⭐️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?

@LegoTherapy I hope your mum makes a decent recovery. Aging parents are such a worry.

@PatienceOfEngelsand @WhatWouldTheDoctorDo I’ve just finished day 2 and I’m absolutely loving it. In a way it’s terrible as it has highlighted that I have neither a decent core (knew that) nor decent balance (more of a surprise). But I feel like if I can keep going, I could make some really positive changes over time.

Food shop arrived this morning. No traces of Christmas food left. 3 days til WOW. Let’s get on it!

Which one are you doing @LemonDrizzle23 ? True is my favorite though the practices are quite long. I liked Breath and Move as well. I think Flow had consistently shorter practices.

Sorry to hear about your poor mum, @LegoTherapy, I hope she’s on the mend soon.

My evening snacking has not improved - DH has been away for a few days and school/nursery have not started back so I’ve had all three kids to manage myself (with help from my mum to be fair) for 4 days, and I’m just on my knees, which I think is leading me to just crave carby, salty, sugary, snacky things. Luckily he’s back today and school starts tomorrow so I’m hoping a couple of days of eating better - which is so much easier when he’s here - will be enough to see me stay the same this week, as I’m currently about 600g up.

My meal plans this week involve using my frozen leftovers - I’ve been too efficient at making extra portions and freezing them so my freezer is chock full!

I’m in.

Thanks @LegoTherapy he has all the boxes and instruction booklets, it’s the energy for doing it that is lacking! I quite enjoy it, but I’m refusing to do it myself…

However, he has some pretty pricey sets fully constructed, so I think the prospect of selling those ones for cold hard cash will be fairly motivating. And they should be easy to dismantle. There’s just boxes and boxes of Lego city in the loft though. And possibly of Lego Chima, which I remember was an enormous faff and very difficult to replace missing pieces last time we attempted to sort it.

Well done @LemonDrizzle23on keeping going with yoga, I totally feel like a sack of spuds today 😂 but keep plodding on, managed to get some housework bits done, very much looking forward to lunch - felt very hungry leading up to mealtimes yesterday, body is noticing the lack of little snacks for sure! But I know when I’m back in the swing of it will be fine. Finished just over my calorie count yesterday because I had some rhubarb crumble for dessert but that’s the last of the ‘treats’ type food in the fridge so should be easier to resist come in under count today.

Switching out some teas with oat milk and sugar back to more herbal teas again as well will help!

L - spicy pumpkin soup and small slice of sourdough toast
D - stir fry with king prawns and udon

Snacks - coffee, tea, herbal tea and apple slices

Yoga today as well and maybe a dog walk, will see how I get on with the cleaning jobs and youngest DD is still a bit under the weather!

Well done everyone moving in the right direction. I've been struggling to get out of Twixmas head. Good start today, with my first visit to the gym since NYE. I intend to keep my water intake high today and no eating after 8pm.

Hello. Had a good day yesterday, stayed on track calorie wise and fit a 5km walk in. It was so windy I was the only person in the park so it felt even more successful! I have ordered some hibiscus tea and a special teapot after reading @TheRealHousewife 's reccomendation. I hope it as good as it sounded. Also ordered some multivitamins and supplements, so feeling hesitantly positive that I am in the right mindframe for success this time....

Three different types of soup made today and now it’s time for a rest. Tomorrow will be a lot of walking if school is open. It’s lethal here when icy and I sometimes tell school it’s too dangerous to get ds to school because the footpaths are ice rinks. Last year one of the dad’s at school slid about 200m down the hill and smashed through concrete bollards, through a fence and only stopped because a giant oak made him otherwise he’d have flown out the bottom of the garden and onto the road below. Thankfully no one was seriously hurt although one mum got hit by another car that slid trying to get into her car and badly hurt her ankle. School have finally devised a policy for icy conditions and have said if the council don’t grit then the caretaker and staff will. It was a miracle nobody died that day. Our school is the only one halfway up a steep hill and always the last to close in snow and ice. Crazy.
It’s swimming after school in another hilly place so I’m not sure that will be happening either. UK councils need to visit places like Canada and see how they do things. It’s ridiculous how a small amount of snow brings life to a standstill here.

@PatienceOfEngels the one I’m doing is just called 30 days of yoga - it’s an old one I found under her “courses” on YouTube. I think it’s from 2015. If I get into it, maybe I can work my way through the different challenges.

@HappyLittleTreeFriend I’m channelling my inner yogi, and will be lithe an flexible by the end of 2026 😂

Ok day for me. Kept within calories, but dinner wasn’t exactly nutritious unless salt and pepper chips are secretly good for you.
A 5km run this morning will hopefully cancel them out. The kitchen is closed now.

One of my favourite meals lately. Note that I’m being a good girl and instead of having a full half pack of Crosta and Mollica breadsticks, I’m having a quarter, with a large carrot and a quarter of a very large red pepper. The breadsticks are the black olive ones and make a nice ce change to plain ones plus it goes towards an extra vegetable. Or are olives fruit? Either way it’s a good thing. I’m watching an episode of Murder in paradise for that extra decadence. I don’t usually eat so late but it took ages to get he kitchen sorted and Ds to settle down so I’m just not just eating dinner. I forgot to eat lunch I’ve just realised 🙄 I made fruit compote today too ready for the Greek yogurt. Half the soup portions are in the freezer and half in the fridge so I’m feeling very accomplished today and ready for the week ahead. For those who are new, this is VERY unusual for me to be organised.

