Weightloss Diary

[EricRogers]

I'm still reading. I'm just not commenting on what you eat. So i guess it means i am going back a little on what i said i'd do.

Could you please tally your calories Eric? My brain is too old and demented.

Hang in there Eric. We're all rooting for you as they say in America. One day at a time. Keep the goal in sight. You can have a bad and recover the next.

1246 is the calories for the day! - Thanks! I just need to take every day as it comes. It will be worth it when I start losing weight! eeeee!
Thanks, x

 

[amy1985]

Breakfast - 30g trim flakes, 125ml milk - 161 Calories
Snack - 6 x Jumbo snackerjacks - 240 Calories
Dinner - didnt have any!
Tea - Egg Fried rice, with onion (Didnt have any mushrooms) - 661 Calories
Snack - 2 Jaffa cakes!! - 96 Calories
Snack - Pack of quavers - 88 Calories

1Litre + of water!

Today was hard, I kind of lost motivation . It didnt help I didnt prepare any dinner to take to school eeeee.

I have been so tempted to eat mars bars and bags of crisps, mm. But I didnt!

I hope this doesnt effect my weigh in on monday!

How's everyone else going?
x

You're down on your calories today- you really shouldn't go that low. Remember what I said about minimum 1800? You're still growing, you need those nutrients. Your development is far more important than weight loss, especially considering you're already a healthy BMI. And speaking of nutrients, could you explain to me the nutritional value of jaffa cakes, quavers, and snackajacks? (I'll give you a clue, it's "pretty much bugger all") Eating some "bad" food is alright, but those constituted over a third of your calories for the day. That's absolutely not alright. Have you ever heard of the 80-20 rule? You should think about it like that. At most, you can have 20% of your day's calories on "crap" (sweets, crisps, chips, biscuits, ice cream, etc- you know what I'm talking about). Ideally less (ideally 10% or less), but it'd be a start.

If you forget your dinner, then have something like it when you get home (you must be somewhere in my area- when I moved to this part of the world "dinner" really confused me. Where I'm from "dinner" is the evening meal). You shouldn't skip meals, either deliberately or otherwise. You need those nutrients.

 

[EricRogers]

You're down on your calories today- you really shouldn't go that low. Remember what I said about minimum 1800? You're still growing, you need those nutrients. Your development is far more important than weight loss, especially considering you're already a healthy BMI. And speaking of nutrients, could you explain to me the nutritional value of jaffa cakes, quavers, and snackajacks? (I'll give you a clue, it's "pretty much bugger all") Eating some "bad" food is alright, but those constituted over a third of your calories for the day. That's absolutely not alright. Have you ever heard of the 80-20 rule? You should think about it like that. At most, you can have 20% of your day's calories on "crap" (sweets, crisps, chips, biscuits, ice cream, etc- you know what I'm talking about). Ideally less (ideally 10% or less), but it'd be a start.

If you forget your dinner, then have something like it when you get home (you must be somewhere in my area- when I moved to this part of the world "dinner" really confused me. Where I'm from "dinner" is the evening meal). You shouldn't skip meals, either deliberately or otherwise. You need those nutrients.

Yeah, I know.
I only snacked on the Jaffa cakes because I was so hungry! I didnt make any dinner for school and I absolutely hate school dinners.
Ahwel, everyone has bad days, just got to improve it tomorrow.
Atleast I tried a recipe, ey!
Thanks x

 

[amy1985]

Pleased on the recipe. That's good (although more vegetables would be better, onion is good, home cooked food is good). Avoiding school dinners is probably also a good idea, I doubt they're very nutritious (although not being from England I could be wrong)

Try putting a piece of fruit (I'm sure there's one you like) into your bag just in case you get hungry during the day or forget your dinner. If you don't eat it (you probably should, especially considering you're so short on calories), change it every 2-3 days, but always make sure you have something healthy to snack on. (Apples are very good for that, and clementines are reasonable. I'd have one apple and/ or two clementines in my bag if I were you)

There's a difference between "everyone has bad days" and what you're doing. You're at very early days and trying to improve- you should be as good as possible during that time. (And 1/3 "crap" calories isn't just a bad day, it's a disaster, at least to my mind)

I know I'm being hard on you, but that's because a) it seems to be working, you're making improvements, and b) it's for your own good. I'm sticking around (and giving you a lot more thought/ attention than I do a lot of other peopel here) because I think I can help you, not because I enjoy bullying children (sorry, I can safely say at the wizened old age of 25 that you're still a kid). I'm being tough on you because I think you need it.

 

[EricRogers]

General

So yeah, Im feeling more motivated today than yesterday! No junk for me today . Im currently trying to improve my diet, by following recipes.. Its hard though, as 7 people live in my house and they can be very GREEDY! .

