Rate my menu pls

[moonstarsuns]

Ok so I’m really keen to lose weight and so would like u to rate my new daily menu

breakfast 2 weetabix
lunch 2 boiled eggs on brown toast with butter
dunner jacket potato with butter and also broccoli and chicken on the side
apple for a snack

that should surely help yes?

in the last few days I’ve had as extras: - 1 bag of crisps, 1 biscuit, 1 hot cross bun and 2 soren bars which have somehow added 2 pounds??! Which does seem odd

The extras weren’t every day, those extras were over the course of last few days

Lose all the extras. Eat more fruit, seeds and nuts but in moderation. Maybe a yoghurt

And I'd make your lunch your breakfast
Your dinner your lunch but i'd have a 'normal' size potato rather than one sold as a jacket
And lots of veg and some protein for dinner (no carbs)

I’d lose the butter. How many slices of toast? I’d only have one. Maybe one egg rather than two? I’d get constipated eating so many eggs. I agree that the eggs would be better for breakfast. Or maybe yogurt and fruit for breakfast?

Stop the snacking.

Your menu is extremely carby. I’d just have the chicken and veg for dinner, and probably cut out the toast and up the protein at lunch.

Nothing wrong with a good amount of carbs, they’re good fuel! I would say there’s not much protein, or veg really in this mix - how much butter do you have? That can sneak in some extra calories or fats you might think you’re accounting for. Weight fluctuates in the short term quite a lot, long term trends are better for seeing the full picture. Are you quite active?

Sorry. This ended up lengthy but I’d have appreciated this advice a year ago.
I’m not an expert by any means. But I did lose some weight last year and your menu just wouldn’t have worked for me.

what did work for me was relatively low carb and higher protein as well as intermittent fasting so I’ll share what I did below though I appreciate every body is different so it might not suit you.

if I was fasting I didn’t eat until lunch & that would be something like cottage cheese, a couple boiled eggs, cucumber and some smoked salmon. I generally ate variations of the same thing every day so it would be that one day, hummus, cucumber & chicken breast the next day eg.

if I was a bit hungrier and wanted breakfast I’d try to stick to protein first - Greek yoghurt & homemade granola or eggs of some sort.

then dinner I generally stuck to meat & veg - steak & Tenderstem broccoli, chicken & roasted veg etc.

I found not eating after 7pm made a massive difference too - I generally felt sluggish the next day if I ate later than that.

for snacks I’d eat some strawberries/raspberries/grapes and if I wanted something savoury I’d have a small piece of cheese or I quite like the Kallo balsamic and vinegar lentil and pea cakes.

i logged EVERYTHING on my fitness pal, cups of tea, olive oil used in cooking etc and I would do it a few days in advance as I was planning my meals. It helped me plan & also gave me a good idea of how much wiggle room I had for snacks.

what really helped was consistency. I have a desk job and work full time so basically ate the same thing mon-Fri. Friday dinners would be a stir fry that sometimes included noodle as a “treat”. Saturdays I’d stick to my weekday lunches and make a pot of soup to have for dinner & lunch the next day & Sunday dinners I’d have a roast & only eat the veg and meat. I followed this rough menu rigidly for 4 weeks and then was able to relax a bit but by then it felt routine and a lot easier.

My understanding is that if weight loss is your goal then you should be looking to limit you blood glucose spikes. It’s normal for our blood glucose to spike in response to eating and drinking but the intensity of the spike and how quickly your blood glucose returns to your normal will influence how inclined your body is to store what you eat as fat.
Eating less frequently ie time restricted eating or fasting, focusing on high quality protein and fibre and eliminating simple carbohydrates will help. Take a look at the Glucose Goddess.

You need more protein and veg to fill you .
add nut butter to the weetabix and have 3 eggs instead of 2. Dinner seems ok as long as a decent portion of chicken. For snacks I'd go for things like nuts (but the portioned bags because they are high calorie) banana, Greek yoghurt with honey and berries.

I don’t see why a potato for dinner is bad. Can’t remember who alludes to that point but someone did. Surely a potato is good it’s a vegetable.

it’s about 1 tablespoon of butter

only 1 slice of toast and it’s whole grain

you need more fuit and veg to bulk it out or you're going to be starving.
I suggest you weigh "only" a tablespoon of butter and work out how many calories are in it. Probably as much as your slice of toast.

I'm not a fan of breakfast cereals but if that's working for you, and you're not adding sugar, then it's pretty low cals.

