Help me get my sh1t together? :o

liliq

Hi,

This has turned into a really long post, apologies in advance.

So I've spent the last week or two following this forum, occasionally commenting, etc.
Finally sat down this afternoon and read the stickies, nutrition 101 and the basics, great threads. I would consider myself to have a decent foundation of knowledge regarding food but learned more than I expected from the threads.

So... I'm at a stage where I'm pretty overwhelmed by my weight and while, as I said, Ive a decent foundation of knowledge, I really need some help putting it into practice.
My diet during the day is ok(ish), not great, but I totally crash come 7/8/9pm and it's sugar rush central. Which predictably leaves me feeling crap the following morning.

A typical day of food would include,
30g porridge with just enough low fat milk to cover it, sometimes with a spoon of puréed fruit.
Coffee with milk and sugar (cut sugar from 2 to 1 tsp... Baby steps, right?! )
Maybe a piece of fruit, typically a banana or 1/4 honeydew melon.
Sometimes I'll have 2 scrambled/ boiled eggs. Scrambled would be with sunflower oil (after reading stickies I'm changing this to butter). If we have bread, I'll have a slice or two of whole grain toast.

Any time between breakfast and lunch I could have a few slices of cheese (maybe 30g), or some of the carrs melts crackers (10ish), or more melon/ banana, or peanut butter on rice cakes, yogurt.
(Basically there's no trend of carbs/ protein/ fat... Whatever I get my hands on)

Lunch is usually the kiddos main meal, so it's either
pasta (bad, white, dried pasta sometimes, fresh (any better?) other times) with home made sauce (roasted veg blended type thing) and some cheese,
Or 'pizza pitta'- whole meal pitta with pizza style toppings- tomato purée, mushrooms, onions, usually chorizo, and cheese.
If eggs weren't had for breakfast, scrambled eggs are sometimes had,
Occasionally fish fingers and beans.
Often baked beans, really.

Dinner varies, sometimes it's chilli (home made in slow cooker, lots of veg, 95% lean mince), with either rice or home made potato wedges,
Thai style food with low fat coconut milk,
There's always meat- usually chicken, the mince once or twice a week, maybe white fish or prawns once a week.
Pasta is used a lot.

Then later on I could eat a lot of biscuits, chocolate etc... If its there, ill eat it. (Husband has as bad a sweet tooth and I have little will power at the moment).

Activity wise, I go to the gym at least once a week. I've fallen out of the 2-3 times a week routine, which is one aim to get back to.
I enjoy the gym, do mostly weights with a little cardio (intervals on cross trainer).
A slow walk (toddlers don't walk fast) twice a week,
And I want to get back to the c210k routine as an aim.

I'm a lot fitter now than I was a year ago, and even though my weight is awful- I'm the same weight as I was a year.

I started juicing just to try give myself a boost and get some nutrients in, and I like the juices and am surprised at how sated I am for as long as I am with them.

I'm 29, female, 5 foot 10 and bordering on clinically obese.
From the stickies I've calculated my RMR (is that the same as BMR?) tonne 2,150. (A BMR calculator gave me a result of 1,919).

Where do I start?!
Maybe what protein:carb:fat ratio should i aim for?

If you've read all of this... Thanks!

thegreatiam

any weight loss discussion can get complicated and overwhelming very quickly as it is not a simple subject. Add that to the fact that even scientists don't 100% fully understand it. Coupled with the fact that humans are extremely adaptable and you actually have to do a lot wrong for an extended time before you do irreparable damage.

So understandably there are a lot of things to be aware of, arguments for and against. Different methods of achieving the same results.


So if you are new to it and feeling overwhelmed just remember that even tho it seems complex and daunting it does boil down to some very simple facts.

Lose weight, eat less.
gain weight, eat more.
get fitter, move more.

You can worry about carb and fat ratios, or grains and whole foods, supplements, meal timing as much as you want but if you're not doing the basics then youre treading water.

Keep your meals simple, made from real food, not processed food.

eat 1 hand full of protein with 2 hand fulls of colorful veg each meal.

That will keep you feeling full and make sure you get enough nutrients.

Try a variety of meats and veggies on a weekly basis, that way you will get all the vitamins you need.

minimise all sugar intake, avoiding anything processed will be a large portion of this, but also minimising your fruit, no more than 1 or 2 small pieces a day.

