5’3 and extremely overweight - help!!

[helpmewithmydietbeforeiloseit]

Hi everyone, I’m posting here to seek some advice. I’m going to be brutally honest here and hope that someone can help.

I’m 5’3 and at today’s weigh in I am 15 stone. I know that this is very very bad believe me.

Some prior context is that I have been a lifelong “fussy eater” to be honest I think that I probably have what is now known as ARFID, though that wasn’t a thing when I was younger. An example would be that I cannot stand pasta, to try and eat one piece makes me gag and heave to the point of almost making myself sick. Obviously I could go into this more with more examples but you get the gist.

In addition, as a teenager, I developed a severe eating disorder. At my worst I was less than 6 stone and very very poorly. It was a horrific time where the only control I could feel was over my food intake. I have worked hard to keep away from that and have come extremely far the other way (probably too far now).

With that out of the way, my weight has piled on over the last few years. I have a stressful (but poorly paid) job that means working long hours sat at a desk. I enjoy work and it will progress to a good salary, but it requires the years of graft first.

I think I have just come to rely on convenience foods that are easy to grab and eat at work. I genuinely don’t eat that much chocolate/sweets, it’s more carb-y snacks that get me. I probably also have poor portion control and I know I can snack when I get bored.

I am just at such a loss of what to do to be honest. Every diet and meal plan contains food that I just would not eat. In addition I am aware that I don’t want to slip back into eating disorder habits that can easily become dangerous.

I exercise once or twice per week but genuinely don’t have time to do more than that.

I know the easy answer is “eat less” but I’m finding that so hard and feeling like whatever I do it’s going nowhere.

Does anyone have any advice and tips for how to navigate losing weight in these circumstances? A way to build a healthy diet that will actually work long term for me?

Just to add, I did mention it to a GP and all the said was that I needed to lose weight and that it wasn’t that difficult if I put my mind to it, which was obviously not that helpful. They also effectively threatened to remove me from my birth control if I didn’t get my weight under control which has just made me really anxious!

Any and all help and advice appreciated!

I also thing at 5’3 the diet you outline you won’t get into a calorie deficit to lose weight. I’m 5”8 and eat similar / probably less than that in a normal day just to maintain a healthy (not skinny) weight.

I really recommend putting your safe foods into chat gpt and getting it to come up with a meal plan. Also get some decent scales as weights will be important. Candidly if you’re proposing burgers, pizza and fish and chips for weight loss it feels like you might have a bit of a disconnect with what a normal meal / portion looks like.

With these types of foods it would need to be very very small portions to eat them and lose weight. Possible but you will need scales.

Good luck x

Fruit is fine. There’s fibre and vitamins in fruit, just stick to fresh fruit. It’s important to think of overall health, not just weight. Eating it with full fat Greek yogurt won’t spike blood sugar either.

I wore a continuous blood glucose monitor for a month. The only think that spiked my blood sugar was fig rolls.
People on mumsnet get obsessed about carbs being the devil, fruit is bad etc. cutting out food groups is a sure way to be miserable whilst losing weight and be even more miserable when the restriction becomes too much and you go back to your usual way of eating.

The two thi gs really sticking out in your post are your "picky eating" and your want/ need for quick, easy, convenient food.

I don't believe the key here is restriction and whilst I am a fan of fasting I don't think it is recommended with a history of eating disorder.

You need to focus on making healthy food quick, easy and convenient for you. I would put all the things you are happy eating into chat gpt and ask it to make a meal plan for 2 or 3 week rotation which you can batch cook on a weekend and freeze and grt out as needed. Make overnight oats for breakfast focusing on getting fibre and protein in there. Make a big salad to last 3 days for lunch-again pack it with fibre and protein.

You don't mention snacking much. If you don't snack much then you are already a step ahead of many of us.

It must be difficult to change your diet if you have ARFID as mentally it is hard to move away from safe foods and try new food.

My mother is 5ft and was a similar weight, she was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes which shocked her into overhauling her diet. She is a visual person so things that helped her lose over 5 stone and reverse the diabetes are:

• using small side plates for meals instead of a dinner plate. The smaller plate naturally reduced her meal portion sizes - she still ate food she liked such as chips but a lot less.
• half her plate would be vegetables/salad, the other half would be whatever she wanted e.g. fish fingers, pizza.
• cut out mayonnaise as it is high in calories, as well as fizzy drinks which were a source of hidden sugar.
• eating regularly and at consistent times each day. She never used to eat breakfast but now eats 3 meals per day plus 3 healthy snacks. This was recommended by the diabetes dieticians as it regulates blood sugar and hunger.
• walked 30mins each day, she has arthritis so she bought a walking pad for winter and uses it while watching TV. I have colleagues who use them while working too. Personally I started taking walking lunches as I also have a sedentary long hours job and feel a million times better for it.

Your GP should be able to refer you to a healthier eating programmes so you can speak to a dietician - it is worth asking.

It'll be difficult but losing the excess weight will improve your life. I hope you achieve your weight loss goals, good luck.

Im shorter than you and have lost 5 stone and kept it off for a few years.
The things that helped me were realising how few calories I actually needed to maintain (1300) and only 1000 to consistently loose.
I used intermittent fasting to start with just to help get me get started.
I realised I didn't need a diet I just needed to change the way I eat in a long-term sustainable (for me way).
I meal plan and shop for the week to make sure I have everything I need at hand. I also batch cook so I have easy meals to and when I'm tired. We have a family of multiple allergies/afrid so I use what I know everyone will eat as a base and then can add extras eg dd1 needs extra calories so will give an extra carb on side but I'd have extra vegetables.
I calorie count but over a week using my fitness pal so if i have a bad day i haven't failed I just adjust the rest of the weeks calories.
I dont have treats in the house (or not many).
I'm physically disabled so unable to exercise so dont put pressure on yourself to do more exercise at first you can still loose weight without and trying to change everything at once can be too stressful. I did each of the above one at a time. Don't overwhelm yourself it will be too much and thats how people (me in the past) fail. Keep an eye on any obsessive behaviours and seek help if you need it early. Best of luck.

I’d consider jabs except for the fact that I definitely can’t afford them, and they would impact my birth control. So not really a realistic option unfortunately!

As a rough guide for safe foods I’d say:

Chicken in any form, sausages, beef burgers, cod/haddock, ham/bacon. No other meat really
Chips
Roast potatoes
Most fruit
Carrots
Peas
Tenderstem broccoli
Cucumber
Italian salad leaves
bread/wraps/buns
Yoghurt

Theres probably more, but to be clear I couldn’t/wouldn’t eat pasta, rice, cheese, eggs, pork loin, chickpea or lentils or beans in any form (I feel like they’re the usual suggestions on diet plans!)

I note what some people are saying re what I will eat but trust me this is years and years of really slowly introducing things with great difficulty (it took me 2 years to eat broccoli!)

This looks fine… just make small changes. Remove the extra raisins from breakfast (and do eat breakfast or you’ll be hungrier at lunch and eat more snacks), try and refrain from having more than one snack and cut your dinner portions by a third or half. Then see how you get on.

At 5’3 and sedentary your TDEE is around 1900. So keep that loosely in mind.

I wouldn’t call that picky eating at all. There’s plenty of options there that you could make into healthier meals. I’d get making some soup for a start. We eat homemade soup a lot and have baguette with it. You could make chicken, broccoli and carrot soup as a start.
You say you can’t eat cheese but you said about pizza. Do you eat cheese on pizza?

What snacks do you eat?