I'd probably cut back a bit on the carbs and fat overall though as your meals and snacks are very carb and fat heavy and fill up more with vegetables. Why not have your boiled eggs with a large salad? One salad I love is with tuna or tinned mackerel with salad leaves, boiled eggs, cooked cold green beans, cucumber and a mustard vinaigrette. That way I'm getting some omega 3 if I use the mackerel. Your dinner you could tweak by having the chicken, broccoli and some more vegetables like cauliflower, cabbage, peas etc. They still all contain carbs but also a lot of fibre, vitamins and bulk.

The snacks are very carb heavy but also even the ones which look low in calories for their size (like the soreen bars) aren't very filling making it easy to overeat. If you want a snack I'd stick to fruit, ideally fresh but I also if you really want something sweet, I eat some dried fruit (as I do need some joy in my life).

Potatoes are a very starchy vegetable. When the government recommends "5 a day" potatoes are excluded for that reason (in fact if you go back to the original research, they excluded all root vegetables).

You are currently getting 2 of your 5 a day. The apple and the broccoli. If you increase that to 5 minimum but ideally 7, you will be increasing your fruit and vegetable intake by c. 240-400g a day. That's quite a lot of bulk which will help fill you up.

Don't fall for the marketeers and advice that "fruit juice counts". Fruit juice is just sugar water with a health halo. The original WHO guidance doesn't include that as an option.

So unfortunately a lot of people have insulin resistance and most are unaware. This means eating carbs spikes our blood sugar making us want to eat more carbs and sugar which is stored as fat. The body utilises carbs or glucose first as energy then burns fat but if you want less carbs, it moves onto fat burning quicker for energy. More protein means stronger muscles and helps you stay fuller for longer. More carbs also means water retention which shows as a gain of weight on the scales.
So basically I'm saying all this because if you limit your carbs and increase your protein you will notice a difference.
I wish someone had told me this before I reached my 40s and was obese with prediabetes, high BP and high cholesterol. I've since lost over 4st by limiting carbs and now at bmi 22.0.
Biscuits, weetabix, toast, screen, cake, hot cross buns is carbs heavy! Aim for around 80-130g carbs max a day.

Well my only carbs for now is the potato at dinner, as have cut out soreen bar and hot cross buns.. lunch is eggs with no toast, breakfast weetabix, dinner is chicken and veg and potato and snacks are apples

I think you’ll find weetabix are carbs!

So you’re having just two boiled eggs for lunch ? How about having a large green salad with them and some low fat dressing ? Just two boiled eggs with no condiments sounds like torture to have every day for lunch

@CoastalCalmwell it seems to be doing the trick so far and I had an apple not long ago to keep me going until dinner

Sounds better, OP. Eggs are really filling, I find, so I’d not even think about the toast. I’d add some spinach at lunchtime instead, and something like lentils or extra veg at dinner instead of the potato. I don’t eat breakfast, so that’s an easy win for me, but I aim for fibre with lunch and dinner and generally moderate carbs, high fibre and protein.

You will get all sorts of responses on here around blood sugar spikes, carbs and upfs, but the reality is the only way you lose weight is to eat fewer calories than your body uses.
Unless you want to follow the latest faddy diet, my suggestion is you concentrate on 'proper' food such as lean meat, fish, f&v, weigh everything and log everything on a calorie counter app.

Where’s the protein?! And count your calories fgs.

@FlatEricathe protein is the 2 eggs and the chicken

Op are you weighing your butter? It is seriously high in calories, even for a tiny bit, so is spread.

The biggest tip I can give you is to start using My Fitness Pal, you will be amazed to see where hidden calories are.

Work out your TDEE, reduce that by 20% for a weight loss target. At 5ft 9 my weight loss calories was a shockingly low number. Now at target weight they are still only 1,800 for maintenance. Fill up on fibre and protein and skip wasted calories in butter and high calories, low nutrient density foods.

I’m no longer having butter as not eating toast (which was with butter) and have cut out the potato (also with butter) and now for dinner it’s chicken and vegetables

I think it’s fine but I would actually add more veg to every meal for satiety and keep everything else the same (maybe minus the extra snacks you mentioned if you can)
so maybe add tomatoes and mushrooms with your egg and toast, lots of lettuce, cucumber etc with your baked potato, chicken and broccoli. just a suggestion though 😊

Thank u @BlueShoeGluelots of good ideas