Hi, I'm new to this and looking to lose the 2-3 stone that have crept on over the last 20 years of too much of the good life. I have a reasonably healthy diet and enjoy cooking, but tend to comfort eat and drink too much during the winter months when I can't get out in the garden/allotment so much because of the short days (I work full time). Have tried Slimming World and 5:2 (which suited me better and seemed healthier) in the past, but have never sustained the weight loss for long.
Starting stats:
Weight 11st 6lb
BMI 26.6
Waist 36in
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Beefit
1lb
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I'd like to invite you to join our Newbie Club, which we hope will be a good place for you to connect with members, who are also just starting out. If you just post a few words to introduce yourself and respond to others there, you'll soon break the ice. Here's the link
You'll find all the information you need to navigate the forum in the header and a link to the 12 week plan, so please take the time to read it carefully.
No, just write a reply on it 😊. But please join in with the other events on the forum, the group weigh-ins and the Daily Diary for example, as group support is proven to aid weight loss 😊
Well done for joining us. I share your disappointment at not being able to get to the allotment during the winter. Presumably as you grow your own you are used to cooking from fresh ingredients, well done for that.
I would always say beware refined carbs and processed foods which can be full of sugar or sugar substitutes and unhealthy fats/oils. Eat full fat yogurt and add other healthy fats to your diet-these will keep you fuller for longer and any desire to snack will disappear.
Enjoy your journey to your new lifestyle and forget diet-whatever you do has to be sustainable.
Yes - I love my allotment and cook almost all meals from scratch which is great as it means I can control what goes in though I am very poor at portion control and it takes more effort to calculate the calorie content (which is why I found 5:2 so helpful). Need to lose rather more weight than 5:2 would provide though so I am going to do some serious menu planning and calculating this evening ready for the week ahead. Have you any suggestions for the best sites for calorie calculating? Is it easy to post recipes on here to share so that others don't need to start from scratch?
I find MyFitnessPal a useful planning tool. You can put your own recipes in using your ingredients and whilstbyour carrots may have a very slightly different calorific count to some from the supermarket I am not convinced that is an issue.
There is a brilliant recipe section on the forum filed under topics. You should also pop onto Daily Diary and get involved there. Everyone is so welcoming and helpful you will get loads of ideas.
It's good that you seem to already have identified some of the reasons for your weight gain, so you know where to start. I too have tried Slimming World and used 5:2 for several years as part of my weight loss journey. I believe it's good to keep changing what you do, as eventually you find what works for you and what's more important, something thst is sustainable.
I have a disability that I was born with (shortening of all four limbs as a result of the drug Thalidomide my mum took when pregnant with me). As a result my mobility is minimal - and was further reduced following a serious head on car crash in 2002 when I broke my ankle. I went on to have my ankle joint fused and am still in constant pain with it.
I started my weight loss journey at 14 stone - 5 and a half years ago. I am just 4ft 9" tall and so was classed clinically obese.
I was 49 years old and had been trying to lose weight all of my life since the age of 9. My disability makes exercise difficult (I am very sedentary and use a wheelchair outside of the house).
The one thing that I realised very early on in my journey was that I was just eating FAR TOO MUCH! I was a short, middle aged, sedentary female and I was eating the same as 5ft 9" active man (my now husband!). No wonder I was piling on the weight!
I started my journey at the end of February 2012, and managed to lose 4.5 stone in 2 and a half years through calorie counting and logging/weighing all of my food.
I cannot stress enough how important this part of the weight loss journey is - being able to recognise just how much we are eating and address that. It is not about cutting out any foods but about being able to make informed choices about the foods we eat Also about learning how to behave differently around food. Just because food is in front of us does not mean to say that we have to eat it! Being able to exercise control and moderate intake is paramount.
I re-gained some of the weight I lost, then lost it again and have now managed to more or less maintain for the past 6 months at around 10 stone. Still considered "over weight".
Ideally I would love to drop another stone to 9 stone and maintain there.
My weight loss journey has been long, but I am still learning new tips and tricks to help me along the way and what's more, still enjoying the challenge! I would say that my behaviour around food has changed massively - I have learned to respect food, to "break" it's control over me, and to be able to modify how I behave with food. Just because food is within sight doesn't mean I have to eat it! I don't see eating the way I do as meaning that I am missing out any more - in fact I am now able to enjoy my life and have regained the ability to do things that I struggled to do or even found impossible to do!
Here are a few of my past posts which I hope you will find helpful and inspiring. I won't try and tell you that my journey was easy - and you'll see that there were many blips along the way, but 5 years down the line, I feel about 20 years younger than I did when I was lugging around 4 stone more.
Please do pop back to the forums and share your journey with us - we are here for you, day and night and happy to share your success or support you when you need it.
Thank you for such inspiring words - you are so right about the amount we eat - I eat the same portion size as my husband (he's a foot taller than me and not exactly slim!). I must take control of that and train myself out of eating so much. I used to be far more active (breastfeeding, small children, school teaching) so I burnt it up but now have an office job and am post-menopausal and the weight just sticks. Bad habits die hard. You have done really well given your constraints. Thanks for the support!
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