Temptation was getting to me a bit, I suppose. But it will do every week as none of the people who live with me dont watch their diets.

I couldnt help but step onto the scales this morning! I know I shouldn't unless I dont see the result I want on monday but, It was good news!! I was around 12 stone 10 pounds, and now im, 12 stone, 8.2 pounds!

I know this is diet is the right thing to do, Ive just got to stick to it and not lose motivation this time.

How's everyone else doing?

I would also like to say a big thankyou, to everyone whos been commenting trying to help me.

x

 

[Sunflower2]

Hey hun, you know that 1246 calories isn't enough; sort it out! People will get tired of giving advice to a brick wall! Although very pleased you tried the rice recipe What's the food plan for today? xx

 

[EricRogers]

Hey hun, you know that 1246 calories isn't enough; sort it out! People will get tired of giving advice to a brick wall! Although very pleased you tried the rice recipe What's the food plan for today? xx

Hey, Well, I have the same for breakfast everyday, as I do enjoy it, So ive had that, Ive also had a banana, Might try a new recipe from that website you gave me "macaroni cheese" sounds yum! that will probably be for dinner.

Havnt decided for tea yet, If i get a bit hungry inbetween dinner and tea and may have another banana, or even a pack of quavers as they are quite low in fat.

x

 

[amy1985]

Bananas are very good- very nutrient rich and one of your five a day. Quavers are something to be avoided generally, "low fat" isn't the only thing you need to worry about. Nor is low cal- what's the nutritional value of Quavers?

Good for trying recipes- have you thought about grating some vegetables in it? That might work well with a mac and cheese recipe (I don't know what recipe you're talking about, maybe I'm not paying enough attention), but with dishes with a strong flavour like cheesy ones, and especially ones with that kind of texture, you could hide some vegetables in there that way. Do you have a cheese grater you could use?

I'm going pretty well. Disappointed that I've only lost half a kilo (a little over a pound) this week, and have adjusted my calorie requirements now that I've lost 5 kilograms (about a third of what I want to lose, so it's a milestone. That's a little over 11 pounds- there are 14 pounds in a stone). I've also posted new progress photos in my before/ after thread (but it's in a swimsuit )

 

[EricRogers]

Bananas are very good- very nutrient rich and one of your five a day. Quavers are something to be avoided generally, "low fat" isn't the only thing you need to worry about. Nor is low cal- what's the nutritional value of Quavers?

Good for trying recipes- have you thought about grating some vegetables in it? That might work well with a mac and cheese recipe (I don't know what recipe you're talking about, maybe I'm not paying enough attention), but with dishes with a strong flavour like cheesy ones, and especially ones with that kind of texture, you could hide some vegetables in there that way. Do you have a cheese grater you could use?

I'm going pretty well. Disappointed that I've only lost half a kilo (a little over a pound) this week, and have adjusted my calorie requirements now that I've lost 5 kilograms (about a third of what I want to lose, so it's a milestone. That's a little over 11 pounds- there are 14 pounds in a stone). I've also posted new progress photos in my before/ after thread (but it's in a swimsuit )

Heres the recipe!
* Macaroni Pasta or whatever you like really - bowtie is also good
*Condensed Tomato Soup (must be Condensed)
*Cheese (Cheddar is good)
Might add some onion (although I hate it ) BOOO.

What would I look for on the back of quavers? too see if they are nutritous?

a pound is better than gaining I suppose! I will be checking out your photos! I bet you look fine! Welldone on your journey so far though, you are doing so well!

x

 

[amy1985]

Why do you hate onion? How have you cooked it? It can be lovely and sweet and caramelised if you saute it. Have you done that? If not, next time you're frying something, get some frylight in the pan, chop up the onion into smallish bits, and cook it first, until it's the colour of caramel. If you still don't like that, grate it along with everything else you don't like- the smaller the bits the more they'll be disguised. (Courgettes often take on the flavour of the dish you put them in)

Cheese can be very very high fat (I have reduced fat cheese, and it's still over 21% fat, and nearly 15% of it is saturated fat, which is the bad fat). It's not necessarily bad (it's high calorie, but that's the least of your worries- eat it), but keep that in mind.

