Greetings!

[silverknight]

Hello all!

I am new to the community and just starting the food related part of my weight loss journey. I've slowly been introducing new habits like weighing my food and stopping to buy unhealthy snacks as well as drinking more water. I've also already got a fairly consistent exercise plan going as I completed C25K last summer and have since gone on to do a triathlon. However I have only lost 1.5st in a year and still have 2st to lose if I want to enter my healthy weight range. So here I am, concentrating on food!

I never seem to get enough veg in my diet and so I have a quick question about portions. If I buy a bag of frozen mixed vegetables, can I only get one portion of veg from it, or because it is mixed can an additional 80g be classed as two portions?

Also, I know juice is only one portion no matter what, and the same for beans/pulses etc but are there some vegetables that can't be considered as separate portions? Broccoli and cauliflower for instance?

Hopefully this will be the year I get the weight off, and be a healthy weight for the first time in my life!

[moreless Administrator 7 stone]

Hi and welcome silverknight

I would say that as long as you're not assuming that 5 apples a day, or 5 portions of peas a day, constitutes your actual 5-a-day, then you're doing fine 2 portions of frozen mixed veg will be fine and broccoli and cauli count as 1 each. I would advise eating as many different colours as you can and aim to have a wide selection, rather than eat the same veg every day This may help

nhs.uk/Livewell/5ADAY/Pages...

Have a look at the Pinned Posts section, to the right of your screen, (bottom if you're on a mobile) and read our Welcome Newbie post. It has a link to the NHS 12 week plan, which is a great place to start. It doesn't give a specific diet plan, but gives guidelines for healthy eating.

Consider signing up for any, or all of our challenges, as they're fun and motivating.

We also have a monday group weigh-in and if you click follow on my profile, you'll get a notification when I post it on monday. You can have a look at the latest thread in the events section, to the right of the home page.

Be active on the forum, as that's where we meet to exchange ideas and get our daily fix of inspiration and motivation

Wishing you all the very best

[Hidden]

Hi and welcome. In general a frozen bag mixed veg weight 80g serving is 40 calories.

☺

[radioactiveblue]

Each 80g serving would be a portion. If there are two or three different vegetables in roughly equal portions, it will be near enough that you can count a portion for each serving. The main thing is you're getting variety, so frozen mixed vegetables are great for that.

[albinohedgehog]

I struggle to eat enough veg too. I think I need to find some tasty recipes for veg to make it more interesting. I love roast veg though and make that quite a lot.