Hi My cholesterol is 5.8 and my weight is 12 stone I exercise regularly yet I cant lose weight, I eat quite healthy any suggestions??

[irishmoile]

I eat plenty of veg, fruit and drink plenty of water, so can not figure out why I cant lose weight and why my cholesterol is high, also my BMI is 27...

I am 5' 6", and 47

[Hidden]

Hi irishmoile,

The key to losing weight is to discover what you have been doing to gain the excess weight in the first place and changing that.

My guess - though you won't like this - is that somewhere along the line you are still eating either more food than you think you are (portion control / not counting everything you're eating) or you're eating some foods which have a lot more calories in them than you think they have.

It is very common indeed for people who complete food diaries to under-report the food they actually eat, and sometimes very much so - for whatever reason. Typically, that's by around 20% or so, but is often by quite a lot more than that.

You need to be brutally honest with yourself about what you are really eating - every 'wee dram', pack of crisps, chocolate bar, latte, takeaway, cake or biscuit, or whatever, counts.

All the 'little extras' count - whether at home, at work, on the way back from the gym, in the car, while you're cooking the dinner, or on the 'school run'.

All the meal counts - the sauces, the gravies, the toppings, the custards. A moderate portion of fresh raspberries becomes a whole different ball game for weight loss if you wallop a great dollop of double cream onto it.

And we've all done it ourselves - "Oh it's only one, that won't make any difference", "but it's only a very little one", etc., etc.

But, however much we fool ourselves, we don't fool our bodies, or the scales! Calories count, irrespective of the 'excuse' attached to them.

Only the other day I realised that a very ordinary moderate 200g pack of cashews actually contains about the same number of calories as a huge 200g bar of chocolate! (1,150 kcal or thereabouts). Luckilly, I don't have a great inclinatiion to nibble on nuts.

Also, try to get into a good eating routine/regime, Try not to go for more than about 4 hours without eating anything, by eating sensible meals with small healthy nutritious snacks in between to 'tide you over' to the next meal.

Good luck with your weigth loss journey.

[bigmammy]

Hi, Irishmoile,

Welcome to my world! I have the same problem and my doctor (marvellous woman!) is supporting me this way - I completed food diary very brutally and honestly, with gravy, cake, puddings and custards that I ate and saw, as I wrote, that I had a lot of food on my plate (big portions). I am overweight (5ft tall), high blood pressure and cholesterol levels even though I exercise for 30 minutes each morning Mon-Fri with the Jane Fonda Walk out programme.

Her support is to point me in the direction of the Paleo diet (hunter gatherer type food) and I am googling to find out more about it and know that Amazon have books regarding Paleo diet BUT so many of them so, which to buy is the question.

My doc knows I do not want to put chemicals into my system so she also recommended Red Yeast Rice which is a natural statin and can lower cholesterol (haven't found that one yet!).

I intend to purchase a recipe book for the Paleo diet (mostly fresh lean meat, fish, fruit and veg) and see how it goes.

Have a look at it on Amazon and/or Google and see what you think.

hope this helps.

[Hidden]

Hi bigmammy,

Actually, that's an interesting thought.

We are in many ways "modern" people in cave-dwellers bodies and our ancestors were hunter/gatherers. Our lifestyles have moved on a lot further and faster than our bodies have.

And that may be one aspect of why so many modern people have problems with food. Our bodies weren't really designed for 'sat down' three course meals of the richness or quantity which we are nowadays inclined to eat.

They probably did have a few feasts (when the menfolk /hunters brought back a wild pig or a deer or some such), but mainly, they kind of grazed for their meals. (Note, not grazed between their meals!)

And all that sat-down meal thing probably does encourage you to believe you have to eat more food than you probably really need, along with accompanying ideas that it's not polite/correct to leave/waste food and serving up 'proper' / man-sized' meals which are often realisticallyjust too large.

I know that I now eat a lot less food in quantity terms than I did previously, feeling full often on a meal that I would have previously regarded as a snack or a starter. And I eat a lot better in quality of nutrition terms now too.

Good luck with your weight loss journey.

[irishmoile in reply to Hidden]

hi

thank you to both of you for your comments, very interesting, however one thing I cant figure out, is that I actually eat a decent diet, plenty of veg, fruit and salad and water and I exercise frequently, but this has still given a 5.8 cholesterol reading, also I suffer from a bloated abdomen quite a lot.Not sure if this is a hormonal issue, as I am 47 now......