DIET FAILED AGAIN - it’s thread 8 (the one where we all lose weight) - all welcome

[thenewaveragebear1983]

New thread for the new year 2026! Everyone welcome to join us for motivation and encouragement, without judgement.

Hi everyone

I’m struggling a bit tonight. I think I had dinner a little earlier than normal and I feel hungry now. I’ve had some low fat crisps that are within my calories but I’d like more to eat.

i had a bit of a shock today. I realised just how much weight I’d gained last year and after Christmas was my heaviest ever but I didn’t realise just how big my bottom is! I carry my weight around my middle and it’s very slowly coming off that area but I don’t think ive lost anything off my backside and it looks awful. I suppose the answer is exercise but I just can’t seem to get into that atm. I guess with concentrating on the food, I’m letting the exercise slip.

@thenewaveragebear1983 has your leave started now? I think it has but could be wrong. I hope you have a great week off and I know you have a to do list but give yourself some time off too.

Help! I need to diet again

I've successfully lost quite a lot of weight in the past- 3 stone once, 5 stone another time.

I had a baby, breastfed and somehow put more weight on after having the baby!

Baby is now a toddler (still breastfeeding). I still find myself absolutely stuffing my face with chocolate like a starving teenager.

I honestly dont know where to start - counting calories? Slimming world? Weight watchers? 5:2? IF? I've done them all 😂😂😂

@poorpaws yes I broke up today, oh I need this break so much! It will be so good not to be tied to the screen all week, Shame the weather is dismal and cold but 🤷‍♀️ I am going to take Maggie on a really long adventure walk tomorrow just to stretch out our legs after a horrible few weeks. I got a call back from that phone interview from Weds, they want to do 2nd stage interview which is amazing, and has really sent me into my week off feeling good.

food wise, absolutely crap- chocolate, bread, wine… 🤔

@Gatecrashermum welcome! I think sliming world is the easiest when you have a young family. No counting, proper meals, home cooking. Have you seen the new changes? You can have avocado as a healthy extra now 🥑 🥑

Urgh woke up with a headache after wine last night, my first this year! But a lovely week off ahead! I need to get my food sorted, I need to sort the fridge out and make a menu and a list, we’re at the stage where we have things in but not enough for actual meals, and I need to get some stuff for the week ahead with the kids off.

i haven’t weighed myself on February but I think I need to to draw a line under my freestyling and get me back on track as it’s not going to help me to find out I’ve put on half a stone!

@Gatecrashermum hi and welcome. I’ve tried every diet too! Opposite to @thenewaveragebear1983 I found slimming world the least effective for me and I actually gained weight on the three separate occasions I tried them 😳. I did better with WW and the last time I went got to a low weight, much lower than my goal weight and I felt amazing but that was many years ago. I’m actually doing ok on giving up sugar completely and calorie counting. I know it’s a bit of a drag to count calories but it works for me.

its really, reallly cold this morning but I’ll be out with the dogs later and then I must do some housework.

it’s the 14 feb and by this evening I’ll be exactly halfway through my 3 months (90 days) sugar ban. It is so much easier for me to have no sugar than having a little. Actually I’m quite surprised that I don’t think of chocolate so much and it’s really taken a back seat in my mind for the first time in my adult life. I do notice I eat more crisps and mini cheddars though to fill the gap but I eat those within my calorie allowance.

weigh-in tomorrow and I’m past getting the big numbers now so I’ll be happy with half a pound, so long as it’s a loss. Also I was very comfy in my size 14 jeans all day so I think/hope I’m permanently back in that size.

happy Saturday.

@thenewaveragebear1983 great news on the job interview, sounds like you’ve smashed it. Enjoy your adventure with Maggie and have a great week off.

Thanks @thenewaveragebear1983 and @poorpaws

Well done @poorpaws at giving up sugar.

I am actually thinking of just starting by cutting sugar out completely. Or, say having one small sweet treat a day. I think i eat ok generally, it's just the sugar. I've told myself it's the breastfeeding and maybe it is but it's also a bad habit I've got into.

Ok, starting today I'll just have one small sweet thing a day.

I think I have to ease into this - when I lost 3 stone just before doing ivf I had to change my approach twice in the year, after I plateaued, so I'm ok with trying different things

@Gatecrashermum good plan. I just can’t have a little every day, I have to cut sugar out completely. I get the taste having had a little and then crave and finally give in and eat tons. If you can do it though it’s a great start.