I found this site on Quavers (you may not have the cheese one, the nutritional value won't be much different):

Look at the ingredients:

Potato Starch, Sunflower Oil, Whey Powder, Monosodium Glutamate (E621), Disodium 5-ribonucleotide (E635), Undefined Flavouring, Milk Powder, Cheese Powder, Butter Acids, Soya Protein, Paprika Extract (E160(c)), Rice Flour, Soya Flour, Salt, Yeast, Malted Barley Flour, Pepper, Wheat Flour, Annatto (E160b),

It's not an exact science, but in the absence of other knowledge, I've heard it said the more stuff in an ingredient list that you don't know what it is, you can't pronounce, or has a number attached to it, the worse the thing is for you. And the second ingredient (which means the only thing there's more of in the Quavers is potato starch) in cheese Quavers is oil . Think about that compared to healthy cooking- how much oil (or frylight- a spray of frylight is 0.18g) do you use as compared to the rest of the ingredients? This looks incredibly artificial to me, made in a lab not grown in a field, which indicates to me that it's in the food group "processed crap" (that food group doesn't exist, but it's helpful to think about it that way).

 

[EricRogers]

Why do you hate onion? How have you cooked it? It can be lovely and sweet and caramelised if you saute it. Have you done that? If not, next time you're frying something, get some frylight in the pan, chop up the onion into smallish bits, and cook it first, until it's the colour of caramel. If you still don't like that, grate it along with everything else you don't like- the smaller the bits the more they'll be disguised. (Courgettes often take on the flavour of the dish you put them in)

Cheese can be very very high fat (I have reduced fat cheese, and it's still over 21% fat, and nearly 15% of it is saturated fat, which is the bad fat). It's not necessarily bad (it's high calorie, but that's the least of your worries- eat it), but keep that in mind.

I found this site on Quavers (you may not have the cheese one, the nutritional value won't be much different):

Look at the ingredients:



It's not an exact science, but in the absence of other knowledge, I've heard it said the more stuff in an ingredient list that you don't know what it is, you can't pronounce, or has a number attached to it, the worse the thing is for you. And the second ingredient (which means the only thing there's more of in the Quavers is potato starch) in cheese Quavers is oil . Think about that compared to healthy cooking- how much oil (or frylight- a spray of frylight is 0.18g) do you use as compared to the rest of the ingredients? This looks incredibly artificial to me, made in a lab not grown in a field, which indicates to me that it's in the food group "processed crap" (that food group doesn't exist, but it's helpful to think about it that way).

Maybe I will skip the quavers after all!

I wont be hardly frying until thursday, as ive not got any frylight left, I used the last bit, oops! I just dont like using oil, I feel bad. Although I did use it yesterday for my egg fried rice , which 2 tbls of it is around 182, which is horrible.

Im going to start grating veg into my meals, even if I only have one veg a day and fruit, its stil a start and I can keep going If I start low.

Thanks! x

 

[fortyfour]

Eric, now that i've found your exercise routine, i've done the calculation for you. You can eat 1900 calories per day and lose 1kg per week if you exercise 5 days a week for between 30 and 60 minutes a day. I'd err on the side of 60 minutes of moderate exercise per day if i were you. Because you will benefit from the extra hormones that the extra fitness will give you. I don't know if you will get those endorphins from only 30 minutes.

Endorphins are the hormones that give you a feeling of wellbeing and happiness from exercise. Running is the best known source of activity that causes the release of this hormone but i think other exercises similar to it in intensity will also do it. Swimming would do it. But you may need to build up a bit of fitness before you feel it whatever activity you do. I also advise you to start doing your walking or running outside. Look about you. Enjoy the scenery. Even dogs like to go outside for a walk because the appreciate the stimulation of their senses.

I only just became aware of this hormone the last couple of times i was out running. Its a lovely feeling. You feel VERY well. Somewhat on top of the world. That, said there's no point getting an injury on the way to achieving this so don't overdo it. You can't force good things. They don't say patience is a virtue for nothing. It won't take you long to feel the goodness of exercise.

 

[amy1985]

Don't feel too bad about using oil. As you've noted, it's quite high calorie, but if you use healthy oil (oils rich in poly- and mono-unsaturated fats), but that's not necessarily so bad. I fry most things, to be honest, you've just got to be careful about how much oil you use. It's another advantage of cooking in bulk, too. The pan you're frying in probably doesn't change size if you're cooking one meal, two meals, or four meals, and the amount of oil you use depends almost entirely on the sort and size of the pan you use. I use olive oil for my cooking when I can't use frylight (some things just need oil). So, for example, if you need a tablespoon of olive oil for frying (119 calories), and you cook for one, you add 119 calories to your meal. If you cook four portions (either leftovers for you, or for your family if they want it), you add just under 30 calories per serving. 30 calories is pretty trivial, and oil can contain some good fats that your body needs. Also keep in mind that the more practice you have with cooking, the less oil you'll manage to cook with (fortyfour and I both cook with a couple of teaspoons of oil)- and you're better off experimenting with the cooking (it's an important life skill which means you can control your food/ nutrition as well as save money when you're out on your own) and taking a few extra calories now to improve your cooking.

