Healthy eating starts here

I'm here. I'm with you.

I lost just shy of 3 stone in the 15 months up to last August, which I was suitably proud of. I felt healthier, happier and generally just better in myself than I had for a long time, so definitely worth it. I still had about 3/4 stone to get to my target weight but that was OK & I was taking a slow steady approach, which was working. (largely based on the Slimming World approach, but not religiously)

Then I picked up my entire life & moved it, so concentrating on my diet just went out the window. I actually moved in December, and started a heady whirlwind of inner city life! Awesome, much needed and great for the soul - but not so good for the waistline! I got away with only gaining about 1/2 stone in the first 3 months, but since then due to various stresses (including settling in phase with new BF) it's been creeping up again. I weighed again this morning and I've put on a total of 1st 2lbs since last August. I'm not happy as I really wanted to be at my full target by my birthday this June.

I'm not the sort to stress about my weight - I certainly don't crash diet or anything - but I DO want to get it back under control, as I know I'll feel a lot healthier in myself if I do.

So today I had an omelette for breakfast, a banana, an apple for snacks, and I've brought a healthy rice salad lunch with me to work. Time to crack on with getting back in control.

Good luck!

Last week when I had a cold and felt sorry for myself I spent £25 on vegan chocolate online. Not good. And then yesterday I baked lemon and chia seed muffins. I'm not helping, am I?...

But I do want to eat healthily generally - I'm not getting on the scales at the moment as it's just not good for my psychological state, but I know I feel better generally when I eat well. Main thing I'm struggling with is salad. I bring salads to work but they're always the same thing, then when I come to get them out at lunchtime it's just like I'm too bored to chew. What (non-meat) things do other people have in salads?

Argh I'm useless at this! 2 months til the wedding & I was supposed to have lost at least 3 stone - 3 pounds is more like it!!!

Panicked Rant over - I quite like the quinoa bags that Jamie oliver does. When I'm being good I quite often have a couple of spoonfuls over leaves & chicken or prawns.

I'm back on ww with vengeance! Lost 2 stone on honeymoon and have managed to put 7 pounds back on feeling uncomfortable now plus just been signed off for 2 weeks by the doctor and usually spend my free time eating ?

Ink do you have vegetable burger? I take them in and heat them up to have with salad or cous cous? You could even have a small amount of pasta loaded with veg..I used too pre make spag bol with quorn as only the pasta Was points with loads of veg and a tin of tomatoes and the only thing that cost me points was the pasta ?

Alas, I can't really heat anything up here as there is only one microwave in the building and often a queue of 3 or 4 people waiting to use it. I only get a 30min break so by the time I've gotten to it and used it, my break is over! (Also I worry about my food soaking up the odours of meat products that have just been in it.) But I have pre-cooked burgers or sausages and eaten them cold with salad in the past.

I do have pasta on occasion too, but I do always have it in the back of my mind how many calories are in it. I'm such a ridiculously messy eater, I wouldn't dare eat spaghetti at work

Haha a lot of the girls I work with have cuppa soups and ryvitas..but I know that would fill me up unless I have 10 ryvitas!

I know how you feel - I aimed to lose 1.5 stone before the wedding, lost 10 lb in Jan/Feb and have piled 5 back on now that I'm spending all day every day at home studying. 3 weeks left and there's not much I can do about it now!!

MrsShep, it sounds like you've started off on the right track. I read somewhere that eating an apple half an hour before a meal means you eat less at that meal, so I always had an apple at 12 and then a big salad for lunch with lemon & oil dressing (1 tsp oil, quarter or half a lemon). Found that saw me through til dinner. Can also highly recommend the Hairy Dieters Cookbook - lots of delicious meat recipes (I remember you said your hubs doesn't like eating veg or fish) that are reasonably low cal. My faves are Spanish tray bake chicken, lamb & spinach curry "fakeaway", and chilli salad bowls.

Have you had any of the Quorn cold 'meats'? They do chicken style fajita slices and a few other variations of. I always like to top a salad off with a few crunchie croutons for a variation on texture, and I'll have a couple of Ryvita with light Philly on with a salad too.