I am a total sugar junkie too, and I was the eorst when I had young children and broken sleep, it was the chronic exhaustion I think. I just said to dh in the kitchen, as I say most weekends, this has got to stop- I feel like I am eating so badly this year, constant carbs and not actually applying myself to my diet at all. I did go out for a run and did 5 miles including some hill reps. Made myself egg bread and avocado for brunch. But it’s really unsatisfying, I feel like I am never hungry and constantly eating. I wonder if it’s hormonal for me, the last few months my cycle has been really messed up and I’ve had 3 heavy periods in 6 weeks now.

I forgot to get soup out of the freezer for lunch so thought I might have a couple of slices of toast. My diet is a little carb heavy so I changed my mind and had an apple, an orange and a kiwifruit 😇. Now I feel like I’m starving to death and the soup is already out of the freezer for tomorrow.

I bought the beyond body book a couple weeks ago, I finally unwrapped it and read it today and going to do the food prep and follow the days. Iv done my measure up and done my shopping list for tomorrow and I have a close friend joining me so we can keep each other accountable.

@Miraclemuma03 good plan and it’s always great to have a friend to keep you on track. Good luck.

ive lost .75 lb this week, not a fantastic loss but still a loss so im happy about it. I knew my losses would reduce to less than a pound a week and I feel I’ve had to work hard for that tiny loss but at the beginning of this I said any loss was good and so far this year I haven’t gained so I’m ok with it. It’s going to take a long time but I’ll try to stick to plan and I’m half way through my no sugar mission so I’ll just keep plodding on and try my best.

happy Sunday, I’m hoping to have a lazy day.

@Miraclemuma03 that book looks good. To be honest I think just finding that thing that you can stick to long enough to work is key, and in reality it doesn’t actually matter what it is. My biggest problem this year is that I’ve not actually stuck to anything.

I’ve hung on by the skin of my teeth and weighed in today with a maintain, which I do not deserve and I know I will not continue to get away with it. Must apply myself, no excuses. We have a fancy night away for my mother in laws 75th 4 weekends from now and I’d like to lose 5lbs by then which will put me back in the 10st bracket not the 11’s.

right now I am tired and cold. I have a hundred things I could do but I have come back to bed for an hour while dh is at football with a hot water bottle and my book. Dd is coming for dinner today, we’re doing roast pork, and I am going to do a menu and shopping list but that’s all today. My chores can start tomorrow

I think the beyond body book is pretty good, its a menu designed for the individual person, some exercises designed for you your own body type. Mine is designed around perimenopaus. I think it will be something pretty easy to stick too. Right now im using it for healthy snacks and dinner ideas.

I had a weird day yesterday, during the day I was just so tired and I dozed on and off for several hours in front of the tv. I just couldn’t seem to shake myself into action. During the night I had terrible night sweats, woke up and my T-shirt was dripping wet, it’s horrible. I’ve been having them a lot recently.

jobs today- Tesco order coming at 10, walk doggo, strip beds and put the sheets through, and do one of my jobs off my list. Not too strenuous. Oh and colour my hair, and make contact with the hr lady for that job from last week, they want to do a next stage interview with me so 🤞

diet wise- I am going to wait until I’m properly hungry before I eat. I have leftover roast meat and veg from yesterday so that’s my dinner plan, and lunch I think I’ll do baked potatoes and tuna with salad. My goal this week is just to track and measure everything and actually stick to my calories

@thenewaveragebear1983 sorry to hear you’re struggling with sleep patterns too. I’m really struggling, I just can’t sleep and atm getting about 1-2 hours per night and the rest of the time I lie in bed willing myself to go to sleep but I just can’t. I get about an hours sleep in the chair in the evening if I get the room very warm but that’s not a regular sleep every evening, just occasionally so I’m permanently worn out.

ive noticed my calories are creeping up every day, not with anything sugary because I am keeping to my no sugar rule but I’m still snacking on savoury treats and I’m permanently craving toast for some reason. I need to knuckle down and sort this weight out.

today it’s a supermarket shop, then dog walk and I have to make soup for the week and I’ll also fit some housework in. Not a very exciting day for me and although I don’t like food shopping, I hate putting all the food away and the housework even more.

im going to try to limit my calories a bit more today as I’ll be quite busy so hopefully won’t have time to think about food.

