Hi,

OK, So I've been doing my diet for a week now. I haven't weighed myself yet, but I'm about 11 stone and 5'4. I'm aiming to go running 3 times a week, and trying to stick to about 1200 calories a day, give or take maybe 1-200. Other than the running, I have a largely sedentary lifestyle; I maybe walk for about 40 minutes 3-4 times a week, and sometimes on other days I'm pretty much constantly in bed. (I'm a student, so do most of my reading/work in a horizontal position). Here are a couple of example days, like, today:

B: Breakfast bar (70 cals)

Snack: Apple

Lunch: Marmite and cheese sandwich, a pear

Snack: Apple

Dinner: Chicken and Chorizo sandwich, a bag of crisps, diet coke

Snack: Apple

I also might have a choc ice later. (And I don't usually eat a sandwich for dinner, but I was out, so...)

Ordinarily my lunch and snacks are similar, although I have a 138 calorie Choc Ice most nights, and my dinner usually consists of maybe a baked chicken breast with some kind of rice or veg and a sauce.

Does this sound about right? I'm aiming to lose about 2lbs a week.

Thanks

It is just my opinion, but 1200 calories is kind of low. I'm also not seeing many vegetables in your plan. For me, a breakfast bar wouldn't be very filling. Depending on how processed it is, breakfast bars can set me off into a bingy/carby spiral.

agree with previous poster. And it doesn't seem like you're getting a varity of foods - so are you also taking a multivitamin? What's a choc ice? Is it like ice cream? I'd add in more veggies and do oatmeal with fruit and yogurt (or something else) instead of the breakfast bar.

Two pounds a week is a lot if you are starting at 150: If you want to lose at that rate, I think you'll have to do more than run 3X a week.

Personally, I'd just try what you have outlined for 3 full weeks and then see what's happened. 1200 is NOT a lot, and you need to know if that's sustainable for you--not "can you stand it", but "can you lead a rich, full life eating like this"--not cranky, or constantly fighting hunger pangs, or having your attention span messed up.

If, after 3 full weeks you feel fine and are losing 2 lbs a week, I'd stay there. If you are sated but not losing enough, you'll have to pick up the pace on the exercise to lose more. If you are starving, you need to eat more, and that may mean you can't lose 2 lbs a week, even with exercise. But in the end it really doesn't matter if it takes you 10 weeks or 20 weeks to lose the weight--what matters is if you do it in a way that you can keep it off for the rest of your life.

Hmm, thank you.

I do mix it up a bit, but I'm a student, so I tend to have the same kinds of food in at once. At the moment I have a large batch of prawn/peppers/onion/tomatoes in a kind of stew/bake, which I often have with rice for dinner, and when I have chicken I have it with potatoes, peas and green beans.

I will keep on this and see what happens.

I've always learned that as long as you're losing fat, there's no need to change anything in that regard.

However, I don't mean to be blunt, but this is not the healthiest of meal plans... But optimum health might not be your goal.

Still I don't think you'll be able to keep up the rate of 2 lbs a week on this plan for long, so you might need to make some changes pretty soon...

(and that doesn't always mean to eat less, because like others have said, 1200 is not much, and the body adjusts to a lower level of energy in put after a while... so in some cases it works to eat *more*, or at least alter between lower and higher days... And by more, I mean of course whole, nutritious foods)

But again, there's a difference between optimization while giving good attention to your health, and just doing what works for you to get you to lose some weight...

My opinion ... you have way too much processed food in your day. Chips/crisps are junk food, and you can fill up better if you eat something more than a bar for breakfast.

If you are a student, I presume that means you are young. Now is the time to preserve your health by eating as well as possible. That means veggies, whole foods, whole grains ... there is more to nutrition than weight loss.

There are lots of good diet plans out there that are balanced; I'd check some of them out and go from there.

Hmm. Well:

1. Like I said, that dinner wasn't my usual dinner at all. I haven't had crisps otherwise in weeks. I usually have a fresh baked chicken breast with vegetables.

2. The sandwiches are wholemeal bread, usually with some lean meat, cheese, and some kind of vegetable.

3. I really can't eat much more at breakfast. I don't get hungry in the morning much, so I'd rather save the calories for a time of day that I do get hungry, like later at night.

Does this make it more OK?

