Tips for weight loss

[Happydays777]

I had severe anaemia earlier this year. I had to have blood transfusion and iron infusion. It was caused by very heavy periods and I have 4 ovarian cysts two cysts on each ovary. The biggest one is a cyst is 9cm and 4cm and a 6cm cyst and 2cm on the other. I will be having hysterectomy and ovary removal soon. I have since put over a stone on in weight going from 8st 6lb to 9st 8lb. Nothing fits. Nothing I do makes me lose weight and I don't know what to because nothing fits. I walk about 7k steps a day and 12k a day at weekends. I can't do too much more exercise atm as have a lot of bloating and the dr said to take it easy due to cysts. I don't eat that much and eat no chips crisps choc and snacks. What can I do to get these pounds off please

Sorry to hear about your health problems. Sounds really hard. I think if it's a comfort at all to you some of the scale weight plus some of the fact that your clothes don't fit will be down to bloating rather than fat gain, which should mean once you've had your surgery if that resolves things even a bit you will feel better in yourself.

It will also help if you're able to to get back to some exercise post-surgery. In the meantime I'd make your focus your diet - I know you say you don't think you overeat and don't eat snacks and junk which is great, but I'd be tempted to take a bit more of a structured approach, just for a short time anyway. So work out your TDEE (I'd put your activity level as lightly active) using an online calculator, then from there what a small calorie deficit would be - maybe at first just 10% or so under TDEE. Then keep a careful food diary for a week or two, I'd use MyFitnessPal or Nutracheck or a similar app as it calculates nutrients and macros for you. You don't even have to change anything at first, just take stock of where you are currently and identify any hidden high calorie foods - there's obvious things like sugary drinks, alcohol but even things that are 'healthy' can sometimes be easy to overdo it on, things I was surprised by were nuts, seeds and dried fruit which I was throwing back handfuls of daily as a 'healthy' snack (they are healthy in lots of ways but incredibly calorie dense), similarly nut butters, salad dressings, oil in cooking. You might be able to put yourself into a small deficit just by removing or cutting down these things. I'd also pay attention to your protein and fibre intake and prioritise that, at your weight you probably want at least 60-70g protein a day and maybe more if you can manage it. For fibre you want to aim for 25-30g a day eventually but review where you are currently and build slowly as with your existing bloating problems the last thing you want is to constipate yourself 😳

You will get there but as you've actually not got a huge amount to lose (I know it feels like you do but depending on your height you're probably either already within a healthy weight range or just above it) so it will be slow, much better though to be healthy and sustainable with in than crash diet it off, be miserable for weeks then probably go right back to square 1 again ..