What should I cut out

[Jaffalemons]

i seem to have hit a standstill but struggle with all the meal prep. I’ve settled on a breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner and the reality seems I need to eat less to lose.

my concern is I don’t want to be hungry as it makes me fail and binge crap.

what is an easy tweak that keeps protein fibre and nutrients. Should I ditch the fruit?

I’ll upload my breakfast lunch and snacks. Dinner is home cooked and varies, but portion is smaller as I use a small bowl.

Breakfast Egg, tomato, greens with a little lemon, vinegar, EVO dressing.

Snack - 2-3 fruit, 1/2 portion of whey protein with 100ml milk .

lunch homemade bread with seeds, pot of nuts and seeds, fruit.

Dinner - anything but veg and beans whole food focused.

Should I ditch the fruit? It feels counter intuitive, but is that my issue?

I’m very active.
5’7 10 st

Same here @TiggerWoods

1100 calories most days, and the protein I eat at breakfast sees me through to mid afternoon then it's only a couple of hours till my second meal.

My big protein hitters are chicken and tofu. Alongside chia seeds and bone broth powder.

I eat 3 pieces of fruit a day and 4 portions of non starchy veg.

Loads of herbs and warm spices. Daily probiotics. A couple of nuts.

Popcorn for snacking every now and then.

Oh don’t get me wrong, I eat the same thing for breakfast and lunch every day - I don’t have the.brain space. It’s the chickens 😳

Tell me about your tofu 😂

I cook with it now and again but what would you do with it?

I get you. I have to put that to one side, I used to eat organic free range chicken but buying 2kg a week wasn't sustainable. I do try to buy the best free range non organic.

I try to be pragmatic about it. My BMI is waaaay higher than yours, so I'm just sucking it up for the time being.

I don't eat fish, or red meat.

Nuts and seeds are the most calorie dense non-UP food. A tiny handful can have as many calories as a healthy light meal.
3 walnuts is about 25g and about 150 cals - mainly fat, with about 5g protein.
100g nuts and seeds = 600 calories and 20g protein
100g cottage cheese = 100 calories and 12 g protein
100g Skyr = 60 calories and 11g protein
100g chicken breast = 150 calories and 25g protein
100g tuna in spring water = 115 calories and 25g protein
100g puy lentils = 120 calories and 11g protein
100g boiled or poached eggs = 150 calories and 12g protein

Cottage cheese, Skyr icelandic yoghurt, tuna in spring water, chicken breast all have far greater amounts of protein and bulk for far fewer calories. You don't need to focus on the calories, just ditch the nuts and seeds for a couple of weeks and replace them with a range of the above.

Nuts and seeds are delicious and nutritious but they are not ideal for weight loss. I use them as the quickest way to add weight when elderly relatives and Dc are ill and lose weight. They are two or three times the calories for the same amount of protein of all the other options.

Silken tofu is ideal for smoothies with a little coconut probiotic it's a great alternative to milk as a base (150g tofu, 100ml probiotic).

Just about any other type of tofu is good for using instead of chicken in stir fries, curries etc.

I would just eat the tofu and ditch the chicken but feel it probably wouldn't be good for me having that much tofu!!!

There's also basil and pesto tofu which is YUM and would be ideal sliced in a salad or in a sandwich.

I have to say, you lot have been very helpful! I’m glad I started this thread!

thank you

Maybe swap the banana for berries, bananas are high sugar and can spike the hunger feeling especially with the additional fruit, so may be counter productive.

Can you reduce the seeds/nuts too in favour of a more protein based option?

To bridge any hunger gaps as you experiment, drink clear (flavoured) protein water (MyProtein have great options).

If you’re upping your protein are you also upping the lifting/muscle building exercises you’re doing? I am definitely no expert on this and am a similar height and build to you with the same issues of gaining a bit of tummy fat recently that I’m trying to get rid of. I do a lot of cardio but I think my body has become very efficient and used to that exercise so I’m trying to add in more weight and strength exercise. I guess my point is (sorry for waffle 🤓) that if you have upped your protein but aren’t doing any weights or strengthening then perhaps that could be it?
Your diet looks super healthy to me so if I was going to cut anything out from that it would be maybe to only have one bit of fruit.

My hack is to swap all pasta/noodle/rice to konjac it mean you can make quick easy protein rich low calorie meals. It’s like 15 calories per portion and no carbs. I also make Cheese sauces out of of nutritional yeast flakes and low fat laughing cow triangles tastes yummy and so low fat. I would cut the bread and nuts out of your diet and replace it with protein rich food.

I’d estimate that at around 1700 calories.

I’d limit the fruit and nuts and increase protein.

never even heard of konjac! It appears to be real food - despite what someone was trolling up thread, I don’t really eat UPF. Where do you buy it? Thanks

It’s made out of some Japanese vegetable I think. I buy it off Amazon this one amzn.eu/d/75IhFaL

Being 'so not into calories' is all well and good until you get mystified about what food to cut out to lose some weight. If you were a bit more open to calorie counting, you'd know it would be way more effective to reduce the nuts than the fruit. Calorie counting doesn't have to be heroin-chic obsession territory, it's simply finding out the factual information about what you're consuming so you can make an informed choice instead of guessing.

I honestly think I’d get a bit obsessed and I just don’t want to go there - I have slight perfectionist tendencies.

I thought more people would say keep the nuts as they are healthy, but there we go.

Hi - I have nutracheck too and would love to do this but I don't know how. Please could you post where it is located on the app? Thx.

Presumably at that height you’re not actually overweight?

No I’m not, my BMI is 22, but when one’s wardrobe of clothes no longer fit, it would suggest that some weight gain has occurred beyond my ‘normal’. Are only the overweight allowed to lose a bit of fat? 18.5 - 25 is a wide range.

@PauliesWalnutsIf you go onto the diary and click on ‘my meals’ then the meal you want like dinner, you will then see a bar that says ‘create a new meal or recipe’. You give your meal a name and say how many people it’s for. You then press next and it will bring up some ingredients it thinks is appropriate. You can add them or press skip. You then just add each ingredient and the quantities you are using and at the end it will give you the cals per portion plus fat, carbs etc.
i can post it with screenshots if that doesn’t make sense.

I get you, I asked you earlier in the thread if you really needed to lose wight but I understand, a few pounds makes all the difference about whether my trousers will fit, particularly the more styled and fitted ones (ie the expensive ones!) and Im not buying a whole new wardrobe for the sake of half a stone. Which would then become another half a stone unless you get a grip on it.

Found it - thank you! This will be invaluable.

Perfectly understandable to avoid something like calorie counting if it's going to trigger unhealthy mindsets for you, but you provide a good example here: nuts are indeed healthy, but they're extremely calorific. Healthy doesn't equal weight-loss.

konjac noodles are vile

Some are, the ones I get taste the same as normal pasta and great, I eat them most days.

I do have the same frustrations. As I mentioned earlier I'm trying to accept being a size bigger than I was all my life without too much effort, but I'm starting to hate my squishy midriff.

I'm going to have a dexa scan to see my body composition. If I'm gaining muscle not fat I'll feel better about the weight gain.

I'm also a nut eater and have decided to massively cut down to see if it makes a difference. My diet sounds similar to the OP's and I'm now actively trying to add protein but not from nuts! I've never counted calories but always actively avoided UPFs, even before they had the name.