advice on my diet & exercise to lose weight please

summerdays

Hello

I’d welcome some advice on diet and exercise and how I can enhance/change what I’m doing to lose weight.

I’m 44, female and weigh 180 pounds. My body fat is around 34% and depending on which calculator I use my BMI is between 29 – 30. My body fat is totally concentrated in my upper body (I have fab legs!). For the past five weeks I’ve been working out twice a week (for an hour a time) with a personal trainer doing resistance training and also doing two 45 minute spinning classes a week.

I want to come up with a programme and an eating plan that will help me lose weight but more importantly is sustainable in the long term. I’ve lost weight on diets before but never managed to keep it off. Also, I can’t afford to keep up the personal training in the long term and I’m not sure I have the motivation or energy to do this kind of work on my own without someone standing over me (see the end for more details).

My eating looks like this at the moment

Breakfast
Boiled egg
Slice of home made brown bread (includes sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds etc), low fat spread, sometimes a smear of marmalade
Low fat latte or tea with low fat milk

Or porridge with a handful of raisins or strawberries and low fat milk
Low fat latte or tea with low fat milk


Lunch
Home made soup (current favourite is curried apple and tomato)
Slice (or sometimes 2) of homemade brown bread, low fat spread

Afternoon
Yoghurt or fruit

Dinner (around 6pm)
Fish (salmon, mackerel) & steamed veg (carrots, green beans, peas, broccoli) etc

Or

Stir fried vegetables with quorn and portion of brown rice

Evening
Yoghurt, fruit or a handful of mixed nuts

I may have another coffee or tea in the middle of the day and realistically I’m drinking about a litre of water a day. About once a week I might eat out and make a healthy choice (salad, or a starter portion of pasta etc)...I don't drink much alcohol - about 3 glasses a month and about once a week I might eat a few squares of chocolate (I'm more of a carbs person than a chocolate person).

Now, the difficult bit.

I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism last year. I still haven’t got the medication right because my energy levels have been awful for a year and a half. I have to take naps almost daily and I’m not feeling energised by the exercise programme. This is unusual for me because a few years ago I was doing a lot more exercise and feeling great. In the past five weeks with the above programme I’ve dropped a total of 4 pounds which is going in the right direction but really depressing at the same time. While I’ve never been a skinny girl I do want to get my weight into the “normal” range and I’m feeling a bit despondent right now.

I would love to hear from people (and if there are trainers out there with experience of working with people with hypothyroidism that would be great also because the person I'm working with hasn't had any experience of it) on what I need to change…

Thanks, in advance.

ali.c

This is not medical advice but are there any restrictions on what you can or cant eat?
If not I would suggest increasing the amount of protein and good fats and decreasing the carbs you eat. As outlined in the stickies try and eat every 3 hours and get some protein into you with each meal. Try and increase the % of food intake from unprocessed sources.

summerdays

Hi ali.c thanks for your reply. There's no restriction on what I can or can't eat..I'm trying as far as possible to eat unprocessed food and am not much of a meat eater so I'll have a look at the protein issue.

coleen

I am the same age and would eat around the same but when I cut out bread from my diet I lost a good bit of weight. Now for breaktast I have fruit salad like tinned fruit in fruit juice and I would cut an apple into it and some prunes. For lunch I would have a wrap with my soup. I woud have yougarts and fruit. I would have meat or fish for dinner salad and a small potato. I think I would have more alchol I would say 3 units 3 times a week. I exrcise 5 times a week walk 4 days 45 mins I exercise class with weights and 1 or 2 rounds of golf. I am currently 130 pounds. I think if you cut out bread all together it should help. good luck

Transform

Dump your trainer for a bloody start as she/he should be dealing with this question.

Second drop all non-oat grains from your diet i.e. no rice, pasta, bread, etc and have just 2-3 portions of fruit per day. Finally take a multivitamin from solgar or quest and at least 10g of fish oils per day (Higher nature is good).

justsomebloke

Transform wrote:

Dump your trainer for a bloody start as she/he should be dealing with this question.

agree 100% with this. If you had a good personal trainer you shouldn't need to ask this question here.

There are quite a few decent personal trainers here and Transform would probably be one of the best so you could do worse then drop him a pm.

ali.c

Transform wrote:

Dump your trainer for a bloody start as she/he should be dealing with this question.

Second drop all non-oat grains from your diet i.e. no rice, pasta, bread, etc and have just 2-3 portions of fruit per day. Finally take a multivitamin from solgar or quest and at least 10g of fish oils per day (Higher nature is good).

Everything that transform said, though i would add that to try getting your protein from a good variety of sources, fish, meat, eggs, nuts and seeds.

summerdays

Thanks for the helpful replies everyone, much appreciated