Haha, yeah, H loves it when I'm slimmer but doesn't love the journey to get there! He's half the battle, feeding him and being healthy is tough! That's partly why I'm going for such healthy lunches, so that dinner isn't quite such a worry. This salad is pretty good, the dressing is really nice, 1tsp of horseradish sauce, 2tbsp greek yog and 1tbsp water. I would never have thought to put peas in a salad!

My other issue is that I get bored of food really quickly, we'll rarely have the same thing twice in a month for dinner (unless, as is the case at the moment, I've cooked mega batches!) so lunches are difficult as I get fed up.

Becca I bought some cup a soups as emergency back ups the other day (instead of my usual back up of instant noodles!) but I also bought tins of fruit, so I'll be having those too.

Lady Zith, what did you have in your omelette? I like the idea of that but my go to omelette is cheese or fried mushrooms!

Hmm.. ID i put halloumi in my salads sometimes, but I'm guessing you can't have that either?Do you like nuts and seeds? They're good for a bit of texture and protein.

3 stone CV?! Nah! Wedding stress plus diet is just a recipe for disaster anyway. I lost 10lbs I think, and I've found it all again!

Lets not go there with feeding the boyfriend. Seriously - he is actually UNDERweight so low fat / low calorie just don't come into it. It's not easy! Lol!

For my omelette I have it mostly plain - 2 eggs, salt & pepper, dried herbs, and a dash of Worcestershire sauce into a dry non-stick pan. I do sometimes add fried mushrooms, but either do them in frylight or dry with about a tablespoon of water - actually keeps them nice and moist & the water gets absorbed into the mushrooms & any spare boils off. Either way there's no added fat in there.

Sadly Quorn is not vegan, it contains eggs.

Ooh, thank you, might try with mushrooms then. Haha, mine is in denial, he was painfully underweight when I met him, but now he's a bit podgy!

Gah, ID, being a vegan sounds hard! Chickpeas? They're good for texture. I tried this the other day: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/minty-roast-veg-houmous-salad I know you wouldn't be able to eat all of it but roasted chickpeas were a new experience for me, rather chewy but would be good for something to get your teeth into.

I do like chickpeas actually, and I've never had them roasted either. I could make that with tofu instead of the cheese and agave instead of honey, so I'll bookmark it, ta

ID - you've probably come across this before but in case you haven't ...

http://www.thugkitchen.com

Their cookbook is pretty good, in my non-vegan opinion.

I def don't need to lose any weight but I still went on a bit of a healthy eating weekend over the bank holiday as we'd eaten a lot of junk recently, n I just wanted to feel less bloated, plus I'll try anything to try and achieve better skin so I guess I almost did a kind of no carbs/no processed foods type thing n actually it was quite fun cus it made me have a few different snacks and meals...good snacky foods: olives (especially marinated ones), cornichons (little mini gerkhin things) cherry tomatoes and sugar snaps, and one of the best things, no added crap peanut butter on celery (I've had almond butter which is nice), one that I wouldn't have again was cottage cheese with strawberries and blueberries, it was ok, just a bit of a weirdy taste for me, I'd sooner have natural yoghurt with it...and today for lunch I've had rye bread (I'd always wanted to try it, tbh it's ok, I'm not mad keen on the flavour so perhaps wouldn't buy it again) little open sandwiches with cottage cheese ham n pickle n lettuce, with sugar snaps and tomatoes, chunk of cheddar, n celery With almond butter, n it was lovely. I have some almonds, n fruit n yoghurt for pud too. I like picky lunches like that. Boiled eggs are good with salads or as a snack too. I had vegetable juice over the weekend too n no caffeine...

what I also found surprising is I had a breakfast smoothie the last 4 days, I was skeptical, I love breakfast although it's usually just cereal for quickness, but I'll have a kind of 4x recommended serving portion haha n then still be hungry by 10:30-11am. Today my smoothie held me til like 12 when I had an apple, but I could have probably waited til lunch-frozen berries/banana/natural yoghurt, flaxseed, sunflower seed, oats, water n a squidgy of honey in a nutribullet...job done!

tray bake dinners are good too, sweet potato, onion, carrot, parsnip, little new potatoes all roasted in a tray with garlic n Rosemary n thyme for an hour, with some roast chicken...beautiful!

