hi, I’m new here

[poppyceasexo]

hello,

I hope this is okay to do…

I’m 22 years old and I absolutely love my food ahah. I am looking at loosing weight I’m about 15st. I am such a picky eater but really I’m looking at if someone help/advise me on the best way to get loosing a few pounds without a gym as I suffer with bad anxiety. I do have a dog and I take him for big big walks 4 times a week.

I also was wondering if someone could advise me on why I am constantly bloating out & the best vitamins I should start getting in my body due to week immune system

Also any slimming / healthier recipes will greatly be appreciated.

thank you

[Cooper27 Administrator]

Are there certain foods you eat that seem to precede the bloating? E.g high Fibre foods, gluten, dairy? My first thoughts would always be food intolerance, but it can also be gut issues (e.g. SIBO). It's worth keeping a food diary for a few days to see if there are any trends.

I was reminded earlier this week, sometimes the best way to start, is to look at what you can add rather than what you need to take away. As you say you're a fussy eater, are there any good ways you can think of to add healthier ingredients to your plate? For me, it started with adding peppers, mushrooms and courgettes to Bolognese (where they don't stand out as a texture/flavour), then I could start to tolerate them in other ways (e.g. oven roasted peppers on their own).

We can't really say what vitamins you should take here, it's very individual. It would be worth doing a home test for vitamin D, as that's often linked to immune issues if low.

[kitchengardener2]

First of all welcome, you are amongst good friends here.

I was very overweight about twelve years ago. I was 14 stones but only 5feet two inches tall. I had lived in denial for so long and then my GP shocked me by saying that I was obese. I was upset, I was angry but went home determined to show that GP that she wasn't going to say that again to me. I joined Slimming World and never looked back. It's not so much a diet as a new way of living. I lost four stones and have kept it off, I haven't been able to go to group since pre covid because I also have Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia which means I don't have a working immune system. However, my husband and I have kept within our target by eating our normal diet. Do have a look if you are in the UK, I think there is a free joining voucher in Bella magazine this week. Good luck

[PhilAB]

Simple, go organic, cut out sugar from your diet and avoid wheat (gluten) and basically do the opposite of what the government pushes on you.

Eat lots of good quality organic meat, raw butter, and raw milk if you can get it. Cook all your own meals, ear skin from meat as well, use coconut oil to cook, avoid oils pushed on us (seeds and plant oils. Don’t consume pasteurised products.

Get bloods taken, avoid saline they are trying to push on us after bloods, research correct blood levels then look for organic supplements.

Filter your water (megahome water filter) don’t drink any sodas, only drink water with organic lemons or coconut milk as a treat. Introduce organic sauerkraut and kefir. These will heal and stop bloating.

Avoid fluoride toothpaste, do not consume alcohol. Basically a diet we had a hundred years ago.

[LindaP50]

Hi and welcome aboard. My tip. Cut down on quantity of food. I used to fill my plate. Took me a few weeks to get comfortable with less food without feeling I was starving after eating.

I'd tell myself the reward would be loss of weight and that I could have a small desert. I'd have Greek yogurt with fruit, a drizzle of good maple syrup and as a special treat a dollop of cream on top. Somedays I would have a 40 calorie fudge pop. Or aired popcorn sprinkled with cinnamon. Drink lots of water or decaf drinks.

[misswobble]

I think the easiest thing to do is cut out the unhealthy stuff. The highly processed stuff that comes from the shop in a packet Avoid that and prep meals from the base ingredients eg recognisable whole ingredients, eg meat, fish or vegetable then you won’t go far wrong. You’ll lose weight, get healthy and save money by not eating unhealthy snacks, pop and bought meals. You can make a modest start. No need to go mad. The world wasn’t built in a day

Good luck😀👍

[Screen77]

Hi there, nice to have you and yes it's fine!

For losing weight, you really want to be taking in less calories than you're burning. You'll obviously lose more the further that balance slides, however you don't want to lose it too fast because that can really impact your body, plus it's way easier to keep your weight managed when you're in a habit of eating good stuff rather than going through a gruelling phase of restricting diet, losing the weight, being glad it's over then putting it back on.

You could use a calorie tracker to help you do this, there are free ones like MyFitnessPal, however only do this if you're not likely to obsess over numbers. If it's something that's linked closely to your self esteem, seeing yourself go over your allocated calorie number might be disheartening, even if you've only done it once in a week for example. Just a suggestion, but use with care. I personally have to keep myself distanced from it.

As for balancing your calorie intake, you can do it in 2 ways;

-Portion control

-Eating non-calorie-dense foods (food that fills you up so you're less hungry but has less calories) and cutting down calorie dense ones.

You may need to try both. Trying to immediately eat less might not be the way to do it, since if you're used to a certain volume of food you'll just get hungry when you cut it down which makes the whole process a lot harder. It's not easy to lose weight, but why add pressure if it might work the other way?

Take a look at meals you enjoy and see what you can modify or add to add a bit more fibre into your meal. That's wholegrain fibre, like brown/wholemeal bread, rice, pasta, etc. Cous cous is good, quinoa (bit posh and odd to cook but might be worth trying), stuff like that.

As for the bloating, it could be a few reasons that I can think of from the top of my head. As others have mentioned, it may be an intolerance to certain foods, carb-related ones being a big one normally. It could also be dairy products, or you could have IBS maybe (irritable bowel syndrome). You can try keeping a food diary of what you eat and when to see if there are any common factors, and the timing of when you eat might affect it too if it's irregular or late at night. Anxiety may also be causing you stress, which can cause an upset stomach as well. If you can't spot any correlation, maybe take it to a doctor and see what you might be able to try. Could be imbalance in stomach acids... who knows. Bodies are weird.

Getting the right vitamins is always a tricky question but generally if you get some fruit and veg in your diet you'll be alright. I drink vitamin-boosted smoothies as well sometimes because I'm bad at eating veg, and I take multivitamins but that's because my body hates absorbing iron even though I need it. If you can pinpoint which vitamin(s) you might be lacking in any way it can help you target which foods to use to fill in the gap.

You'll always find generic diet advice like eat whole grains, nuts, seeds, fruit and veg, which is kinda true as a guideline but don't rip your whole diet out to replace it with salads or whatever, cos that won't be any fun. Unless you like salads (I don't. Too many leaves). Trimming down stuff you don't need like chocolate and sweets, cheese is a big one for calories, dressings/sauces on salad and meals is also a hidden source of calories, and changing how you cook food by baking instead of frying, taking skin off meat, trying to drain away any fatty oils and reducing salting during cooking will do you big favours. If you want to address portion size too, using smaller plates so you can't fit as much on or monitoring how much of things you use will help.

Maybe a little generic but if you have ideas for what meals you like to maybe discuss what bits of them you can alter you can always drop a comment and people will try and help.

Good luck in your journey and feel free to ask anything you want