could never "spend" 800 calories on breakfast 😲

Here is yesterday's diary for now. I stick to less than 1400 when I'm not working, but have a physical job so let myself have more on a work day

Supper

Well, it won't inspire anyone, but here is my omelette 🤣. In the pan as it always looks shite once on the plate!

Omg sauna and a swim 👌 @CortieTat !

and haha @ThisMustBeMyDream the important thing is the taste!!

@Upallnight2 i know it’s a lot for breakfast! But I often just have a really late breakfast after a dog walk/run and then tend to just have a small snack instead of lunch as I find that works for me! Sort of like intermittent fasting I guess but I’m not super strict on the intervals!

Today I think I’m in a small surplus (ate around 2500 cals and burnt around 2400 cals but I’m not too fussed as Friday is our date night (although already back home and doing more work at 7.15pm so not the wildest of date nights 😅😅) and I really enjoyed my food!! Trying to focus on getting a deficit overall for the week so I don’t feel like I’ve gone off track if I have a more indulgent day one day!!

snack- whole pack of sharing popchips

• whole pack of cherry tomatoes

dinner- coconut fish curry and rice takeaway, iced decaf latte and a scoop of pistachio gelato 🤤 Had to guess all the calories for this but guessed around 1325 in total

Dinner also uninspiring, but comforting! Sausage (veggie), mash, carrots and gravy. I did make peas too, but they weren't ready when the rest was. Left them on the hob cooking, then forgot all about them 🤣. 679 cals.