Maybe if you had a healthier, real food breakfast? An omelette, granola (homemade or a healthy brand like Kashi), or some whole-grain toast with fruit juice?

Hmm. Is it really a big deal that I don't eat a lot for breakfast? Why is it? I really don't get hungry in the mornings, and I like something quick. If it came to an omlette or something, I just wouldn't bother.

Where are the veggies??

Well, tonight I had peas and green beans with fish cakes for dinner? And usually I have something similar.

Also, for lunch over the next few days I'll be having a wrap with quorn, peppers, and beans.

It is a big deal if you don't eat the RIGHT things for breakfast!

You have no protein in those nutrigrain or elevenses bars! lol Try having an omlette or a slice of wholegrain toast with natural peanut-butter. This will be more filling, consume a similar amount of calories, and will keep you satisfied for longer than a breakfast bar could. Especially if you have the toast/peanut butter, this, and if you could have a small handful of berries alongside it, would contain two servings of superfoods!

These sorts of breakfasts are meant to jumpstart your day, whereas your breakfast bar is indeed mostly junk (probably).

I will second the multivitamin as well. I'm on a plain old centrum vitamin and I have definitely seen improvements over the last 3 weeks since I started taking it!

Here's a typical day for me:

Breakfast: 1 slice of Wholegrain Toast with natural (sometimes homemade, but always no added sugar) peanut butter, 1 glass (5-6oz) orange juice or green/black tea, and a small handful of berries (4-5 strawberries, 7-10 blueberries/rasp/blackberries).

Lunch: 1 turkey and cheese wrap (wholegrain tortilla, deli sliced turkey breast, 1tbsp low fat cheddar cheese, 4 medium leaves of Romaine), 1 Celery stick chopped into 3 small pieces and topped with natural peanut butter, and a glass of green/black tea or orange juice.

Dinner: Baxter's Healthy Choice Chicken & Vegetable Soup (low sodium, 2 servings of veg in each can!) with two slices of wholegrain bread that I've made into croutons by cubing and baking them in the oven with a smidge of sunflower oil (really, just a dab!)

Breakfast usually runs me around 250 calories. Lunch adds up to around 400 calories. Dinner comes in at around 450 again, if you went for the entire can of soup!

That there is 1200, I also have two snacks a day. The average medium/large (112g) apple will contain around 50 calories. So you could have 3 apples a day on top of that (or even swap out a banana!) for an extra ~150 calories a day. That brings you to just under 1400, which is a much easier level of reduction for your body to handle.

Remember, if you've just come down from eating 2000 calories or even 1800 calories a day, your body could construe your huge drop in food intake to a "famine" and you will actually begin to gain weight or even plateau by not eating enough calories. My new diet (example day above) is filled with my attempts to eat as many "superfoods" as I can during the day, its tough, as I too live on a student's budget, but I've gotten myself the best present ever! A recumbent bike. I can read to my heart's delight and cycle my way healthy at the same time! I spent around £250 on mine, but it was totally worth it!

Good luck!

Thanks, that was a helpful post .

Mm, the thing is... I want to be healthy, but my main aim here is really just the weightloss. I'm never going to be someone who eats a lot of salad and things like that - so I'm really just concerned about whether the diet is good for weight loss.

I also have a killer sweet tooth, you see .

This is a formula for a lifetime of yo-yo dieting: lose 30 lbs here, gain 50 back, lose 40 lbs, gain 60 back, lose 40 lbs, gain 80 back. By 40, you'll daydream of being the weight you are now.

Unless there's some weird, one-time underlying cause to your current weight, it's your normal way of eating that got you there. If you diet for a few months and loose the weight and then go back to your normal way of eating, you'll gain it right back. You have to find a new "normal", you have to find a system you can stick to forever. This requires being open-minded about the sort of person you are. It does not mean you have to deprive yourself forever. But you do have to find foods you like that will satisfy you and that won't pack on the pounds. Most of us end up at vegetables as the only long term solution to this problem.

Again, this isn't to say you can't still have chocolate and ice cream and pastries. But you probably can't have them every day and maintain a weight of 120. You've got to find healthy day-to-day stuff you can eat for a lifetime, and that takes being open minded, looking beyond the stufff you've always assumed is the normal way to eat.