Advice on how to best lose weight as a veggie
 

Hello - newcomer to this board here so apologies for any forum posting mistakes I make in advance! I have just started on a weight loss and exercise journey for the first time in pretty much ever! Recently I have started to eat fish to help myself along on this journey so I can more easily include protein but I don’t eat meat at all. I am 5’3 and 10 stone 7 pounds. My goal weight is 9 stone 3 pounds.

I have joined a gym and am trying to alternate between a one hour yoga class and 30 minutes of swimming 6 days a week.

I have also downloaded the MyFitnessPal app and am aiming to stick with around 1,200 calories a day.

For convenience at the moment I am eating almost the same thing everyday which is:

Morning (8am): 40g of oatmeal made with half almond milk / half water, a cup of berries and 2 large boiled eggs.

Snack (11am and 4pm): 12 almonds and 2 satsumas

Lunch (1pm): 3 oatcakes, 50g of low fat hummus and 3 small cherry tomatoes.

Dinner (7pm): Varies but something like quinoa and prawns / salmon, veggies and sweet potato / lentil dahl and rice.

At night (10pm): bedtime smoothie of 100g of almond milk, 100g of cottage cheese, half a banana and a scoop of strawberries.

I’m wondering if this is a useful strategy towards losing weight or would anyone advise any difference? Thanks for any and all opinions, I’m still very new to the thinking about food and exercise game so appreciate any insights.

One other question I have is how best to get all my nutrients on a 1,200 calorie diet - MyFitnessPal indicates that I have room for improvement with this - does anyone have suggestions of good meal plans to follow that include a bit of variety perhaps? Thanks so much in advance again.

I don't see any obvious problems in your diet, so I'd expect you to be losing weight. Are you making progress?

Some foods can be more or less healthy depending on which one you get. Which almond milk, which oatcakes, which hummus, which lentil dahl, and which cottage cheese are they (so I can check the nutrition info)? Is it brown rice or white rice?

What type of vegetables do you eat for dinner, and is it a large portion?

Do you drink enough water each day?

For exercise I would suggest doing some strength training about 3 times a week (in addition to the other exercises).

I always round up on food and round down on exercise. Remember many of the calorie burned apps do not consider the normal body burn within a day. For example if your resting metabolic rate is 1800 per day then you naturally use 75 calories on average per hour. So, if you work out for an hour and burn 375 calories....I minus out that 75 that I burn regardless.

As far as food goes it sounds like you are measuring so it should be accurate. It will take time but stick with it. There are lots of different foods to try even if you don't eat meat. Start googling recipes...there's also a section here that has recipes too. Just stick with it.