I’ve just calculated my TDEE and it’s 1,642. I’m in shock, I thought it would be more so now I have to reduce my calories even more 🙁

does your tdee base on you being sedentary ? and is that your maintenance amount or is that number what you need to eat to lose?

my daily according to those calculators is always around 1650 ish, but I never include any exercise, I always assume the most sedentary option. Then I allow myself a little more if I exercise a lot. According to my Garmin my average calorie burn over the last 12 months is around 2050 per day, which feels a bit more realistic and therefore if I ate 1600 a day I should lose weight.

it’s horrible when you can’t sleep isn’t it, to be fair I am lucky, I sleep well and only very occasionally have insomnia, but I do not get enough hours sleep, ever. I never lie in because of the dog and I don’t go to bed early enough. This week I am going to nap every single day. I actually really like a sofa nap, and a hot water bottle. It’s the only way I Cope. Very recently i was so exhausted I would nap every afternoon for 30 minutes and it turned out I was horribly anaemic, I’m much better now.

my food has been much better today, I have eaten proper meals and snacked only on a pear, and have had no sugary stuff. I had a busy day tidying the dcs rooms. I have hurt my Achilles tendon so I’m not running for the next few days and instead I am doing some very gentle stretches.

@thenewaveragebear1983 based on sedentary because I think I am. With moderate exercise it’s 1,851. To be honest I don’t really understand it and I’ve never checked before or researched it. I just guessed that I need to have about 500 calories less than the 1,642 to lose one pound per week and that’s quite a big ask.

I think I do go to the highest option if I’m counting calories as I don’t want to under-estimate.

im very aware that my weight loss will slow down now and I feel a bit impatient about it all.

oops dinners ready

Yes, I find it very hard to judge exercise, so I always count as sedentary, but I also find it very confusing. Like everyone says never eat back your exercise calories, but then if you only ate 1100 cals a day and exercised, you’d be so hungry and miserable. 🤷‍♀️ i suppose it forces us to make careful choices about what we eat doesn’t it, because there’s not a lot of wiggle room.

I’m trying to tweak little things starting from today to try to speed up the weight loss a little.

DP leaves at 4.00 - 4.30 and I’ve usually chopped up my salad before he leaves. Today I didn’t, and I set a one hour timer and did housework (I was surprised how much I managed to do) and then prepared my salad, so ate quite a bit later which Im hoping will make me more full this evening and I won’t want to snack.

ive cut out tomatoes from my salad because I don’t really like them and I’ve cut the two slices of pineapple (from a tin) down to one slice. I’ve cut the amount of grapes in my yogurt too, although the actual yogurt part is still quite big. Tomorrow I’ve arranged a longer dog walk to where we used to walk before one of my dogs became lame and has to be in a buggy so I’m hoping to do a lot more steps tomorrow. We will be passing our cafe and DP suggested an extra meal out this week but luckily it’s closed on a Tuesday.

i don’t want to suck all the joy out of life but I really want to see a good loss by Easter. I feel just a bit panicky inside because I’m doing my best and I can see the weight loss is getting smaller.

i know these are very small changes and miracles won’t happen but my plan is to change more as and when I think what to do.

great work on improving your eating today. Proper meals at the right time helps enormously with snacking.

It’s been a good day so far today. We did a really long dog walk as planned and didn’t get back until 2.30 pm So I decided to skip lunch and dinner is cooking now.

DP was a bit late going today but I still timed one hour and moved around doing housework even though I was quite tired from the dog walk so it’s been quite a good day for keeping moving.

Tomorrow, I’m going to Marks & Spencer‘s and Home Bargains. It looks as if it’s going to rain all day again here so I won’t be taking the dogs out because they hate it so much.

i hope you are all doing well.

I had a weird day, I coloured my hair then went into town to buy some trousers for my interview next week, depressingly couldn’t find any that actually looked nice, and as we all know, shop mirrors are the devils own work. So I left feeling very old, fat and a little shocked at the state of my hips/thighs/backside to be honest. I did buy some trousers but I don’t really like them, and I sort of came to the realisation on my way home that it’s actually impossible to find clothes you like when actually it’s me that I don’t like 🤷‍♀️

spent the afternoon planning my presentation for the interview- I feel nervous now and like a big imposter. But hey 🤷‍♀️ I have a week to practice and will do some practice questions.

food today, I had melon blueberries and yoghurt, a sandwich for lunch and dinner we had delicious biryani made with lamb mince 😋

@thenewaveragebear1983 it’s dreadful when you can’t find clothes you like and you want to really look nice so you blame yourself and your figure.

i think it was last week I admitted to seeing my bottom was much bigger than I thought and I think it was that very thought that’s sent me into a frenzy of trying much harder to lose weight. Not enough of a frenzy to get back into exercise though 🤷‍♀️

sometimes it gets just too difficult and that’s why we falter. I often think to myself when am I actually going to look nice in clothes and when will I look and feel slim. Sadly all are a long way away for me.