Evening Every One

Well that's Christmas and New Year done & dusted 😮. Before you know it it’ll be around again 😅

@LegoTherapy Sorry to read about your mum. I hope she makes a swift recovery ❤️‍🩹💐 Thats a lovely supper! 😋 And Soup is always an excellent stand by. I usually have a few in the freezer and a couple in the fridge. PS Are those M&S PJs … I think I have the same pair. Quality stuff … your checks even match up across your knee 👌

@Fellsbells Well done on getting your 5k done! @staringatthesun & your gym visit! 👏

@FreshLemonZest I really enjoy my hibiscus flower tea. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed. Which have you gone for? Bags or loose? I do put some Truvia in which I’m trying to reduce as I’ve read low calorie sweeteners aren’t good for you 🤷‍♀️

Welcome @Z0rr0 👍

I totally agree @biscuitcat , it make sense to make use of leftovers whenever possible👍

Today I made a version of kimchi (white cabbage, carrot, apple, spring onion, ginger, garlic, chillies, soy sauce) for the first time. When I tasted the sauce it blew my head off! I think I’ll make another batch of cabbage and add it in to dilute the taste. It ferments on your counter top over 5 days by which time it should be full of good bugs.

In other news I got a short walk in 😮😅

@TheRealHousewifethank you, and yes, they are! I’ve taken to sitting on the floor on the big cushions we use for when we build Lego.
We’ve got a decent covering of snow here now so I’m even less convinced about school being open tomorrow. It’s going to be minus 8 for the school run in the morning and I’ve not seen any gritters out at all yet this winter round here. There have been no signs of any grit having been put down either. An old friend worked for the highest agency and he was always on standby to grit at night if the temperature dropped below 5 degrees. Unless it was also raining. The trucks are able to dispense different grades of grit depending on the requirements which I thought was clever. Sadly, he was a prize twat and we are no longer friends 😂

May I join the thread...
Aiming for an initial 4 stone loss this year (more to loose on top of this but this is my aim).
Need some accountability and support though!

Hello all, signing in for OMAD. Likely a brunch meal out with DD, then just coffee etc for the rest of the day. Planning to dress warmly because being cold and hungry is usually the thing that sabotages it.

It’s a funny time for me - for those from the 2025 threads, I’m now two or so weeks away from going in for a double mastectomy. With my usual dark humour I am thinking about how much weight I’ll be losing there and needing to adjust my goal downwards (!). But more pragmatically in the run up I am working on eating well, prehabilitation and so on. So an odd time. Just putting one leg in front of the other really.

Welcome @romantasylife !

Thinking of you @TheWayTheLightFalls 💐

Welcome @romantasylife !👋

@LegoTherapy well done for being so organized! That school run sounds terrifying.

@LemonDrizzle23 I think I did that one once a while ago. Iirc it was her first 30 day one (she has 10) and her filming/instruction definitely got better!

@TheRealHousewife kimchi sounds lovely! May look at a recipe tomorrow.

Okay, so weighing in at 76kg this morning (down 0.2 on end of last week...still +1.3 from before Christmas break!).
Still Christmas/birthday food left: tiramisu, last few chocolate bits, tin of shortbread for my birthday (but will tuck that away for February).
Meal out tonight with work.
Icy as hell outside so even a walk is a bit iffy - going to wait till this afternoon, though will still only be just above freezing.

Resigned to the fact I won't be starting properly until next Monday.

Did manage to avoid eating in the evening yesterday though🏅

Thinking of you @TheWayTheLightFalls and @LegoTherapy

Well it's official that I've gained my buffer of 5lbs back over the holiday - ridiculous hoping some of it will go quickly once back on it. I have a heavy cold - had the shivers last night so cooked a full roast, but wasn't very hungry. At least that has kicked me into my IF window nicely.

Good luck all

Morning ladies after 1 week am back to work today. Need a strong head for my calories intake and my cardio. Hoping everything turns out right for me.

What is OMAD @TheWayTheLightFalls ?

I'm starting today. I've removed all the Christmas treats from my reach, stashed away so the rest of the family can have them. I gained 3lb over Christmas so would like that to go quickly now I'm not stuffing myself with mince pies and Christmas chocolate!

One Meal a Day . I usually eat mid-morning and then just stick to calorie free drinks the rest of the day. Next meal the following morning.

Gosh @TheWayTheLightFalls, that’s a big surgery - good luck, and excellent shout doing some pre-habilitation!

First day of school here, with a lovely snowy walk in, and I’m so pleased to have the routine back. Baby DS is about to go down for a nap and I’ll leave DH in charge and take the dog out for a walk so I can enjoy the weather before everything melts and goes all slushy.

Today’s menu:

L - garlic and ginger broth with rice and Itsu dumplings
D - Delia’s sausages in cider with mash and roast broccoli

Thanks @TheWayTheLightFalls all the best for your surgery.

Good Morning

Thankfully (or not) we are all back into our usual routines with children back in school and people back at work; with that usually comes more predictable and planned eating regimes = healthier/mindful 🤞

Sending a massive hug to @TheWayTheLightFalls Will be thinking about you ❤️💐

Welcome to the thread @romantasylife . Have you decided how you’re going to do this and what changes you’re going to make. You might find it a little bit easier to also have shorter term goals such as 1 or 2lbs a week. Let us know if you’re happy to share 🙂

@PatienceOfEngels Fermented foods are said to be so good for our guts. Even cheese (in small amounts) 😬

@FridayNighFeeling Hope you soon feel better! 🤒

@TealSloth You can do it! 👍

@biscuitcat Good idea taking the dog out whilst it’s still hard ground. Flipping mud from the beloved dog is the bane of my life 🐾

Menu
Meal 1 - Spicy Vegetable Soup. 2 boiled eggs. Pecans/walnuts.
Meal 2 - Cod with crab & Parmesan crust, peas, carrots & green beans. Home made tartar sauce. Greek yoghurt & berries.
Drinks - Tea, black coffee, hibiscus tea & water.