⭐️LOSE IT! January Jumpstart 2026⭐️

[TheRealHousewife]

⭐️ Open to All ⭐️

January 2026! Following on from LOSE IT! 8 Week Christmas Countdown

Fresh Start, New Habits! To reach optimum health and vitality (as well as a trim body) we need to focus not only on our food intake; but movement, our mental health and sleep quality too!

Who doesn’t want to feel good and energetic as well looking great!

Get on board to reset & refresh and become a healthier version of yourself.
These threads are for those who’d like to lose weight and those who wish to maintain whilst eating a healthy varied diet.
As no one size fits all, members need to follow their own way of eating. This thread aims to offer guidance, support and a bit of hand holding.

We have a WOW (weigh on Wednesday) day each week. However post and share your progress as often or as little as you prefer. Do what works for you.

The important thing is not to think of it as a diet (based on deprivation and unsustainable) but more a way of life (sustainable & enjoyable) that’s based on several sensible principles including:-

1. Eat a variety of real whole foods such as fresh vegetables, salad, berries, beans, nuts, eggs, lean meat, good fats etc.

2. Reduce sugars, simple carbs, alcohol and UPFs.

3. Plan your meals & log your intake. Also be mindful of portion control.

4. Intermittent fasting - research suggests (Zoe study) that adhering to an eating window of 10 hours can have a positive effect on health, wellbeing and weight loss. I personally have a eating window of approximately 7hrs - 12:00 - 19:00.

5. Stay hydrated! 💧

6. Move as much as able. Particularly strength based exercise. Muscle keeps you strong as well as revs up your metabolism.

7. Get the fibre in! Great for your gut biome as well as 💩

8. SLEEP! Good sleep hygiene and a regularly sleep routine can be beneficial to weight loss. I’m always more hungry following poor sleep.

9. Be mindful about your own mental wellbeing and try not to eat your feelings. We’ve all been there!

10. Be kind to yourself. One or two slip ups won’t undo all your previous efforts. Just check-in with yourself, reinforce your good intentions and carry on.

I calorie count based on a lower carb Mediterranean diet. I intermittent fast and eat twice a day. Im a long time healthy eater and overall I’ve lost over 3 stone. After having been on the wrong side of 12st Im now hovering around 9st 2lbs.

Are you in?😊 What food plan will you be following? What do you want to change and why? Any recipes/workouts that have worked for you, you’d like to share?

I've maintained this week at 144.8lbs which I'm happy with as I was expecting to have gained. Visually I think my waistline is less bloated so that's a plus.
Well done everyone who has lost and keep going to those whose scales were cruel this morning!

SW 197 lbs 30 October
Last week 187.3
Today 186.1

Target by Valentine’s Day 181

I’m slowly losing the weight. We still have Christmas food in the house which is amazing as I haven’t eaten it. I’m feeling inspired by this thread and my to do list actually has buy hibiscus and make Persian soup and Kim chi so thanks for sharing what you’re doing ladies.

I’m currently making a compote with blueberries and apples that have seen better days. I’ll use on either yogurt or porridge. I’ve probably got enough for a week to 10 days so I might freeze some.

So breakfast will be Greek yogurt and compote although it’s getting quite late so I might skip it
Lunch will be a slice of toast with kefir and the Marks and Spencer 35 plants supplement
Dinner is going to be half a chicken shish kebab (I had it delivered yesterday from a local Turkish restaurant and I felt I only needed half which is huge for me), salad and I’m going to lightly fry peppers, red onion and courgettes in whatever spices I have in the cupboard -‘probably turmeric, cumin, chilli, fresh garlic

@ImALittlePea I have a garmin watch that tracks my exercise and steps and it is linked with my fitness pal. It’s not quite perfect, it’ll only tell mfp how many calories I’ve burnt exercising but I go for a 30 to 50 minute walk every day which is an extra couple of hundred calories. I’ve started to do 3 walks a week up a local hill as it burns more calories and I get a buzz when my watch tells me I’ve done ‘vigorous’ activity.

Morning All.

Well done to everyone stepping on the scales today! Congratulations if it's down but if it's not, just remember it's the first WOW after Xmas!

I'm in a good mood today despite my illness still lingering.