Try to aim a bit higher than one serve of fruit or veg a day- you really do need to eat 5. Surely you can get to or near 5 with fruit? (It's a bit hard for me to know what to advise here. The other day for the fun of it I worked out how many serves of fruit and veg I had in one day, and I'd had 18.5 of my 5 a day. I'd be hard pressed to eat less than about 7 serves of fruit and veg in a day, and I'd starve/ have incredibly high calorie food if I had to have less than 5) Can you have a piece of fruit with each meal, or something like that?

 

[EricRogers]

Don't feel too bad about using oil. As you've noted, it's quite high calorie, but if you use healthy oil (oils rich in poly- and mono-unsaturated fats), but that's not necessarily so bad. I fry most things, to be honest, you've just got to be careful about how much oil you use. It's another advantage of cooking in bulk, too. The pan you're frying in probably doesn't change size if you're cooking one meal, two meals, or four meals, and the amount of oil you use depends almost entirely on the sort and size of the pan you use. I use olive oil for my cooking when I can't use frylight (some things just need oil). So, for example, if you need a tablespoon of olive oil for frying (119 calories), and you cook for one, you add 119 calories to your meal. If you cook four portions (either leftovers for you, or for your family if they want it), you add just under 30 calories per serving. 30 calories is pretty trivial, and oil can contain some good fats that your body needs. Also keep in mind that the more practice you have with cooking, the less oil you'll manage to cook with (fortyfour and I both cook with a couple of teaspoons of oil)- and you're better off experimenting with the cooking (it's an important life skill which means you can control your food/ nutrition as well as save money when you're out on your own) and taking a few extra calories now to improve your cooking.

Try to aim a bit higher than one serve of fruit or veg a day- you really do need to eat 5. Surely you can get to or near 5 with fruit? (It's a bit hard for me to know what to advise here. The other day for the fun of it I worked out how many serves of fruit and veg I had in one day, and I'd had 18.5 of my 5 a day. I'd be hard pressed to eat less than about 7 serves of fruit and veg in a day, and I'd starve/ have incredibly high calorie food if I had to have less than 5) Can you have a piece of fruit with each meal, or something like that?

Yeah, I understand about the oil situation.
I just made macaroni cheese, from a recipe on a website. It was absolutely disgusting.. I added quite a large amount of onion and it kinda over powered it. but yeah.

Im definitely going to try and eat more fruit, dont know about veg though, ugh, I really dont like the ones im aware of, mayble I will try some new ones ive never tasted before..

 

[amy1985]

How much onion did you use that you overpowered it? I use 1-2 onions in most of my recipes (usually to serve 4) and it never over powers it. Especially with cheese- cheese is a very strong flavour and shouldn't be overpowered by onion.

 

[EricRogers]

How much onion did you use that you overpowered it? I use 1-2 onions in most of my recipes (usually to serve 4) and it never over powers it. Especially with cheese- cheese is a very strong flavour and shouldn't be overpowered by onion.

I dont know how much I used, I grated it in
x

 

[amy1985]

Well, how many onions did you use? Surely you started with the raw ingredients. Although did you grate it on or in? Ideally what you'd want to do is mix it through evenly, if you're grating and just leaving a layer on top, that sort of defeats the purpose.

 

[EricRogers]

Well, how many onions did you use? Surely you started with the raw ingredients. Although did you grate it on or in? Ideally what you'd want to do is mix it through evenly, if you're grating and just leaving a layer on top, that sort of defeats the purpose.

I didnt even use one onion, but it was so strong, might be because im not used to onion? is there any not as strong onions I could buy. I did mix it in.

 

[amy1985]

What type of onion did you use? Brown onion (with a brown outer) is the one usually used in cooking, it's quite strong raw but it caramelises when sauteed. Red onion (with a dark red/ purply outer) is incredibly strong and is usually used in salads. Perhaps consider using salad onions, or leeks? Leeks are very mild.

If you didn't use a whole onion you unfortunately probably didn't get a serve of veg out of that- a serve is 80g.

 

[amy1985]

Just found this (while looking for recipes for myself). Do you like beef? You could either do this on the stove (on very low temperatures you can leave things and just check on them every 10 or so minutes) or if you do up until the end of step 2 "season and mix well" then throw it into a slow cooker (if you have one- if not, I'd suggest asking your mum or getting one, they're a great investment) and cook all day (8 hours on low, 4 hours on high- the longer you cook the more the veggies will fall to pieces and you won't notice them). You could chuck this in before you go to school, and then have leftovers for three days afterwards.

If you don't have a slow cooker, this is the one I've got, and I love it. (wow, that's less than I paid for mine a year ago!)

In fact, I think I might make this recipe for myself. Would you like me to do that and show you how it comes out?