I love my food so properly healthy eating/diet snacks wouldn't be something I'd be fastidious about, but it's nice knowing there are alternative snacks to biscuits n crisps out there!

PS it still didn't make my skin glow tho, I have a massive spot on my chin!! Cry!! still it was only three days!

Ps amongst that massive essay I forgot to say, I'd avoid things marketed as low fat too, nightmare with yoghurts which all seem to be, but they're always loaded with sugar when it's low fat...

I think mine is worried I'll do this to him! Lol! He is VERY underweight at the moment (proper ribs sticking out thin) - but thinks I'm going to try & feed him up & make him fat!!

Sounds like you need to feed him up a bit! Mine was ill a lot because he couldn't afford to eat when we got together, so I definitely prefer him healthy with a little tum.

My stomach is doing its usual incredibly uncomfortable act now! Whenever I have salads etc I then end up with what feels like severe bloating, I just hope it's a bit of a detox and it'll stop in a couple of days!

Oh I know he needs feeding - although I'm an 80's / 90's goth so that tall skeletal look kind of works for me... Lol!

I confess I've been grazing...

Oh dear, I've been trying desperately not to graze. I haven't actually been hungry which is great, as I think I've eaten about 600 calories so far today. Just need my stomach to stop feeling like I drank acid...

Don't go too far Mrs S - remember that eating healthy means eating enough as well as eating the right kinds of food.

Don't worry girls, I'm just about to sit down to a massaman curry :-) I always have cereal for breakfast (about twice the recommended amount) and it still doesn't keep me going. I definitely noticed that the toast, peanut butter and banana kept me a lot more full.

Right! You lot have inspired me. Going to get back on the healthy eating as of tomorrow morning. I have put a kilogram on since the wedding. Not much but with me it's a slippery slope as I also live with an underweight husband who is a serious snacker (6 foot 3 and 10 stone).

Yay! Well done :-) blimey, hubby sounds like he needs feeding up!

Mmm.. Dinner was so good! Made sure I did less rice for me (normally have the same portions) but it was still double carbing, there were potatoes in the curry! On it again tomorrow, just need to fight the sugar urge now as I always get it after dinner and it takes at least a couple of weeks of being strict with myself for it to fade

Try the Hartley's no sugar jellies - I'm sure other makes are available, but the hartley's little strawberry pots are delicious and only 6 calories. They satisfy my craving for something sweet after dinner x

I usually have overnight oatmeal for breakfast - a lot more filling than cereal.

Ooh, yes, I've got jelly, although they're not all no sugar. The apple one is rubbish but the rest have been nice so far. Problem is that when I was a swimmer we were encouraged to eat neat jelly, so I do sometimes find it a bit weak! I like strong squash too, so i stopped drinking it.

Overnight oatmeal ID?

Yeah...porridge oats and milk and fruit and stuff mixed together and left in the fridge overnight. Very cheap depending on what you put in (basic oats are like 75p for a big old bag) and you know exactly what's in there, unlike cereals with all their crazy additives. Google it, you'll find tons of 'recipes'. I think banana and PB2 powder is my favourite...or a few chocolate chips for a treat!

I can't recommend my fitness pal enough. I've been doing it for roughly 2 weeks and have lost 10lbs!! (only another 20 odd to go!!)

My favourite low-cal recipe at the moment is butternut squash dansak, off of the bbd good food website, its really tasty and v filling. Also, my favourite 'pud' is a 10 cal hartleys jelly pot!

MFP works great if you can make it work for you - I used it early last year and lost a stone in about 10 weeks. But recently, because I'm so messed up about dieting and food in general, I find myself 'cheating' by going over my calories, manipulating the figures to make it look like I haven't (I'm lying to an app about my eating - wtf?), and then feeling guilty. Not a good cycle to get into.