Driving went well!

& I've made it below target 🥳

SW: 10 stone 6.8
CW: 9 stone 3.8
GW: 9 stone 5

SW: 66.58kg
CW: 58.90kg
GW: 59.421kg

Now the question is, do I carry on and try to get to 9 stone??

Hmmm.

Hope you all have a lovely day 🥰

Weight is slightly up but I spent most of yesterday in bed eating, so not surprised! Marginally better today so trying to be good.

@Marshmellowbunny congratulations, fabulous milestone.

I’m checking in because I’ve taken some photos today to compare my progress and the horror of seeing myself in a photo in my underwear is shocking. The trauma of reality!! Hopefully it’ll give me the motivation to keep going and really turn my body around.

I've decided to be a WOTh for this week as I had some bad news yesterday and sunk a lot of wine so want to get back on track today. I did WOW and there was not a gram of loss (or gain for that matter) but I only like to log when I've lost.

Sigh. It's always the same, momentum gets me the first half stone off quite straightforwardly but the next half stone is sloooooooooow. Often I only need to lose half a stone. This time it's more like 16lb so my half stone only gets me to my usual starting line.

Sigh once more.

Afternoon all! Well done to everyone on their progress ☺️ Hope everyone who is under the weather is feeling better soon 💐
I'm down 2lbs today, which I'm amazed at! My food intake is still a bit random but this week I focused on increasing my steps and having lights out by 10. Might be a coincidence but I think it's helping! For the week ahead, I'm sussing out some Mediterranean style recipes and planning on increasing my movement x

Good Afternoon

ZOE Update.

I shared previously that I’d joined ZOE but was wholly unimpressed and had asked for full refund. Due to Christmas and New there was a delay in receiving a response. Long story short you HAVE to subscribe to the ZOE app if you wish to undertake the Microbiome Gut test (which I decided I did want to under). Therefore I am going to keep the subscription and use the ZOE app and I’ve logged absolutely everything for the past 2 weeks from a glass of water, a cup of tea and everything else that’s gone in my cakehole.

POSITIVES

1. Personalised insights into your gut microbiome. Good bugs versus bad bugs. I’ve entered some biological markers/scores from my previous GP tests & blood tests but I’m aware once my results from my gut test are uploaded this could change how foods score for me IYSWIM.
2. No strict restrictions. It encourages you to eat smart.
3. Food barcode scanner and photo scanner that rates food 0 - 100. (Photo not always accurate) You can see straight away how a food scores.
4. Science backed approach.
5. It’s satisfying seeing your scores and being reassured you’re eating right. Then again I’m a data geek and love all things graphy and numbery 😬

NEGATIVES

1. Expensive.
2. Critics claim we don’t know enough about our microbiome so the ‘personalised’ aspect might not be accurate.
3. Can be time consuming especially when app gives inaccurate information and you need to correct the data. You really need to embrace accurate logging to be able to achieve truly reflective insights.
4. The whole ZOE experience appears to have been dumbed down, especially when compared and contrasted with the original Zoe Study.
5. There isn’t any recipe bank (as yet) but you can ask ‘Ziggie’ for a suggestion based on what you want etc.
6. I don’t know if this is a negative or not. Zoe maintains there is no need in counting calories and to focus on eating whole nutritionally dense foods and stay away from UPFs. This is what I’ve been doing … and gained so far 😮
7. Tim Spector Recipe book Food For Life. This has recipes and food suggestions that align with the ZOE principles and each recipe has a barcode to scan to enter it in the ZOE app and see how it scores for you etc. This function doesn’t work.

I’m sure there’s more but I’m feeling fatigued and can’t think straight 😬 (nothing new there)

Ive been out and about early doors and didn’t weigh before I left 😣. Yesterday’s weigh-in was up by 2lbs.

I’ll be back later to read up 👍

This is so helpful @TheRealHousewife , thank you. I think I will stick to their podcast for the mo! Toying with the Daily30 thing...