Get real fats into you. butter is a great start, olive oil on your salads and butter and coconut oil in your cooking.

try to eat full portions at meal times, having protein at every meal and veg will help keep between meal snacks to a minimum.

avoiding processed food means less sugar and empty carbs means less hunger pangs later in the day.

For the gym keep at it it doesnt matter what you do just keep at it. burn the energy.

some oft given advice is using weights to change the shape of your body. Most people in your position do weight and it is just lifting 1 or 2 kg dumbbells 20-30 times. This is little more than cardio.

Lift weights that are heavy, force your body to adapt to the changes. change the shape of your body rather than the mass. (weights cannot make you big, you will not get bulky doing this. fact!)

at the end of each day write down your food and exercise and calculate the TDEE (total daily energy expenditure. That is your BMR + energy used in exercise)

If you ate too much this day, eat a little less next time.
If you didnt move much this day, move a little more next time.

harvester of sorrow

+1
Solid advice.

ted1

Don't use the scales , use pictures to track your progress

siochain

you've gotten some great advise above, only thing I'd add is plan your weeks shopping an don't have any junk temptations in the house a week with out it and you won't want it. For this you'll need those living with you on board too.

Spring Onion

thegreatiam wrote: »

minimise all sugar intake, avoiding anything processed will be a large portion of this, but also minimising your fruit, no more than 1 or 2 small pieces a day.

what is wrong with fruit? I am also trying to lose weight but eating a lot of apples/oranges etc.

Celly Smunt

Spring Onion wrote: »

what is wrong with fruit? I am also trying to lose weight but eating a lot of apples/oranges etc.

Its the sugar content, in fairness I dont think that eating a bit of fruit is going to hinder progress personally once you're not adding crap and processed sugars on top.
Try replace fruit with veg eventually, but dont kill yourself for having an apple and an orange a day.Just avoid the crap sugary stuff and stay away from the juices.

grim_outlook

Celly Smunt wrote: »

Its the sugar content, in fairness I dont think that eating a bit of fruit is going to hinder progress personally once you're not adding crap and processed sugars on top.
Try replace fruit with veg eventually, but dont kill yourself for having an apple and an orange a day.Just avoid the crap sugary stuff and stay away from the juices.

every two days I blend one orange , one banana , one red apple and a two deserts spoons of greek yogurt , this does two mornings

are you saying this is of little use and is too sugar intensive ?

I eat a small bowl of museli prior to the fruit smoothie

Mellor

There's a lot of food listed in the OP. Some good choices, that are usualy ruined by eating it along with a bad choice.
ie choosing to go with a lower calories 95% lean mince or low fat coconut milk, but loafing up with pasta and rice also.

There's some good advice above so need to repeat. But as an exercise for yourself. Post a list of the food you eat on a typical day. And be honest, include everything. All meals, all snacks, all drinks (including water, tea, etc not just "bad" drinks).

Then highlight in colour/bold all the foods that you think need to be eliminated or changed.

thegreatiam

Nothing is wrong with fruit. fruit is healthy and good for you.

However, fruit is mostly sugar.

Your body uses 3 basic types of food to operate.
Protein is for making new cells, muscle bone, blood everything.
Fat is used for making and transporting hormones and chemicals around the body and some other stuff.
and sugar (carbs) sugar is the energy.

Your body likes sugar, because it burns easy. like newspaper on a fire.

However, if you throw a lot of newspaper on a fire the fire cant use it all at once. In this case your body stores it as fat.

Your body can also use fat as energy, but it does not like to as it is more energy. Think of it like a big fire log.

While your body can burn big fire logs it does not like to as these are its "winter stores" it prefers to burn sweet sweet newspaper.

Since fruit is sugar, and a fast burning tasty one, your body is happy for you to keep eating it, burning what it can and storing the rest for "winter". Like a big mental hermit.

So too much sugar, either from fruit, chocolate etc means that you will always burn through it quickly and be asking for more food.

So you need to curb it, Either by removing all carbs (good but not necessary for your goal) or by limiting them to exactly what you need.

Since there are different types of sugar, you have fast burning newspaper types, fruit, chocolate anything sweet.

You also have more twiggy stick types, these are what most people refer to as carbs, but all carbs are essentially sugar as your body breaks it down like that.

The difference is the speed it does it. slower carbs like veg etc burn fast, but not as fast as newspaper, hence they are more like twigs and sticks.

SO it is better to get the fire going with log and sticks rather than newspaper. A little newspaper is ok every now and then for a heat boost or to get the fire going, but it will quickly die down.


