Advice on nutrition/diet.

Esoteric_

Warning in advance, this is a long post!

Hiya, hoping some of you lovely people can give me some advice on my diet - things I'm doing right, things I'm doing wrong, anything really!

I started off weighing 19st and 12lbs in March 2010. I am currently 11 stone 8lbs, but need to get to 9st 7lbs, although would be happy at 10st.

I used to do cardio in the gym for 15 hours a week, but after a bad injury a year and a half ago, I've been reduced to just jogging and walking, so have only lost about a stone in the past year.

I've decided that my diet needed a bigger overhaul than I had already given it, and I'm now medically certified to do more exercise, so am in fitness classes.

So, I guess I'm going to post a list of what I'd eat on an average day (since I overhauled my diet again) and the amount of exercise I do. ANY tips, criticisms or remarks of any kind would be great!

On an average day I eat -

Breakfast:
2 poached eggs and a slice of wholemeal toast, or 2 lean rashers and one poached egg.

Lunch: Bowl of vegetable soup and a small, green salad, or a sandwich of wholemeal bread, vegan cheese, lettuce and chicken.

Dinner: Stir fry containing chick peas, noodles, carrots, peas, bamboo shoots and beansprouts, sometimes with tofu, sometimes with chicken. LOADS of chilli.

Snacks: An apple or two ryvita.

Drinks: Water, 2 de-caf coffes a day (black), Diet Coke maybe once per week.


As for exercise, I do fitness classes for an hour 3 times per week. These involve anything from boxercise to circuit training, to abs training, to kettlebells classes. It's different each week, and more intense each week. I'm definitely working to my limits with this, as my muscles have been killing me non stop since I started. :pac:

I also walk briskly for 40-60 minutes each day that I'm not in class, or more.


So, ladies and gents, while this seems to be working since I started this regime (I've lost 4lbs in the 2 weeks since starting it), is there anything else I should/could be eating/doing? The only real restriction I have is that I'm allergic to cow's milk so I avoid dairy products and use vegan replacements.

Any advice/tips? What I'm doing DOES seem to be working, but I want to see if there's anything else I could do that would help.

Stench Blossoms

Have you worked out how many calories you should be eating?

Esoteric_

Stench Blossoms wrote: »

Have you worked out how many calories you should be eating?

My doctor told me 1,200 on days where I'm not exercising, and 1,500 on days where I am.

My calorie intake is coming out at roughly 1,200-1,300 a day, and I have some extra chicken or fish on days where I'm working out.

Pembily

LyndaMcL wrote: »

Any advice/tips? What I'm doing DOES seem to be working, but I want to see if there's anything else I could do that would help.

Don't fix what's not broken! If it's working at the minute then great, stick with that.

Esoteric_

Pembily wrote: »

Don't fix what's not broken! If it's working at the minute then great, stick with that.

Thank you! I guess I'm just nervous because I'm always sure there's something more I could be doing. :pac:

seamus

You've lost nearly 8.5 stone in 20 months.

I think there are very few people here who are more qualified than you to give you advice on losing weight.

As others say, if it's ain't broke, don't fix it. So many make the mistake of trying to tweak or improve their diet even when it's working, and end up screwing it up.

My only concern would be that your previous rapid weight loss might have given you a certain level of expectation for weight loss in general. As you get closer and closer to your ideal weight, those last few pounds can seem to take forever. Just remember that so long as your weight isn't going back up, then you're going in the right direction, no matter how long it takes

Esoteric_

seamus wrote: »

You've lost nearly 8.5 stone in 20 months.

I think there are very few people here who are more qualified than you to give you advice on losing weight.

As others say, if it's ain't broke, don't fix it. So many make the mistake of trying to tweak or improve their diet even when it's working, and end up screwing it up.

My only concern would be that your previous rapid weight loss might have given you a certain level of expectation for weight loss in general. As you get closer and closer to your ideal weight, those last few pounds can seem to take forever. Just remember that so long as your weight isn't going back up, then you're going in the right direction, no matter how long it takes

Thanks mate. I'm not expecting it to come off quickly, I know the reason it did in the first place was because I was bloody huge. :pac: I'm at a reasonbly healthy weight now, so I'm aiming for a weight loss of 1-2lbs per week, but if I go a week where I maintain weight and don't lose, I'm okay with that, too.