Week 2 update

SW 238.6 (31/12/25)
CW 235
Lost 0.6lb this week
Lost 3.6lb so far x

@TheWayTheLightFalls Re:- Daily 30 - I have stopped my finger more than once from clicking the ‘Buy’ button 😅. On looking around for a more reasonable priced similar item I found this but as yet to try it as it’s always out of stock M&S Good Guts 35 Gut Booster Mega Mix I keep checking and will buy when it’s back in stock.

Ooh, that does look good!

Today's menu:
Lunch - dragon fruit, a banana and oat smoothie
Snacks - coconut yoghurt with dried apricots/cranberrieas, milled almonds
Dinner - DH and Ds wanted toad in the hole and mash so I had 2 sausages, carrots, mash and a leek/kale/spinach sauteed mix.

Under calories and full up 😊

@TheWayTheLightFalls @TheRealHousewife I used to buy Daily 30 from Waitrose but they stopped selling it so now I buy the Marks and Spencer 35 plant gut booster, I had some on kefir on toast today. While I prefer the taste and texture of the Zoe one (the Marks one has some quite big lumps of goji berries) I do enjoy the M and S version and probably won’t buy the Zoe Daily 30 again as it is more expensive.

Morning all.

Checking in with 0.5 loss this week. All in the right direction!

Well done everyone who lost yesterday!

I am lurking but the thread moves a bit fast to keep up with. Loving some of the ideas and meal inspriraton!

Hope all goes well tomorrow @TheWayTheLightFalls

I’m back been a tough two weeks as recovery was set back a bit. Diet only for me as was in bed for a week! So I’m now ….

13 stone exactly 3 pounds down!

Got my smart scales @TheRealHousewifeand they are pretty fun, don’t think mine have an option telling me how old they think I am unfortunately 😂 but I do like that they just log my weight on the app!

Weight itself is terrible, right back up to 9st 10 again, feel like I will never get rid of these 10lbs! I was so sure I hadn’t eaten/drank enough to gain weight over Christmas but evidently I was wrong! I am on my period and I know that causes extra weight doesn’t it? Or is it only in the week leading up to it? Anyway, I will keep weighing daily and see the fluctuations which I’ve never done before, and obviously keep calorie counting and in calorie deficit and see if I can steadily get those 10lbs gone!

L - not sure yet need to look in the fridge 😂
D - Omelette and salad, maybe some cheese in the omelette!

@TheRealHousewife I've also got the renpho scales and the app. How do I see my age thing? I've seen it before but I can't find it again! 🤣🙈 @HappyLittleTreeFriend just reminded me that I meant to ask you!

Feeling much better today so I went out for a run 💪🏻

Scales were up a bit this morning, but still under 9stone5 so yayyy 🥰

Weight was slightly down this morning. I’ve eaten over calories today so tomorrow might not be so good. The kitchen is closed for today.

Hope everyone is well!

I wanted to ask, is anyone happy sharing how your cycle impacts appetite/eating/cravings?

I think my period is starting back after DS being born, but I’ve had three kids in fairly quick succession, so only had a handful of periods since 2020 and can’t actually remember how it impacted me!

Today’s menu:

L - mozzarella omelette with potato croquettes
D - baked potato with cheese and beans

Within calories but waaaay more carby than I usually do, hence my wonders about periods!

Evening all! Quick check in:

L - bagel with sweet chilli houmous, salad and a handful of posh crisps
D - chicken casserole, new potatoes and lots of green veg. Followed by a tiny handful of haribo 😬
No snacks but a few cups of tea and coffee. I've managed to switch from my only coffee being a sugary latte or cappuccino, to an americano style with just half a sugar! Pleased with this 🤩

Calories for the day 1200

Toying with weighing tomorrow, but might wait until next Wednesday.... We shall see!

Evening All

Went for a short walk this morning and have been in agony ever since 😔. One step forward, two back. Other half did a fabulous chicken & boiled egg salad which was lovely of him.

Having an early night (washed and in bed already) and will catch up with you tomorrow x

Sorry to hear that @TheRealHousewife hope tomorrow is better day.

Oh no. Sending love and glad to hear you are taking care of yourself.

I need to try and catch up on this thread, but ive done nowt....got a bug and only just resurfacing 🙄 Time to begin tomorrow! Hopefully i can catch up with you all and make some progress.

Right, off to bed and will try and read the thread tomorrow morning 😅