So in conclusion, eat sticks and logs, and occasionally some newspaper, also avoid plastics, it burns bright with pretty colours but its toxic...


Basically, fruit is fine, just in moderation.
veg is better.
if you're going for 5 a day then 1 fruit per four veg is the ratio you should be looking at. not 5 fruits.

Letyourselfgo

Some excellent advice and a lot of which I'm following.
As of today I'm down 9 pounds for the month of Jan down 185 to 176 and I'm 5'9
A few things that have worked for me and I also have a very sweet tooth.

As said above eat less so I'm using myfitnesspal app to keep count and I'm aiming for 1700 calories a day, I reckon 2200 would maintain my current weight so that's banking 500 calories a day which over a week is 3500 which equates to a pound.
I now drink 6-8 glasses of water a day and have zero soft drinks (in the past I would have had 2/3 Dr Peppers a day).
I actually eat 3 pieces of fruit a day and I have a low fat greek yoghurt and this now satisfies my sweet tooth.

A typical day
Morning early
40g of bran flakes and low fat milk, glass of proper Orange juice, glass of water

Morning late
Banana, glass of water

Lunch
sandwich, ham, cheese, lettuce and tomato, glass of water
Pear

Dinner
Chicken fillet, loads of veg (1/3 of my plate) and 2 scoops of potato, glass of water

Evening
Low fat Greek yoghurt and either an apple or an orange and maybe even a square ortwo of dark chocolate, glass of water


I also run about 5 days a week, started back with 20 minute runs but have progressed to 50/60 and I also lift weights 2 times a week (was 3 but 2 works better for me)

Granted it's still early days for me but the above is working for me. I do weigh myself but I also took measurements as well, didn't think of doing photos. The app I mentioned above is really good.
So overall I reckon I'm losing about 3 pounds a week.
Half though exercise and half through better nutrition (which I know I could still improve on)
I've reduced the amount of processed foods in the house and the real bad stuff like jam and sugar is gone (my kids miss the jam but I've been known to get a spoon and go crazy on it)

Hope some of this helps, best of luck and again just to state this is what's working for me at the moment.

With regards to the picture it says 2072 calories that's because the app calculates how many more calories you've earned based on exercise and I think that day was a 3 mile run

liliq

thegreatiam wrote: »

Keep your meals simple, made from real food, not processed food.

eat 1 hand full of protein with 2 hand fulls of colorful veg each meal.

minimise all sugar intake, avoiding anything processed will be a large portion of this, but also minimising your fruit, no more than 1 or 2 small pieces a day.

Thanks for this, it's a really comprehensive reply, and really helpful.
The 1 handful of protein, 2 handfuls of veg is particularly helpful

Sugar really is my downfall, along with portion control!
Even though my diet has been crap, I've changed shape from the gym, from not being afraid of the heavier weights. My strength is improving, but as I'm reading and rereading on this forum, I'm not going to outtrain my diet.

siochain wrote: »

For this you'll need those living with you on board too.

This is a part I'm finding hard- getting my husband on board. He's more of a sugar fiend than I am, worst is that he has diabetes too :eek: But really, I've been using his sugar addiction as an excuse. He's agreed to give up one of his major vices when I'm away for a week soon and I'm hoping he might feel the benefits of that and it might have a knock on effect!

Mellor wrote: »

But as an exercise for yourself. Post a list of the food you eat on a typical day. And be honest, include everything. All meals, all snacks, all drinks (including water, tea, etc not just "bad" drinks).

Then highlight in colour/bold all the foods that you think need to be eliminated or changed.

I started using myfitnesspal again this week, and even the exercise of tracking is helping me keep myself in check! When I've done a full week I'll post a typical day and any further suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Letyourselfgo wrote: »

As of today I'm down 9 pounds for the month of Jan down 185 to 176 and I'm 5'9
A few things that have worked for me and I also have a very sweet tooth.

Thanks That was a really helpful post too!

Thanks everyone who took a few minutes to reply, greatly appreciated. Hopefully I'll really get myself on track now, there's lots of useful, doable suggestions here for me to work from

endacl

ted1 wrote: »

Don't use the scales , use pictures to track your progress

Don't use pictures. Use how you feel to track your progress!

liliq

endacl wrote: »

Don't use pictures. Use how you feel to track your progress!

I'll do both, to be sure to be sure :P