I guess if it's working for me, I AM being a bit thick trying to tweak it and risk messing it up. So this thread was probably a bit silly in hindsight. :pac:

Thanks guys. Much appreciated. I guess I'm just at the stage now where I don't want to risk messing it up and gaining anything back. :pac:

doctorwhogirl

LyndaMcL wrote: »

so I'm aiming for a weight loss of 1-2lbs per week, but if I go a week where I maintain weight and don't lose, I'm okay with that, too.

Agree with the whole if it ain't broke notion, but I'd be aiming for about 0.5-1lb a week as you get nearer to goal.

Emeraldy Pebbles

doctorwhogirl wrote: »

Agree with the whole if it ain't broke notion, but I'd be aiming for about 0.5-1lb a week as you get nearer to goal.

+1, at this late stage in the journey, a 0.5lb loss in a week is still very good!

El_Dangeroso

Took me a whole YEAR to lose the last 10lb. So 0.5lb a week would be really good!

Esoteric_

Thanks guys!

I suppose I was probably expecting too much, but my trainer was telling me I should be losing around 2lbs per week, even though I'm coming to the end of my weight loss journey. I don't mind how slowly I lose the last stone and a half (or two stone, if I can manage it! ), keeping it off is the main thing I want. Got weighed tonight and I somehow lost 5 and a half pounds in the last week and a half, don't ask me how because I wasn't expecting that! So I guess now I will be very happy with even half a pound a week because now that I've gotten that initial 'big' loss, I'm pretty stoked and keen to keep going with the work.

Even knowing that losing half a pound a week as opposed to the 2 I was aiming for is great, I don't want to end up disappointing myself if I don't lose 2 a week, so I'm going to lower my expectations to half a week.

Thanks again!

maidie

Hi Lynda, That is such an inspirational story, WELL DONE, I have to ask you where you got your motivation and will power from? I have none, do you ever get hungry on limited calorie intake? do you have any sugar or alcohol in your diet? Sorry for all the questions but I'm trying to get my head around how you did it, for me I fill up on veggie soup, have fish and limit bread products and butter and alcohol, only proble is when I trip I trip bad, Keep it going:)

Esoteric_

maidie wrote: »

Hi Lynda, That is such an inspirational story, WELL DONE, I have to ask you where you got your motivation and will power from? I have none, do you ever get hungry on limited calorie intake? do you have any sugar or alcohol in your diet? Sorry for all the questions but I'm trying to get my head around how you did it, for me I fill up on veggie soup, have fish and limit bread products and butter and alcohol, only proble is when I trip I trip bad, Keep it going:)

Thank you! My weight loss story isn't over yet though! To be completely honest, I had it easy when it came to motivation and will power. I started working in a restaurant and it made me hate food! :pac: All of my weight gain was caused by comfort eating and drinking when I was suffering from trauma, then when I started working in a restaurant, the smell of food put me off anything fattening completely. Aside from that, long hours (12 hours a day generally) left me so exhausted that when I got home from work, I showered and went to sleep, forgetting about dinner.

It was difficult. I had to just deal with the hunger to be honest. I did notice though, that the more active I am, the less I feel hunger. I don't really feel hunger very often now because I'm used to the calorie intake I consume.

One tip I was told that honestly helped me was 'Don't eat until you're full. Eat until you no longer feel hungry.' I would ALWAYS eat til I was full (I'm sure most people do!), but now I just eat til I no longer feel hungry. If I really need to fill up on something, I eat lots of lean protein (chicken mainly, not a huge fan of fish) with vegetables. A grilled chicken breast and some roasted or grilled vegetables isn't going to massively increase your calorie intake, but it'll fill you if you really can't deal with the hunger.

As for drinking, honestly I drank whatever I wanted, and still did up til recently. My weight loss stalled a lot more than I was happy with, because I had a bad injury and was medically unfit to do anything more than walking or jogging, so once my doctor gave me the all clear to go back to the gym, I jumped right in and started doing classes and going for jogs. Over the past 2 weeks, I've cut down on drinking. I mainly stick to vodka and a diet mixer (has about 50 calories) and I make sure not to eat junk food when I'm drunk, and the weight has started falling off again.

Hope that helps you a little bit! If I can do it, so can you!